NUJP Iloilo Chapter turns 35

By Alex P. Vidal

“Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”—Walter Cronkite

WE are glad to learn that the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) Iloilo Chapter was revived by a group of talented Iloilo journalists in October 2025.

We congratulate the chapter and the new members now led by Rjay Zuriaga Castor of Daily Guardian and The Manila Times as the chairperson and Tara Katherine Yap of the Manila Bulletin as its vice-chairperson.

NUJP Iloilo Chapter actually turned 35 on May 3, 2026.

It was on May 3, 1991, a World Press Freedom Day, when a group of Iloilo journalists led by Dr. Ma. Diosa Labiste (Philippine News and Features), Nereo Lujan (Panay News), Fems Pedregosa (News Express), Danny Alcoriza (freelance and Department of Labor), and yours truly (News Express) first organized NUJP Iloilo Chapter’s skeletal body at the old Iloilo Mansion House on Iznart-Aldeguer Streets in Iloilo City.

In that meeting, we installed Lujan as interim president. A few weeks later, the chapter expanded and recruited members mostly from the print media and was formalized with the election of its first president, the late former Daily Times associate editor and Daily Guardian columnist Limuel Celebria at the Residence Hotel in Iloilo City.

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It was a consensus to elect Celebria, who represented the chapter in that year’s NUJP general assembly in Manila, because he was the most senior and active print media practitioner in Iloilo.

Celebria and our long-time colleague Edgar Cadagat of Bacolod, were elected members of the NUJP national board of directors.

It was Dr. Labiste, now the 11^th dean of the UP Diliman College of Media and Communication, who initiated the formation of the NUJP Iloilo Chapter through her links with the late chairman Ma. Antonio Nieva, who helped formed NUJP’s umbrella organization in 1986, and secretary general Leo Santiago.

Nereo and yours truly, together with Runji Jamolo (Radyo Ng Bayan) and Jaime Cabag (Philippine Information Agency) were fresh fellows in the Graciano Lopez Jaena Community Journalism Workshop sponsored by UP Diliman and UP Los Banos in April 1991, or a month prior to the organization of NUJP Iloilo Chapter.

Weeks after organizing the NUJP local chapter, Dr. Labiste helped facilitate our membership to the International Organization of Journalists (this is different from the International Federation of Journalists) where we received our IOC identification cards and used them when we travelled abroad.

Dr. Hazel Villa, Atty. Teopisto “Pet” Melliza, Daily Guardian founder Lemuel Fernandez, Raymund “Raj” Padilla, Gina Hablero, Maricar Calubrian, the late former Sun Star Iloilo editor-in-chief Ivan Suansing, were some of the past members and officers during the chapter’s infant stage.

The late former Iloilo City councilor Joshua Alim, a former Bombo Radyo Iloilo reporter, became our member and legal counsel.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)