Writing for Inquirer both a challenge and an opportunity

LEAVING A JOB and the friendships we have built through the years, as well as the relationships nurtured with people we have known as colleagues, is a difficult task, especially if you’ve been treated well and given respect.   We have been part of the Manila Standard Today for too long to even remember, writing columns and sports stories which have always given us a sense of fulfillment. Sports is our passion and chronicling the continuing search for human excellence in the many sports disciplines is a satisfying task.   Quite honestly, we have never looked at reporting on sports or writing a column as a task, or even a job. It is something way beyond that, much like a vocation which we may liken, to some extent, to the priesthood.   It demands faith in the ability of Filipino men and women who strive to achieve, as well as a great deal of respect for those who sacrifice so much in order to help break away from the bondage of their childhood poverty—as Manny Pacquiao has so gloriously done—and seek to bring joy and pride to our countrymen.   For someone in the twilight of his years, we shall always regard loyalty as a virtue and integrity non-negotiable. But the compelling desire to get our thoughts across to as wide an audience as possible was the defining reason for our decision to accept the opportunity to write for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, whose numbers tell the story of its reach, if not its dominance and influence, as well as public acceptance.   We wish to pay tribute to the graciousness of those at the Manila Standard Today who gave us an opportunity to be part of their team, especially to the late sports editor Bert Cuevas, who was a wonderful human being and a genuine friend, as well as to the youthful Rey Mallari, the current sports editor, who is a fine individual with an absolutely charming disposition.   To our colleagues in the Inquirer sports section led by longtime friend, sports editor Ted Melendres and, of course, the irrepressible Recah Trinidad with whom our ties go way back to the early 1960’s at radio station dzHP, as well as dear friend Beth Celis and the young men and women in the section,  we look forward to a mutually rewarding partnership where friendships will be reinforced and new relationships established.   Writing for the Inquirer is both a challenge and an opportunity because there is an inherent demand to maintain a certain quality that must surely be the hallmark of a leader in the industry and what amounts to the blessing of being able to reach a much wider audience.   This will help us get our points of view across and stimulate discussion, while at the same time drawing attention to both the achievements of athletes, and the incompetence, and even lack of integrity, of those in positions of leadership and power in sports and its various governing  bodies.   We wish to thank the owners of the Inquirer and its editors for accepting us into the fraternity of a newspaper that not only leads in terms of the number of people it reaches but, even more importantly, its undoubted ability to inquire and influence.   To my former colleagues in The Manila Standard thank you for some really good years, and to our friends and colleagues in the Inquirer, rest assured we are grateful for the opportunity and shall strive not to let you down.