Information is essential in daily living. You don’t feel complete unles you hear the news over the t.v. or radio or read it from the newspaper. When you know the happenings, something in you is quenched. That’s psychological, a part of your behavior.

That’s how media become relevant to us. Its generosity even extends to a point that the information given is evaluated by journalists to a great extent.

When I was in the US before the coming of the internet and stronger t.v. channels, I used to walk about 5 to 6 blocks to reach a Filipino store. That was the closest in our Lakeshore Drive residence in Chicago. In that sari-sari store you had every sort of delicacy you would see back home, galunggong, bangus, shrimp, dried fish and many others. One thing that distracted me most in that place was a newsmagazine of 4 pages about the size of a large school notebook resting on a wire container that could be that of tinapa’s given for free. Its contents were wanting, like plant needing rain, tidbits here and there, a newcomer like me could hardly grasp.

While alone, longing for family and friends, I would turn on the t.v. to see commonplace and you know what I would have, Rogelio de la Rosa, in khaki, fighthing the Japs. What a way to remedy loneliness.

Today, it’s different. Our kababayans have the updated Filipino networks subscriptions heavy on real patronage. I would receive through Bicol Mail website greetings from relatives and friends abroad. Homesick? I don’t think so. A couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jess Valenciano, from Naga City, who’d stay over a year at interval to visit their children and grandchildren in New York, would simply open the Mail’s site and probably one or more in the internet and presto, they had a rundown of Naga’s latest unfolding before their anxious eyes. The world has come next door.
And this has been made possible by way of labor of kindred spirits. Had they been otherwise, it would be neighbors world apart and turning accounts in Filipino stores abroad meant very little. I guess, no matter how lethargic we are to change it does happen in our sleep.

Yet things amount to this, we have many tabloids that say this and that. Come out of print when they can and disappear when they can’t, but mostly, including those that go out weekly engage us on one issue: money. A thorough perusal of them can likely bring out their true import.

In a community where many of our agencies crumble in viability at its own weight, first-line scrutiny can do the job. Our poor folks cannot but rely on honest and committed journalists. This is what Bicol Mail journalists are trying to become.

On this weekend, the Mail is on its 2nd year after its revival from its complete shutdown during the totalitarian Marcos regime. It might have changed hands but its spirit is the same. And that’s a fact. It’s even gaining more momentum when you support the Mail through your ads and trust its content. Thank you dear readers and Happy anniversary, Bicol Mail.