Touching lives

Each week when we put an issue of the magazine to bed, we do so in good faith and with the best of intentions, working on stories that we believe would uplift and enrich our readers, stimulate their curiosity and interest, put a smile on their face and elicit a chuckle perhaps, and hopefully make their Sunday just a little bit brighter.

Sometimes, we get a dose of brightness back.

STARweek contributor and friend Chit Juan forwarded this text to me last week. It’s from Miggy Miguel, a cancer survivor – twice! – who started an organic farm in Davao (see STARweek issue of May 18, “Healing body and soul” written by Chit) for personal consumption but is now a thriving enterprise supplying restaurants and benefitting communities of Matigsalogs, indigenous people who live in the outskirts of Davao, who have gone into organic farming. 

Miggy texted: “I was visited today by a lady who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Her husband was having his car washed and the newspaper they were going to use to line his car floor with was your article on me. He looked at it, read it and brought it home for his wife to read. They drove all the way to my farm thinking I lived there, looking for me. My boys were kind enough to show them around and explain how we grow our veggies. The lady wanted to meet me so they drove back down earlier and came to the office.

“She was telling me how she lost her twin sister to breast cancer a few years ago and she was diagnosed as well. Needless to say she was very scared. I tried to put her at ease and told her that I am a living example that this can be beaten. I also suggested she visit Dana Calimbas as well. Anyway, thanks to your article she found hope. The husband came across the article yesterday only...and it was going to be used as a car floor lining in a carwash. Amazing isn’t it?”

Amazing indeed.

This story from Miggy brings two things to mind: First, in case those of us in media get too puffed up about what we do, it is a humble reminder that today’s hot news is tomorrow used to line the floor of a newly washed car or to be used as the proverbial pambalot ng isda (paper used to wrap fish in the market) or, worse, to line the basurahan (trash bin) or the doggie or kitty litterbox. Newspapers and magazines, like the news they carry, get old very quickly, and are thrown out.

On the other hand, Miggy’s account also reminds us of the impact a story or report can have, the people it can reach and touch, wherever they may be, for better or for worse. Call it fate or coincidence or serendipity, but we marvel at how, weeks after a story ran in the magazine, it positively impacted the life of someone at the time when she needed it.

We are humbled and happy about this turn of events, and it gives us new inspiration and impetus to continue to tell the stories of people who do amazing and wonderful things.