I believe

As a practising professional journalist for 20 years, and before that for more than 10 years as a campus journalist, I was nurtured, have always believed in, and upheld the great principles of freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to information, respect for intellectual property rights, right to privacy, and related civil liberties.

The Philippines was a co-founder of the United Nations in 1945. The UN's Carlos Pena Romulo, a journalist before he became a diplomat, whom General Douglas MacArthur often referred to as "The General," our longest-serving Foreign Affairs Secretary who had earned the reverence of the world diplomatic community to address him as "Mr United Nations," and whom I had the honor of working with at my first newspaper job when I was 16 years old, was the longest-living signatory to the UN Charter until the 1980s.

That's my liberal and libertarian origin and foundation.

I also believe that journalism should be in synergy with truth in advertising, advocacy in public relations, and fair marketing practice.

In my book, however, freedom is not absolute.

Without responsibility and responsiveness to the call of the times, freedom is useless.

Freedom then becomes just an idea, not an ideal.