A few minutes ago: faculty members pry out details from 2017 University of the Philippines Gawad Plaridel awardee Tina Monzon-Palma about the coup d’etat coverage …
and the fast and famous hard question she pulled on Canadian PM Trudeau during the 2015 APEC media briefing … when most were star-struck with the boyish Trudeau and were throwing fluff questions at him, Tina quizzed him on the truckloads of garbage left by a Canadian company in the Philippines :
shining moments in Philippine journalism and international news coverage (photo courtesy of U.P. CMC Journ Dept Chair Rachel Khan, center … standing beside someone in blue Lumad threads): Many thanks, Ricci! (The Gawad Plaridel is the highest lifetime achievement award given annually by the University of the Philippines to distinguished media practitioners)
From 2015 Gawad Plaridel awardee Ricky Lee (excerpt translated with apologies) “… once, when i was a student and magazine staff writer, i went to the second floor of a building to look out the window… i walked through a glass door…which crashed…many shards of glass perforated my neck, arms, face… the nurse at the clinic asked me, “are you drunk?”…from then on, I was known as someone who would walk through any door… with a poor sense of direction and memory, I always walked through the “wrong door”… I still sometimes enter the wrong car… astonished faces always greet me when I enter the wrong car… in hindsight, i realize that this clumsiness is a blessing: It is important for anyone who wants to write… to keep opening doors — whatever or wherever this door may lead to – a deep ravine, a dark cavern, a dreadful monster…you should never require certainty…be brave — open doors…” – Ricky Lee, 2015 Gawad Plaridel awardee, excerpt from his message, 26 August 2015.
