Kabanata V (Chapter 5) : Sunday Punch: Pangasinan's News and Opinion Leader

The Sunday Punch was founded in July 15,1956 in Dagupan, Pangasinan Philippines by Ermin Erfe Garcia as its editor-publisher. Ermin Garcia was born in 1921 in San Fabian, Pangasinan. He first published a small-scale newspaper, the Pioneer Herald that impressed the Filipino and American forces and bought 100,000 printed copies. He is a newspaper publisher and he was known for fighting against the Philippine government. He continued his fight against corruption and other dubious practices in society through Sunday Punch. (Wikipedia, 2020)

The newspaper has been cited by the Philippine Press Institute and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for excellence in journalism, particularly in economic reporting, editorial writing, reporting on environment and photojournalism. It was also cited in a UNESCO report as one of the 10 most successful community newspapers in Asia. Later, during 1997, The Sunday Punch made a partnership with Bitstop, became the first Filipino community local newspaper to have an online website. Just like any other newspapers, journalists from the Sunday Punch uses the inverted pyramid method in writing news articles. They have an individual section for news articles that are purely based from facts and it is informative and objective, and an opinion section of political and economical issues, that provides accuracy and learnings for the readers. They also have a section for Judicial Notes, Crime Notes, Political Feature etc. Because of these, they have won several awards since 1964, as the Best Edited Provincial Newspaper, given by the National Press Club of the Philippines and more. They also engage their readers by having a section on their newspaper where the audiences/readers can post their comments, opinions and questions called Punch Forum , as well as section that is powered by the Facebook Comments called A Kabaleyan’s Thoughts. (Punch, 2014)

The Sunday Punch was founded in 1956 that resulted the said community press to experience from Martial Law Period up to the Present age and ever since they first published their newspaper, they never neglect their mission to inform their readers about the truth as well as spreading factual entertainment. Even though their founder was killed because he exposed the illegal practices of some local politicians at that time, they still continue to spread truth and transparency so that their ‘Kabaleyans’ can still rely to their work. No man is to be reverenced more than the Truth, Socrates. (Punch, 2014)

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References

Punch, E. o. (2014, October 27). Sunday Punch. Retrieved from Google: https://punch.dagupan.com/articles/uncategorized/2014/10/about-the-sunday-punch/

Wikipedia, E. o. (2020, October 15). Wikipedia. Retrieved from Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermin_Garcia

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