An acquaintance of mine told me recently after I had talked
lengthily about my Senior Editor position at PEP, “You must really love your
job, huh?”

I responded candidly by saying, “Life would be perfect if we
had 48-hour days.”

I guess that’s how anyone would feel if their job loved them
back. =) On the first anniversary of Philippine Entertainment Portal, it would
be nice to reminisce about the humble beginnings of www.pep.ph

On 9/11, I officially joined the PEP team but were just
working on a simple fuschia-colored site with the URL yesmagazine.com.ph

It just had Breaking News, Photo Galleries, and the Forums.
We were a young team—most of us were just starting in the entertainment beat.
There were two editors, three staff writers, an editorial assistant, and a
photographer manning the site.

By November 15, the soft launch of PEP’s beta site took
place. New sections were added such as my section, the Entertainment Guide,
Celebrity Life, Views, and Videos. It was an overwhelming task to fill up all
of the sections of the site. I was assigned to handle the five subsections of
the e-guide, namely, Television, Movies, Indie, Music and Theater. Our workload
grew and so did the team.

There are now four editors, a community editor, two staff
writers, an editorial assistant, a web designer, and a photographer. We’re also
accommodating stories from contributors and videos from TV networks.

It’s been a year since our company embarked on this
experiment—and we’re looking forward to the challenges ahead as we continue our
work as the online home of YES! Magazine.

Click here to recall PEP’s firsts, facts, and feats.