Maria Editha Requina Regalado (Edith or Regs for short) and I first met at Ang Peryodiko Dabaw (APD), fondly called PerDab, in March 1990. We both wrote daily columns and feature stories. Her column was “Deadlines” and mine was “Shoptalk.” She was more serious while I was more frivolous. She was more political and I was more lifestyle.
We often wrote side by side in our old newsroom in Claveria and we both raised the blood pressure of our editor-in-chief, the late Antonio “Tony” Ajero, our “daddy cool,” because we gossiped and giggled more than we typed our stories. But we always managed to meet our deadlines.
A deadline is a line you cannot cross without consequence. In journalism, it’s the exact moment a story must be filed — no excuses, no extensions, no “five more minutes.” Miss it, and the story doesn’t run. The paper goes to print without you. The world moves on. A deadline is final in a way few things in life are.
Dead line. The line drawn at death. A boundary between before and after. Before it, the story is still yours — unfinished, unpolished, still changing. After it, the story is fixed. It belongs to the reader now. It cannot be edited, softened, or taken back. It is what it is.
And here is the ache of it: Edith spent her whole life meeting deadlines. She filed on time, every time, through cancer and dialysis and exhaustion. She knew the discipline of it. She knew the dignity of finishing the story. And then she met the one deadline no one beats — the final one — and she met it the way she met all the others. On time.
On September 9, 2026, Edith filed her last story and decided it was her deadline. Two months before that, she was confined at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC). Two months of tubes and tests and beeping machines. Two months of a woman who had spent a lifetime beating deadlines trying to beat this one, too. She fought. Of course, she fought. She fought like she was chasing a story nobody else could get.
And then, when she’d had enough, she did what Edith always did. She made a decision, and she filed it. She demanded to go home.
The night before she died, her daughter, Ai-ai, drove her around the city she loved one last time. The streets she’d covered, the corners where she’s chased sources, the little restaurants she loved. A quiet farewell lap around a city that had been her beat, her home, her whole heart.
And then, in her own room, in her own bed, with the people she loved nearby, Edith went to sleep.
No more pain. No more tubes. No more fighting the clock. Just quiet, and rest, and the softest possible crossing of that final line.
We say the things we say to comfort ourselves — she’s in a better place, she’s at peace, she’s free. I believe it. I do. But knowing she’s at peace and feeling the hole she left behind are two different stories.
My head knows she’s fine but my heart is still waiting for a text asking me to order her favorite lugaw. My heart still hears her booming voice calling me “Pat-ri-ciaaa!” And tempting me with, “mag-Coke ta, beh!” My heart is still in denial, the first stage of grief.
I am writing this now because Edith once said that a story untold is a story lost. If I do not write this, it did not happen. I am writing this to declare that Edith happened. That she lived unapologetically, loudly, boldly, and bravely.
When I heard the sad news of her passing, I frantically searched my boxes of old newspaper clippings from our PerDab days. I found a light-hearted anniversary piece I wrote on December 21, 1990 about the men and women behind PerDab. I will quote here the part about Edith:
“Edith is one person who talks too much about other people but refuses to talk about herself…Life at PerDab would be dull without Edith. Without Edith, Tony (our editor-in-chief) cannot exercise his vocal chords: “Hoy Editha, huwag kang sumulat ng masyadong libelous, papayat ka sa jail!” Without Edith, Jun (our deskman) cannot go out on a date with his girlfriend. Without Edith, Ram’s (our sports editor) ballpen will never get lost. Without Edith, Patmei (lifestyle editor) cannot fill two pages of the Lifestyle section. Without Edith, our city councilors won’t quote Ang Peryodiko Dabaw. Without Edith, we won’t have free merienda.”
Yes, Edith without food is an incomplete sentence. She was a foodie of the highest order. She did not just eat, she experienced meals. She had a spiritual relationship with mainit na sabaw, a deep and abiding love for kare-kare, and a suspiciously passionate attachment to anything deep-fried. Half of our best conversations happened over food — her eyes lighting up as the dish arrived, already planning the next meal before we’d finished the first.
Her appetite for life was matched only by her appetite for the truth. She was not, and I repeat, not, intimidated by people in power. While the rest of us perfected the polite, deferential nod, Edith looked presidents, senators, cabinet secretaries, and generals dead in the eye and asked the follow-up question nobody else had the nerve to ask. No malice. Just this disarming, almost cheerful impertinence, as if to say, “Let’s cut the b.s. I’m hungry and I have a deadline.”
She just did her job. Ferociously. And she didn’t do it alone. She was a shield for the young and the overwhelmed in this profession. I watched her fight an arrogant Manila-based reporter because he was condescending to a Davao reporter. I witnessed her berate a senator’s aide for not taking care of her local media colleagues. She snapped at presidential security for forcing her and other journalists to move to make way for the president. She protected her own. She never thought it was anything special. It was just what you did.
For all that toughness, her heart was a soft, custard-filled pastry. She remembered your favorite song, your mother’s illness, and that you were trying to cut back on sugar (a goal she would immediately sabotage by giving you a box of polvoron). Her kindness wasn’t loud. It lived in the small, deliberate gestures of someone who was always paying attention.
On my first day at PerDab, my first thought of Edith was: “My gosh, this woman will eat me alive!” She looked mean. But as we grew closer through the years from just being media colleagues to friends to sisters, I got to taste what she was really made of. And it was the most tender thing.
Edith has been through the pressure cooker and through fire — battered woman, solo parent, breadwinner, patient with complicated multiple illnesses, deadline after deadline — and instead of getting bitter, she got softer. Pressure either destroys you or tenderizes you. She came out tender.
Edith met every deadline this world handed her. She met the last one on her own terms. The story is very good and it is finished. She filed on time. And she will be forever in my heart.
