Ricky Lo's daily columns were the first drafts of the history of Philippine cinema.

Compile them and the results are the authoritative annals of the local film industry, by someone who penned it with a keen eye and a sense of fairness from his front row seat.

His daily reportage, if pieced together into a film reel, would tell the complete story of an industry whose impact on people and influence on society are great.

His medium may have been prose, but he had a way of writing that comes out like moving pictures as entertaining as the acting on the silver screen that he spent half a century writing about.

Stars come and go, film companies rise and fade, but Ricky Lo had staying power because of the respect he earned from the admirable practice of his craft.