WE STARTED writing for Panay News on Jan. 9, 2006 upon the invitation of Danny Fajardo.
We got acquainted with him when he had his public affairs radio-cable TV program Reklamo Publiko originally held at Sarabia Manor Hotel where we previously worked as executive director.
Initially, we just wanted to write about rural banks and their service to the community when we transferred to manage one from our hotel job. While with the rural bank we got elected as President of the local rural bankers federation and later became national director of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP).
We cannot believe that it has now been 12 years since we have our column RURAL UPDATE in Panay News upon the invitation of Danny, and we are still at it once a week on Tuesdays!
Having authored and published a book in 2010 (My Brother-in-Law & Other Stories), we were invited for membership in the Publishers Association of the Philippines (PAPI) whose chairman and president, Johnny Dayang, is from Aklan and is with Graphics, Tempo and Bulletin. They hold regular semi-annual conference of publishers nationwide.
In 2011 PAPI had recognition awards for newspaper publications and declared Panay News as “The Best Regional Newspaper in the Philippines.”
We witnessed the awarding ceremony and the honors program during the conference held at the Makati Sports Club. Being with Panay News, it was a privilege and great pride being there to personally congratulate Danny after he received the award for his newspaper from the PAPI chairman on the stage.
At PAPI, we met provincial newspaper publishers who are members from all over the country as far as Cagayan province in the north and up to Jolo, Sulu in Mindanao. We found out at that time that there are no dailies in the country except in the bigger cities like in Metro Manila, Cebu, Iloilo and Davao.
In one of our meetings, the Chair announced the award of court notices from an approved list of the Supreme Court. A committee was set up by PAPI to spread out the publication of the notices to provincial newspapers.
We noted of many newspaper publishers that we met in the association as dependent on official notices from the courts or the Register of Deeds and other government agencies for ads or announcements, with practically no support of advertisements coming from the business or commercial sector.
With what is happening, dependence on government source for ads and notices as what many newspapers and magazines are doing can compromise the important function or role of the press in a democratic society like ours.
We are the Fourth Estate vis-à-vis the three other sectors in the government; namely (1) the Executive, (2) the Legislative and (3) the Judiciary. In this respect, as publishers or journalists, we have to keep our dignity and independence intact if we have to faithfully perform our duty and responsibility in the press to our country and people.
Tough words to live by but we believe this is the legacy that Danny Fajardo has left us in media, as evidenced by the principle strongly embraced and practiced by the newspaper he has founded – Panay News.
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Historical Quote of the Week:
“The first International Chess Master – Ilonggo Eugene Torre.” (For comments or re-actions, please e-mail to jnoveracompany@yahoo.com)/PN
