An audio-reading of the iconic “Who Elected the Press”, editorial written by Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, July 10, 1981, the editorial was banned by the Panorama publisher.

(pls click the audio pod below to play; image rightclicked from Inquirer, used here non-commercially for academic purposes. Apologies for the quality of the audio and the first-cut reading —

flubbed some words, throat getting parched   )

                           ♥   ♥    ♥

        Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc inspired an entire generation of teenagers and pre-teens – gaggling highschoolers and college freshmen and sophomores – to join the campus press and push the boundaries of a restricted news media under authoritarian rule.

       During those tumultuous and dangerous times, her mastery of the craft and selflessness in risking her career to do her job sparked martial law babies to organize their own newspapers in campuses nationwide.

      It was during this time that organizations like the College Editors Guild of the Philippines rose to unimaginable heights, restoring all regional chapters nationwide and soaring to about 200 member-publications across the land, no doubt animated by writers and journalists like LJM, and moved by the surge of people’s organizations.

       When the timid and the uninvolved read her columns and editorials in Panorama magazine and Bulletin wittily rapping the dictatorship for its excesses, they saw the rhythm and the truth behind her words.

      When, after a series of critical articles, she was forced to resign by the Panorama publisher due to pressure from the Marcos dictatorship, the hesitant and the timorous saw that there was no place for reasonable men and women under the repressive regime — that it was time to set aside personal ambitions and join the growing movement to put an end to the tyrannical rule of the Marcos regime.

       Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc ignited the imagination of a nation during its most perilous hour with her flair and fearlessness.

    Many of the young people who were encouraged by  LJM’s voice,  stepped out of their confines and went on to journalism school or journalism practice, or to advocacy, or organizing work;  some went on to law school,  and became public interest lawyers — all covered the world in the inimitable way that only LJM could inspire.

      Her legacy and contribution to a free and independent press, the right of access to information on matters of public concern, and the free flow of ideas in an open society,   is clearly imaginable, certainly immeasurable.