Davao City, Philippines, 11 January 2012. Nine photojournalists from Mindanao in southern Philippines are joining Panglantaw Mindanao: Visual Stories from Mindanawans, an ACFJ project to profile Mindanao news and issues in multimedia stories.
During the project orientation held Wednesday, Jan. 11 at the Ateneo de Davao University, the photojournalists expressed their readiness to produce multimedia stories profiling Mindanao issues from a Mindanawan’s perspective. Dr. Violet B. Valdez, ACFJ executive director, explained that Panglantaw is one of the projects under Press Freedom 2.0, a program of an alliance of four Dutch NGOs. The program seeks to build mass media institutions that foster good governance and democracy in developing countries.
World Press Photo, which has consistently supported ACFJ’s photojournalism program, leads the alliance’s Philippine project and collaborates with another alliance member – Mensen met een Missie (trans.: People on a Mission).
Rommel Rebollido, a Nippon News Agency photo correspondent who works from his hometown of General Santos City, said the project “fulfills a vision” for the Mindanao press and for the national and international coverage of Mindanao. Rene Lumawag, who retired recently from Sun Star Davao, said he was keen to be part of the initiative.
The nine photojournalists, all of them alumni of the ACFJ Diploma in Photojournalism program, are among the country’s top photojournalists, many of them working for Philippines as well as foreign news agencies. Aside from Rebollido and Lumawag, they are Froilan Gallardo, Keith Bacongco, Ruby More and Jose Lozano of MindaNews, Charlie Saceda of PECOJON, Glocelito Jayma, and Pam Chua.
Panglantaw Mindanaw is headed by Bj A. Patiño as project manager, and Alex Baluyut as editor.
