After spending over 24 years in Berlin and now back to his home in Portugal, a resident of Benaulim, whenever he’s in Goa, Cristo Prazeres de Costa, decided to constitute awards in the name of his father, none other than Amadeus Prazeres de Costa, editor of the Portuguese daily oHeraldo when it was taken over by the Fernandes family.
oHeraldo was established as the first daily Portuguese newspaper on 22 January 1900 by Prof. António Messias Gomes and was later sold to the Fernandes family with Raul Fernandes transforming the paper into an English daily in 1983.
“oHeraldo was the the longest-running Portuguese-language newspaper outside of Portugal and Brazil within the Colonies of Portugal and I’m proud to remember by father and his contribution to the O Heraldo in the 1960s when the Herald’s offices were based opposite the Municipal Garden in Panjim,” remembered Cristo.
Cristo recollects how he could compose and write small articles for the oHeraldo at a young age of 10 when his father was the editor and as a child he would visit the Herald office of just three rooms.
“When my father was the editor, it was the time of the censorship of the press in Goa and everything written had to get a clearance from the Portuguese administration. And Captain Miranda then would mark in red if anything was against the regiment, what couldn’t be published and it was difficult to say too much against the Portuguese administration,” stated Cristo.
Speaking to a delegation of journalists at the Herald office, Cristo remembers how his father even took a slap from Captain Miranda but refused to retaliate despite the people’s support in 1937 but rather preferred to write and hit out against the administration then get into a fist fight.
Cristo remembers his father’s zeal and feels that Goa scribes need to continue investigating into issues like Mopa, Siolim Jetty, Carmona and other land issues and hence he decided to set aside a fund of Rs 2 lakh to encourage journalists to write and investigate. While he also remembers his father having just the sixth radio set in Goa from Marconi radio and how editors would listen to the BBC from there and write in Portuguese, the global news.
Late Amadeus, the former editor of the Oheraldo also contributed to a South Goa’s Orlim based newspaper namely India Portuguesa.
