In the service of the Filipino

We survived another killer typhoon, but many of our countrymen in Maguindanao and elsewhere didn’t. They could have if only they were able to get out of the typhoon’s path early enough. But they weren’t warned?

There was a time, not long ago, when warning people of an approaching typhoon was a job ABS-CBN happily performed. The network got its information not just from PAGASA, but from other international weather monitoring services.

ABS-CBN also processes information on flooding and landslides available at the UP Resilience Institute from Project NOAH. Led by Dr. Mahar Lagmay, they have mapped places prone to landslides and floods. ABS-CBN uses this information to warn residents of affected areas.

The government’s disaster response agency, with an alphabet soup of a name that’s hard to remember, should do that, but apparently didn’t in the case of Paeng. LGUs in the typhoon’s path could have used the information too, but didn’t.

In the past, the typhoon may still be days away from the country, but ABS-CBN would have dispatched its news coverage teams from the nearest regional station or straight from Metro Manila. The teams would have been adequately equipped with satellite communications facilities to bring sights and sounds of the affected areas to everyone’s living rooms.

At the same time, the cargo truck of ABS-CBN’s Lingkod Kapamilya would have started loading relief goods from a bodega near the network studios in Quezon City. Then it would have started the journey to the affected areas.

Why does ABS-CBN do all these? Simply because the Kapamilya folks take their mission to serve the Filipino seriously. It is a lasting legacy of the late Geny Lopez who coined the slogan in the station ID, In the Service of the Filipino.

What does in the service of the Filipino really mean? Let me share this anecdote about my late boss, Geny.

When I was head of news operations, he gave me an assignment that involved expanding our coverage. I crunched my numbers and told him it would cost us quite a bit of money. We were just restarting operations at that time and didn’t even have a proper newsroom.

Geny looked at me and said we have an obligation to serve the people beyond the franchise requirements. If we have to invest what little we had at that time to do that, so be it.

That started our expansion of news operations to cover cable news and eventually, regional news. Every ABS-CBN provincial operation must have a news component. That’s how the Regional News Group became the powerhouse that eventually developed many of the top national reporters.

If Geny was just after the money that could be made by ABS-CBN, the network would have concentrated on entertainment. That would have also avoided the irritants with politicians that having a credible news operation entailed. But neither Geny, nor his son Gabby who succeeded him, could imagine ABS-CBN without its news and public affairs operations.

And the best of ABS-CBN News is shown during times of emergencies. Covering typhoons, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and coup d’etats, are where reporters, cameramen, and engineers working with News are at their best, risking their lives in the process.

Because ABS-CBN often has better communications facilities, even government officials responding to calamities use them. Live reporting even when power lines are down enables government officials back in Manila to monitor what’s going on in the field.

Most of the time, it is the ABS-CBN News team that gets to the areas in the typhoon’s path ahead of the typhoon and ahead of government relief agencies. That’s why after ABS-CBN was taken off the air, residents in areas around Baler complained they were not warned about an approaching typhoon.

Duterte and his minions were just too proud to admit that the government, despite all the resources provided by taxpayers, need the professionalism of the ABS-CBN News teams to help save lives during typhoons and other calamities.

PTV 4 can’t do it. GMA 7 never felt like doing it the all-out way ABS-CBN does it. The other networks with franchises are focused on making money and are not inclined to spend as much as ABS-CBN for disaster coverage and relief operations.

Then there is the trust of ABS-CBN’s audience in the professionalism of broadcast journalists like Jacque Manabat, Alvin Elchico, Doris Bigornia, and a generation before them, Chari Villa, Ces Drilon, Gus Abelgas and others. People would entrust their stories to them, bringing to light failures of officials at the local level right away.

So, here we are, every time a strong typhoon devastates a large part of the country, people ask “where is ABS-CBN?”

Somehow the NTC warning aired through the emergency function of our cell phones isn’t enough. It catches our attention, it irritates us, but doesn’t give us enough information about the danger and what to do, where to go. And in the hinterlands, cell phone signals are iffy anyway.

After initial reports indicated about 45 people died in Maguindanao because of Typhoon Paeng, I found it sad Junior asked: “Why did we fail to evacuate them?” It means he wasn’t on top of operations as he should have been. Natutulog sa kusina?

So, clueless Junior ordered all government functionaries involved in disaster operations to do better next time.

Fat chance government response to future typhoons can be made adequate enough to prevent needless loss of lives. Indeed, the relief operations of the Red Cross under Dick Gordon seem to be doing better.

So far, for LGUs, only Joey Salceda has been able to make his typhoon-prone province disaster proof when he was governor.

The previous OVP was also pretty quick to respond. The current VP could only tweet that her thoughts and prayers are with the victims… despite her budget that’s almost three times that of the previous VP.

Then again, Junior shouldn’t be committed to the mistakes of his predecessor. As he spends more time as president, his campaign theme of unity will become more important. That’s when he will realize that fixing this country honestly needs all hands-on deck.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco