Inaugural patrol

TV technical people are the unsung heroes of coverage–”first in and last out.” I heard that tag not from anyone in the industry, but from a teacher I met in one of our early-morning features.

While confined to Metro Manila, the many live points of one TV station covering the biggest event of 6 years have to share the same limited reserved space with other stations and other media.

A big deference, of course, to broadcast–them with their OB (outside broadcast) vans, satellites, microwave dishes, scaffolds, lights, cameras, cables, computers, PAs, and staff.

And for an event scheduled for 10 a.m., our live teams were in place at the Quirino Grandstand, Malacañan Palace, Times Street, and Quezon Memorial Circle as early as midnight of June 30–President Benigno Aquino III’s inaugural day.

This inauguration marks my first entry to the presidential palace. Our team spent the previous day waiting to park, getting permits, and then drawing lots with reps from Channels 4, 5, and 7 for setup space.

Each reporter was only allowed to report within those blue borders.

You don’t easily set up in Malacañan. You go through layers of coordination with the Presidential Security Group (PSG) and Radio-Television Malacañang (RTVM). A third of that is done from the office, a third via phone, and a third on-site.

Only one live camera per network reporter is allowed inside the Malacañan driveway. All the stations’ vans need to hook up to RTVM, the sole team with cameras inside.

Anyone who watched the President’s historic walk up the Palace staircase live saw the same shot, regardless of the channel.

To an overturned satellite van

A moment of silence, please, for the passing of a formidable ally in television news gathering.

We found you turned on your side in the middle of a freeway, wrecked by the combination of heat and friction that burst your tire and sent you careening along the road.

The giant plate synonymous with your work we found meters off, severed from your roof.

We lost you, fittingly, in the line of duty. Our convoy was en route to what was supposed to be a quiet event up north. But instead of covering a story the next day, you became part of that Sunday evening’s news.

Still, even with your untimely end, you proved dependable. Your sturdy frame kept your three passengers alive and a number of the equipment entrusted to you intact.

Date with destiny

One morning in September, we waited for this man in black outside his home as he prepared to stake his claim on history. (Read: Waiting for Noynoy)

Exactly 9 months later, we watched him go up the steps of Congress and ascend to power in his mother’s footsteps.

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, the man none dreamed would be president, today became the second person to benefit from his father’s dream of being one.

It was one of the swiftest in recent history–a tad 2 hours of quick-paced parliamentary formality after one of the country’s quickest counts and canvass.

The plenary hall at 8:30 a.m., as House staff started rearranging the congressmen's tables

It was the first presidential and vice presidential proclamation in the age of Web 2.0.

Much so that most eyes and ears on the country were trained on TV sets, radios, mobile phones, and computer screens with live feeds from the Batasang Pambansa.

Photo finish

Live from Lanao, Day 5

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, MISAMIS ORIENTAL–After we successfully transmitted our story for TV Patrol World just as the headlines rolled last night, reporter Jeff Canoy tweeted:

It’s been a month since we field producers at ABS-CBN News switched to non-linear video editing. We’ve already hurdled a historic election coverage with our new touchscreen switchers and MacBook laptops.

I’m still trying to speed up my editing. My batting average for a 2-minute voiceover package, so far, is 30 minutes.

Not bad considering it would take an hour for me to finish it via tape.

Plus, we can now add elements we formerly relegated to the editors at base: video transitions, face blurs, stills, and close ups.

And so that’s how we raced against Patrol these past 4 days in Lanao. Jeff’s stories were always lined up in the first gap, and we would feed the piece minutes before or seconds into the show.

Editing with Jeff and his cameraman Rommel Zarate

Even then, some things never fail to come up.

On the day of the special elections, Jeff and I decided to play our package live rather than feed it so it could land in the first five stories. We finished by 6:30 and quickly had the audio and video checked by the Patrol studio.

Big switches

Fast forward two weeks later.

The country, after the euphoria of witnessing a speedy election count, now takes a sober look back.

Its big jump to automation has produced one of the most interesting switches–or re-switches–of our leaders yet. The roll of public officials attaining or resuming power in 2010 will confuse anyone trying to put a pin on the Filipino’s fluid voting standards.

Start with the 15th Congress. In Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition style, only 2010 will bring together the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Imelda Marcos, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in one House.

The new batch of senators are a bunch of old names–reelectionists, returnees, and relatives.

And as if one was not enough, our “president-apparent” is another offspring of another former president.

We’re seeing history repeat itself with a twisted sense of humor.

Many point out the irony of an incoming President Aquino III along with an incoming Senator Marcos Jr. And the horror of a State of the Nation Address with Aquino talking, Marcos and Arroyo behind him.

Other victories portend the possibilities of change. In Maguindanao, a widower is picking up the pieces half-left by the regime that murdered his wife.

Virtual wars (or Leveled up election coverage)

Live from Maguindanao Day 19
4 days after Halalan 2010

SHARIFF AGUAK, MAGUINDANAO–When they monitored how the 2007 polls were covered, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility wrote: “For their efforts alone, the three TV stations –ABC 5, ABS-CBN 2, and GMA 7 — took election coverage to a new level. They made the coverage of the 2010 elections something to look forward to.”

And indeed, the TV networks did not disappoint.

In May 2010, they fused hi-tech form and relevant substance to mark the first time many Filipinos used machines to count their votes.

It’s not just the much ballyhooed “Star Wars”-like effects that have captured viewers and reignited debates among Kapamilya and Kapuso fans. More notable was the increased focus on context, issues, voter education, and citizen empowerment.

After all, the 2010 polls have been called a crossroads in Philippine politics, held at the twilight of a long and controversial presidency, with the youngest, more socially conscious, and most technologically-connected populace participating.

Tech coups

Viewers on election day raved about the ABS-CBN Halalan war room suggestive of NASA. GMA 7, like ABS, boasted heavy partnerships and widespread deployments, and a revitalized channel, TV5, showed how it could compete with the two.

Unlike the cellphone-ruled 2001 and 2007 elections, 2010 was the first one dominated by online social media.

Tips, complaints, jokes, and comments on Twitter and Facebook filled airtime. ABS-CBN led the surge with its multi-platform “Boto Mo Ipatrol Mo” campaign.

Plus, the networks gave audiences a visual treat.

Each had touch screens showing everything from candidate profiles to citizen journalists’ reports to 3D diagrams of the election process and results.

The coup was augmented reality. The term refers to blending realistic computer-generated images with news presentation, thus “augmenting” the viewing experience–not unlike movie special effects.

Strictly politics*

Branded mineral water bottles from your favorite candidate

Before the campaign period for the national elections, there was the pre-campaign period. Emphasis on “campaign.”

And why not? Philippine politics seems to be an eternal operation to stay in power or go higher.

Thus you find the prevalent tarps of smiling faces greeting every occasion from the fiesta to the funeral. Plus the same strain of posters with their forced acronyms and subliminal messages.

Plus these events perfectly timed for the season.

And thus we all know that this person is vying for this position before he or she even says it or files papers at the Comelec.

Only a few weeks before the filing deadline did we see prospective candidates affirm or dismiss speculations on their running.

Including a former president bent to continue his unfinished business.

The ride all started with the passing of the late great Cory Aquino that changed the political destinies of some. Soon the leading was left off, the nonviable now probable. Swiftly the tides turned and the rabbits jumped fences.

I’ve often mused about how the many considerable choices for 2010 came about due to who ran and won in 2004. Potential presidents are only now coming into the fray.

Today I still can’t pick among my top four bets.

Our field operations teams met this preview of campaign 2010 by covering the proclamations live.

One of the biggest was by the country's biggest political party, with its already-determined presidential bet.

Those minute to hour-long airings mask the early call times, ocular inspections and intensive coordination needed for a crew of ten to twenty to set up and air. Here you learn the power of anticipating programs and making connections.

And amid the hustle and bustle for Halalan 2010, we also see the twilight days of a president and her government cramming to claim history’s verdict.

And cramming, as well, for another run of office.

It was in one such coverage that I smiled at President Arroyo and got to shake her hand–not in Malacanang, but in one of the few areas I guess she was at her proudest best.

We could not air live her second final economic update in a Makati hotel. I could only check on our reporters and on the event.

There I found a childhood friend with the Foreign Affairs Department on duty as an usher.

PGMA just a few feet away.

Soon the Presidential entourage walked out of the forum hall on the red carpet. My friend and the ushers lined up to greet them. Unsure what to do, I stood beside her at the end.

As President Arroyo shook hands with the ushers, I knew she would end with me before they proceeded to the photo op area.

Somehow we were not both sure how to greet each other, I wearing a red collared shirt and jeans in a place where dark corporate attires ruled.

Our hands and gazes awkwardly, silently met, and then left off.

Telling the encounter to my workmates, one asked why I was cordial when I came from a school supposedly angry with the President.

I answered, “Wala namang personalan (It’s nothing personal).”

Much as our politics should be.

See all shots from the topsy-turvy turns in politics taken during the daily grind at this pinoyjourn Multiply album.

*Apologies, of course, to the long-running ANC public affairs show.

On the tube: A not-so-big Big Brother finale

PBB Double Up former housemates practice for the Big Night's opening number.

For a season dubbed “double up,” the venue of Pinoy Big Brother 3′s Big Night was not as double as previous ones. Neither were its production look and numbers.

Why the choices, I leave to the production team.

It was the timing of the finale, instead, that lived up to the show’s name–a rare red meeting of Valentine’s and Chinese New Year.

The outcome, too. For not only did GenSan girl Melisa Cantiveros win, but her partner, Jason Francisco. While he placed third, their odd quirky tandem practically captured the season story line and made them its stars.

A perfect “double up” to cap a series of twists that included two houses, two sets of twins, two foreign swaps, two “storms”, a couple of switches, and two Big Brothers.

I’ll remember this PBB installment just for Melason. And because it was the closest I got to peek–granted, of course, by my de facto back stage pass as a Kapamilya.

No, I haven’t set foot inside the famed PBB house. The Big Night was news that Saturday, I was on duty, and I volunteered to cover it.

But I was not PBB’s biggest fan either. We met one such guy, a nursing student who absolutely adored the show and monitored its 24/7 cable feed.

He was there for a sports event, not this. He envied us, he said, and asked if we could sneak him in. We couldn’t.

I chose this just to atone for mistakes in a recent coverage of another TV ending.

Through not a little coordination hours before, we parked at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium and set up lights and camera facing the stage.

PBB taped as live the festive entry of the housemates to the stadium in vintage cars hours before the actual program.

Our requirement was simple: a live silent report by Ginger Conejero at the end of TV Patrol on the preparations, with an English update for ANC.

Half her video would be rolled from the studio. The other half was taken by our cameraman’s assistant.

Ginger was also my reporter the last time, and I think I fairly made up for the earlier blunder. The report went quick and smoothly, but my editing lagged behind her script.

We packed up and left just before the show started, already near 10. I rode a nearby bus home, and reached it in time to see Melai come out to fame and new-found fortune.

Waiting for Noynoy

We waited for him since before dawn. We wanted a glimpse, a few words, even a conversation with him before he went to face history.

He came out of the house an hour after daybreak. No family was with him, only a bevy of bodyguards in blue polo barongs. He wore a black collared shirt, still the image of mourning. Embossed on the upper right were the Philippine islands in yellow, the color of his family name.

He smiled at our crew. We asked if we could join him. He declined. For that fateful ride, he wanted solitude–something he’d been asking all of us for a week now.

Thirty minutes later, Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III stepped on a podium at Club Filipino to finally “accept” the “call,” the “bilin,” and the “challenge” to run for President.

Cory redux* (aka “First week high”)

“Ang swerte niyo at naabutan niyo ‘to. Naka-hataw agad kayo.”

That’s what some of the boys at Newsgathering told us new hires during a lull in those five historic days. With all due respect to the late great President, of course.

There was no better time to start and get to know the job, the dire circumstances aside.

For ABS-CBN–my new employer–Cory Aquino’s death was a chance to show its gratitude to the leader responsible for bringing it back to its former glory. And it came out full force to give Filipinos and the world a golden piece of history. Both its News and TV Production divisions joined to deliver.