Press Release
May 27, 2008

HENRY CANOY PRAISED FOR HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO BROADCAST INDUSTRY

Henry Canoy, a trail-blazer in broadcaster industry who founded the Radyo Mindanao Network, is a great citizen of Cagayan de Oro who did not actually belong to the city but to the world.

This was how Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) described Henry Canoy as he joined his family, friends and countrymen in paying homage to the outstanding broadcast industry and civic leader who died on May 17, age of 84.

"Like Columbus and Magellan who braved the unknown world in their time and placed their patron country, Spain, in the map of the world, Henry Canoy dared to penetrate the dark recesses of the broadcast world and in the process placed Cagayan de Oro in the consciousness, first of the people of Mindanao, then of the entire country and finally of the world," Pimentel said.

He said Henry Canoy's achievements in giving the people access to communications and in enhancing the freedom of speech through the wonders or radio were the best legacy he can rightfully claim.

Pimentel recalled that he personally met Henry Canoy after he had opened a modest radio station, DXCC, in Cagayan de Oro and he was one of the students of the Ateneo de Cagayan who were organized by the great Jesuit priest, Fr. William F. Masterson, to have a 20-minute Catholic prayer and news program aired by the station.

He said that Henry Canoy, with single-minded devotion, pursued his life's vision and brought DXCC to many parts of Mindanao, and with the help of his wife and his sons, he brought the station to the Visayas and Luzon now as RMN, the Radio Mindanao Network, and even to foreign shores like the United States.

What was most noteworthy about Henry Canoy, according to Pimentel, was that even as he was broadening the reach of RMN, he remained a simple man, a devoted Christian. In his commitment to spread the word of God, he helped bring the Cursillos in Christianity to Cagayan de Oro and Northern Mindanao in the 1960s, the senator from Mindanao said.

"As a Cagayanon, I bow my head to Henry, a great man, arguably, the best gift that God had given to our beloved city," Pimentel said.

"As a Mindanaonon, I salute Henry as a pioneer who broke up the stranglehold of the traditional franchise holders of the broadcast industry in Manila and brought the spoken word to the frontiers of Mindanao."

Pimentel said Henry Canoy later competed successfully with the established radio dons all over the country. "In doing so, he widened in practice the scope of the freedom of speech in a manner that we, politicians, could only orate on."

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