BACOLOD CITY — My friend, Enrique Dy, gifted me a book, a small 256-page book “Extraordinary – Stories For Aspiring Leaders,” published by the Management Association of the Philippines.

Among the stories was “Management In Uncertain Times” by Stephanie O. Dychiu, niece of Enrique, being the daughter of his brother Quintin and also niece of Enrique’s sister Carmen and Albert Lim.

Other stories, aside from Stephanie’s, were all good.

I like Stephanie’s style that contained poetic allusions, including the song of Bob Dylan in the 60s.

And also because, knowing her uncles are involved in media, she discussed the struggles and successes of two media outlets, “The Philippine Daily Inquirer” and “GMA 7.” Her uncle Albert is one of the founders of DAILY STAR and Enrique is incumbent member of the board of directors of both DAILY STAR and Sunshine Channel TV 14.

Stephanie finished her studies at the Ateneo.

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Stephanie wrote, running a media business is not for the weak-kneed…Founder Eugenia “Eggie” Apostol of The Inquirer fought hard to survive the Marcos and Estrada administrations. She founded The Inquirer in 1984, two years after DAILY STAR.

When she sold her shares, it was to Marixie Rufino Prieto family because she believed the Rufino-Prieto family will carry on her mission.

And Inquirer is carrying on Apostol’s advocacy and mission.

The story of the struggles of GMA 7 is also interesting. For 17 years before Felipe Gozon took over the leadership in GMA 7 in October 2000, GMA 7 was far second to ABS-CBN or Channel 2 in Manila and getting only 10 percent of the gross revenue of ABS-CBN.

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Guzon studied why GMA was behind. He found the answers, put GMA in the stock market to have capital. Then he studied and made a good programming. And got the best talents. In 2004 GMA 7 overtook ABS-CBN in Metro Manila in terms of rating. But the provinces are cornered by ABS-CBN.

We studied that, too, before launching Sunshine Channel that the secret is viewership and the answer is in programming and talents.

Print media is the same, too. The secret is in the quality of writers and news presentation. Of course, independence is very important because credibility and integrity have no substitute.

The studies of Stephanie are very interesting.

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Hope Stephanie can come and study media operation in Bacolod. Also study business management like how Sammy Palanca single-handedly made Bredco what it is now. Or how Ricardo Yanson made bus transportation an important industry.

Meanwhile, our salute to Dr. Evangeline Johnson who operates two hospitals in Bacolod and Iloilo. But we sympathize with her on how some people trying to malign her through the internet by what we call blogging.

She told us the NBI in Iloilo are working to pin down the culprits.

We must all stand up against using the internet to malign people without revealing the source. The next victim may be you.

I reiterate what I wrote earlier. Congress should pass a law regulating blogging.

There is the libel law that covers print and broadcast. There is still no law that covers blogging.

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This is a signal honor for Bacolod, besides the tourism benefits, when some 2,000 lawyers all over the country come here on March 26, 27, and 28 this year for the Integrated Bar of the Philippines 12th national convention.

This is the first time Bacolod hosts this convention. Figure out the business generated by this convention.

And we are happy overall chairperson of the convention is lawyer Gina Mirano Jesena, daughter of our friend Willy.

This is a big job and the decision was made after many saw the capability of Gina to handle it.

Gina is the incumbent vice-president and work horse of the local IBP headed by Rudy Parreño.

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I talked with Alex Espino yesterday. We plan to work out for the Movement for Good Governance here.

We need as many people to be involved for good governance.

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