EDITORIAL - Here’s to more years

This year we celebrate our 102nd year of being in the business of freely and fearlessly reporting what is fair. For this year’s occasion we saw it fit to have the theme “rising above crisis”.

If you ask anyone what was the biggest challenge of last year, he or she would probably say it was about surviving the ongoing pandemic and the resulting economic repercussions from lockdowns, work stoppages, and the like.

They may also say it was also about weathering the emotional storms brought on by prolonged separation from family, friends, and loved ones. Or, for others, the loss of some of them

For this year we are sure many of us saw ourselves moving past this crisis, leaving these problems and especially this pandemic behind. But it seems that for many of us little has changed; the pandemic is still there, many of us still can’t find jobs or aren’t earning as much as we used to, many of us still haven’t seen our loved ones.

There is still a crisis going on, there is no doubt about that. But those of us who have families to take care of, mouths to feed, and other responsibilities to answer for cannot stop. We cannot let that awareness worry us or weigh us down. We have to push forward and keep moving on.

The same goes for this paper, we cannot stop. We have to move past the pains, the worries, and the doubts. To rise above crisis.

Earlier this year we faced an emotional challenge with the death of our beloved founding chairman, Dr. Jose “Dodong” Gullas, the man who revived this newspaper. The one who has been with us through thick and thin. The man whose loss is still being felt by the paper.

But like other challenges, it can be overcome. If our founding chairman were still alive today, he himself would be egging us to move on past this crisis. To rise above it.

This is something we should all be doing, rising above the different challenges.

We would like to thank you, our dear readers, for sticking with us and supporting us. For taking us where we are now.

Together let us rise above this crisis. Here’s to more years of still being your fair and fearless newspaper.