FROM AN AGRICULTURE EXPERT TO A

NEWSPAPERING GURU
JOEL CALAMBA ESCOL, MDN online editor

4th of a series - Conclusion

Beating The "Dragons"

Beating the dragons in the newspapering industry was a hard thing to
do. Many have tried but they failed. The dragons have already built
their empire in Southern Philippines. But when this young and fresh
graduate challenger back in the 90s joined the industry, everything
was changed, as little by little he climbed the ladder of success,
imprinted his footprints and after a few years he beat them all and
build his own empire of publications.

This man I've been telling you is no other than Mr. Dante Macasero
Sudaria. He was just an agriculture graduate at MOSCAT in Claveria
town, Misamis Oriental. All his life was focused in agriculture. No
experience in newspapering. No. Nothing at all. But mind you guys.
He graduated a cum laude - so that we can conclude that this great
man from the province must be a wise man, a great thinker and an
awesome planner. But how did he beat the dragons?

1. He created his influence in the media community and also

in the private sector.

After his graduation in agriculture back in the 90s, Dante Sudaria

transferred in Cagayan de Oro City to seek for greener pasture. He
knew that despite graduating a cum laude, opportunities in his
hometown in Claveria were very limited. And since being part of the
media, he knew that he has influence to meet top politicians not only
in the city but the Philipines in general. He also knew that he can
easily get connected with business owners and other influencers in the
city who could help him succeed in his future endeavors.
His plan was very successful as month after month he has seen great
developments in his career in the media and of being a salesman. His
earnings increased tremendously - to the point of earning P100
Thousand per month, and he became known in the mainstream
media, professionals and the private sector. These great improvements
gave him an idea that he was at the right track in his quest to achieve
success in the newspapering industry.

To make his influence in the private sector more solid, Dante Sudaria
joined Rotary Club and Eagle's Club, two of the country's prominent
and prestigious organizations of professionals and business persons.
His clout in the business sector grew even more. Rotary is an
international organization saturated all over the globe. The Philippines
is under District 3870 and composed of hundreds of different Rotary
Clubs nationwide.

2. His plans and programs were very clear to him

Although this great man has no experience when he joined
newpaparing business, but his plans and programs were very clear to
him. Sudaria could not have graduated a cum laude for nothing. He
was destined to make things happen in his own favor. Having very
clear plans and programs became his advantage than those other
newspaper publishers who failed.

While Sudaria was working very hard in his first and only job
employment in his entire career, he studied closely how to run a
newspaper business. He carefully learned the ins and outs of being a
publisher and how to influence and manage his subordinates who
would become his partners in running his own publications in the
future. He also studied very carefully both the management side and of
being a simple rank and file employee of a newspaper firm.

3. He makes sure he is surrounded with great people in

the industry
Although Sudaria was already the boss in his own newspaper business
but he learns to handle different types of people in the industry. He
welcomed old and new generations of reporters, veteran broadcasters,
journalists and top salesmen, who could become his great "Think
Tank" to plan and implement greater ideas for the company's new
endeavors and maintain its good reputation as the leading newspaper
in Southern Philippines, in terms of publication, circulation,
readership and technology.

He accepted new and old colleagues to join the paper like former
editor of GSD Cris Diaz, Bureau friends Like Pat Samonte in Butuan
City, Chris Panganiban in Agusan Del Sur, Al Jacinto /Aj Coral in
Zamboanga, Tom Caballero and Sara Castor in Davao City, Rommy
Sanchez of Digos City, and some other media friends all over
Mindanao, making MDN widely destributed and circulated in
Southern Philippines.

Humble beginnings of Mindanao Daily

Mindanao Daily was founded on May 18, 2011, while its office was still
at Lapasan Hihgway, now SOGO hotel building. It was conceptualized
first for a Visayan newspaper purposely for street sales like Sunstar
Super Balita. It looks like a traditonal tabloid newspaper. MDBs
pioneering editors in the Visayan version also included Joe del Puerto
Felicilda, Joe Pantoja and Sony David and regular editors Nelson
Constantino and Ruel Pelone.

Its was named "MINDANAO DAILY BALITA or MDB." The concept

lasted for 6 months. Dante's management team conluded that MDB
cannnot compete with existing street newspaper editions like
BRIGADA, BIRADA, and SunStar SUPER Balita.

Changing the tabloid MDB to simi broadsheet newspaper

When Sudaria was in Manila in 2011, he met a media colleague from

Gensan, Mr Mario Basillo, of PUNTO newspaper. They talked about
newspapering business as they have the same line of business
ventures. There goes the idea of changing MDB into a simi broadsheet
paper, since it was only a tabloid like Brigada news back then.
"As I came back home from Manila I immediately ordered Ruel
Pelone, the Editor-in-chief, to change the paper size to a bigger one.
We also change from Visayan version to English version to
accomodate the growing demands of an English newspaper," Dante
narrated.

Then we moved from Lapasan office to the current location in Brgy

Consolacion.

Late in 2011, the building owner called up and told Dante that a Hotel
will be renting the whole building in Lapasan. He was forced to look
for another location until he found Tanleh Bldg in Consolacion. It was
more spacious to run a newspaper publishing business and more
spacious to house the printing machines.

It was also in 2011 that Mr Allan Mediante the former editor-in-chief

of GSD for 15 years came home to Philippines from USA. At that time,
his wife died from cancer illness. Upon Dante's invitation, Mediante
also joined Sudaria's fastest growing newspaper business.

Business Week's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

With Sudaria's partnership with Allan Mediate, the first Mindanao

Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs Awards was conceptualized. As a
corporate social responsibility of BusineassWeek Mindanao, it is
aimed at honoring businesses that help propel the economic growth of
Mindanao in terms of developments. The first business awards was
held sometime in October 2012 at Pryce Plaza hotel, with the help and
support of the hotel's former manager Ped Quiamjot.

Then it was also followed with another flagship awards for journalism
writers. It was dubbed as "The Mindanao Journalism Execellence
Awards." The purpose is to recognize elementary, high school and
college students active and excellent activities in journalism. This also
included LGUs and National agency information officers and
corporate writers.

Aside from that, BusinessWeek is also regularly initiating trainings

and seminars for journalism and broadcasting at its Media Center. The
project is under the able leadership of veteran broadcaster, Mr Joe del
Puerto Felicilda as the Training Director.

Business Week Mindanao under the editorial management of veteran

editor Nelson Constantino aldo garnered journalistic awards from PPI
or Philippine Press Instutute as the best weekly newspaper in the
country in Business and Economic reporting.

Dante Sudaria's favorite motto that give him a colorful life and
business

Despite his tremendous successes in the newpapering industry,

Sudaria remains to be humble and live a simple life. His day to day life
was only focused with his family and business.

In a span of almost 2 decades, Dante has lived a life of abundance and

happy family. He has also established his own multi-million house in
the city, with solid mediterranean concept and style, a Toyota Pick Up
and the famous Montero vehicle.

When asked about his guiding motto that propels him to fly high and
just enjoy what life brings, he simply answers "GOD WILL PROVIDE,
DISKARTE LANG."
From an agriculture expert to a newspapering guru

1st part of a series

BY JOEL CALAMBA ESCOL

MDN Online editor

Yes, he was the youngest man in the newspapering history in Southern

Philippines who beat all the dragons.

I joined the newspapering industry way back in 1991 with my first editor,
the ever friendly and approachable Uriel Quilinguing.

And this man came in in the same industry sometime in the later part of the
90s. He was then a fresh graduate at a college in Claveria town, the Misamis
Oriental State College of Agriculture and Technology (MOSCAT).
Later when we were acquainted at the office I had known that he graduated in
college with flying colors. In fact, he was a cum laude. Woohh I said to myself,
"this man is something to learn to.

Basically, those who graduated with that distinctive honor must be brainy. So,
it would be very interesting how he would be able to incorporate his huge
knowledge in agriculture with the new type of business he was in.

I was a desk editor then of that newspaper and I was tasked to receive the very
raw and poorly written news reports coming from our local reporters, in which
he was part of a bureau in the western side of Misamis Oriental.

I noticed that this man is more focused on getting sales and not so much on
getting the hard news in his area of coverage. So I just thought that this man
was just the same regular guy or bureau chief who simply followed his
colleagues in regularly transacting business in their AOR (area of coverage)
because they were given big commissions of 50 percent from all the sales they
can get. Although, they are required to submit news reports in order to benefit
the 50-50 share challenge.

And because I just thought of him of being a regular guy or bureau chief, so
very often it became a regular scenario that when he was in the office, I'm
sure he got sales or adverts, or newspaper edition project just like all the
others. Then after completing all his transactions he disappears, and maybe,
he goes back to his hometown in Claveria.

THEN THIS MAN BECOMES MORE INTERESTING

Yeah, he became such to my mind. Do you want to know why? This man
requested to be re-assigned in Cagayan de Oro to accept bigger challenges and
more responsibilities of not just merely a sales guy but into becoming a
Journalist. So from a promdi man (from the province) into becoming a city
guy. What? I told myself again. Can he do it here?

o cut the story short, one day he stepped in at the office being his first day in
his new journey in Cagayan de Oro as a documented and ID-bearing salesman
and at the same time a reporter at the main company headquarters in Gusa.

I noticed that after he opened the main door of the office and approached our
sales staff, this guy was full of sweat and he wiped them out with his
handkerchief while already at the front desk sales staff. I don't know if he just
walked from Divisoria to our main headquarters in Gusa (haha) because if he
rides on a jeepney he would not have that sweat pouring from his innocent-
looking face, or he had a sales call in the vicinity before he went to the office to
report his sales of the day or his news article to the editorial department.

But as soon as he reports to the main office everyday it would always be a

scenario that while he steps in, he also wiped off his sweat with his
handkerchief.

He started to top in sales

As his sales increases monthly, I realized that this man was working very hard
maybe for his future. Since he was a fresh graduate, he was very optimistic,
very energetic and very determined to achieve his goal as soon as possible. -

FROM AN AGRICULTURE EXPERT TO A NEWSPAPER GURU

BY JOEL CALAMBA ESCOL
3rd of a series

* He gambled his 100K monthly earnings to start his own newspaper

business

After several years of leading the marketing and sales of that company
owned by a Chinese-Filipino, the young and energetic entrepreneur has finally
decided to start his own newspaper publishing business.

Business Week Mindanao, Dante's first weekly newspaper was founded on

June 8, 2009 while he was at the peak of his career with Gold Star Daily. At
that time he was already earning 100K per month.

It was also the time when Ruel Pelone and Nelson Contantino were still with
GSD and they were commissioned to establish GSD Cebu City. They would
work on Dante's editorial content during Saturdays and Sundays since it was
only a weekly paper - and they would send the week's content to the layout
artist Felix Santillan for layout and for printing.

The said remote operation lasted only for 6 months. Perhaps, the GSD owner
saw Dante's weekly paper as a future threat to his daily newspaper. He wanted
Dante to decide whether to focus only on his newspaper or it's time to separate
ways.
Oozing with enthusiasm and determination to succeed on his new endeavor,
Sudaria made the wisest and the bravest decision of his life to gamble with this
100K per month earnings and focus all his talents, skills, and experiences to
his own newspaper "Business Week Mindanao."

He left GSD and put up his own firm. Sudaria was all fired up and bravely put
his heart and soul into his newly found company and met clients after clients.
It was a final decision to shine even more - now that his ultimate dream of
starting his own company was realized.

On January 1, 2010, Dante acquired his first printer and continued the
Business Week Mindanao operation despite encountering a lot of challenges.

Meanwhile, Ruel Pelone and Nelson Constantino also resigned from their GSD
Cebu operation as they also found it very hard to operate a newspaper with
only two of them. They became jobless then. Later, they have also decided to
join Sudaria Publications as full time editors, which at that time was very fresh
and just starting to find its place in the industry .

After a year's full time operation of Business Week Mindanao, some colleagues
and sales agents of GSD also joined Sudaria's company. They were Allan
Mediante, Riza Ares, Mike Baños, Felix Santillan, and Gerry Gorit.

Sudaria's love life

While Sudaria was also at the peak of his career, he also found great time to
follow what his heart desires. And since he would always met GSD's dazzling
sales staff, Ms Rose Domingo back then, love grew so easily sometime in 1996
and they became lovers. They kept it a little bit of a secret, so not anyone of the
employees would know. Finally, on October 18, 1997, Rose and Dante tied the
knot and vowed to love each other in sickness and in health. Their marriage
was blessed with four siblings: Dannycarose, Dante JR, Danrosbelt and
Danielarose.

The birth of a daily paper

The young newspaper magnate saw it was ripe to start a daily newspaper to
supply for the growing needs of its valued customers and advertisers. Thus,
Mindanao Daily came into the picture and Sudaria changed the name of the
company into Sudaria Group of Publications. Aside from Mindanao Daily,
Cagayan Times was also started to cater to the exclusive coverages on
entertainment and lifestyles.

Right now Business Week Mindanao was already exclusive to business

updates in the entire island of Mindanao, as well as economic growth of the
island. The paper no longer cater to police and crime news as it did way back
in 1996 and 1997