By Robina Asido

The Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) and the Daily Manila Shimbun (DMS) under Step JP Printing Service, Inc formalized their partnership in a signing ceremony of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in Makati City on Wednesday.

It is the first time that the Daily Manila Shimbun, the only Japanese newspaper published in the country, had a collaboration with a local newspaper.

The signing ceremony that was led by Rudyard Arbolado, the Chief Executive Officer of PDI and Aoi Ikeda, President of the Step JP Printing Service, Inc. was also witnessed by Joseph Voltaire Contreras, Executive Editor of the PDI, Hirohisa Nakamura, DMS Editorial General Manager and other officials from both newspapers.

"I always believe that this that we are launching today will be an auspicious partnership between two media institutions. Events like this give me hope that despite our shared challenges in the print media we will always find ways to meet those challenges and one of those ways is these kind of partnerships that in my three decades in the profession is just happening for the first time," Contreras said during the event.

"We haven't heard about this kind of arrangement before and with this new partnership we can open doors in our readers virtually as we were talking in our case for the expat community of Japan," he added.

Contreras expressed hope that the Daily Manila Shimbun will find the partnership beneficial despite challenges in the industry.

"Hopefully Manila Shimbun finds this partnership beneficial to them in terms of expanding their crossing over to a Filipino audience starting with an awareness that such this thing is happening. Despite the doom and gloom of the industry, they're still here talking about the future," he said.

"I could only hope that we will deliver our end of our so-called bargain. By my part I represent the newsroom here. I hope we will do justice to this partnership by meeting your high standard of journalism matching it with our Philippine coverage, and share our pride in what we do," he added.

Ikeda said he is looking forward to the partnership of the Daily Manila Shimbun with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The PDI started in 1985, celebrating its 37th anniversary. The Daily Manila Shimbun started in 1992 and celebrated the 30th anniversary this year. We look forward to partnering with media outlets like yours and then continue to produce articles for the Philippines and Japan," he said.

The Daily Manila Shimbun is the 11th partner of the PDI since it started its Inquirer news initiatives on March 29, 2021. Aside from DMS, the PDI also has a partnership with Malaysia Star and nine local newspapers. DMS