MANILA (MindaNews / 24 April) – MindaNews on Wednesday was awarded Outstanding Community Newspaper-Daily and reporter Yas Ocampo as Outstanding Community Journalist in the 1st Think Pink Awards on Outstanding Stories on Breast Cancer during the 60th anniversary celebration of the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) at the Century Park Hotel in Manila.
The 1st Think Pink Awards was initiated by the PPI, Novartis Healthcare Philippines and ICanServe Foundation to honor outstanding stories from the “Think Pink: Health Reporting on Breast Cancer in the Philippines 2023” Fellowship.
The Fellowship aimed to boost the quality of health journalism, focusing specifically on breast cancer awareness and reporting, including debunking myths that breast cancer is a death sentence.
MindaNews’ editor in chief Bobby Timonera accepted the awards for MindaNews and Ocampo.
Published on October 31, 2023 in www.mindanews.com, Ocampo’s story, Women battle breast cancer in Davao City with a huge help from ‘breast friends,’ is about his mother Emma’s personal and continuing treatment of Stage 3 breast cancer, a silent battle that he and his family went through in the middle of a pandemic.
The story also describes the friendships and bonds that developed among the “breast friends” as they sought treatment.
“It’s a very beautiful story. It’s a worthy winner,” Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, founding President of ICanServe Foundation, said at the awards night.
Alikpala said that as a young journalist, she considered cancer stories as “boring” when given the assignment to do one. But as a breast cancer survivor herself, she said she is now “begging everyone and any story teller to do something about breast cancer.”
She thanked the writers for opening people’s minds about the situation of breast cancer patients, of the “shared journey” with family and friends.
“You also introduced us to oncology health workers who would go beyond the call of duty. The stories of the survivors are filled with life no matter the prognosis or diagnosis, poked our hearts and stabbed our souls,” Alikpala added.
Other winners were Palawan News for the Community Newspaper Weekly category, and Cristina Baclig (Inquirer) as Outstanding National Journalist.
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said most of the Filipino women “don’t even understand their risk for breast cancer. Three in a hundred women will get breast cancer.”
He said it is important to detect breast cancer early because as a surgeon, he can take it out. “But I have to take it out early.”
“Education, early screening, and early diagnosis and early treatment” is the way to treat cancer, Herbosa said.
In the Philippines, he said, only 1% of Filipino women get diagnosed with Stage 1 or Stage 2 cancer. “Can you imagine that? About 12,000 die every year from breast cancer. Most of them come to the hospital, maybe even those at Stage 2.”
Herbosa recalled that as a resident doctor at the Philippine General Hospital, many women from the lower socio-economic sector would go to PGH. “We would diagnose them with Stage 2 breast cancer. But because of the queue, by the time we schedule them for their mastectomy, they were on Stage 3 or 4 because of the delays,” he said.
Herbosa said mammogram is expensive, from P5,000 to P10,000 “and I wish PhilHealth will pay for the screening mammogram, not the mammogram for the cancer patient. It is important in terms of early screening.”
Twenty journalists nationwide were chosen as Fellows, seven of them from Mindanao: MindaNews’ Froilan Gallardo and Yas Ocampo, Grace Cantal-Albasin of Rappler, Allan Mestrado Mediante of Mindanao Daily News, Lina Sagaral-Reyes of Bukidnon.News.net, Julie S. Alipala of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Cristina Alivio of SunStar Davao.
They were joined by 12 Fellows from Luzon: Cristina Eloisa Baclig of Inquirer.net, Jimmy Domingo of LiCAS.news, Anne Ruth Dela Cruz of BusinessMirror, Kimberlie Quitasol of Northern Dispatch, Villamor Visaya Jr. (a Luzonwide news correspondent), Celeste Anna Reynoso Formoso of Palawan News, Dexter See of the Baguio Herald Express, Elmer Recuerdo of the Daily Tribune, Rhaydz Barcia of the Manila Times, Madonna Tividad Virola of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Winnie Aguilar of IBC-13, and Ruel B. Mazon of Mindoro Bulletin.
Mildred Galarpe of SunStar Cebu also made the list as the sole Fellow representing the Visayas region.
The need for such focused journalism was underscored by the 2022 National Demographic Health Survey, which found that only about 10% of women in the country had ever been examined by a healthcare provider for symptoms of breast cancer. This rate varied significantly across regions, from as low as 2% in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to 14% in CALABARZON, Central Visayas, and Davao Region. The survey highlighted an urgent need for increased public awareness and health services enhancement, which the Fellows of this program aimed to address through their reporting. (MindaNews)
