Anyone who writes a letter to the editor does so on the understanding that the editor may decide whether to print it and if so, whether to run it in full or to edit it the way he sees fit. It is also understood that a longer letter has a less chance of getting published and that if it is published, the greater chance that it is edited.

What makes Chato Olivas (Inquirer, Feb. 18-24) and Baby Sevilla (Inquirer, Mar. 4 -10) feel that Olivas’ four page letter should be favored with preferential treatment over the dozens of letters a newspaper receives every week?

Olivas and Sevilla may get all over town complaining that the Olivas letter was edited in such a way as to weaken the case it was supposed to make. But they shouldn’t imply that the editor was obliged to print the Olivas statement in full.

If the general’s daughter wanted her letter to be published in it’s unedited entirety, she should have done what these 67 generals did -- bought a full-page ad.

EPIFANIO DENSING, JR.

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