(Raw narrative of Bernie Cahiles Magkilat)
Good afternoon everyone.
Pasensya na po am a bit nervous, sanay po ako sa interbyuhan, mang-asar ng mga news sources but standing before news sources this way is a whole different world for me. So let me just read my scribbles here so I won’t stray far from what I am supposed to say to you today.
First of all, I have a story to tell. With my retirement from the news room barely 8 months ago, I had a discussion with my husband Neil and our daughter Sofia on what I will be doing after retirement.
In between work at the farm, walking or simply meeting old friends, classmates, and relatives back home, the thought of journalism was just there at the back of my mind.
Then I realized, I once started a website that naturally died for lack of attention. It was called ourmaritimeworld.com
And yes, I thought of it as a good idea because long time ago, I told myself I would like shipping, if not agriculture, as my retirement beat.
You know, the maritime or the shipping industry is so close to me. Our province in Bohol, particularly my town Lila, has produced and is still producing a big number of seafarers. It is so uncommon for a household in my town with no seaman graduate.
In my household alone, I have two brother seafarers and 3 nephew seafarers. My brother in laws are seafarers, neighbors and relatives have sailors, too. Our home in Manila is like a halfway house for seamen from my hometown. Some stay with us while applying for job, some while processing their papers, or when they come home from their overseas duty. While waiting for their deployment or the results of their exams, these seafarers serve as our driver, our cook, cleaner, farm helper, they roast our cacao and coffee, repaint the house, fix broken cabinets, put up our Christmas tree, and even do our laundry.
And Sofia grew up surrounded by seafarers and other ofws. Sometimes, they call our house “Bahay ni Kuya”.
We are always the listening ears to their stories and struggles and there never was an opportunity passing by without us imparting in them how to make good use of their hard earned money. Kaya pala may term na kayod marino because mariners are real hard working young men.
One of our town’s most successful seafarers if not one in a few in the entire country is Capt. Ricboy Cahatol. He is here with us today, our pride ship captain Ricboy. By the way, our first profile posted online today is about Ricboy, try looking it up.
Anyway, as we were planning to revive the maritime website, Sofia noted that the shipping industry might be limiting and suggested to expand its scope.
So, the logistics idea came about. And I like it also because while it is niche it has a wider coverage. Logistics is also close to my home beat, the Department of Trade and Industry.
Logistics plays a crucial role in trade. Inefficient logistics jacks up prices of everything. Besides, logistics plays a very important role in our agricultural sector, and especially, the farmers.
As an archipelago, our mobility is very far from ideal. Logistical issues became more prominent during the pandemic period. We are left out in the global supply chain partly because of our logistical constraints. Our connectivity can be harnessed if we focus on crafting policies to resolve logistical concerns. Our ease of doing business would be improved if we put some of our attention to logistics issues.
Then it so happened that DTI created a new division on logistics headed by Undersecretary Jean Pacheco. The agriculture department is also now big on logistics and the private sector is investing or giving more of their funds and attention to logistics. KMC Savills, one of the leading property and real estate management and consultancy services firms, declared logistics as the new king in real estate.
If only our logistics can be improved, we believe that trade can be better. With this, we believe there is so much to write about.
And not to leave the story of our sailors and other industry movers behind, we created another leg to the logistics industry website. Instead of only 3 major legs which are the sea-land-and air, we added a fourth leg Human because people move our trade. They will provide the humane side to the hard facts.
As the journalism world faces an avalanche of neo journalists, Logisticsnews.PH vows to commit to the traditional journalism that we know of. We will write as factual, as fair, and as accurate as we’ve been taught at school.
While retirement is the best thing that I have embraced so far, because this affords me freedom to pursue a lot of things that I cannot do before, I also realized that freedom can be overwhelming.
And I have to admit that doing this news website is daunting for me. I am doing this scared. Venturing into the unknown, entails a lot of what ifs. Change is uncomfortable, but it is also exciting at the same time and I cannot keep looking back
For now, we have a very lean core group. We have sir Loreto Cabanes my former editor in chief and business editor, who gladly accepted our offer to join us as editorial adviser. He is just having little difficulty walking for now, but he is okay.
We have Edu Lopez, our senior news correspondent.
We have a former DTI Secretary as a columnist. Secretary Alfredo Pascual is passionate about building an efficient supply chain ecosystem in the country by connecting all the dots and the missing links. His column is titled “Ideas in Motion.” Please look it up.
We have Eli Recide, a former editorial assistant and now our admin. We are all working on gratis.
When I’ve decided to go online, I did not know where to start. Then I remember a good friend Melvin Calimag, Atty. Melvin is the founder of Newsbytes.PH, the first technology online news in the country.
Melvin was amazed at the idea of having a website with a focus on logistics and immediately referred me to a website developer. He connected me to Vince Hermosura, who did our website and the hosting for a song. If you need a good IT guy, Vince is the guy. Not only that, Melvin also bankrolled me when my finances faltered. He said he was just happy to help. Dame ko pa utang sayo Melvs ha.
Then Melvin insisted that we must do a physical launch, kahit simple lang, kaya we are here today.
When then DTI Sec Mon Lopez, the champion of Go Negosyo and startups, confirmed he was coming, I said OMG, when former DTI Sec Pascual said he is coming over, and former IPOPHL DG Rowel Barba said they are joining I said OMG.
Secretary Ernesto Perez of Arta is here. Arta is a crucial government agency in the crafting of policies to make our logistics function efficiently. Thanks a lot po sir.
Maam Jean thanks a lot for sharing the DTI logistics plans. Am glad you are now directly handling this very important division. PCCI President Mam Nina Mangio and PhilExport President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. marame pong salamat talaga for being there as usual.
Andito din po si sir Francis Chua, the founding chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and of course Edmund Araga of the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines. Marame pong salamat.
Di ko na kayo isa isahin pa, other government officials, logistics companies and their officials, and our PR friends, and family and our friends thanks a lot, OMG talaga, marame pong salamat.
To all who helped and showed up here today, my beatmates at DTI na andito pa rin na parang mga anak ko na lang. My God, I feel so old na, marame pong salamat.
Di ko alam madame pala akong friends sa industry, kakataba ng puso. Am so grateful. Your presence here means a lot to me, to us.
As a parting shot, I would like to say that we intend to grow this website and to serve well because I cannot continue bootstrapping it myself. Thank you for your continuing support to Logisticsnews.PH.
May God bless us all.
