The PUNCH, new senior citizen

 LIKE the citizens who have reached age 60, your Sunday PUNCH feels very much the same way now that it has breached another milestone – 60 years of uninterrupted service to Pangasinan and its people anchored on public trust. Like them, we feel privileged to have survived the odds, to be proud of its 60 years of arduous journey to report the news that count, to comment on the issues that matter.

Like the surviving senior citizens in Pangasinan, The PUNCH shared the travails and joys of Pangasinenses through six decades and stages of economic, social, cultural and political development. And through it all, we can say with our heads held high that we have maintained the independence, integrity and professionalism that our founder, Ermin E. Garcia, pledged in his first editorial published in July 6, 1956.

For these, we are truly eternally grateful to our loyal readers and advertisers without whose trust and support, The PUNCH could not have possibly sustained its own lifeblood through six decades. Also, we bear no rancor towards those who sought to threaten, intimidate and discredit us through various foul means because they invariably helped strengthen our resolve to remain true to our commitment to our communities.

Recall our first editorial:

“As a newsmagazine the SUNDAY PUNCH seeks to play a dual role; namely, as a medium of news information and as a forum of public opinion. The second precinds from the first. In other words, it will stimulate public thinking on the basis of objective news reports.

At the outset we wish to make our position clear vis-à-vis politics, religion, and other spheres of controversial thought. This publication is politically independent in the sense that no politician or political group has been or will ever be allowed to be in a position to unduly influence its policies or color its news stories to its editorial columns. We shall often write on and about politicians. But never shall we write for any of them or in behalf of any partisan political cause.

“We shall not deprive any religious group of access to our pages, whether for information or for opinion. At the same time we shall not make a farce of the democratic principle by defying the fact that the country or this province – is, by majority count, Catholic.

That is our position. Now for the brand of journalism we intend to pursue – We reject the idea of a knight-in-shining-armor crusade. But where the truth is concerned, we shall be ruthlessly uncompromising. It may lose us friends or potential income, but all that must be written off as part of the calculated risks of honest and virile journalism. It is not just a whimsy that we have adopted the Socratic philosophy: “No man is to be reverenced more than the truth.”

 

‘Ride will be rough’

 BETWEEN 12:03 p.m. and 12:19 p.m. last Friday, June 30, President Duterte was applauded 25 times by an audience of 600-plus guests composed of dignitaries, Cabinet members, supporters and select friends, and the diplomatic corps.  Occasion was Mr. Duterte’s inaugural speech at Malacanang Palace after he was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes at exactly 12 noon.

Within 5 minutes of his first public address as the country’s 16th president, he received 3 rounds of applause.  In his typical tough-talking stance, the President, his words spoken in near-flawless clarity, had the audience spell-bound. By the time he was through speaking stammer-less at 12:18, he was applauded a total of 24 times. Delivered Duterte-like, he said, “This ride will be rough but please, join me just the same.”  He truly means business—and he seems bent on doing it his way—with a veiled plea to support him all the way.

He couldn’t resist, as was his wont, inserting an ad lib at the end of his prepared speech.  He said, “Let me start my work for the nation now.”  That earned him his 25th applause.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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