By Antonio P. Pekas
As a way of giving back to society, this paper was started to become a genuine member of the fourth estate.
And for 26 years we had been dishing out THE NEWS AS IT SHOULD BE. THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. By our reckoning, we have been a good member of the fourth estate— ever watchful for abuse of power, as we aid in anyway those who have less in life, and to somehow equalize or lessen the gap between those with privilege and those who are just managing to keep body and soul together.
As any other human institution though, we are also mindful of our shortcomings, and every anniversary we do some self-assessment where these resurface to be evaluated as objectively as we could.
Therefrom, solutions are suggested which, when feasible are implemented. During the pandemic though, everything needed Himalayan effort to accomplish even small things due to imposed constraints such as during lockdowns that denied us elbow room to wriggle through difficult problems on how to go forward, even if bit by bit.
Most difficult though to surmount were the financial limitations as we shifted to taking care of survival considerations considering that profitability was out of the question. Lucky for us we did survive compared to others which had no other choice but to fold up to stop the financial bleeding they were going through. Even some with humongous capital behind them. Understandably, as continuing would have been insanity or, at the very least, stupidity.
So here we are, we have survived. The future is spread out for the taking right before our eyes. But wait a minute. The landscape was devastated, littered with debris, and people are still in survival mode. Recovery will take some time, at the very least three years or more from today before we might be able to realize the economic vibrance of pre-pandemic times.
But then there is a big new complication, the war in Ukraine. There will be economic contraction all over the world, we might as well erase the words “normal” and “easy” from our vocabulary.
Continuing our survival mode appears to be the only option. We refuse though to believe there is no other, for there is a better one. To lay the groundworks for accelerated efforts when the sky finally clears up.
When will that be? You and I will know.**
