Ilonggo journalist Suansing dies at 43

Cebu-based Ilonggo journalist Ivan P. Suansing, editor-in-chief of the Cebu Daily News (CDN), passed away yesterday morning after a delicate heart operation at the Perpetual Succour Hospital in Cebu City. He was 43.

He is survived by his wife Chandra and children Samantha, 10 and Isaiah, 5.
Suansing’s demise was announced in a press statement signed by CDN publisher and acting editor-in-chief Eileen G. Mangubat.

Suansing suffered a stroke on August 31, 2005 and was diagnosed to have an aortic aneurysm, according to the statement.

A team of surgeons from the Perpetual Succour Hospital and Philippine Heart Center in Manila performed a difficult 10-hour operation to install two grafts to strengthen his weakened aorta, but he succumbed later to post operation complications.

His remains were to be brought to Cosmopolitan Nivel Hills, Lahug, Cebu City.
There will be an 8pm mass Thursday and Friday. Family and friends will honor him in a memorial service on Friday. Details to be announced later.

“He was a sensitive, brilliant Editor-in-Chief who developed the paper like an attentive father. Cebu became his home when he relocated from Iloilo to set up CDN as one of the core editors in 1998. He turned out to be the best Editor-in-Chief among us,” Mangubat said.

Suansing graduated with the degree AB Social Science from the West Visayas State University in 1983. He was editor-in-chief of the university paper Forum-Dimensions during his time.

He was associate editor of the Visayan Daily Times (now Sunstar Iloilo) and editor-in-chief of the Daily Informer. He was also correspondent and columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and journalism instructor at St. Paul College Iloilo. (Nereo C. Lujan)