Speech delivered to members of the UP academic community on
July 4, 2007 at the UP Cine Adarna

In behalf of my family, The Probe Team, my colleagues and peers in UP and in the industry who have all contributed at different stages in my career to get me on this stage today, I thank you for this distinct honor and recognition as the fourth Gawad Plaridel Awardee. It is like a homecoming for me because this is where I started my journey in broadcasting.

It’s been twenty years since we first thought up the idea of putting together an investigative newsmagazine for TV. In those 20 years, the ride has at different times been uncertain, exhilarating, many times bumpy, but always challenging.

Our very first challenge in 1987 was how to get on the air. We had an idea and the determination to make it succeed. But it seemed like we were the only ones that thought we could make it work. What we wanted to do was unfamiliar territory and we were met with a lot of skepticism about whether there was an audience for an investigative TV newsmagazine as well as a potential to attract advertisers to pay for a show that dealt with issues. We were like a bunch of amateurs trying get into the big league. We set up shop in my eight-year old son’s bedroom, transcribed interviews by long hand, and doubled up as PA’s, interviewers, editors and directors—all four of us for our weekly show. Twenty years later, we are more efficient but what has not changed is, the fire in our collective bellies is still there. Now, the challenge is how to stay on air in the face of all the changes that have been happening locally and globally.

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This week was different.

It started out with the usual Monday meet at the office. Come to think of it, this has been the “usual” for the last twenty years. Monday meets have become a “tradition” with Probe. We do Monday morning quarterbacking on the stories done the week before. At today’s feedback session, we had a lot of comments about the Aleli and Iggy Arroyo story. The ProbeTV site had many viewings of the piece which was uploaded the day after its airing on Wednesday.

ProbeTV is one of the newer items on our Monday meets…what goes up, who views it, and comments to the pieces we have been uploading for the last six months. It’s interesting how Mark (our webmaster) gives us profiles of our viewers…quite a number are from overseas (our relatives maybe?) with specific areas they are located in.

Today, I also added something else….

After the regular items in the agenda were done with, I thanked the team for trooping to Cine Adarna at UP for the Gawad Plaridel that was given to me on Wednesday. It was so heartwarming to see all of them at the theater even while they were still beating the Probe deadline that same night… but what else is new? The team has been trying (and trying is the word) to beat that deadline forever! Try asking any Prober… so it meant much more than just going there. It meant losing precious edit minutes!

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