Expect the unexpected. That is one of the many things I learned from my work as a Probe producer. Story angles may change by the minute, events can turn 360 in a snap, and there is the perennial question of which story to pursue and why take it up in the first place.

It’s been almost a year since a viewer emailed Probe and asked us if there is indeed a Tallano Royal Family. You know the story–a friend of a friend, who has a friend who is a cousin of a neighbor… heard of a certain Julian Tallano. Mr. Tallano, according to her letter, is the heir of Rajah Solaiman. He owns the Philippines, ergo he owns the archipelago. All 7,000 islands. Or so Tallano asserts. Curiosity caught me, this could be a story.

The Royal Family has a foundation, its main function will include the administration of the Philippine Islands. Atty. Alejo Estepa is the President of the group, while an émigré from the US named EJ Ekker, sits as Chairman of the Board. The foundation has undergone several changes over the years. Mr. Julian Tallano, the supposed heir, was kicked out of his foundation due to “illegal transactions made” in the past. “Prince” Julian Tallano set up his own foundation, and has an on going land ownership case against former Philippine President Joseph Estrada over his Tanay property.

continue reading "Not Meeting the Royals"

BFAD’s statement, they can’t find something unless they know what they’re looking for, should sound-off alarm bells that we may be eating pesticides in our tikoys all this time and not know it. If White Rabbit, which has been around for decades, was discovered to contain formaldehyde just now, you can just imagine what other toxic substances all the other Chinese-made products that we use everyday may contain and unless somebody tells them so, BFAD will never test it for that. It’s high time BFAD take a closer look at improving their screening process.

Also, former consumer rights activist, Michael Tan, told us that Chinese drugstores are considered cultural institutions and are not required to have their products tested before distribution. This raises eyebrows. If an innocent looking candy can contain formaldehyde, what makes us sure that all those weird sounding medicines so many people are into are safe?

Shooting last week’s story on the brouhaha over Chinese food products brought us from Divisoria to SM Hypermarket. We noticed that while there was a universal avoidance of food products, there were still so many people patronizing everything from clothes, toys to electronics that were all made in China.

This just tells me that we don’t fully grasp or practice consumerism and are all too ready to swallow whatever is being served to us… specially if it’s cheap. Even the former consumer rights activist, Mr. Michael Tan, admits to buying toys from the bangketa that lasts only a week. I just wonder how manufacturers will realize that they have to raise their quality standards when even at this low, people still buy their products. As they say, “kung walang magpapaloko, walang manloloko”.

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Watch the Made in China segment of the Probe episode that aired on August 1, 2007 on ABS CBN.

Poverty.  Having produced and seen so many stories on the subject, Probe already had an idea of what reactions to expect from viewers… curiosity, pity, sadness.  But last week’s feature on a family living in a kariton raked in very different feedback.

The mother, Beverly, got a beating from the viewers. From her soundbite “Hindi ako marunong magtrabaho eh.” (I don’t know how to work.) to her riding on the kariton with her kid while the husband already had a hard time pushing it, to her taking an afternoon nap and gorging on an ice cream for dessert, Beverly obviously stuck to the viewers’ minds… and not in a good way. 

If the above didn’t prove my point enough, dig this:  when Beverly hurt her foot from a piece of broken bottle (mind you, the video was that of a bleeding foot!), people berated her for being so useless for injuring herself the one time she sets foot outside of the kariton.

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Watch the Gulong ng Palad segment of the Probe episode that aired on July 18, 2007 on ABS CBN.

The lust for control of the P3-billion comprehensive third party liability (CTPL) insurance business courtesy of the new Department of Transportation and Communication (DoTC) is commonsensical (not necessarily reasonable or excusable). Any corporation, whether private or government-owned and –controlled, would want to get hold of that P3 billion or even a portion of it. Commissions from CTPL alone amount to P500 million to P700 million a year. That’s a lot of money.

Of course, the DoTC says the aim of the new directive is to stop the proliferation of fly-by-night insurance firms, which cheat not only car owners but also the government.

As Land Transportation Office chief Reynaldo Berroya put it, the issue is simple arithmetic: “If there are more than 4.5 million vehicles that registered with the LTO last year, ang record ng Insurance Commission ang policies na na-issue is only 1.9 million. Simple arithmetic, as I said, it would mean around P300 million lost in revenues.”

The DoTC and the LTO should have applied simple arithmetic earlier and saved government more revenues.

According to Berroya and the insurance agents, the crooks have been able to get away with murder because of the flawed and ineffective authentication and verification system during car registration. The database of the verification system in place since 2001 is not connected to the database of the LTO. Matching of the mandatory CTPL to the specific vehicle at the time of the registration was therefore not done. Fake CTPLs were discovered only when claims were not paid. No one knows the amount of unpaid CTPLs over the years because there is no clear record.

continue reading "Simple Arithmetic"

One thing with out-of-town coverage, we always learn more than what we
originally set out to probe. In the case of our search for victims of
human trafficking in Samar last week, the bonus information came with
bumps and aching muscles.

To say that the roads of Northern Samar are bad is an understatement. The
cemented highway probably has more potholes – mini craters within giant
craters – than the moon or a sungkaan. For four days, our team of five,
including host-reporter Cheche Lazaro, traversed the province’s main roads
in a well-maintained Toyota Revo that would most likely be in the ICU unit
of the service shop by now. It felt like the SUV’s doors or hood would
fall apart or its tires would burst any minute because of the punishing
drive. At the end of every trip, our bodies felt sore from all the tossing
and turning.

We were told that many Samarenos have gotten used to the bad roads they do
not complain anymore. Apparently, there are more important things to worry
about. For instance, a district hospital that does not have a doctor…where
patients buy everything they need, even cotton.

A wife of a ranking official accompanied us in one of the trips and told
us the story of a policeman who sustained a minor gunshot wound in an
ambush incident. He died in the hospital due to loss of blood. “Hindi siya
dapat mamatay kasi may dalang 2000 cc ng dugo ang relatives niya but
walang doctor and walang magsalin ng dugo,” our well-informed guide said.

continue reading "Samar"

Probe Producers and staff go out in the field every single week, working hard to give the audience an objective and complete story. With the countless hours we invest in making just one story, there might be materials and information that we may not be able to include in the final segment for airing (due to time constraints on TV). The Probe blog hopes to fill you in on those little details, it will give you a peek into what Probe producers and staff have to say on the current issues they covered, the story behind the cameras, or maybe even completely new stories they were able to sniff out while investigating another issue.