No less than the late President of the United States of America, the indisputably admired Thomas Jefferson, who once said that “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” In short, Pres. Jefferson was telling us that it doesn’t matter whether we have Malacañang, City Hall, or Capitol, what matters most in society is that we have newspapers – for without newspapers, as we all know, democracy cannot thrive – and without democracy, that is tantamount to mass suicide. Over a quarter of century ago, the Bohol Sunday Post was born quietly, but not without pompous, if not intimidating, pageantry. To be exact, we became an institution 27 years ago, and our inaugural edition was emblazoned with overflowing ad pages, which to these days, is an emblem of our superior marketing skills, on top of our journalistic supremacy on presenting fair, truthful, balanced news and views.

Long before the founder of Sunday Post came across the statement of Jefferson, he already knew that he had to follow the gentle, yet powerful urgings of his heart – that a newspaper of unorthodox caliber, strengthened by the bravado of a bandit, must be born in the asphalt jungle of Tagbilaran, and satiate an information-hungry Boholano populace. Armed with the courage of a burglar, the founder-publisher of this Paper, in the early days, had to shell out his last penny so that week after week Sunday Post would be able to live up to its destined mandate and prove people’s premonitions that our venture into community newspapering was only good for a one-year anniversary. Twenty-seven years later, we are still breathing with the idealism of Jefferson, believing that our existence is not our own making but a matter of choice by our readers, followers, loyalists, and of course, by our satisfied advertising clientele.

For if not of their sacrosanct patronage to our stress-drenched journalism work, we would not have survived this long and we would not have defeated the recurring threats of uncertainty during times of poverty and persecution. And yes, prosecution, too. And we are referring to our unhappy fans who had filed mountains of libel cases against us only to be junked by our democracy-loving fiscals and judges. Many have tried to photocopy our footsteps, thinking that the world of print media is adorned with a garland of prestige, power, influence, and gold. They were wrong. So wrong with their intentions and motivations that we can only memorialize their masthead footprints in the annals of newspaper casualties. We may rejoice over the fact that we belong to an elite list of newspaper survivors in the country, but our self-sustaining joy is always fueled with a great sense of humility before our readers and gratitude before God Almighty.

Across Philippine Islands, even in the rather economically vivacious cities and provinces, many used-to-be promising newspapers had become figments of history, and those who remain these days, unfortunately, and please forgive us for being brutally frank, can be mistaken as impoverished high school organs/publications. The next 27 years of Sunday Post has been entrusted to our gracious Lord God. We do not know what tomorrow may bring, but we know that there are tempting offers, that if embraced, would make us full-time millionaires. And that enormous fortune would enable us pay respects to the memories of Thomas Jefferson, a fountain of inspiration for every true- bloodied journalist, at his revered graveyard in American soil, where we have found love and lost it, and love again.