WOMEN ON TOP On the Inquirer’s 22nd anniversary, LJM and Inquirer president and CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez celebrate the paper’s top ranking in readership surveys. INQUIRER PHOTO
FOR LETTY Jimenez-Magsanoc, three decades with the Inquirer was never a job.
“I just enjoy it, the work. It’s not like work. Even the long hours. Because of the adrenaline,” she said in an interview on Dec. 1 for the Inquirer’s 30th anniversary issue, where she was hailed as one of the institution’s pillars.
A veteran journalist, she took over the helm of the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1991 becoming its unfailing compass.
In her busy final weeks with the Inquirer, on the run-up to the grand anniversary celebration, Magsanoc stayed until past midnight in the office to make sure the paper was put to bed with content to which the nation deserved to wake up.
Five years after the end of the Marcos regime, Magsanoc became the first woman and longest-serving editor in chief of the newspaper, pivotal in consistently making the Inquirer the Philippines’ newspaper of record.
She had thought she was not up for it, a bit reluctant when the offer came knocking.
“I never liked to be editor in chief. I enjoyed writing, to be around, to go out. Because I knew how it is to be editor. You had to be glued to the office …. You have to check on everything, see the big picture,” Magsanoc said in a voice deepened and roughened by time, yet gentle and full of wisdom.
But on the prodding of Inquirer founder Eggie Durán-Apostol, whom she had been working with in the Mr. & Ms. magazine some years earlier, she began her journey with the Inquirer.
Magsanoc recalled her first day at the Inquirer’s rented building on Romualdez Street and United Nations Avenue in Manila.
“What she (Apostol) did was remove the table of the editor [who occupied the room], she pushed it out of the room by herself, pulled out the telephone, and gave me the space,” she said.
Once on board, Magsanoc faced her first challenge: a very macho newsroom.
“It’s like they had their own language, sometimes I felt left out. But it was OK, I just did my work,” Magsanoc said of the men in the newsroom, among them Joey Nolasco and Jun Engracia, both currently top editors in the paper, and former Inquirer editor Roy Acosta.
That soon changed, when the men saw what their boss was made of: tough and gritty, yet compassionate.
“I think they saw that … they’ve seen that I mean business, very passionate with my work and, fortunately, I’m a little good at what I do. So there’s respect now. I just do it because I enjoy it,” she said.
Besides, the Inquirer of today runs on the strength of its women, she said: “The best reporters in the Inquirer today are the women.”
Tough times
Magsanoc admired the mother and daughter who had been instrumental in carrying the Inquirer through its toughest challenges—the chair, Marixi Prieto, and the president/CEO, Sandy Prieto Romualdez—for their commitment, putting it above profit.
“I’m surprised at them because they’re businessmen, very good, astute businessmen. But they have been very supportive of Editorial,” she said. “They’ve been supporting it no matter if their businesses have suffered a lot …. Their other businesses have suffered a lot because of what the Inquirer is all about,” she said.
She recalled how the Prietos stood by the Inquirer during the advertising boycott that lasted six months in 1999, one of the most challenging times in the Inquirer’s history. “That was fantastic,” she said.
Then President Joseph “Erap” Estrada had instigated the boycott, smarting at the Inquirer’s hard-hitting exposés against him. Estrada was ousted by a popular revolt in 2001 and, six years later, convicted of plunder. In 2011, he apologized to the Inquirer.
“They could have sold the Inquirer, because many were offering to buy. And if they wanted to, they could have gone back door. But I think that they already knew our editorial tradition that we would not (budge), because we didn’t do anything wrong. All we did was report all the shenanigans of Erap,” she said.
As much as she is the Inquirer’s source of strength, Magsanoc is also the Inquirer’s heart.
Unique branding
It was Magsanoc who gave the Inquirer the brand of compassionate journalism for which it has become known.
In 1994, despite protests from some of the men, she led the creation of Youngblood, the Inquirer’s popular youth column.
“Roy Acosta said it’s too feminine. But I just went ahead anyway because I wanted the Inquirer to be a very feeling newspaper, sensitive to the readers,” Magsanoc said.
“Like touchy-feely, but just right, not too-too. I always feel that, to communicate with your readers, you have to touch them. You have to touch them where it matters to them …. Stories with a human face. The more abstract, the more you should put a human face,” she said.
Magsanoc’s vision could be seen in the Inquirer’s pages today, where positive stories, not just gore and controversy, are given front-page treatment. Tales from the daily grind are delivered with that unique Inquirer style: strong when it needs to pounce, soft when necessary. At least, that’s the LJM ideal.
When asked what she felt was the highest praise she had received for the Inquirer, she said: “They say it’s not official if the Inquirer doesn’t come out with it. We’re an agenda-setter until now. It’s different [when it comes out in the Inquirer],” she said.
Scrupulously clean
“So we have to really keep our noses clean, so that they cannot throw anything at us,” she said. “You have to live a scrupulously clean life. I mean, it’s necessary for the job.”
Having gone through the Marcos dictatorship, Magsanoc had one wish for the younger generation.
“They have to remember martial law,” she said. “We don’t have it in our history books, the way martial law really was,” said Magsanoc, who saw to it that the Inquirer came out yearly with eye-opening accounts of the Marcos years, as a commemoration and reminder.
“I believe we should have a course on martial law, even in high school or college,” she said. “It’s up to us not to allow anyone to lord over us,” she said.
She hesitated when asked what she considered her greatest contribution to the Inquirer: “I think just my enjoying the work. I think that’s it. I hope that I have infected the entire staff with that. That you enjoy your work because it’s contributing to the people …. It’s so rewarding, like in the pork barrel scam, you get people to jail. You know, these things I cannot explain. It’s a privilege for me to be in a job like this. You can make a difference, you can make change.”