Ordeals in news coverage

TIRED, thirsty, famished and most often spent!

These ordeals are what journalists worth their salt usually end up to while looking for the hard news and will not hesitate to repeat this sacrifice all over again provided they get the goods and deliver this pronto to their respective outlets. 

This happened exactly while we were waiting for the PNP to give a press conference on the update of the ambush of former Governor and former Congressman Amado Espino Jr.’s convoy of two vehicles along the road in Barangay Magtaking, San Carlos City in the afternoon of September 11.

The father and namesake of Governor Amado I Espino III and of Second District Congressman Jumel Espino miraculously escaped death with only a bullet wound on the right side of his stomach and another bullet grazing his right hand. But one of his police bodyguards and his driver were killed and another two of his companions were wounded.

How many times did we meet in a news coverage such as this in our lifetime? I asked Tito Tamayo, the veteran news hound next to me. “Amayamay la!” was his answer. But after a pause, he blurted out that this was only the first time that he and his peers were made to cramp up in a small room that offered only few seats and had to wait for long hours.  

I cringed and almost fell from my seat I shared with another veteran journalist Raul “Insiong” Tamayo of DWIZ. At least I was luckier than Eva Visperas of the Philippine Star who must have developed crumps in her legs standing for about one hour or more while waiting for the presscon to begin.

Never mind Eva’s colleague, Cesar Ramirez, who had no seat too and was always moving around taking selfies because he has stronger legs.

Already famished, Eva asked if anyone would be kind enough to buy banana cue and goaded her fellow journalists to pull a few pesos from their wallets and share with her the cost. No one answered. So, Eva’s suggestion was like a swan that died in the water.

“Ay agiii!.. Antolay agaw-gawa”, sighed Tito Tamayo in a bit of frustration over the long delay of the presscon, that was supposed to be held at 9:00 a.m. at the Pangasinan PPO in Lingayen but was transferred to the San Carlos City Police Station, some 20 kilometers away.    

P/Colonel Redrico Maranan, the Pangasinan police director, finally arrived at past 11:00 a.m. and I heard Yolly Sotelo of the PDI led in the singing of the Filipino ditty “Bakit ngayon ka lang“. Colonel Maranan must have heard this and left the room after ordering his men to re-position the table as there are some videos to be shown to the media.

Several more minutes passed and eventually the journalists were told to move to the other room, a smaller one, for the presscon. Before we can move to the other room, which was already packed, I already heard Colonel Maranan holding the presscon in the table of P/Lt. Colonel Garie Noel Pascua, chief of police of San Carlos City.        

Since I had no chance to get in front anymore as the camera and crew of a national TV were blocking the doorway, I just asked some of those in front of me to pass my recorder to Cesar who was taking photos in front.

A TV cameraman from Manila got a mouthful from me when he shoved Ate Minnie and Susan for him to get a clearer view of the one talking in front. I said, “Don’t do that. We are just equal and we are from here.” He stopped! 

We’ll this was just one of the rigors in journalism that the young ones aspiring to get into this profession will soon inevitably face as they go along their way. 

The next day, the same journalists were again invited to a follow up presscon that is to be held at the PNP Regional Office in San Fernando City. Many were already hesitant to go, not because of the sad experience they encountered the day before but because that place is already outside the areas they were assigned by their papers and stations to cover.

*                *                *                *

I am reprinting in this column, the thoughts of my good friend and tocayo Leonardo J. Galvez which he posted on his Facebook account as this is relevant to one of the burning issues today in Dagupan City—the invasion of the alien species of bangus.

We are hoping that this piece could serve as wakeup call to all to do something to love and protect our own Dagupan bangus: 

“Disturbed by the milkfish invasion from out-of-town and other sources, a proposal to ban the entry of “alien” bangus is now in the offing.

In his piece that saw print in the Sunday Punch, my tokayo Leonardo V Micua warned the public to be wary of the kind of bangus they buy in the city’s fish market admonishing them to select the real Dagupan Bonuan bangus from the pretenders.

A retired Philippine News Agency reporter, Micua is managing editor of the Punch, the weekly news leader in Pangasinan. Its publisher is Ermin F Garcia Jr who also serves as publisher and editor-in-chief.

For sometime, vendors of the famous Bonuan bangus are up in arms against out-of-town merchants who passed their produce as the “real McCoys”, when in fact they are unreal.

Riding on the popularity of Bonuan bangus, out-of-town vendors have a way of cheating the public by selling their products cheaper. It’s an apparent ploy to deceive the public, a fraudulent scheme.

While some city aldermen are poised to introduce a proposal to the city council en route to enacting an ordinance aimed at preventing the entry of out-of-town bangus, some Dagupan business personalities are opposed to it.

These are the people who can’t protect their own products because of greed.

What made the Bonuan bangus the envy of others is its taste. It doesn’t take a fish connoisseur to detect the real from the fake.

As an afterthought, the Bonuan bangus is a different kind of “animal” when it comes to taste.

According to the former and now retired principal of the Binmaley School of Fisheries (now College of Fisheries of the Pangasinan State University), the plankton partook by the Banuan bangus has vastly contributed to its uniqueness.

There are planktons in other places but those found in Dagupan City are very different from the rest.

As long as the planktons are there – and they will be there forever – Bonuan bangus remains a class by itself”.

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