On a Thursday afternoon, just after the lunchtime rush, a pack of motorcycles pulled into a narrow alleyway in a Metro Manila city. Their riders parked their bikes in front of a makeshift rest area. The space resembled a typical “tambayan.” Equipped with a wall fan, and a water and a charging station, it was...
There’s the disputed Ayungin Shoal 105 nautical miles west of Palawan, and there’s the endemic freshwater fish called “ayungin,” which is now the size of a fisherman’s palm. But size shouldn’t matter, with both the large reef and the small fry facing the threat of one day being lost to the Philippines. Ayungin the fish...
Television journalist Atom Araullo and his lawyers said his landmark legal victory against Red-tagging can be used by other journalists and activists similarly victimized to thwart this dangerous labelling that opens them to various forms of harassment and intimidation. Araullo, 41, a multiawarded documentarist, won a P2-million civil lawsuit for damages against ex-anticommunist task force...
Deep in the south of Egypt a young woman once told me, “Being a journalist at a local newspaper has given me the opportunity to discover and assert who I am. What my community is and what it needs. Not be told who we are and are supposed to be.” As we near World News...
A record number of newsrooms have signed up for World News Day 2024, recognizing the positive influence of journalism the world over. More than 600 newsrooms and media associations across all continents join to bring awareness to the purpose of journalism, a trade that is under constant attack. It’s a day to pause; and reflect...
Journalism has long been, first and foremost, a calling to seek and report the truth. “Truth should be their idol, their first and last consideration always,” stated an 1853 article titled “Truth in Journalism,” published in Scientific American Magazine. “Seek truth and report it,” states the first ethic of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code...
(Editor’s note: CoverStory.ph is uploading a series of articles in support of 2024 World News Day, a collective action of hundreds of people, news organizations and associations from more than 100 countries, aimed at improving understanding of news media’s central role in modern societies. Conceived by David Walmsley, the Globe and Mail’s editor-in-chief, the campaign...
The latest tropical depression had already exited the Philippine area of responsibility, but the rain persisted. In the morning, the weather bureau put out a thunderstorm advisory for Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon, and sure enough, it poured hard all afternoon before the skies gradually lightened on that evening of Sept. 21, the...
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to move the national commemoration of the murder of the late former senator Benigno “Ninoy’’ Aquino Jr. from Aug. 21 to Aug. 23 continues to be met with protest. Aquino, a key opposition leader who fought the dictatorial rule of the President’s late father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., was assassinated while...
Rica Torres, 37, used to take a Grab car almost every day to take her six-year-old son to and from school. The app-based service was more convenient than riding a jeepney, a tricycle, and crossing an overpass. “I don’t want my son to go through all those because it saps his energy or sours his...
