
Daniel “Danny” Gumban Fajardo of Mina, Iloilo, then already a successful businessman, founded Panay News in 1981, ably supported by wife Maria Santillan of San Jose, Antique.
Why put up a newspaper?
The paper’s first editorial titled “Why one more” explained:
“Panay News Today is intended to cover the island of Panay. A coverage that was not and cannot be filled by any other paper. Certainly not by the national dailies. Nor by the local dailies. ‘Not’ in the sense that the existing papers cannot even cover the proportionate number of readers as against the actual population in a given locality like Iloilo City and Province.”
To further expand the frontiers of press freedom in the region, Fajardo hosted the popular Iloilo radio/cable television public affairs program Reklamo Publiko.
He also headed the Iloilo Press Club – the oldest press club in the country – for several terms and served, too, as executive vice president of the Publishers’ Association of the Philippines.
Fajardo also served as Chief Executive Officer of the National Book Development Board; Commissioner of the Commission on Filipino Language; and Director, Media Division, Commission on Culture and the Arts.
He was also a Philippine media delegate to the United Nations’ 50th Anniversary.
Fajardo was an alumnus of Silliman University, Dumaguete City where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science. He also took a special course on Para Legal Studies at the Manila Times School of Journalism.
Fajardo was born on Dec. 24, 1945. He passed away on Sept. 10, 2018. He was 72.