In the waning days of my tenure as editor in chief of the Upsilon Sun, it became apparent to me that I never actually wrote a single editorial piece, although I had the urge many times to comment on the myriad issues of the day, as a Filipino-American, as an Upsilonian, or simply as an individual with an opinion on the events that shape our world. I understood that the Upsilon Sun is the voice of the USPAA and all Upsilonians, and I would not dare use it as a bully pulpit for my own subjective opinions. After all, I have our Viber groups to bear the brunt of my politics.

But if there is ever a good time to write an editorial, it will be now, if only to say how thankful I am to be accorded the privilege to lead this publication, and help bring it back in circulation as a viable tool and comprehensive online newspaper which allows the fraternity to reach a broader audience and effectively disseminate news about our fraternity to our brother Upsilonians and to the outside world.

This editorial piece will be the first, and probably the last one I will ever write for the Upsilon Sun. So please excuse its length and bear with me as you read my swan song.

The Writing Life

I must say that my journey has not been an easy one. When USPAA president Yari Miralao offered the position to me, I had serious doubts about my abilities, my skills, my qualifications. Though I fancied myself as a writer, I was mortified by the thought of starting an on-line newspaper literally from scratch, and to do it in an accelerated pace. In our technology-driven world, I am more of a relic. I remember the time when, as a young beat reporter in the Philippines, I would use an old Underwood typewriter in the newsroom to compose my articles. I would look at my notes, and then type what was in my head, and before press deadline, hand them over to the editor whose job it was to butcher them. Back then, I got paid by how many words were run, how long my articles were, and yes, they actually used a ruler to measure how much to pay me. But I didn’t really care about how much money I made; my mother was still giving me an allowance. And she was always proud of me, especially if one my stories made the front page.

But that was many decades ago. Though I have written articles for Fil-Am newspapers as a contributor, and one of my articles was published in “Living the Credo,” a USPAA publication, these were few and far between. There is a huge difference between being a writer for a publication and actually running one.

And there were big shoes to fill too, perhaps, too big to be measured against, with the likes of Carlo Magno (+), Nes Jacinto (+), Mario Camacho (+), Tony Cantero, Ed Espiritu, Natz Vergara (+), Tristan Catindig and Chito Avecilla, to name a few, who are all part of the Upsilon Sun’s pantheon of distinguished writers and editors; I came in wearing beach sandals. Perhaps, my Tondo upbringing clouded my judgment, and I reluctantly agreed to take on the challenge, if only to prove to myself that I could still muster the courage to write again, and to build an organization from the ground up. “Failure was not an option,” but I recognized that there are many talented Upsilonians that I could tap for support. The path ahead, I surmised, would be less difficult than I imagined it could be.

The Accidental Trustee

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that my appointment as editor in chief would never have happened if Jory Catibog, then USPNA president, and Bill Romero, the incumbent trustee representing the USPNA, had not nominated me to run for the USPNA’s seat in USPAA Board. At that time, I was the Vice President of the USPNA and President Jory asked me if I wanted to take Bill’s place. I said yes, with some reservation. But when I heard that the powerbrokers running the USPAA election in Manila could not let go of Bill because he was key to the UMAP fund raising in North America, I felt that my nomination was probably doomed. But as fate would have it, and after many days of anxious waiting, I eventually got my blessing - which also meant that the USPNA has been granted two seats in the USPAA Board for the very first time. In my mind, I was thinking what the leadership of the incoming Board may have been asking themselves. What the hell do we do with Ricky Rionda? Maybe the new USPAA president, Yari Miralao, my compadre (I am godfather to his eldest daughter Sidney) knew where just to put me, some place where I could do the least damage. But no.

I wouldn’t venture to say that like Daniel, I was cast into the lions’ den, there was nothing Biblical about my newfound misfortune, I simply became editor in chief of the Upsilon Sun.

Failure to Launch?

If failure was not an option, then failure to launch would have been a mortal sin. I now found myself attending Board meetings in ungodly hours, with the time difference between Manila and the east coast of the United States. I was thrust into action as a member of the IT & Communications team, one of the Board’s many standing committees. As the EIC of the Sun, there was a strong compulsion to start publishing right away, albeit, without an on-line platform to work with. So, in April of 2023, I and Cai Monteser, the Board’s newly appointed executive director, started work on a special edition to introduce the new Board to the fellowship. As the Upsilon Sun’s new associate editor, Cai Monteser was a godsend - he was a former illustrious fellow – he was able to help me produce a quality bulletin which had the pictures and brief biographies of all the new trustees of the USPAA. It also presented the new Board’s accomplishments in the first quarter of its term.

We published the special edition in May of 2023, thereby officially re-launching the Upsilon Sun. It was a decent first effort which was met with mixed reactions. Many brods appreciated that the Sun has been resurrected from the dead, but a few criticized it as being” underwhelming.” The expectations for the Sun were indeed very high, and understandably so, one has to live up to the lofty standards of the Upsilon Sigma Phi. I knew then that I have to get serious with it, and to find the time for it despite the constraints of work and family life.

Challenges to Overcome

The Upsilon Sun was first published by the alumni association in 1985 as a newsletter and bulletin with the late Carlo Magno at the helm and supported by his trusted crew of brods from his outfit, the NPCI. There was Nes Jacinto (+), Jes Sundiam and Celso Ani (+), all publishing veterans, who helped get it off the ground. As a quarterly publication, it succeeded in delivering news and information to the fellowship and was distributed mainly during alumni meetings and fraternity gatherings. As far as I could remember, there was no mailing list to distribute it, so only brods who were fortunate enough to get a copy, would know what was going on in the fraternity. As a quarterly newsletter, there was enough time to curate and write the news about the fraternity and its members prior to publication. News traveled slowly and became stale by the time it reached its audience. But that was the old way, prior to the internet age, before mobile phones, before e-mail. With the advent of new technology, news now travels with lightning speed, and you have to be on top of your game to take on the responsibility of delivering news in a timely manner.

The next generation of the Upsilon Sun had to be on-line and accessible using multiple devices. And that was my first challenge, how to build the infrastructure and create a team to help carry that out. The second challenge was how to gather material and manage the content effectively, and since it is an on-line publication, ensure there is enough content to publish on a daily basis. We do not want to masquerade as an on-line newspaper if there was no news to print about us and our members. Upsilonians are newsmakers, I thought to myself, so there would be enough material out there to publish, even if there would be days when there would be no news at all. The last challenge was to build a credible editorial team to write and manage the news. With no boots on the ground and paid reporters to cover the news, where do we find news about our brods so we can publish them?

Luckily for me, I have some experience as a project manager to maybe understand the level of effort necessary to address these challenges.

The New Upsilon Sun Takes Shape

The first order of the day was to look for the right person to help me find the applications and tools to manage content and establish the Sun’s on-line presence and identity. Cai Monteser recommended his batchmate, Rennard Marquez, to assist with the effort as a paid resource. Rennard, an IT consultant who specializes in software development was the perfect choice, and in May of 2023, we began work on creating the initial design of the on-line publication using Contentful, a content management system (CMS). We identified the many sections that were needed to present the news in a professional manner using several models. To cut to the chase, the Upsilon Sun went on-line on July 26, 2023, merely sixty days after we published our special edition. Also in July, we filed a trademark application with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) with the help of Ken Sarmiento, the head of the USPAA’s legal committee.

The day we went live on 7/26/23.

The Upsilon Sun you see and read today is a result of a collaborative effort and entails multiple design revisions and changes to make it look more like a true on-line newspaper. After outgrowing the original CMS, Rennard helped migrate all our content to a new CMS called Sanity. Our CMS came at no cost to the Board as we use a free subscription, and we continued to improve the Sun by adding new sections and incorporating new features to improve its look.

Where’s the News?

In one of the Board meetings I attended, I said that the Upsilon Sun serves a utilitarian purpose, I meant this not in the philosophical sense, but more on the practical sense - it can survive only for so long as our brods patronize it, read it and contribute to it. The last paragraph of the Upsilon Sun’s Statement of Policy states that:

“The UPSILON SUN will flourish as long as Upsilonians support it. Therefore, the UPSILON SUN shall depend upon the participation of its members for it to be able to achieve its purposes.”

Although I may have failed miserably in assembling an editorial team that could help the Sun operate like a real newspaper, with writers, editors, photographers and essential staff that could have helped generate material, I succeeded in mobilizing a volunteer brigade who helped me sustain it.

There were many brods who contributed articles, opinion pieces, travelogues, pictures and information I needed to continue to publish. It was hard to be thousands of miles away from the action and expect to be current on the news. I am grateful to all our brods who helped provide content to publish. I will not mention all of them here, but you can read their names in the “About Us” section of the Sun.

About Us | The Upsilon Sun

One of my goals was for the Sun to serve as a training ground for our young brods, particularly, the resident fellows, so that they could be prepared to take over the Sun someday. But our resident fellows prefer social media like Facebook to tell us about their projects and activities. Thus, the Campus section of the Sun is a cut and paste of what they publish on social media. They do an honest job on it, so I am also thankful to them for making life easier for me. If you would look at our “We Gather Light to Scatter” album in the Galleries section, all of that is their work. So, hats off to them.

Perhaps, the traditional model of running a publication may not be relevant anymore, news is everywhere, one just needs to find it. In all honesty, I spent more time curating the news rather than actually writing them, literally spending countless hours trying to find out if there's anything about our brods in government, the arts, science, technology, sports among many others. I am particularly grateful to Raul Palabrica for allowing me to borrow content from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and to Willie Fernandez, for giving me permission to do the same from the Daily Tribune.

To date, we have published well over 300 articles, and we have tried to cover every important event in the Upsilon Sigma Phi for the last two years. We continue to pay tribute to our departed brothers by writing their obituaries.

Lastly, I would like to thank former USPAA President Yari Miralao and former Chairman Roel Castro for allowing me to serve the fraternity as editor in chief, and for giving me full control and independence to print what I wanted, guided only by the principles of press freedom and responsible journalism.

I would like to end this tediously long article by referring back to the Upsilon Sun’s Statement of Policy:

“The UPSILON SUN is the medium of expression of Upsilonians. Therefore, in recognition of the diversity of personalities and ideas in the fraternity, it shall strive to publish all views of its members.”

We are a big tent, and the Upsilon Sun will never set if we hold true to this principle. It was a great honor to serve as editor in chief of the Upsilon Sun.

MABUHAY ANG UPSILON SIGMA PHI!