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Life as correspondent
Some Stories are Worth Dying For
by Germelina Lacorte
PJR Reports
“Noon, parang lahat na yata ng outlet sa local ay
hawak ko (I used to handle almost all local media outlets),” Julie
Alipala, the Zam-boanga-based correspondent of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer recalls the years 1998 to 2002 when she used to write
for Zamboanga Times and Zamboanga Today, work as
a talent reporter for Zamboanga-based television IBC-1, and Radyo Ukay
on top of her being a correspondent for Inquirer, a television
talent reporter for IBC-13, and a stringer for Newsbreak magazine.
How she juggled her time to accommodate the demands of six media outlets
is anybody’s
guess. But Alipala, who decided to stop working for the three other media outlets
in 2003 to spend more time with her child she’s raising alone, gives us
a picture of how it is to work as a correspondent in the provinces today.
At the time when most of the journalist killings in the country are taking place
in the provinces, correspondents are not only facing bullets. They also
have to cope with the starvation pay they are getting from their publishers that
can barely keep their body and soul together.
Unlike regular reporters, most correspondents are paid only for every story that
gets printed, and whether or not the story they wrote will make it to the paper
is just a matter of luck, says Jeffrey Tupas, another Inquirer correspondent
based in Davao. Inquirer pays P60 per column inch on top of a
P1,500 transportation allowance if a correspondent reaches the monthly production
quota of 50 column inches.
Some correspondents however, are under retainer, regularly receiving P5,000 a
month and insurance for out-of-town coverage.
Since they cannot rely on the pay that they are getting, most correspondents
however double as radio broadcasters, reporters for local papers, journalism
instructors, ghostwriters, and PR people.
“You look for other sources, mang racket ka,” says Tupas. “In
other words, you become a slave.”
So, it’s no wonder that for Alipala, who has been covering the conflicts
in Sulu and Basilan for more than 15 years, her most traumatic experience did
not come from covering the war at all.
“It came from seeing my story on the page, merged with those of other reporters,
butchered and totally unrecognizable, and the vital details missing,” she
says.
Sometimes, she said, she only sees her name in the tagline, with all the facts
that she had patiently gathered taken out.
She recalls a story she wrote in February 2005 in Panamao about a former Moro
National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebel turned regular soldier.
“It was basically butchered into three paragraphs,” she says.
Luckily, the story “My Father is my Enemy,” appeared later in Newsbreak.
It was about a former Moro rebel integrated into the armed forces, whose father
was still with MNLF troops loyal to Nur Misuari.
“Sometimes, you think the story is so big, but then it doesn’t
come out. It’s never used at all,” says Tupas. “But there are
times when you write a story that you think is so small—a simple crime
story, for instance—and it comes out. You can never really guess what’s
in the minds of the people in Manila.”
Even the stories editors assign to him are not guaranteed of publication. “How
much more with unassigned stories?” asks Tupas, recalling the time when
he has been driven to despair. “So, it’s really frustrating.”
The worst happens when a correspondent is working for a national newspaper,
and relying on his own resources to get the stories, only to end up not getting
paid.
Carmelito Francisco, managing editor of the Mindanao Times, and who
also writes for Business World, says this happened to him in 1997 to
1998, when he was writing for another Manila paper (not BusinessWorld)
which never paid him for the stories they published.
Given the demands of the job—correspondents work around the clock because
the newsworthy events happen anytime of the day, whether they’re taking
a rest or a holiday— the situation becomes doubly oppressive when you’re
not paid well, complains Tupas.
“You’re the one running after the news, because the news can’t
wait for you,” he says, “That, in itself, is already hard enough,
what makes it even harder is when you’re not paid well, or not at all.”
Tupas was still a development communication student at the University of Southern
Mindanao (USM) in Kabacan, Cotabato when former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada,
at the height of his power in 2000, campaigned for an advertising boycott of the Inquirer.
The Development Communication Society of USM, led by Tupas, came out with a t-shirt,
saying that its members would work for the Inquirer if it survived the
boycott.
Well, the newspaper survived, and Tupas eventually found himself working there
in 2002. He said that Estrada’s boycott campaign was the beginning
of his awareness of the crisis faced by media.
But his work as a correspondent made him see another side of the crisis. This
time it’s his stories being cut on days when the newspaper is teeming with
ads.
Tupas thinks he’s lucky he has an additional paying job, working for an
environmentalist group, to add to what he’s getting as a correspondent.
“If I depended solely on reporting, I would starve,” he says.
Joel Escovilla, an associate editor of the Davao newspaper Mindanao
Times, agrees. He is still relatively new as a correspondent of the latest
national newspaper he is working for and is not yet comfortable mentioning its
name. He admits, though, that his pay for any one paper (whether it’s local
or national), is never enough, and he has to moonlight for other writing
jobs, and sometimes work as a journalism instructor.
But he says that because he has other jobs aside from being a correspondent,
he doesn’t really feel the pressure the way correspondents who depend on
it for a living do.
“My situation is different,” he says. “For me, it’s only
an ‘aside,’ a kind of bonus, additional pay, so, I really don’t
feel the difficulty, whether my stories will come out or not.”
Which leads Alipala to ask, what will happen to the national papers when all
correspondents all over the country decide to stop writing for a day or two?
She observes that, owing perhaps to the choices they’re making, the difficulties
they encounter when they’re out there in the field, the richness of culture
in the provinces (or is it their identification with the sufferings of their
people?), correspondents often have a different way of presenting their stories.
Tupas explains that because of the stiff competition, a correspondent has to
go out where the story is, study more closely what’s happening to the people
he covers, and write it the best way he or she can just to get the attention
of his editors.
This drive to get the story right and fast enough often puts the correspondents’ lives
in danger, when they unwittingly step into the firing line between two parties
in conflict, or earn some-body’s ire because of their stories that see
print.
Alipala was banned from military coverage in Basilan after she reported on the
military abuses and the lapses of the military operation in Basilan’s Ungkaya
Pukan town on Aug. 18 last year, where 15 Marines died in the hands of the Abu
Sayyaf.
Tupas was alarmed to see his name on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)
website, after his story, “When the military gets in the way to people’s
health,” appeared on the pages of Inquirer.
He admitted, though, that the story had failed to get the side of the military. “What
was frightening was when the military started asking around, trying to brand
me a leftist,” he said.
But instead of being intimidated, Tupas said it made him reflect on the reasons
why he kept on writing stories in the first place. “Why do I cling
to a job that offers no security and is not even paying me well?” he asks—and
answers his own question: “Somehow, it has given me a sense of fulfillment.
I want people to know what’s happening here, that there is injustice, and
that’s what I am writing about.”
For Alipala, the danger that comes with the territory could never be a reason
for her to quit her job. “I love my child so much, and I want to
leave him a legacy, as my father did for me,” she says.
As a journalist, Tupas says that he doesn’t believe that there’s
no story worth his life. “If there is no story worth dying for, we
might as well stop writing as journalists because it defeats journalism’s
purpose.”
Tupas insists that there are times when journalists have to take risks
just to get and write a story. He said this is true when covering stories
of people who are being threatened or are subjected to abuses and injustice.
Writing about them often puts a journalist’s life at risk.
For Alipala, a story is not worth dying for if it applies only to journalists
who parachute into the area to cover a war without understanding the breadth
and depth of the conflict.
But what happened in Maimbung, Sulu, where soldiers are now being investigated
over the death of two children and a woman four months pregnant over what was
initially reported as a clash between government troops and the Abu Sayyaf Group in
Sulu, is quite another case.
Alipala says she doesn’t buy the soldiers’ claim that the woman
they killed was an Abu Sayyaf member—and she has to write the story according
to her conscience.
“Will you just allow the AFP and other reporters to declare it as a firefight,
when two children and a woman four months pregnant were killed, and they insist
they were Abu Sayyaf?” asks Alipala.
When it means putting things into perspective, saving the lives of people displaced
by senseless wars, or correcting injustice, a story is, after all, worth putting
your life on the line, she says. “These are stories worth dying for.”
- Germelina Lacorte is a correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and
associate editor of Davao Today. She is also the secretary-general of
NUJP’s Davao Chapter.
Posted on April 9,2008