What voices don’t tell, the images reveal

(Editor’s Note: While Bibsy Carballo is on her month-long annual vacation abroad, representatives from the three networks will alternate in writing Live Feed: Butch Raquel for Kapuso, Peachy Guioguio for Kapatid and Kane Choa for Kapamilya. Every now and then, Bibsy will e-mail a story from wherever in Europe she is.)

There was no host, not even a voice over… only the piercing image of hunger, depicted by half-naked children taking a bite or two of what was to be their only meal for that day. Reel Time’s Salat (Bone Dry) opened with a montage of this reality, stating that one child dies every 15 seconds out of hunger.

The documentary — which first aired on GMA News TV on July 29, 2012 — focused on Mary Rose, a child of 10 whose height fits only that of a five-year-old and weighing only 15.5 kilos. With only her mother, who relies on P40 a day from peeling garlic, rearing a brood of six, instant noodles became their family’s staple food. At times, nights were made longer by the simultaneous rumbling of their stomachs due to dinners they never had.

Mary Rose was crying because she had to borrow soap from their neighbors just so she could take a bath and go to school. Out of poverty, her mother chose to buy food instead of soap. Driven by her dream to one day get out of the miserable life they lead, Mary Rose diligently attends school where, without meaning to, she falls asleep, due to hunger.

Sad as it is, this documented reality is just one of the many representations of the National Nutrition Council’s findings that two out of 10 children who study in the NCR are undernourished and that one of the primary reasons of malnutrition is the parents’ negligence/carelessness.

Salat exposed the harsh truth about malnutrition in children through an immersion in the life of Mary Rose’s family — night and day, how they fend for food, how their mother strives to make ends meet.

So distinct was the documentary that the world’s oldest and most prestigious award for electronic media, the University of Georgia’s George Foster Peabody Award declared Salat one of its few chosen recipients for this year.

Peabody as broadcast & electronic media’s Oscars

Now running on its 72nd year, the Peabody Awards is widely regarded as the Oscars for the broadcast and electronic media determined only by a single criterion — excellence. From more than a thousand entries the award-giving body receives each year, the Peabody Board selects not more than 40 awardees.

As Horace Newcomb, director of Peabody Awards, puts it in the Peabody Awards website, “This award truly respects the role of mass media in contemporary society. This does not mean that we who administer, select and present the awards celebrate all, or even most, of what is produced. On the contrary, the very small number of Peabodys presented each year recognizes only the very best of the best…These awards exist because people working in the media industries are capable of excellence, because they achieve excellence, and because they should be recognized for that effort. Their work — and the Peabody Award — stand as model and measures for their peers and for those people who will follow them.”

The Peabody described Salat as an “unflinching portrait of a widow with six mouths to feed personifies a brutal statistic: Two out of 10 Filipino children are malnourished.”

Three for GMA, three for the country

Over the years, it was not just Salat that called the attention of the selective Peabody Awards. It is, in fact, the third Peabody the Philippines has won — all three for work produced by the country’s most awarded broadcast news organization, GMA News and Public Affairs.

In 1999, GMA scored its first George Foster Peabody Award for Investigative Reporting, a compilation of reports that aimed to expose different social problems confronting the Philippines. 

Included in the reports were Kidneys for Sale by Jessica Soho, widely-regarded as the country’s most awarded broadcast journalist, for GMA’s flagship documentary program I-Witness; Buhay Kamao again by Soho; and Jay Taruc’s story on child labor for the now-defunct news magazine program Brigada Siete.

Kidneys for Sale uncovered the bitter struggle of unemployed men in Tondo who sold their kidneys in exchange for a sum of money only to regret their decision in the end because of the repercussions they are forced to face — both physical and emotional.

In Buhay Kamao, the viewers were introduced to the world beyond the boxing ring  inside the exploitative and corrupt realm of the local boxing industry.

On Taruc’s report on child labor, the Peabody, in its website, cited, “In perhaps its most courageous investigation, GMA investigators exposed the plight of child workers in a three-part series shown on the news magazine Brigada Siete. The story documented how children in the provinces were deceived by shrewd recruiters and were lured into forced labor conditions in the city. In unforgettable images, the reports illustrated how GMA initiated the rescue of the imprisoned young workers and facilitated their return to their families.”

A decade later, 2009, Kara David’s documentary Ambulansiyang de Paa (Ambulance on Foot) earned for the country and the Kapuso network its second Peabody Award. In her story, David bared the alarming lack of medical facilities and health care in the village of Bansud in Oriental Mindoro.

In an attempt to rescue Lowen, a teenager infected with tuberculosis, David witnessed the complicated effort of the villagers to bring Lowen to the nearest medical facility, which meant a number of hours trek from Bansud. Transporting Lowen could never be more tricky as the villagers had to resort to a hammock slung from a bamboo pole carried by two men — their makeshift ambulance or “ambulansiyang de paa” (ambulance on foot) as they call it.

Beyond documentary filmmaking

The documentary filmmakers behind these Peabody award-winning stories never expected such recognition. These awards came as an extra, a welcome commendation, because behind each story is the sole purpose to inform the viewing public about realities of life that urgently needed telling.

Social as well as political problems abound in the Philippines and not so many people are keen on exploring them, going to the root cause, witnessing the cruel truth behind the lenses of the cameras, and divulging them. And those few who opt to follow a story after another, documenting as much as they could, in the hopes that one day, people will come to realize that they must do something about it.

“There are many other malnourished children like Mary Rose who need government attention. This award encourages us as documentary filmmakers to do a better job in telling these important stories,” said Reel Time program manager Nowell Cuanang, who also directed I-Witness’ Ambulansiyang de Paa.

There is not a sound so sharp than that of reality’s. For with or without a voice over, with or without anyone to tell the story, reality will always speak louder most especially when it cries for that so-desired social change.