ABS-CBN News received twin good news recently. One was that TV Patrol has been nominated at the prestigious International Emmy Awards this year for its Typhoon Lawin coverage. The other was ABS-CBN anchor Tina Monzon Palma was awarded with the UP Gawad Plaridel, the highest honor given by the University Philippines to outstanding Filipino media practitioners.
TV Patrol, ABS-CBN’s flagship newscast, is the only program from the Philippines in the running for an award from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, an organization comprised of leading media and entertainment figures from over 60 countries.
Its entry “Super Typhoon Lawin’s Trail of Damage” in the News & Current Affairs category, which showed the destruction caused by the storm in several Philippine provinces in 2016, is up against entries from United Kingdom, Brazil, and Israel. This is the third time that the country’s primetime newscast made it as a finalist at the International Emmys after also getting nods in 2007 and 2011 for its coverage of the Subic rape case trial and the 2010 Manila hostage crisis, respectively.
Meanwhile, Palma, who has served as anchor in various ABS-CBN news programs – Talk Back with Tina Palma and The World Tonight on ANC – received the UP Gawad Plaridel in a formal ceremony held at the university’s Diliman campus on Aug. 23.
The former program director of Bantay Bata 163 was cited for her contributions to improve the Philippine media in her over 40 years in the industry.
Adding to the string of good news for ABS-CBN is the awarding of prestigious British Chevening scholarships to ABS-CBN News reporters Chiara Zambrano and Carolyn Bonquin. The two will fly to the United Kingdom to further develop their craft after being named among the 27 Chevening scholars for 2017.
Zambrano will go to Royal Holloway, University of London to study documentary by practice. No stranger to producing documentaries, the 34-year-old reporter is fresh from covering the war in Marawi, where her social media postings on the conflict even going viral online. She also shared her experiences and accounts in special documentaries aired on ABS-CBN and ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel.
Bonquin is known for her human-interest stories and reports on Philippine politics. The former segment producer in ABS-CBN Baguio will study investigative journalism in Birkbeck, University of London.
ABS-CBN News is also celebrating the 10th year of its pioneering citizen journalism movement “Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo” (BMPM), which already has a million citizen journalists on Facebook.
Beginning as a campaign to guard the vote in 2007, BMPM has evolved into an effective newsgathering arm for ABS-CBN News with “Bayan Patrollers” sharing information, pictures, and videos of issues and events in their communities. BMPM has also been active in promoting media literacy through workshops held all over the country and will now be mounting public service events to further empower Filipinos in taking part in nation-building. To kick things off, BMPM held a “BIKE@10” bike ride for a cause on Aug. 28, and gathered plastic (PET) bottles from participants. Sales from the bottles will be used to buy a motorcycle with sidecar for residents of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan.
TV Patrol airs from Monday to Saturday on ABS-CBN, ABS-CBN HD, and DZMM TeleRadyo. It can also be viewed online on iwantv.com.ph and skyondemand.com.ph. For news and updates, visit news.abs-cbn.com and patrol.ph or follow @ABSCBNNews on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.