SINCE today’s issue heralds the 39th birthday of Panay News, we should have clinked wine glasses in a gathering of personnel from all over Western Visayas. Unlike previous anniversaries, however, we are having no celebration.
Obviously, it’s because of unforeseen circumstances leading to the “community quarantine” that has become necessary to contain the pandemic we are experiencing for the first time – the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
This is the first anniversary that we are not dining in a hotel together; that we are observing “social distancing” instead.
This is our second anniversary without our founder, Danny G. Fajardo, who died on September 9, 2018 – thus ending 37 years of working partnership.
Two days before his destiny with heart surgery, he called me up to ask me to temporarily take over a daily chose until he was strong enough to come back. It never occurred to me it was to be our last conversation.
With him no longer around, the 39thanniversary of this paper reminds me of many memories, starting from the year 1980 when I met for the first time Danny Fajardo, who was then occupying a room at Aloha Hotel in Manila. He had come all the way from San Jose, Antique to buy spare parts for his mini-buses, which were plying the San Jose-Kalibo route. I was then the publisher of a Manila-based monthly magazine, Charm.
Being an unexpected guest, I introduced myself as “classmate of Mary from elementary to college,” referring to his better-half Maria. I had won his confidence; he granted me the wish I was there for – a check as advance payment for a back-cover ad of his bus business. It never crossed my mind that I would be working for him.
Sometime in April 1981, I received a telegram from Mary. Oh oh, sorry to our millennial readers who have no idea what a telegram is.
She said that Danny would like me to work as full-time editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper that they had just launched, Panay News. It took me another day to wire back my “yes” even if it would mean giving up 11 years of work as newspaperman in Manila.
When I arrived reported for work at Ong Bun Building on Ledesma Street, Iloilo City, the first issue of Panay News had come out, with Jerry Taclino as temporary editor.
Our office was a small corner of an insurance agency. I was sharing it with Mary’s elder sister Vicky, a college professor who had volunteered to help write editorial materials during her spare time.
At that time, there were already three English weeklies in Iloilo which were surviving on paid legal notices from the local courts of law. Soliciting ads from business establishments was like finding a needle in a haystack. But why should we expect a better deal? Most readers would rather be seen reading Manila dailies than local tabloids.
Rather than be discouraged, Danny took it as a challenge to hurdle. He would not be contented with legal notices if he had to one day turn the weekly into a daily grind.
Having no printing press of our own was tough luck. We had to make the rounds of all printing presses, always badgering for the lowest printing cost and the longest payment term. There was a time when Danny hand-carried our typewritten manuscripts to Adver Press in Manila because it offered the lowest printing cost. He flew back to Iloilo with a higher load on his shoulder – the week’s printed bundle of Panay News.
One day, he excitedly told me that an advertising executive in Manila, Allan Tumlos, had agreed to provide us with his clients’ commercial ads. It was to be the beginning of the paper’s exposure to advertising agencies, which fortunately were on the lookout for provincial outlets. That forced us to find ways to improve our editorial content – a feat almost impossible due to financial constraint. In fact, most of our contributing reporters were doing bayanihan writing for a pittance or nothing at all.
Keeping the paper alive in its first year was a “sacrifice” on the part of the Fajardo kids who were enduring dark nights at their house in San Jose, Antique. The Antique Electric Cooperative (Anteco) had disconnected their power line over an overdue bill. At that time, Danny ang Mary had four children, namely Abdiel, John Dan, Mae and Strawberry. Still to come were Daniel “Idol” Jr. and David.
There came a time when the couple, already wallowing in debt, had to give up his problematic bus business to focus on the newspaper.
I, too, gave up my motorbike to the dealer after failure to pay overdue installments.
But Danny always saw to it that each anniversary would be celebrated with a three-day party – also known as “journalism workshop” for our skeletal force of reporters and contributors.
Danny Fajardo was a natural salesman. He would invite marketing people to those anniversary workshops and assure them of good commission from selling advertisements and subscriptions.
We broke readers’ resistance to the “lowly” local newspaper by going after local scoops. I remember that afternoon when we were in Kalibo because Danny was meeting an insurance man. Tita Bong (Mary’s sister) came up to break the news that a rich widow nearby had been stabbed dead by a poor relative. We rushed to the widow’s house to “shoot” the dead woman in her coffin with an instamatic camera.
We opted to be an “alternative press” exposing the evils of the Marcos dictatorship under martial law. Our concerned friends tried to slow us down, fearful that we might land in jail or, worse, the cemetery.
Mission accomplished was when Danny eventually acquired a printing press, enabling Panay News to come out twice a week, thrice a week and much later daily including Sunday. By then, I had retired as editor-in-chief but was still writing regular columns.
Many editors and staff writers have since then worked for this paper, including Lemuel Fernandez and John Paul Tia, now familiar names in the Iloilo media.
Today’s editor-in-chief, Rex Maestrecampo, has served the longest number of years.
Many ex-editors and staff reporters now work abroad, including Eden Jacosalem Stewart in the United States, Daniel Cajurao in Canada and Raj Padilla in the United Kingdom.
Today’s new crop of Panay News staff writers may not have met the late Danny Fajardo. But they surely know that without him, they would not be here with us today. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
