The media and the elections
by Tita C. Valderama
WHEN media groups started going about the grim task of compiling a list of journalists killed in the November 23, 2009 massacre in Maguindanao, there was a brief moment when the numbers wouldn’t add up.
While it was clear that many of the victims worked for local newspapers and radio stations, some of the victims held positions that did not seem to be connected to journalism.
Sidebar
by Tita C. Valderama
AT 20, Joana will be casting her vote for the first time this Monday. But her excitement has been heightened by the fact that she will also be covering the elections.
Joana has been a journalist for barely a year. Yet while she is looking forward to the polls as a young reporter and a first-time voter, her eagerness has somehow been dampened by widespread skepticism over the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) ability to handle the country’s first nationwide automated elections.
by Rowena C. Paraan
MA. THERESA Briones thinks it’s bad enough that her father had to spend five years in jail – including two years with hardened criminals – because something he wrote offended someone. But now five libel cases are again hovering over her father’s head, and 22-year-old Theresa can’t help but cry.
Read more…
| Posted Thursday, September 17th, 2009
INVESTIGATIVE reports on governance and corruption won major prizes in the 20th Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) held today at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati.
PCIJ fellow Roel Landingin’s three-part series on official development assistance (ODA) published on February 11-14, 2008 in the The Philippine Star, Malaya, Manila Times and Sun.Star Cebu, was named best in investigative and explanatory reporting.
Burma before and after Nargis
by Tita C. Valderama
IT IS Southeast Asia’s largest country in terms of land area, yet there is reason why Burma is unfamiliar to many people, even within the region.
For one, it has been isolated for the last few decades as a result of both Burmese and international actions. For another, press freedom is unknown in Burma, which means accurate and up-to-date information is hard to find — and report — even within the country itself.
First Person: August 21, 1983
by Joel C. Paredes
WE DIDN’T even hear the shots. Someone had to tell us about the gunshots outside, and then I saw Doña Aurora Aquino stand up and start praying. Roberto Coloma of Agence France Presse, meanwhile, quickly grabbed the nearest phone and began breaking the news to the world.
A few minutes later, foreign TV correspondent Ken Kashiwahara managed to slip into the airport VIP lounge, which was by then packed with people. As he slumped into a couch, he cried, ”Ninoy was shot! Ninoy was shot!”
Crossborder
by Joseph Israel M. Laban
DILI, EAST TIMOR — What has been described as East Timor’s leading independent daily operates out of four small rooms and has a budget that threatens to disappear altogether every day.
‘It’s not just the leadership that must change. The people, too, must change’
AFTER TWO people power revolutions where her publications played a role in removing disgraced presidents, Eugenia ‘Eggie’ Apostol retains an optimism that can only come from one who has scaled the mountains and sees the larger view.
“It’s not just the leadership that must change,” she says. “The people, too, must change.”
by Vinia M. Datinguinoo
BATANGAS GOVERNOR Armando Sanchez says journalist Mei Magsino-Lubis is “lying through her teeth when she says she is in hiding.” He also says “the only time there were PNP personnel looking for her” was when she was still the subject of an arrest operation covered by “a valid arrest warrant” regarding the oral defamation case he had filed against the Inquirer correspondent.
Journalist at risk
by Vinia M. Datinguinoo
MELINDA ‘MEI’ Magsino-Lubis yearns for many things: her flower and herb garden, the sound of her husband’s voice, the kingfisher and maya birds that used to wake her up in the morning. All these she used to enjoy in her five-hectare mahogany farm on top of a hill, in the city of Batangas, around 84 km. south of Manila.
