Stories posted 1999

From Loren to Marimar:
The Philippine Media in the 1990s

edited by Sheila S. Coronel

Winner: National Book Award for Media (1999)

THIS COLLECTION is must reading for anyone interested in how one of the most influential sectors in philippine society operates: the media. The 35 articles in this anthology examine the structure of Philippine newspapers and television, describe Filipino forays into the World Wide Web, and probes such problems as ethics and ownership. They also trace how, in just a decade, the media in the Philippines have become as powerful as they are now. One of the things this collection explains is why media peronalities have found their way into politics and why politicians are lining up to be news anchors or talk show hosts.

Robbed: An Investigation of Corruption in Philippine Education

by Yvonne T. Chua

Winner: National Book Award for Journalism (1999)

THE DEPARTMENT of Education Culture and Sports (DECS) provides a classic case of corruption in the Philippines. Nearly all forms of corruption described in academic texts can be found in the department: from low-level bureaucratic corruption to high-level political corruption involving education officials, legislators, and Cabinet secretaries. The result is an education bureaucracy so ridden with graft that it is barely able to deliver the most basic educational services to the country’s 15 million public school students.

Boac Tragedy Aftermath

Marcopper’s first major mine waste victim continues to suffer

by Catherine Coumans

CALANCAN BAY, MARINDUQUE — In its first 20 years in the Philippines, the Marcopper Mining Corp. is estimated to have earned more than $1 billion. During the same period, the company also contributed as much as P18.5 billion to the national government’s coffers.

Read more… | Posted Friday, March 26th, 1999

Boac Tragedy Aftermath

Marinduque’s other toxic river

by Catherine Coumans

MOGPOG, MARINDUQUE — The San Antonio Mine run by the Marcopper Mining Corp. has been closed for three years now, but residents of Boac are not the only ones with a dead river to remind them of the damage the company’s managers have inflicted on them. Here in Mogpog, a coastal town that is about a 20-minute drive from Boac, the major river is also so heavily polluted with mine waste that its precarious condition is visible even to the most casual observer.

Read more… | Posted Thursday, March 25th, 1999

Boac Tragedy Aftermath

Canadian transnational dumps waste, responsibility in Marinduque

by Catherine Coumans

BOAC, MARINDUQUE — TODAY MARKS the third death anniversary of the Boac River, this town’s major water system, which residents once used as a source of food, irrigation and water for livestock. Three years ago, more than three million tons of concrete-like mine waste burst forth from a badly-sealed drainage tunnel and choked off all life in the 26-km. long Boac River. The river flooded in various locations, inundating cropland and causing people to flee their homes. Two villages were cut off entirely and had to be evacuated by helicopter. Then President Fidel Ramos declared the whole island of Marinduque—some 170 km. south of Manila—a calamity zone.

Read more… | Posted Wednesday, March 24th, 1999

Her Stories: Investigative Reports
on Filipino Women in the 1990s

edited by Cecile C.A. Balgos

Finalist: National Book Award for Journalism (1999)

THIS COLLECTION of investigative reports published in major Philippine newspapers from 1995 to 1999 chronicles the travails and triumphs of Filipino women in the last decade of the 20th century.

During this decade, the country’s first female president ended her term, more women were elected to the legislature, and several laws recognizing the rights of women were passed. At the same time, there was also a “feminization” of some of the Philippines’s most serious problems: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, and the social consequences brought about by large-scale overseas migration.

PCIJ Videos and CD-Roms

Mga Palasyo ni Erap
Basura
Graftbusters: Kontra Kurakot
Behind the Veil: Voices of Moro Women
No Time for Play
No More Sabado Nights
Toxic Sunset: On the Trail of Hazardous Waste from Subic and Clark
Luzon: Disaster and Hope (Fast Track to Poverty)
Mga Palasyo ni Erap
The Public’s Eye: Investigative Reports, 1989-1999

News in Distress:
The Southeast Asian Media in a Time of Crisis

edited by Cecile C.A. Balgos

Finalist: National Book Award for Documentation (1999)

WHILE OFFICIALS and experts are still arguing about the real causes of what is now called the “Asian crisis,” one thing seems clear: There was lack of information that would have allowed officials, businesspeople and ordinary citizens to anticipate the crisis, understand its causes, and deal with its impacts.

How such paucity of information could exist in the so-called “Information Age” points to the contradictions in Southeast Asian societies. On one hand, the booming countries of the region had opened their economies to transnational capital flows, encouraged foreign investments and embarked on an ambitious path to growth based on integration into the global economy. On the other hand, in many of these countries, long reigning leaders have tried to keep their citizens on a tight leash, restricting freedom of expression and flows of information that they think would threaten their regimes.

Stories posted 1999

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