Investigating Terrorism

Ms. Ressa's first book, Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda's Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia

Maria Ressa works for Cable News Network (CNN) as the Jakarta Bureau Chief.

Abu Sayaff Group as part of the Al-Qaeda




Second airplane about to struck WTC








Man free fall at WTC












Osama bin Laden leader of Al-Qaeda Network

Documentaries: Comprehensive Reporting

Today is the fifth anniversary of the most remarkable attack of terrorism that has ever happened in the history of the United States of America.

Two airplanes struck the Twin Tower World Trade Center in New York. Thousands of people died that morning and the world was in a great terror. The head of this attack was known as Osama bin Laden, leader of the Middle East terrorism group called Al-Qaeda Network.

All of the news in every channel of the television today includes the recall of that attack. What fascinates me most was the documentary done by Maria Ressa, which was first aired last night at ABS-CBN Channel 2. It was entitled “9/11 The Philippine Connection”.

I think when it comes to delivering comprehensive information, documentaries like this stand out. There is no other form of media that could compete to this when it comes to credible reporting, the fact that Maria Ressa is a highly renowned media personnel and a member of one of the most powerful media network in the Philippines.

Multimediality was clearly presented by Ressa. She has presented some parts of the story in chronological order. She talked about leaders of the Al-Qaeda Network and other alliance, Philippines as training ground of the terrorists, and other facts proving that the Philippines has become a haven for these groups. Gradually, Maria Ressa has established the connection of the Philippines to the 9/11 attack.

One of the advantages was that the medium was free media that everybody and anybody who has television could access the information. Another was that this documentary offers stimulating, revealing, confidential images with audio. This includes exclusive interviews, classified footages and top-secret information.

The internet contains so much trash while the newspaper could not deliver as much or as unsparing as the television. But in documentaries such as this, the audiences are assured that information are carefully gathered, screened and edited. This results to a highly comprehensive and responsible reporting.

Birth and Death "Not in my life will I see the death of the newspaper" - Fernandez

Rolando Fernandez, Bureau Chief Nothern Luzon, had a discussion about Online Journalism in Journalism 113 class under Mr. Amer Amor at around 3:00 in the afternoon, today. The talk was held at the University of the Philippines, room IB 204, which was attended by some fourth year Bachelor of Art and Communication students.

Fernandez began by admitting to the class that he was not the right person to talk about the topic, for he was the last person to use the computer when it was first introduced in their workplace. He said also said that when he was much younger he restrained himself with the technology, but eventually saw the great help of it.

In this sense, he did acknowledge the capability of blogging, a trend in the Internet, as a form of journalism because any blogger can reach a lot of readers or can easily be a publisher with less expense. “It is a form of journalism and it has a bright future,” he commented. He also said that sometimes it has so much to offer that the competition may not be a matter anymore. It is a new born alternative in journalism.

Fernandez was optimistic and a realist at the same time. He has fears that soon the new technology, like blogging, may defeat the role and functions of journalism. However, he contradicted this by saying that bloggers are prone to plagiarism. He thinks that every journalist should be concerned with the legal issues. If not go back to basic, this is accuracy, nothing more. This way the journalists with training will dominate with credibilty, compared to those who had none at all. And this way the role of the editor, which is to verify and confirm all information from different sources, will not die too.

Ten years ago, he said, he had heard rumors about the death of newspaper due to technological advancement but he never believed it. In the end, according to him, no matter where the economy and technology leads us, ethics must go first before skill in any form of journalism.

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Who is to blame? Who must pay!?!

Oil spill in Guimaras Island is all over the news for more than two weeks now. Everybody is talking of the severe damage it has caused the environment. And people are confused of who is to blame and who must pay to this disaster caused by lousiness and recklessness.

Facts from the ABS-CBN Interactive said that the Solar I sank in rough seas off Guimaras island and spilt over 50,000 gallons of bunker oil. It has contaminated some 220 kilometers of coastline, destroyed 454 hectares of mangroves and 58 hectares of seaweed farms. Greenpeace said the tanker is an ecological "ticking time bomb" as it continued to sit in 3,000 feet (900 meters) of water with 450,000 gallons of oil still inside.

In the history of Petron, it used to have several oil tankers for traveling purposes when it was still a government owned corporation. But when it was privatized, these tankers were sold and most of it is the new ones. Now Petron hires ships like Solar I to be able to do business.

Petron Corporation is saying that they have no obligation to shoulder the cost of cleaning up the massive oil slick from a sunken tanker. Petron is actually pointing its fingers on the shipping line that traveled the oil.

In Liwanagin Natin, a commentary show by Totoy Talastas at Net25, Talastas said that probably we must look at how responsible Petron was before the oils spill happened. Were they able to check the proper procedures of the shipping line according to the regulations affecting their business? How come that they let a captain with expired license and inexperienced personnel to travel their oil?

In the end, we should not say that we have to stop finding someone to blame because there is someone who is liable, someone who must pay all this enormous damages to our environment. Cleaning up will not end the problem; it is not like any other mess. It will take years to rehabilitate the affected marine sanctuaries, mangrove areas, reefs and coastal ecosystems. We must never tolerate lousyness and reckless for we may never know what effect shall it offer.

Let's be critical about this

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo 2006 State of the Nation was definitely delightful and exciting.

The creation of five “super regions” to spur economic development in the Philippines is one ambitious plan. The idea of making food affordable, wages competitive, electricity rates lower, and infrastructure modern and less costly provides sense of hope and expectations to every Filipino. But being optimistic and believing in this kind of promised program is being passive and flaccid as well. We have to be more critical.

Building infrastructure such as airports, roads, and ports allover the country, including tourism facilities are expected to be finished in only 4 years – by the year 2010, end of President Arroyo’s term. With this an estimated budget for the program is a humongous P 1 trillion. So where do get the fund, probably from the expanded value-added tax and other sources. However, we have to hark back that the plan was all good but no matter how beautiful is it people would not want any other additional taxes in any form.

On the other hand, fund is not the only priority to be considered. Cooperation and the ability to push this extravagant project have to be measured as well. The government could not terminate corruption and anomaly within its vicinity, then how much more in a larger scale.

Who would not want this kind of project for the country? Probably, we all liked it. Yet, we have to prepare and take the risk at the same time.

A Marketable News Program

Three of the most reputable veteran broadcasters consist the new late night news program in ABS-CBN called Bandila. They are Ces Orena-Drillon, Henry Omaga Dias, and Korina Sanchez. Having these three highly regarded people in broadcasting is a manner in which to make the news program more credible.

Compared to the news program in GMA7 like 24 Oras by Mel Tiangco and Mike Enriquez and Saksi by Arnold Clavio and Vicki Moralez, Bandila has modified the concept of man and woman partnership in news reporting in Philippine television. By creating a group of three people in one program Bandila may have reinforced reliability, integrity and authority.

Another point in this manner of making a news program more credible is the way these reporters deliver news. Again, as compared to other news program Bandila is composed of no other reporters but the anchors themselves. The anchors reports and delivers the news as it is with no regards to the researchers or information gatherers. This may imply that all the legwork to make the news was done by the anchors themselves.

Patriotism is portrayed in Bandila by displaying a symbol of the Philippine flag at the beginning, during and ending of the program. Loyalty, devotion and love for the country wraps up the system and completes the requirement of making this news program marketable compared to others.