yesterday, I emailed the following letter to yes magazine, but it kept bouncing. So I’ll put it up here instead, hopeful it will get to her. I’m referring to the November 2009 issue in my letter.
hello. when I got my copy of YES! magazine yesterday, a long-running monthly habit actually, I was prepared to leave it unread because the topics per the cover weren’t, or so I thought, too interesting, having been taken up endlessly by various media.
Lo and behold, after I began to read the magazine, focusing on the captions or stories underneath Charice’s pictures before I was drawn to the stories on Ondoy, I was moved – you gave real faces to the devastation that hit so many of us and painted a matter-of-fact picture that was sympathetic but not mushy. I finished the many-paged article on Ondoy to the end, sometimes reading pages through glasses clouded with tears, touched as I was by the various harrowing experiences of fellow-Filipinos and by the kindness of the likes of Judy Ann, Ryan, Jericho and Raymart; disgusted as I was by some accounts on government personalities– in a word affected, make that deeply affected by the so many different stories.
Thank you very much, YES! magazine staffers for making the Ondoy experience an eye-opener and a heart-opener for the many people who will read it. I was completely clueless about foreign artists’ pitching for help on our behalf, having left the country two days after Ondoy. I will certainly keep this issue to show to my son when he comes back in December so he will experience what he missed vicariously yet accurately and be touched by it. One cannot be indifferent after reading your rendering, which was essentially the Filipino people’s.
Hello! I’m Gabriel Villegas from YES! Magazine. I managed to stumble upon your blog and read you letter to us here. Will forward a copy of your letter to our editor-in-chief. Sorry for the inconvenience of your e-mail to us bouncing back. We had e-mail server problems during those days. Thank you for reading our magazine and we look forward to share more interesting stories like these with you and all our readers.
hello. Thank you very much for dropping by. Yes! Magazine is a monthly habit, has been for years now. There are issues that make me wish you came out more often than once a month. The personnel of magazine stands where I get them smile when mid-month, I ask if a new one has been released. Wishful thinking on my part, I know, but I like how your magazine treats your subject matter with depth and responsibility. You always try to get both sides if the issue at hand warrants it.
That is nice. Here’s a tip for you, we are available in the market two weeks before the issue month. Usually the 19th or the 20th. So, for example, you are looking for the November issue, we are most likely available mid October. Thanks again for your feedback and comments.