By Nora Soriño
ILIGAN City ― “You’re nothing but a second-rate trying hard copycat!”
These are among the unforgettable lines of a movie of yesteryears entitled “Bituing Walang Ningning” starring Sharon Cuneta and Cherrie Gil.
The operative word here is “copycat.” I always remember those lines when I think of another “copycat.” A copycat for this paper, Mindanao Gold Star Daily.
You see when this paper was newly introduced in this city through the newsstands and through complimentary copies ― that was in the early 90s ― Lily (not her real name) was disturbed. For she, too, is a publisher of a weekly newspaper here and I bet the coming of MGSD to this city was not good for her.
I could see it in the way she had looked at our paper as I handed her a copy. Maybe, she had seen MGSD as some kind of threat?
Weeks soon after, it was learned that her weekly would go “daily.” What? She was going to do a Toto Chu? She also gave complimentary copies of her paper and to the other media practitioners in the city. You see, all those involved with the media know each other, we are even members of the same press club.
The plan to go daily was announced in her weekly newspaper. As I looked at the complimentary copy given to me, I saw, too, that not only was the “daily” aspect of MGSD was going to be copied. The paper had copied too the bureau aspect. Meaning, there were many “bureaus” listed in her paper! So, overnight the bureaus sprouted? Like mushrooms that sprouted because of some thunder and lightning and rain that occurred during the night? Hmm…
Needless to say, there were eyebrows raised including mine, of course.
So, this particular paper here which I would not name, for obvious reasons, went daily.
For one week, it really went “daily.”
By the next week though, it began to falter. I saw that the “daily” now was three times a week. Then it became two, then it reverted to once a week.
There was even a time when it became “invisible” altogether.
Then it reverted back to weekly! Even as I heard some of Lily’s reporters grumbling that they had “not been paid.”
What’s the moral in this? Obvious. That only a Toto Chu could equal a Toto Chu.
Email: norasorino2@gmail.com
