Below is a speech given by Ces Oreña-Drilon during the Inkblots 2008: 10th UST National Campus Journalism Fellowship

Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat. Hello to my fellow journalists! It is a privilege and an honor to speak before the future journalism stars of the country though I’m sure you already are stars in your own right in your own campuses. I would also like to commend Inkblots 2008 for the just concluded  session on campus journalism ethics, headed by no less than Alice Villadolid. When I was just starting out as a reporter, I remember watching Alice in some of my coverages and reading her pieces with awe and admiration.

Unlike all of you I had a late start in journalism. I had no experience in campus journalism except for a brief writing stint for my high school annual where I wrote captions for some of my close friends’ graduation pictures. When I was in college at the UP Diliman, I had no idea what I wanted to pursue as a career. I was enrolled in a five-year business administration and accountancy course, which I chose because it was a quota course that may prove challenging to me and also because it sounded like it would make me rich when I complete my degree. So this should disprove the widely held belief that journalists only choose journalism because they are poor in math. But just the same, when I took my first accountancy subject, I realized it was not for me.

It was then that I ran into a good friend, who is now one of the leading lifestyle editors in the country, who told me she was shifting from economics to journalism. And in a moment of inspiration, I followed suit, choosing instead a communications research degree. I hesitated to major in broadcast communication because many friends I had taking that course were saddled with bringing so many props to school for their production work. Little did I know then that the lure of broadcasting would prove difficult to resist.

After college, I took on a job as a public relations officer in a restaurant, a field completely the reverse of journalism. Part of the job description was entertaining and writing out press releases to be delivered to lifestyle editors some of whom were complete divas, their desks piled with gifts from fashion designers, hotels and restaurants. A good friend of mine was working there and so I simply followed suit, still not knowing what I wanted to do with my life.

My father, who apparently knew me better than I did myself, then urged me to work as a trainee at the Maharlika Broadcasting System, then part of the Marcos regime’s vast information apparatus. The moment I took my first writing and newscasting test, I knew I had found what I wanted to do. It didn’t matter then that I would join the much detested strongman’s propaganda machine. While it was not a very auspicious start, I found the newsroom buzz of activity, exhilarating and challenging. I would tag along with the network’s top reporters, shadow their coverages and write copy for the editors to check .

That was 23 years ago. That was thousands of stories, four sons and two networks ago and I am still at it. If I had stuck to my BAA degree, who knows? Maybe I would be sitting on a fat bank account and counting my money. But the last two decades have given me a front seat to history, no other job would have given me that. I have been to places I would otherwise not have gone to had I chosen a different path. That, of course, includes an Abu Sayyaf camp deep in the jungle of Sulu. I have met people from the powerful corridors of government to the most downtrodden and desperate, that taking up arms is their only option.

A career in journalism also brings you up close to the ills of our society and provides you the ability to help fix what ails it. As you may have already discovered in writing for your campus paper, journalism plays a crucial role in nation building. But along with the incredible experience and opportunity to change the world that journalism provides comes great responsibility.  Side by side with reporting the news and explaining the impact of events to our audience is responsibility. And the exercise of responsibility is rewarded by journalism’s most precious commodity: credibility.

I saw this with my own eyes, as a reporter, wet behind the ears, during the People Power Revolution in 1986. From producing the most despised, least watched newscast in the country, MBS-4 was transformed to People’s Television 4, with Tina Monzon Palma and Jose Mari Velez at the helm. Ratings were off the charts.

As the most junior reporter of Information Minister Greg Cendana’s troops, I was tasked to cover the opposition in 1985. I remember covering Chino Roces walking along Paseo de Roxas pushing a grocery cart, collecting one peso coins for Cory Aquino’s campaign. I would be eyed with suspicion by the opposition then. “What? A channel 4 reporter covering us?” Because of course, my footage never landed in the news. It was a mere token coverage given the youngest reporter of the newsroom.

When our network was taken over by the likes of Tina Palma, suddenly we were imbued with credibility. It was a complete 180 degree turn and the major reason why I opted to stay on until 1989 and resisted the exodus to ABS-CBN Channel 2 when it reopened. But then again, government operatives under the Aquino administration followed the Marcos model to a certain extent and once again credibility took a nosedive.

I joined Channel 2 in the nick of time before PTV 4 was converted into the Aquino propaganda machine. I was recruited by ABS-CBN right after my very first scoop as a journalist. I had just left the Senate, which was my beat then, when I got a call from our dispatcher telling us then Colonel Gregorio Honasan was just captured.  My crew was tired and wanted to go home. We had just covered a long caucus on the Sabah claim, which the Senate had considered dropping.  But Honasan was the most wanted man then having been implicated in an attempted coup d’etat.  The Aquino government was to host its first ASEAN Summit and authorities were nervous that he might attempt another coup with all the foreign leaders on Philippine soil.

I managed to convince my crew to check out the lead and true enough, when we reached the area, soldiers were running from a townhouse where there was a meal left half-eaten on a table. Honasan was no longer there but a househelper had told me that he was found hiding under her bed. It was headline news! After all, President Corazon Aquino had just sued the publishers of the Philippine Star for writing that she hid under her bed during the coup attempt Honasan had mounted. What followed were many other stories and some exclusives that had brought me from the northernmost tip of the country to the southernmost islands of Mindanao.

One early morning in 1993 as I was rushing to a breakfast forum, I was to witness the execution of police officer Joe Pring by the ABB. My cameraman’s camera was taken at gunpoint by the sparrow unit. Last year, I was with a group of other journalists arrested after the Manila Peninsula siege where we insisted to stay on and cover until the authorities had arrested Senator Antonio Trillanes and company. It has been quite a ride in the last two decades and a half for me.

To quote our head of news, Maria Ressa,  in her message in ABS-CBN’s own standard and ethics manual: “ Journalism is a calling…You make sacrifices because you understand it’s not a job, it’s a mission.” Our manual  is our bible. It guides us in the daily split second crucial judgement calls we have to make as we cover the news. And this is why I commend your effort to come out with your own manual to help you perform your work with professionalism, integrity and excellence as we in ABS-CBN strive to do.

Recently as you know, as I was pursuing a story in Sulu, I had become the story myself. The Muslims’ quest for self-determination has been a running story I have been covering since I began my career as a journalist.

I was present when the chief government negotiator under the newly installed Aquino government, Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez, met with MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari for the first time in Sulu in 1987. In 2001, shortly after Gloria Arroyo assumed power, I had gone to Libya to cover the beginning of peace talks between the newly established Arroyo government and the MILF. 

I had gone to the camps of the MNLF and the MILF and have seen their warriors brandishing their high powered firearms. But our captors whom I believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf were of a different breed. Where I had looked for idealogy, I found none, only lust for money, their Muslim faith a mere cosmetic for their brutality and thirst for revenge.

I was ordered by my captors to inform my company that we were being held for ransom. In my first conversation with Maria Ressa before I was told to hang up, I asked: “Maria, am I fired?” On the eve of my interview, I had been told by Charie Villa, our head of newsgathering, not to proceed but rather to give my list of questions to Professor Octavio Dinampo who was our guide, along with a small video camera for him to do the interview himself. I was indignant at first. After all, I was already in Jolo. I had gone as far as writing my questions down on paper to comply with the instructions. But when the Professor knocked at the door of my room at the Sulu State Colleges Dormitory, I had gone ahead and boarded the jeep with my team.

The day of reckoning was to come in the future, I thought. Also, there were more urgent matters at hand. How could I lead my team? I knew the decisions I would make could spell life or death for us.

When we returned from our ordeal, indeed the day of reckoning came swiftly and a memo was served me to explain why I should not be sanctioned for violating our code on hostile situations, requiring me to seek the authorization of my supervisor when moving into a dangerous environment.

For me there was no doubt that I accept accountability for what I had done, for putting my crew at risk, for having strained the resources of ABS-CBN, possibly compromising the integrity and network of our news organization not to mention the anxiety and stress my colleagues had to undergo. I had to have the courage to face criticism and in some cases even scorn. 

The experience taught me the value of humility, to accept that I was wrong. For me it was the only way to reclaim my profession back, that in continuing my task of holding public officials accountable as a journalist, I too must be willing to be show that I am accountable for my own actions.

And at the same time I was humbled by the prayers said for my safety, from colleagues, family, friends AND  total strangers! When I walk around the mall I am approached by people who had prayed for me, who ask how I am and convey their sympathy. It is just so touching and enriching. I feel a greater sense of responsibility more than ever to be a better journalist, to pursue stories our viewers need to know. To be more prudent but to still have the same zeal in going after a story, to help viewers crystallize their views on issues that affect their lives. I owe this to the many, many viewers who wished for my safety. 
 
Today is a crucial time in our country’s history. There is a dearth of ethical behavior amongst our public officials. The nation’s focus shifts from one scandal to another and the latest is the millions of pesos discovered in the luggage of a top PNP official in Russia. Our task as journalists is laid out for us. But to be able to truly realize our mission well, we must also be the change we want to see. Your efforts at adopting and promoting a code of ethics is an auspicious start. If we are to be effective in our truth telling, we must be able to keep our standards high and be worthy of the trust given us by the audience we serve.

It’s been just three weeks since I went back to work and I have to admit that I was apprehensive at first,  for three months is an eternity in the broadcast industry. But as I went on my first coverage and the familiar feeling of lack of sleep came over me, there was no doubt in my mind that the passion, the curiosity and energy I had poured in my past work will never ebb.

But also in the last three months of my “vacation”, I had also come to realize that in the 24/7 news cycle that we have now, one must learn to resist being held hostage by the addiction and premium given to speed, that I can be more thoughtful in my pursuit of stories and put out stories that need more painstaking research and a more thorough understanding of their impact on the people.

It is a great challenge in a medium where a story has to be told in a minute and a half, two minutes thirty seconds, max, or when your producers demand that the story must be aired now. There's no better job than journalism, the great author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has said even as he lamented the lack of time that modern journalists have to carry out their work.
 
Going to Sulu and other hazard zones, including the risk of getting in harm’s way is all part of the job. I wouldn't wish my kidnapping experience on anyone but it has changed me both personally and professionally. I don't regret what happened to me.  I only hope I enrich myself and my commitment to journalism because of it.