DARE TO ASK
By Trixie Diyco

Why not the world?

How hard can it be?

Why can’t I come home?

You ask them. We ask them. They don’t require great genius, a wide vocabulary, exceptional brilliance, or special occasion.

But take for instance, the fact that the last three questions were asked by Lea Salonga before she auditioned for Miss Saigon, by Romeo Garduce before he took his first step up Mount Everest, by Ninoy Aquino before he boarded the flight that took him to his death on the tarmac. Suddenly, the simple questions come alive and take flight. They make things happen. They move things. They inspire change.

It was precisely these simple questions that provided the spark for the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s new thematic advocacy campaign. Created by its advertising agency partner, McCann-Erickson Philippines, the campaign boldly takes a stance that only the country’s number one newspaper has the right to take.

Philippine Daily Inquirer founding chair Eugenia Duran-Apostol and INQUIRER editor in chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc have been named by Time magazine among Asia’s heroes of the past six decades.

“As a capstone to the celebrations of our 60 years publishing in Asia, we decided to look at the region’s heroes over the past six decades,” Time said in its special issue titled “60 years of Asian heroes.”

Apostol and Magsanoc are in the section called “Inspirations” that includes the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Mother Teresa and Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Of the INQUIRER’s founding chair and editor in chief, Time said: “The Philippine press was terrified of covering a dictator’s regime—until this duo came along.*