Here and There
We’re now on our 62nd year
By Gerry Garcia
OUR Punch, now on its 50th year, is still alive and doubly hard-hitting, especially now that we’re assured of the late Ermin Senior’s replacement by an equal if not able successor — his son, Ermin Junior. Jun’s development of his writing skill to a level matching that of his late Papa, simply amazes me. As his Uncle Gerry, immediate successor to his late Papa as the paper’s Ed-in-chief in 1964, I had occasion to keep watch over Jun’s development into the kind of writer he has become today. This, boy now a full-grown man, writes better than his Octogenarian Uncle!
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That the Punch has attained is 50th year today as Luzon’s longest living community paper is, by the way, an under-statement.
Truth to tell, admitting the present Punch is actually an extension from its precursor Pioneer Herald (also founded and edited by Ermin Garcia Sr. in 1944), we are now on our 62nd year, 28 years short of being a centenarian!
Eleven years after the Republic was granted independence by Mother America on July 4, 1946, The Pioneer Herald ceased publishing and the Sunday Punch was born.
In its maiden issues, owing to Ermin Senior’s acquaintanceship then with Manila media’s greats, like Max Soliven, The Sunday Punch carried initial contributions from Leon O. Ty (of Philippine Free Press) and the late Ernie Granada (of the now defunct Manila Chronicle).
The present Punch is equally honored today with General Admissions, opinion column from Philippine Daily Inquirer’s sports columnist Al Mendoza.
The Punch, by the way, also had news contributions from then PNS correspondent Joe de Venecia, Jr. during the late President Magsaysay’s days. Believe it or not, Joe, the thrice elected Speaker of the House, had been a Punch Manila correspondent.
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Richard “Goma” Gomez is finally (whew!) aspiring to run for Governor of Bulacan – not as President of RP as was bruited about by former actor-now-turned-detainee Pres. Erap Estrada. The astute Goma must have sensed the presidency’s impending “phase-out” on account of the proposed shift to parliamentary style of government so he finds it more practical to run for Governor. Even senatorship, for him, has lost allure.
It was probably OK in the USA for former actors Reagan and Schwartzenneger to have run for Presidency and Governorship, respectively, with success, leaving no ground for complaint from many because… the United States of America is already a fully developed industrial super power. Unlike our RP which remains up to now the “Sick Man” of Asia and the milking cow of ambitious Pinoy politicians.
This seems to have become a perpetual rut in which we’ve sunk . . . and we’re doomed to stay in it for many more decades unless we lift a finger to amend the Constitution NOW and change our presidential unicameral government into something better.
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