Back in Arbour Zena: Notes from a seminar on conflict reporting

It had been more than 20 years since I last set foot in the CMC (College of Mass Communication) at UP Diliman, where I taught Journalism 101 (introduction to journalism) in the second semester of school year 1988-89.

Among my students then: Jan Chavez, Bettina Palpalatoc, Diana Uichanco, Monina Blanco, Apollo Tenerife, Bertrand Pesayco, Abner Gener. Theirs was a lively class, not in any way due to the teacher, with lots of group dynamics, including one where the Chavez Palpalatoc group invited the late cultural worker Adul de Leon for an inspirational talk.

Chavez’s name now hyphenated with Arceo I come across occasionally in news items and releases on climate change and other cause-oriented issues. Palpalatoc had gone into PR and worked for a hotel, and is most likely based abroad, Singapore, Hong Kong, the States. Uichanco wrote for The Evening Paper, and a Google search would reveal that she also has articles in Baby magazine. Blanco is back in her native Cebu, her photo appearing in the papers showing her at a book launch or similar social gatherings. Tenerife became a reporter for ABS-CBN. Pesayco spent some time in Businessworld. Gener passed the bar and took oath as a lawyer.

Enter UP CMC class of 2011. Some graduating journ majors want material for their thesis on conflict reporting, adviser professor Rara. First to call was the tag team of Alexis and Reigh.

On a fine Saturday morning that took me away from regular coverage of the NBA games on cable TV, Alexis and Reigh visited a Mandaluyong medium-rise to conduct interview on conflict reporting, I forget now if my input was as relevant as the sun’s reflections bouncing on the almost unswimmable pool nearby.

Talk about the aborted MOA-AD, Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain that fell through in 2008, leading to the marauding band of Ameril Umbra Kato to wreak havoc on the Mindanao countryside.

Of course I told them how important it was to get the facts straight, to double check sources and get both sides of the story, basic things you learn in any respectable journ school. The reporters must be objective as possible, should know the background and history of the issue, even better consider all angles to the story. If in the field the reporter usually tags along with the government side, this doesn’t necessarily make the reports biased or one sided, because it is mandatory to also get input from the rebel side.

As for Joma Sison, there seems to be a disconnect with the armed struggle of his comrades back home. He is on Facebook but the iron curtain has long since turned into wells of radiation, sheets of global warming and depletion of the ozone layer.

The Ampatuan massacre is a conflict report in itself. Fifty-seven or 58 dead? The unaccounted for resembles the unknown soldier, with only his dentures surfacing. Even if half of the media in the ill-fated convoy were said to be haoshiao, the very gruesomeness of their end did not justify the broached explanation that they were on the take from both the Ampatuans and the Mangudadatus.

I mention the one-man group Yes 4 Peace, whose spokesman Ernie Alcanzare lambasted the way government was going about the peace process. He said some people in the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process had made a career out of it, that they really in the back of their minds don’t want the process to end because if it did then they’d be out of a job.

This rather stinging accusation I brought up a few Saturdays later at a forum panel discussion at the UP CMC under the auspices of graduating journ major Noli Ermitanio, again on conflict reporting, where among those present were representatives from the OPAPP, Milet and Riya. Not true, not true, they said, in fact they were all for peace for who doesn’t want protracted wars to stop.

They have an office in Ortigas area, Emerald Avenue, but it wouldn’t be far fetched to believe that one day, with peace seemingly achieved like a chimera, it would become a research institute with voluminous documents on MOAs and MOUs and JASIGs, and might even become part of UP.

I ask the OPAPP pair if, as the Yes 4 Peace wondered, it was sound judgment to have the JASIG list of local communists covered under care of a Dutch bishop in Europe. As in the case of Tirso Alcantara or Ka Bart, or even the grizzled red Alan Jazmines.

Was it the right or left buttock of Ka Bart that was shot, “after grappling with a gun at a checkpoint.” Was it a raid, an encounter, or plain accosting?

Who said what and why yesterday the other day last night. Riya and Milet admit even their boss the honorable Ging Deles doesn’t have a copy of that JASIG (Joint agreement on safety and immunity guarantees), but I understand why such list is indeed sensitive and must be under safekeeping of a bishop in the other side of the world. If it fell into the wrong hands, anyone not on that list would be fair game for the vigilantes.

I mentioned too that the issue becomes complicated with corruption, that old saw, how at times the military, the rebels, even the media all want a piece of the pie that what comes out in the papers is not entirely accurate. Somehow however the media’s duty is to rise above it and even if not exactly holier than thou, must be objective. Also the least we expect is good grammar, because when reporting on conflict, it helps that the copy is not messy. A wrongly placed punctuation mark might lead to misunderstanding, salvaging, rido. People have been killed for lesser reasons.

And don’t laugh, that journalist’s code of ethics posted on the hallway of CMC still rings true, perhaps even more so after all these years of cynicism, unmet deadlines, miscues. As they say, tao lang po. You’ve got to have a solid foundation to survive in this business.