By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, August 31 (PNA)
–How much do you know of the Davao
Press?
I am pretty sure only a few
can claim of a surgical knowledge of its anatomy way back the postwar era.
As a joiner of the thankless
profession of journalism in this city in August, l960 I have some insight of
the Davao Press as a community of print, radio and television practitioners
since that decade until this last quarter of 2008.
At first, the local press
body was only composed of a handful of print and broadcast journalists, so to
speak. It was tamer and dignified.
Later, a year before the
imposition of martial law via the declaration of Presidential Decree l08l by
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos on September 2l, l972, the good image of the Davao
press as an institution of high professionalism started to wane and somewhat
tarnished by the misdeeds and abuses of unscrupulous individuals pretending as
bonafide members of the fourth estate.
Thus, on December 6, 1970, in
a rare day-long journalism forum hosted by the United States Information
Service (USIS)-Davao Director James Mack
and presided by Crispin Maslog of the UP-Los Banos Mass Communcation Center,
Cesar R. Nunez, editor of the Mindanao
Times and considered dean among local scribes, observed: “If our calling were a medical profession, it is now
invaded by quack doctors.”
What was directed at that
indictment were the mushrooming of fly-by-night tabloids whose main purpose
were to rake in quick money, most often disregarding journalistic ethics.
That also somewhat sideswiped
other individuals who came into the fold
like passengers going nowhere at bus terminals. Failing in their
original non-journalistic endeavors, those people were underwriters, real
estate brokers, teachers, war veterans and other callings. Some of them stuck
and became successful like publisher
Jose M. Santes, a former insurance underwriter and survivor in the Death March.
Despite, the invasion of a few pseudo journalists in the
local press business cum vocation, such
a community of fourth estaters remained the toast of the town. A power to reckon with, especially to the
politicians and scalawags in public office.
Others viewed the then Davao Press of the seventies as a monster which
was in truth and in fact a mere paper tiger. There were only a few editors and
reporters who could write well and pass with flying colors through the blue
pencil.
Due to stiff competition in
the l980s as community tabloids proliferated, some publishers or editors
practised the so-called “ibot-bot” system in shortcutting the publication of
legal notices. With that form of
cheating, a legal notice which
requires a run of three consecutive weekly issues can be done in one setting in a day only by just pulling out slug dates for replacent
of succeeding ones. Of course, all the interested parties benefit something in
the nefarious transaction.
Along with that evil
practice, some broadcasters, especially powerful anchoremen and commentators of
popular radio programs were accused of bleeding their targets or patrons under
siege through the methodology of attack
and collect; defend and collect (ACDC).
During the presidential and
senatorial election campaign in l992, there was a new kind of pests in press
bush jackets who hoodwinked their victims even deep in the night. No less than
Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Juan Flavier were knocked at their hotel rooms
to pay cash money for alleged radio time in the wee hours of the morning. Other
similar marauding groups posing as media
pool teams also maneuvered as coercively
with the first group in asking for
certain amount allegedly intended
for election campaign mileage.
And just recently, a naďve
and neophyte politician from one of the municipalities of Metro Manila came by
here to make a pulsation trip for his presidential ambition in 20l0 got hooked
by a remaining operator of “Media Fools, Inc.”. The scoundrel who posed
as a media leader succeeded in fleecing a
large sum of money for the press conference he allegedly arranged for the 20l0
presidential hopeful.
The guy, committing another misdemeanor, was impressing every legitimate media person
who came in for the press interview by directing the waiters to attend to their
orders.
But, as soon as the press
conference had started, Mr. Arranger
vanished into thin air.
In the following morning,
three waiters were facing dismissal due
to the unpaid chits .
One achoreman of a local
radio station lambasted the last of the l980 scalawags but the culprit could no
longer be found in his three and four-star hotel hangouts.
The rogue bears the initials “E.K”.
E.K. maybe dumb on the
intricacies of journalism. But
certainly, he is smart, glib-tongue and
imposing with his built.
Against the negative
backdrop, the Davao Press can take pride
of
its sunny side both in the
past and the present.
Readers, especially the Davao
elites and businessmen and the academe will never forget the editorials and
columns churned out by Jose Ledesma (Mindanao Pioneer), Romeo R. Torres
(Mindanao Mirror) and Angelo M. Abarico
(Mindanao Mail) during their lifetime.
The outstanding feats of Photojournalist Aurelio
A. Pena and Carol Arguillas in in-depth Mindanao reportage for the
international press and Manila, respectively, gave honor to the local press
toward the New Millenium.
Among the broadcast media
persons who honed their skills in Davao and later made good in Metro Manila
television are Jay Sonza, Aljo Bendijo
and Alex Santos.
And lately, lawyer Jesus
Dureza, one of the most successful among Davao mediamen
who catapulted to politics and public service,
is now Press Secretary of
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Dureza, a son of a bus driver
from Hagonoy, Davao del Sur, was a working law student at the Mindanao Times in
the seventies.
The Davao Press maybe stained
and rocked by some rascals and illegitimate members once in a while, but it is
trusted to remain steadfast in its solid
foundation to the end of time, courtesy of the genuine, devoted and honest
practitioners worth their salt. (PNA)SPA
Fighting diabetes is not fun (Health Feature)
By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, August 20 (PNA) –
Fighting diabetes is not fun.
With
diabetes mellitus or diabetes 2 which is common in adults is a gnawing, annoying and horrible voyage in
the sea of human existence.
I am
saying this out of my own experience as
diabetes mellitus sufferer in the past 48 years. Unknowingly, perhaps the
affliction must have commenced from birth.
Yes, I must have been a certified diabetic
under Category 2 of the malady of many
peoples in the globe after discovering
of an apparently rat bite in one of my toes in the right foot in the late l960s, a few months after my
arrival in Davao City from my home province Bohol. I had it examined in the old
Davao Provincial Hospital, now site of the regional mental hospital along J. P.
Laurel avenue, this city.
After
that first visit of a hospital, I forgot all about that rodent attack (due
perhaps to the attraction of the
“sweetness and odor” of a toe of a person with high fasting blood
sugar).
If
somebody ever mentioned about a disease called diabetes mellitus in those days
that I wouldn’t be interested anyway to absorb its meaning and implications to
one’s health.
A
seeming raging bull at 24, I never doubt
of the soundness and durability of my mental and physical condition then. Thus,
I continued a carefree lifestyle topped by overeating, drinking and spiced by
smoking smuggled Union blue seals traded through the backdoor of Mindanao. Gone
with the old days of lesser brands like Sports!
In
mid-l969, Pablo Zerrudo, who operated a drugstore and a neophyte joiner of the
Davao Press where I belong until now, had noticed something in me in relation to
diabetes. He cited the disease with
emphasis on symptoms and implications to one’s health if unattended early.
Quite convinced, I agreed to go back to a hospital for the
disease. He accompanied me with concerned to the Davao Medical Center.
The
initial finding was positive to diabetes 2. But still the meaning of an
impending disaster of the killer disease did not sink to my mind convincingly. Why should I worry about
diabetes—what’s this animal all about—when I am strong as a molave tree and
outwardly in the pink of health over beer or Johnny Black and cold cuts,
sashimi cum deep-fried pork bulaklak and stewed yellow fin tuna entrails? In
those times, such bravado of mine was both naďvely and supidly correct.
In
l983, after a tiresome conference in the PNA central office in Intramuros,
Manila, I was one of a group of provincial PNAers who went beerhouse-hopping
and ended up in an Escolta barbershop cum massage joint courtesy of PNA Central
Deskman Emmanuel Pinol, who turned politician in the l990s and now incumbent
vice governor of North Cotabato. But upon returning to my base in Davao
City I noticed some blisters in my left
wrist. The panic in me mistook the
watery rushes as among sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs). But we only had some massage—and nothing more!
Nurturing
negative thoughts, I took some antibiotic pills like Pentids and the like. Out
of shame that I was already an STD virus carrier I burrowed into silence and
adopted self-medication.
When
another friend, who had also a better understanding of the effects of diabetes
in adults, recited to me the don’ts in fighting the disease, among
them smoking, I got impressed but scared. So I
abhorred cigarets of all brands, however agonizing it was. It took me some seven recurrences before completely
abandoning the nicotine-laden stuff.
In
the meanwhile, herbalists recommended juice of ampalaya and banaba leaves.
Later, the noni juice from
Tahiti
or the local version of apatot from Paoay, Leyte and other parts of Mindanao.
There were even bottled chopped Amazonian herbal roots. I tried most of them,
risking my liver and other abdominal sensitive parts.
In
l985, I was one among four Davao journalists who had executive check up in Amang Rodriguez Hospital in Marikina
courtesy of the director who came from South Cotabato. Early finding of
diabetes in me was loudly reconfirmed in the thorough medical examination
administered by the staff of Dr. Reynaldo Jacinto.
Dr.
Jacinto prescribed Euglucon, a maintenance tablet against the rise of blood
sugar resulting from too much carbohydrates and intake of beverages and wines.
At first, the doctor’s advice for strict discipline in controlling my diabetes
was religiously followed. Then it became erratic.And worse, the maintenance
against my disease was forgotten and I went back to the old habit, the bad
lifestyle.
In
l997, I had laser operation in my two eyes. I was a diabetic eye patient, too,
especially in the right retina. Bursting of retina veins is among complications
of uncontrolled, neglected worsening onslaught of diabetes.
But,
again and again I violated all don’ts a
diabetes patient should follow if only to restore my blurred vision to normal.
While I had let go smoking for two decades before, I returned to gulfing beer like chicken soup.
And
then the catastrophe must have come to
me…
On
June 27, 2004, my blood pressure
triggered by too much blood sugar and tensions amid sedentary life of a
retiree drove me to a nearby hospital in our subdivision home in Bangkal. My
doctor said I had a severe diabetes that was bringing some complications in the
blood pressure, liver and other parts of the body.
This
time my maintenance tablets grew in numbers until I worried very much not to
afford them all.
Out
of exasperation perhaps in the endless battle against my diabetes, I committed
blunders again on the prescribed
discipline of a diabetic patient.
Then
my journey to the comfort room had become alarmingly frequent. My sleep had
been elusive up to the wee hours of the morning. Itchiness in many soft and
hidden portions of my body were occassionally bothersome. But the appetite to
feast on Monay and other loaves of bread was increasing wildly.
When
some of my acquaintances and friends here and abroad learned about my
predicament, they somewhat came to my rescue. Prof. Merlie
Alunan of UP-Tacloban encouraged me to go to a Chinese acupuncturist in Cebu;
Cleo Satina, an insurance executive of
Davao City also invited me to try
Chinese preserved anti-diabetes herbs; Bryck C. Apellanes of Fairfield,
California, USA sent me diabetes reading materials topped by a Mayo Clinic book
on how to manage diabetes; and Jinky Yap-Morales of the Davao Writers Guild,
introduced modern-day brown rice.
Even
some quacks in the neighborhood prescribed to me the bile of milk fish, monkey
brain and processed fats of sea mammals for the annihilation of my
diabetes-related disorders.
One
could just imagine the enormity of coming up with a decision what to do with
prescriptions lay down by “experts” of “Diabetes, Inc.” for your troubled
internal system. I closed my two ears for this last horde of advisers.
But
while going to another wellness center for some laboratory checkups as a result
of the mixed intake of food and beverages in the past 2004 Christmas and 2005
New Year celebrations, I had the mistake of taking too seriously of fasting the
night before. Thus, on the afternoon of January l4, 2005, I was brought down to
my knees with blurring vision while awaiting results of the laboratory
examinations I had in the past six hours. I had to limp to a nearby canteen of
the medical clinic and I bought a slice
of chocolate cake. I needed a
bite of food to recover strength in my weakening body and blurring vision.
Later, I was told I had an attack of
hypoglycemia or the sudden drop of necessary sugar in the blood.
During
the May 2007 elections, like the one in
May 2004, I was again affected by the drama in the canvassing of votes
in the national counting center in Manila via television broadcast. The
tensions could have triggered constipation. Indigestion and failure to
discharge regularly, I was told again, is another side effect of a diabetic
person.
On
June 3, 2007¸ thinking that physical exertion is a motivation to end
constipation, I pruned too hard of some palm trees in lieu of irregular brisk
walking and related forms of exercise.
But,
look, what happened to me that day?
For
such over stretching of the muscles of then a 7l-year old man, I got a risky
count of l60/100 in my blood pressure!
Again, I was admitted for the
second time around at the Davao Sanitarium Hospital near our home in Bangkal
due to diabetes, hypertension and other complications. The confinement was
longer by two days in my weeklong confinement
in mid-2004 in the same hospital.
If
it can be an option, I vowed not to go back to that place or any hospital.
Such
last hospitalization was the worst
battle against effects of a complicated diabetes in a cramped medical room
occupied by patients of various ailments.
Thus,
since that time up to presstime, August 20, 2008, I have been trying hard not
to be sick that will trigger complications with my diabetes for another confinement in the
hospital.
Indeed,
there are a lot of commandments to follow to control diabetes and its
complications, among them balanced diet sans much sugar, salt and fat, healthy
lifestyle, regular exercise and avoidance of stress, anger and anxiety.
But
the best antidote to diabetes and its complications is the overall frame of
mind of the afflicted individual. His decision to enjoy a longer life must
be coupled with a resolve to conquer
self and the excessiveness in pride and stubbornness before all calls for
sobriety and discipline.
Hoping
to adhere to the wisdom of this late awareness for the sake of dear life! (PNA)
King David Statue: King of illegal structures in Davao City?
(Feature)
By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, September 24
(PNA) – The controversy of a naked
statue of King David towering by the foreshore area of Times Beach in this
city, now on its third year of off-court tussle between the pros and cons, has
raged on.
Despite it is being perceived
by many as the latest but king of illegal structures in the vicinity and
perhaps also to the rest of the northeastern and southwestern stretches of the
city’s 54 kilometer-long shorelines by the Davao Gulf, nobody has gone to court
yet to charge its proponent criminally of encroaching a public domain without
lawful authority ab initio.
On the part of the city
mayor, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, he is more inclined to let proponent Teodorico
Adarna, who had long been operating Queensland Motel nearby the statue and
complementary baywalk of Times Beach that spans from sitio Kabacan to Punta
Dumalag in the southwest, finish the project rather than demolish the entire structures worth a few million
pesos already.
Times Beach and part of
Matina Aplaya, two to three kilometers south of city hall in the heart of the 7l-year
old charter metropolis, has been a popular poor man’s bathing resort way back
in post war era. President Ramon Magsaysay had even issued a proclamation
declaring the place as recreational site.
As the years rolled by, some
people, mostly politicians and influential residents, built cottages and then
bigger structures including restaurants, inns,
and a motel before the eyes of the city engineer and staff and other
personnel of allied public agencies supposed to regulate use of foreshore areas.
“Let Mr. Adarna comply the
PRA requirements although in a retroactive manner,” Mayor Duterte repeated his
stand on the issue once more in his television program “Gikan sa Masa Para sa
Masa” over ABS-CBN (Davao) last Sunday.
Adarna has already complied
some relevant requirements with the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) in
Manila and paid a huge sum of money for several kinds of legal fees with the
agency.
“But the PRA will only
approve the project after official action of the city lawmaking body (Sangguniang
Panglunsod) has been defined (positively, of course) and environmental compliance certificate (ECC)
has been obtained,” lawyer Charlemagne Aldevera, Adarna’s counsel, told PNA in
a telephone interview from his residence on Tuesday afternoon.
On the part of the Department
of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Aldevera said, it will only act
for the needed ECC to legitimize the project
as soon as it receives a copy of the final action of PRA.
Earlier, a DENR-Lands Sector
XI officer said his office lost a jurisdiction on the King David Statue it
being within the area specified under
Presidential Proclamation 20 of the late Zambaleno president in the late
‘50s and having no application for
foreshore lease from the start.
“It is more of the City
Government of Davao’s prerogative concern than us now, being trustee of the
proclaimed area,” lawyer Felix Alicer, DENR lands regional technical director,
added.
Thus, Engr. Gloria Lumapas,
point officer in the City Engineer’s Office in the on-going SP probe of the
much-talked about gargantuan undertaking over some four hectares of Times Beach
foreshore area, also told PNA on Wednesday, clarifying their office was not remiss of its duties
inasmuch as right after Adarna started erecting structures for the statue “we
immediately issued a cease and desist order and even followed by another last
January but to no avail.”
In the meantime, Adarna, like
the mythical bird “Ibong Adarna” in Philippine folklore, can sour to the zenith
of Davao skies with his magnificent dream of putting the replica of naked King
David in this part of the globe with
bagful of confidence that he is not alone before the guillotine.
Perhaps, his crude argument if worst comes to worst in the
unsettled row is “demolish one, demolish
all”. (PNA)SPA
Love of country is vividly expressed when
you are miles, miles away from
homeland (Feature)
By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, August l9 (PNA) –
As a Filipino, have you been out of the country once?
If you did, what was your
feeling toward our homeland as you reflect in a foreign soil?
Maybe you sulk in loneliness
and shed tears of homesickness.
For me, it was so differently
fantastic and nationalistic.
Would you believe that you
become taller and prouder of being a Filipino once you are either a hundred or
thousands of miles away from your native
country?
That was my posture when I
got out of the Philippines for the first time on Februay 23, l982 for a
coverage in Tahuna, North Celebes as a reporter of the Philippines News Agency
in the recovery mission of the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coastguard of 10
drifted Davao fishermen in that northern Indonesian province, about 400 kilometers south of General Santos City in Southeastern
Mindanao.
I was doubly proud of our
country before Malaysians and other
Asians and Caucasians during my second official
trip to Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, in l983. I was one of two PNAers sent to KL to
attend a weeklong economic writing
seminar under the auspices of the Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) which opened
on the 24th of January in that year.
In that Malaysian sojourn, I
saw to it that the Philippines was ably represented along with the other
participating countries in the workshop. I made a Philippine report
highlighting its history and current administration. I also
sang “Dahil sa Iyo”, on popular demand by Malay co-participants—thanks to the
back up of a four-man Filipino combo in the “ristorante” where a farewell
dinner was held on the eve of our closing ceremony.
“Dahil sa Iyo”, then First
Lady Imelda Marcos signature Tagalog ditty, is as popular as the Cebuano love
song, “Matud Nila” among Asians, especially the Malays in that period.
At the closing program, the
image of the Philippines was further boosted when I was unanimously chosen by
the workshop participants who included Indonesians, Borneans, Sarawakans, Sri
Lankans and Chinese Malays as speaker of the class, so to speak. In that
impromptu short speech, I expressed the workshop fellows’ gratitude to the MPI
and echoed a dream for a Southeast Asian solidarity through amalgamation of
Indonesian and Malaysian bahasa,
Philipines major languages and other dialects of the peoples by the Indian
Ocean.
My view on common Southeast
Asian language was earlier welcomed by a lady head of the Foreign Language
Centre of the University of Malaya during a call on her office which was
facilitated by a fellow participant from BERNAMA, official news agency of
Malaysia.
When I was sent again by PNA
to Manado and Bitung, North Celebes or Sulawesi Utara for the last leg of the
Republic of Indonesia Visit of then President Fidel V. Ramos in the last week
of September l993, the more I showered our country with decorum and devotion to
the task assigned in the coverage and without hitches that could drag the good
name of the Philippines.
Stepping out of the country
even once is indeed a good therapy to a citizen nurturing negative thoughts and unexplained hatred
to motherland.
Such journey out of the
Philippine archipelago will certainly bring up positive reflection of oneself
toward his or her country.
The menu of traveling abroad
is aptly prescribed to young but myopic or brainwashed street parliamentarians
who, at times, flagellate their only country at heights of protest rallies and
demonstrations.
Of course, lambasting
national leaders to the high heavens or to the bottom of hell is tolerable in a
democratic society. You can even take away your love from the President of the
Republic and hang his or her effigy
above a burning heap of trash, but never curse your country just because it is
run like hell by Filipino politicians.
A few good and sane Filipinos
have kept reminding us to love the Philippines because “this is your only
country God has given to you on Planet Earth!” (PNA)
Pinoy English: How is it now? (Feature)
By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, September 30
(PNA) – Pinoy English: How is it now?
If before our ability in
English ranked number three after the Britishers and Americans and perceived as globally competitive, it has
apparently deteriorated since a couple of decades ago.
No less than President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo had shown concern over the decline of the English proficiency
of her countrymen in the past two years.
In view of that
awareness, she wanted the aggressive
return of English instruction in the educational curriculum in all levels.
Many well-meaning Filipinos
in the academe and the business sector agreed with the corrective measure of
the president.
Those in the diplomatic
circle, of course, shun a retrogression
to the so-called Filipino “Bamboo or Carabao English”.
The shallowness of many
students, graduates, teachers and other
users of English in this country is blamed on the bad effects of television sitcoms and other programming
and text messaging grammar.
Indeed those two modern media
are somewhat becoming destructive to us in the negative sense of communication
progress.
Television programming, for
example, is like Satan who tempts an individual to be pulled away from more
important activities at home, that perhaps include valuable reading and writing.
But the disciplined and
erudite students of English as an
international language of transaction do not take any alibi for the downslide
of the kind of capability now among Filipinos of Shakespears or Hemingway’s
medium in world literature.
Speaking or writing in
English, if I may point out, is an individual responsibility to make good in
the usage of a borrowed language.
To me, speaking or writing in
English with faulty grammar and wrong choices of words, is like poisoning the
public.
Much more if the sentence is
spotty with wrong spelling and misrepresentation of a fact.
Would you believe even some
newspapers, especially tabloids in the provinces with almost nil of additional
budget for sub-editors, copyreaders and proofreaders, have remained accessories
in the proliferation of bad Filipino English?
There are countryside
tabloids, Davao City among them, that will print poorly written press releases
without editing.
It is worse in some instances
when it comes to columns from various calling, including unsuccessful bar
examinees.
Trusting perhaps of the
educational backgrounds of some columnists, publisher-editors will just also
run their submissions sans cursory look for
errors from spelling of proper nouns like a former US president to
agreement of verbs and many others.
Here is an introductory
paragraph of a tabloid column in this city which I came across recently for you
to judge of its context: “It is indisputable facts, that media played a vital
role in any kind of society on earth. As late USA President Thomas Jepperson
said, “If I were to choice between a government and media, I would prefer the
later. As a matter of fact, in a democratic society, the media is considered
the fourth estate, besides the executive, legislative and the judiciary
branches of government. Media plays as equilibrium of these branches of
government.”
I hope you are still around
after reading those sickening lines.
But I am afraid the third US president
might wake up from the grave and lodge a protest in the murder of the spelling of his popular surname in two
counts and other mangling of words in
his great libertarian statement in the
l800s.
God forbid, our very own
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos will not also
follow suit to put to a stop to the
wrong mouthing of his famous Martial
Law address “My countrymen” by a boxer
who had innocently used a singular form of the second word for several times in after-bout tv
interviews.
Sad to say, we are only on
the top of the rubbish yet of our kind of
English nowadays.
Time to make up, lest we
break up. (PNA)
PNA: How much do you
know of this acronym? (Feature)
By Satur P. Apoyon
DAVAO CITY, September 25
(PNA) – PNA: How much do you know of this acronym?
I am pretty sure, many will
fail in an on-the-spot survey. And the passers will have varied answers.
One day I searched “PNA” in the internet. Out of 330, ten were
given out in the screen . Peptide Nucleic Acid topped them all.
When Philippine Nurses
Association was separately searched, it gave its first l0 out of 24, 208 listings. Among the Top l0
outside the Philippines were PNA of America, PNA of UK, PNA-Hawaii, etcetera.
But Philippines News Agency’s PNA was nowhere in
the two searches.
However, I was no longer surprise of the results.
For quite a long time now that our very own PNA
is non-existent to many, including those
who are supposed to know in the government bureaucracy.
Everytime I introduce myself
to an office receptionist and ordinary people citing my reportage flagship,
most of them, if not all, profess ignorance about PNA as an acronym of a newswire agency.
In public offices in this
region. not only subordinate staff but even other superior officers, perceive PNA as PIA.
Others with secondary and
collegiate education mistake PNA as a newspaper or magazine outfit.
And the man on the street’s
common guess is our PNA is that of the
nurses association initials.
Reflecting on the length of
time that our PNA’s three-letter acronym has been public since l973, I am saddened why it is still
misunderstood by a few who had been reached out—and maybe unknown to the
millions who have no immediate reason to know its real representation.
For those who have zero knowledge
of PNA as a newswire agency like its
counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region Antara of Indonesia or Bernama of
Malaysia is an adjunct of the News and Information Bureau.
With its central desk in
Quezon City, PNA editors also get news and feature outputs from provincial
staff and stringers round-the-clock. The daily outputs of the agency are
subscribed by newspaper and broadcast clientele as well as being shared with
ASEAN partners.
PNA, like any western and
Asian news agencies, is now also on the internet website--www. pna.gov.ph.
Thus, the next time one sees
the acronym “PNA” attached to a news item or newsfeature in tabloids,
broadsheets and other media outlets, our PNA kind is not to be construed
as “PIA” or “PNA”, the nurses
aggrupation. (PNA)