Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday congratulated the Visayan DAILY STAR on its 30th anniversary for having grown from a local newspaper into a global source of news.

Marañon, who delivered his message at the paper’s anniversary celebration at the Planta Centro Hotel in Bacolod City, confessed that when the DAILY STAR first started 30 years ago, he was one of the many skeptics who said it would not last a year.

“But today the DAILY STAR’s growth is synonymous with the growth of our province and Bacolod City, and we should give the people behind it a big hand for a job well done,” he said.

The governor said he believes the DAILY STAR will not just last another 30 years but a hundred years more.

“It is not just a local, provincial or a national source of news, it is getting to be a global paper,” he said, referring to the newspaper’s website.

“Some friends send text messages informing me of what is happening in Bacolod that sometimes I do not know about, but they had read the news in the DAILY STAR abroad,” he said.

The governor said he has a daughter in Nagoya, Japan, and another in Los Angeles in the United States, who call him to ask about news they had read about Negros Occidental in the DAILY STAR website.

Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia, who also delivered a message, said the DAILY STAR has grown to what it is today because the people who run it are professionals.

He noted that the DAILY STAR’s staff is composed of journalism and communications graduates whose professionalism symbolizes the newspaper.

The DAILY STAR’s influence has molded public opinion and helped shape us as a city, he said.

Also present at the STAR anniversary celebration were Board Member Salvador Escalante, Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson, Bacolod police director Ricardo de la Paz, Msgr. Guillermo Gaston, Fr. Felix Pasquin, the DAILY STAR’s stockholders, staff, distributors and friends.

DAILY STAR president and editor-in-chief Ninfa Leonardia welcomed those present, columnists Modesto Sa-onoy read the speech of Karl Malakunas – Philippine Bureau Chief of Agence France Presse, STAR Board chairman Hugo Corral led a toast to the paper’s 30th year, and VDS Board Member Rafael Golez gave the closing remarks.

Msgr. Gaston sang “Jalisco”, and songstress Token Lizares brought a festive air to the affair by capping the program by singing the song “Look for a Star”, accompanied by Bagguer Villaluz, and “On the Top of the World” that got the staff on the dance floor.

Emceeing the affair was STAR society columnist Ivy Visitacion.*CPG

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