Monitors: TV
Jailhouses don’t rock
Stories on crime and criminals need not be confined to slapping scenes at the police station. Thankfully, 24 Oras knows that. Veering away from the usual police stories, the TV program reported on Aug. 16 on the plight of inmates in the Pasig City jails.
It reported on how two prisoners died due to overcrowding in their cells. The report found out that Pasig police officials were holding more than 50 people in jails that were built for only 10 prisoners.
It used to be that prisoners could be immediately turned over to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology. Now, prisoners have to be kept in city jails until the inquest on their cases start.
24 Oras reported that some of the inmates contracted skin diseases while two became ill of pneumonia due to overcrowding.
Color blind?
Asians look different from Caucasians, right? Yet, 24 Oras confused viewers last Aug. 10 when it reported a story about a foreigner who was allegedly victimized by the Ativan Gang.
The report identified the victim as a Korean but the video showed a Caucasian. It turned out that there was indeed a Korean victim but this was before the gang pounced on the Caucasian.
Horror upon horror
Where does diligence end and insensitivity begin? In its Aug. 3 report, 24 Oras didn’t seem to know.
Reporting on the death of an eight-year-old boy who was accidentally run over by a 10-wheeler truck, the reporter interviewed another child, the victim’s older brother, for details regarding the exact place where his sibling was killed. Still another boy, the victim’s friend and companion at the time of the accident, was also interviewed. In both instances, the children were not even accompanied by an adult.
Food on the table
On July 21, 24 Oras made a special report about the successful efforts of a non-government organization, Plan International, to reduce malnutrition in Balud, Masbate, from 31 percent to 13 percent within a year through a feeding program.
It also touched on the preparedness—or the lack of it—of some provinces for increased autonomy. As pointed out by the report, Masbate has been consistently on the Top 10 list of poorest provinces in the Philippines even as it had more funds available for food before decentralization.
Don’t shake, don’t get rattled, just roll
Reporting on the death of a student after her clothes caught fire while participating in a beauty pageant, Saksi provided tips on how to avoid similar accidents.
In its July 26 report, the news showed how some garments are more combustible than others and explained the basic maneuver—the stop, drop, and roll technique—that should be done when one’s clothes catch fire.
Remonde’s reasons to believe
Newswatch quoted last July 24 government mass media group head Cerge Remonde as saying that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was not bothered by the impeachment issue and has been focusing all her energies on governance. A very important detail was not included in the report—RPN-9, which airs Newswatch, is under Remonde. Aside from being the boss of RPN-9 (and the other government-owned and sequestered stations NBN-4 and IBC-13), Remonde hosts a public affairs show in RPN-9, Cerge for Truth.
Easy CTC
The Big News on Aug. 11 highlighted the ineffectiveness of using community tax certificates (CTC) as a way of ascertaining if a person is a resident of the community. The report noted the rush of the residents of San Jose town in Nueva Ecija to acquire CTCs for fear of being accused by the local military as communist rebels. To prove that CTC is not a foolproof method of identification, a member of the ABC-5 news team tried to get a CTC in the town and got it without much difficulty.
An old, familiar but true story
The claim by Ambassador Al Francis Bichara that the Philippine embassy in Lebanon had insufficient funds for the repatriation of over 30,000 Filipino workers prompted a Senate inquiry on the use of the P8-billion Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds.
Bandila did its own investigation on the OWWA funds and found that the money was used for purposes other than meeting the needs of the overseas workers, the donors and beneficiaries of the fund. In a two-part report (Aug. 4 and 7), Bandila presented official documents showing that the OFW money was used to buy vehicles for the military and fund the Smokey Mountain housing project of former President Fidel Ramos. The project still owes P6 million to OWWA.
The documents also showed that OFW contributions for Medicare were transferred to Philhealth. In a letter to President Arroyo, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the transfer “will have a significant bearing on the 2004 elections.”
Sufficiency in substance
Legal jargon can be intimidating, especially for those without a background in law.
TV Patrol World’s Nadia Trinidad tried to bridge the gap by explaining the legal terms used in the impeachment hearings at the House of Representatives last Aug. 15. When the justice committee was about to vote on whether the impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sufficient in substance or not, Trinidad, before proceeding with her live report, explained first, in layman’s terms, what sufficiency in substance meant. An impeachment complaint, she said, is sufficient in substance if every accusation in it constitutes an impeachable offense.
What right?
A report in IBC Express Balita on Aug. 17 named an alleged female drug pusher arrested in a buy-bust operation. The suspect was made to face the camera while being interviewed by the reporter. Of course, she had no lawyer.
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