Category: Paper Chase

802 unopposed local bets in areas with 6.8-M voters

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By Vino Lucero

THE IDEAL situation in any election is that two or more candidates fight for a seat, and they earn the votes through the merit of their platform, their track record, and their stand on issues.

In many areas in next Monday’s balloting, however, many candidates are running unopposed, or without any challengers to the throne. With no rival to worry about, it is possible that these candidates have been using their spare time to campaign for local party mates and their party’s national standard bearer and senatorial bets.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed, By Region

PCIJ curated data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on the candidates who are more than likely to be occupants of local positions in the next three years, simply because no one is running against them in the upcoming polls.

A total of 802 candidates for local positions – from provincial governor to municipal or city councilors – are running unopposed for the May 9, 2016 elections.

Of this number, 215 are vying to be city or municipal mayor and 249, to be city or municipal vice mayor. By many accounts, they are the not-so-secret weapons of national candidates and political parties eager to snare as much as 6.8 million votes altogether clustered in their localities.

Interestingly, 364 or 45 percent of the 802 names on the Comelec’s list of unopposed candidates are affiliated with the administration Liberal Party (LP), based on their Certificates of Candidacy (COC).

Another 101 of the unchallenged candidates, meanwhile, are from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), 92 from the National Unity Party (NUP), 70 from the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), 68 from the Nacionalista Party, 62 are independent, and 45 from other parties.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed Candidates, By Party

Quid pro quo?

Of course, the willingness of local leaders to deliver votes for particular national candidates could turn into a simple quid pro quo equation. It may be dependent on the ability of the parties to grant what the unopposed politicos want in return. As Center for Local and Regional Governance (CLRG) Director Erwin Alampay points out, it is “not automatic” that unopposed local bets will actually deliver votes for their party’s national candidates.

“They might want to ask for machinery support or campaign donations,” he says, “so that they can conduct proper local campaigns for [national candidates] and their local slates.”

The number of registered voters where unopposed local candidates hold sway, however, may convince national candidates and their parties to do whatever they can to please the local bosses. As it is, the 215 cities and towns where the mayoralty race has just one candidate have a total of 5,915,756 registered voters. That’s more than 10 percent of the total number nationwide.

A bulk of the unopposed tally in fact can be found at the municipal/city level. Of the total 802 candidates without rivals, 194 are running for municipal mayor, 21 for city mayor, 226 for municipal vice mayor, and 23 for city vice-mayor. More than 30 cities and municipalities also have the same or fewer councilor candidates than there are seats to be filled, resulting in 250 candidates for councilor running unopposed.

“It is always good to have opposing voices in the local leadership, and that strives if candidates are from different parties,” says Alampay. “But in the case of unopposed slates, alternative voices may be shut off in the discussion of the local council.”

PCIJ. Vote Reach, Unopposed Mayor Bets

Wannabe mayor

In any case, it is LP that has more candidates for mayor running unopposed: 103. The municipalities and cities where these candidates are running have a total population of 2,497,877 registered voters.

NPC is a far second in terms of its number of unopposed mayoralty candidates: 24. And even then, the cities and towns were these candidates are running have a lower number of voters – 656,222.

In contrast, the 21 unchallenged mayoralty candidates of NP represent 1,063,696 voters.

NUP also has 21 unopposed bets for mayor, but the cities and municipalities where they are running have only a total number of 605,505 voters.

UNA has 17 mayoralty candidates without rivals in cities and municipalities that have a total of 305,978 voters.

Of course, aside from their own unopposed bets for mayor, the national political parties can also reach out to the independent candidates. Sixteen of these independents are running unopposed as mayors, with their respective bailiwicks having a total of 313,032 voters altogether. (The smaller parties, meantime, have managed to have 13 unopposed mayoralty bets as well, with their cities and municipalities having a total of 473,446 registered voters.)

PCIJ. Vote Reach, Unopposed Vice Mayor Bets

Wannabe vice mayor

Other possible helping hands that the national parties and candidates can seek are those of candidates for vice mayor who are running unopposed. Although their political clout may not be as strong as the mayoralty bets, these unchallenged vice-mayoralty candidates most probably have their own circle of loyal supporters among their town or city’s voters.

All in all, the 249 unopposed candidates for vice mayor can bring as much as 6,756,586 registered voters to the election table.

Among the parties, LP again has the most number of unopposed bets for vice mayor at 111, with a potential voter reach of 2,337,788 million. NPC is second with 33, with a potential voter reach of 904,721; NUP 32, with 849,540 voter reach; NP 25, with 1,125,160 voter reach; and UNA 19, with 547,182 voter reach. Independents running unopposed for vice mayor number 11, with a total potential voter reach of 381,288, while smaller parties have 18 unchallenged vice-mayor bets, with a total voter reach of 610,907.

Eleven candidates for vice governor are also running unopposed across the nation, 33 for the Sangguniang Panlalawigan member, and 32 for district representative.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed Candidates, By Position

A bounty in ARMM

Among the regions across the country, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has the most number of unopposed candidates followed by Ilocos Region with 94, Region VI (Western Visayas) with 79, Caraga region with 53, and Region X (Northern Mindanao) with 50.

Of the unopposed in ARMM, 23 are running as municipal mayors, one as city mayor, 27 as municipal vice mayor, one as city vice mayor, and 96 as municipal councilors.

Metro Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR) is at the bottom of the region roster with only 11 unopposed bets, closely followed by Bicol Region with just 15 unchallenged candidates.

In NCR, each of Quezon City’s four Congressional districts has only one candidate running to represent it. Taguig has only one candidate each for mayor and vice mayor. Parañaque has a sole candidate for mayor, as does Navotas, which also has one vice mayoralty candidate. Manila’s 2nd Legislative District and Marikina’s 2nd Legislative District each has just one candidate for Congress.

Twelve provinces – six from Luzon, two from the Visayas, and four from Mindanao – have only one candidate each signed up for the gubernatorial race in the upcoming elections: Bataan, Pampanga, Camiguin, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Davao Occidental, Biliran, Apayao, Mountain Province, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Negros Occidental. – PCIJ, May 2016

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For details, please check out PCIJ and PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Duterte’s 2015 SALN: P14.8-M cash in bank, tops rivals in wealth growth

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By Malou Mangahas

SO HOW MUCH is he really worth?

According to his 2015 Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth or SALN,
presidential frontrunner and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte has a net worth for 2015 of only P23,514,569.93, or a slight P1.54-million increase in his declared net worth in 2014.

Duterte’s “cash on hand/in bank”, according to his latest SALN, was just P14,839,69.93, as of Dec. 31, 2015.

Duterte filed his SALN for 2015 early — on April 21, 2016, or nine days ahead of the April 30 deadline.

In contrast, until yesterday noon, Vice President Jejomar ‘Jojo’ C. Binay, another candidate for president, had yet to file his SALN for 2015 with the Office of the Ombudsman. Meanwhile, there is a waiting period of 10 working days to secure the 2015 SALNs of fellow presidentiables Senators Grace Poe and Miriam Defensor-Santiago – that is, if they have already submitted these. Former Interior and Local Governments Secretary Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II, though, will not have to file a SALN this time around, since he is no longer a government official.

Interest in Duterte’s SALNs has surged following allegations that he has bank accounts through which hundreds of millions of pesos have supposed passed through. For sure, certified bank records may be needed for anyone to prove or disprove such allegations. But what Duterte’s SALNs do show is a phenomenal growth rate over the last 19 years.

The earliest SALN Duterte had filed that is on PCIJ’s archives is for the year 1997, in which he declared a net worth of only P897,792.

The Davao City mayor’s net worth of P23.5 million for 2015 redounds to a 2,519 percent increase, or a phenomenal growth rate of 132.6 percent on average per year, over the last 19 years.

By comparison, Binay’s net worth grew from P2.9 million in 1989 to P60.20 million in his SALN for 2014, for a cumulative increase of 1,975 percent in 25 years, or an average of 79 per cent per year.

Roxas, the administration Liberal Party’s candidate for president, reported a net worth of P12.76 million in 1993, and grew this to P202.08 million in 2014. This results in a 1,483 percent growth in 21 years, or 70.61 percent on average per a year.

Defensor-Santiago, candidate for president of the People’s Reform Party, showed a modest uptick in her declared net worth — from P48.00 million in 1994 to P73.03 million in 2014, for a 52.14 percent growth in 20 years, or 2.6 percent annual average growth.

And then there is the case of Poe, presidential bet of the Galing at Puso slate, which is one of progressively declining wealth. Poe declared a net worth of P152.5 million in 2010, but this slipped steadily to P89.46 million in her SALN for 2014, for a net regression of 41.34 percent in four years, or negative 10.32 percent on average per year.

Although far from being “perfect” financial reporting instruments, SALNs often contain interesting information about a public official or candidate’s wealth, regardless of whether or not the official or candidate had been forthright about all the details.

For instance, in his latest SALN for 2015 that PCIJ obtained from the Office of the Ombudsman, Duterte said he also owned:

• P3 million flat in “investments”;
• P350,000 in household appliances and furniture;
• P300,000 in jewelry; and
• four pieces of residential real property worth only P480,000 by acquisition cost.

He said he acquired these lots, all located in Bago Aplaya, Davao City, between 1995 and 1996.

Also declared among his “personal properties” are two vehicles — a Toyota RAV 4 acquired in 1996 for supposedly P800,000, and a “Volks Sedan” acquired in 1978 supposedly for P40,000.

In a separate page, however, Duterte listed a second set of “assets, liabilities, and net worth” and additional properties “including those of the spouse and unmarried children below 18 years of age being in the declarant’s household.”

Duterte named his 11-year-old daughter by his second partner in this separate assets list.

On this list are five real properties. Duterte said three lots are located in Maa, Davao City, one house and lot in Matina, Davao City, all reportedly acquired from 1997 to 1998, and a second house and lot located in Buhangin, Davao City that he said he purchased in 2008.

Yet still on another page of his 2015 SALN, Duterte listed a third set of real properties that he noted were “purchased through the exclusive funds of (the mother of his 11-year-old daughter), Cielito S. Avancena.”

This third set of properties includes three lots — two agricultural and one residential — located in Matina, Malagos, and Catigan, all in Davao City; and two house and lots in Matina; Davao City.

Duterte valued this final set of real properties at P3.08 million, by acquisition cost.

On this separate page, too, Duterte listed a “personal loan” of P1.2 million from a certain “Samuel Uy”.

In his SALN for 2014, Duterte had declared a net worth of P21 ,971,732.62, including combined real and personal properties of P22,971,732.62, and liabilities of only P1 million to a certain “Samuel Uy”.

In his 2015 SALN, Duterte declared his business interest in two entities — as incorporator since 1997 of Honda Cars, with business address at Catolico Street, General Santos City; and as incorporator since 2012 of Poeng Yue Foundation, Inc., with business address on San Pedro Street in Davao City.

As in his 2014 SALN, in his 2015 SALN Duterte listed having six relatives in the government service. They are:

• Son Paolo Z. Duterte, vice mayor of Davao City;
• Daughter-in-law January N. Duterte, councilor of Davao City;
• Brother Benjamin R. Duterte, his private secretary at the Davao City Mayor’s Office;
• Nephew Wilfrido D. Villarica, Administrative Officer 1, at the Davao City Council;
• Jean Villarica, wife of Wilfrido, Auxiliary Worker of Davao City’s Environment and Natural Resources Office; and
• “Balae” Agnes Reyes-Carpio, mother of the spouse of his daughter Sara, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals

Nineteen years ago, when he was a congressman from Davao City, Duterte had
declared owning seven real properties that he said he acquired for a combined cost of P603,700; and personal properties worth P3,250,092. The latter included, he said, “cash on hand/in bank” of only P189,245; cars and motorcycles worth P1,206,482; and “investments” of P1,556,250.

That same year, 1997, Duterte said he had “miscellaneous payables” amounting to P2,956,000.

Two years earlier in 1995, he said he invested a total of P1,556,250 in “Mister Donuts” outlets located in Ulas, Agado, P. Reyes, and Ecoland, all in Davao City.

Notably, like his net worth, Duterte’s “cash on hand/in bank” has charted an upward trek in the last two decades, save for one year.

In 1998, Duterte said he had P339,245 “cash on hand/in bank” and net worth of
P1,047,792 as of December that year.

In 1999, he declared exactly the same amount of “cash on hand/in bank”, but also a bigger net worth of P1,447,542.

In 2000, his “cash on hand/in bank” grew to P512,135, and his net worth, P1,766,722.

In 2002, it climbed to P889,441, and his net worth, P2,834,028.

In 2004, it jumped to P3,220,312, and his net worth, P7,024,899.

In 2005, it rose to P4,621,193, and his net worth, P8,425,780.

In 2006, it became P6,071,460, and his net worth, P8,650,627.

In 2007, he declared it at P7,079,199, and his net worth, P9,685,366.

In 2008, he put it at P7,514,124. This excludes what he declared to be P1,138,890 in premiums paid for educational plans; P1,305,953 in “private inheritance”; P454,500 in premiums paid for pre-need plans; P686,833 in time deposits; and P65,625 in stocks.

His declared net worth for 2008 was P15,315,925.08.

In 2009, the amount of Duterte’s “cash on hand/in bank” climbed to P9,164,204.32, and his net worth, P16,616,005.40.

In 2011, he put it at P11,155,123.12, and his net worth, P18,930,123.12.

In 2014, he declared it to be P13,846,732.62, and his net worth, P21,971,732.62.

In his latest SALN for 2015, Duterte said his “cash on hand/in bank” was all of P14,839,69.93. — With research by Vino Lucero and Davinci S. Maru, PCIJ, May 2016

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For details on the wealth of the candidates, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Philippine Data Summit marks Int’l Anti-Corruption Day on Dec. 9

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THE UNITED NATIONS will lead the global observance of International Anti-Corruption Day on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. Its theme highlights a global clamor — Break the Corruption Chain!

In the Philippines, the Office of the Ombudsman, in partnership with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, will mark the day with the conduct of an inaugural “Philippine Data Summit.”
Its theme, a clamor of all Filipinos, — Open Data We Want, Open Data We Need, Open Up Government.

The forum will be held from 8 am to 5 pm at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria Hotel in Quezon City.

Organized by the Office of the Ombudsman and the PCIJ, the event is being supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

The Summit celebrates the shared, firm resolve of state agencies, civil society organizations, civil servants, professionals, academe, and private sector to take the first steps in building a meaningful open data infrastructure that could serve as a pillar of good governance, transparency, and accountability in the Philippines.

It assumes greater urgency and relevance in light of the synchronized national, legislative, and local elections on May 9, 2016 that will usher in a new political administration.

Commissioner Heidi Mendoza of the Commission on Audit (recently appointed Undersecretary-General for Oversight Services of the United Nations) will deliver the keynote address. Commissioner Mendoza is the original proponent of the conduct of this multi-stakeholder national data summit.

A panel of resource persons will discuss thematic issues in the data supply-demand chain. They include:

* Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera, who is also lead prosecutor in the pork-related corruption/plunder cases pending with the Sandiganbayan;

* Budget Undersecretary Richard Bon Moya of the Open Data Task Force of the Philippines;

* Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan, lead convenor of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition; and

* Mr. Mario Demarillas of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners-Philippines.

The Summit and subsequent activities it is designed to enable will seek to achieve the following objectives:

* Harness the supply-demand chain of data on public policy and governance from the perspective of data producers and data users.

* Enhance the skills, capacity, and practice o all stakeholders in appreciating, accessing, sorting, analyzing, and popularizing data with governance metrics to inform public policy discourse, advocacy, and state-citizen engagement.

* Promote the cross-training, data-sharing, and institutionalization of data teams of content producers and tech teams in public agencies and civil society.

* Foster media and citizen awareness, use, analysis, and demand for data, in both quantity and quality, as these are relevant to public policy discourse, graft investigation and prosecution, delivery of basic services, and citizen engagement and participation for transparency, accountability, and good governance. — PCIJ, December 2015

Pork a la Gloria, Pork a la PNoy: Kahindik-hindik, unconscionable

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TODAY we start running a series of PCIJ reports on the unyielding saga of pork and corruption, seemingly the eternal scourge of government and politics in the Philippines.

On Nov.19, 2013, the Supreme Court, voting 14-0 with one abstention, declared “the entire 2013 PDAF Article” and all legal provisions behind its prior incarnations – Countrywide Development Fund and Congressional Initiatives Allocation – to be unconstitutional.

It noted that the pork system “authorized lawmakers, individually or through committees, to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release, and/or fund realignment.”

But from the reports of the Commission on Audit (COA) on agencies riddled with pork, and various people and paper sources, the story of the continuing abuse and misuse of pork and other lump-sum funds emerges.

It lingered on even during the first half of the “Daang Matuwid” administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III from 2011 to 2013.

And despite the high court’s temporary restraining order on pork disbursement from Sept.10, 2013, some agencies and legislators continued to dispense it, while many others have yet to return to the Treasury multimillion pesos of unutilized pork monies allotted in their 2012 and 2013 budgets.

“Kahindik-hindik” or horrible in English, was how then COA Chairperson Maria Gracia Pulido-Tan described the corruption in pork that her team of 18 COA Special Audits Office staff and a Technical Audit specialist uncovered when they scrutinized pork-barrel projects supposedly implemented from 2007 to 2009.

Fresh COA reports on the agencies that implemented pork projects during the first half of the Aquino administration do not present a pretty picture, either. In one, state auditors chose a searing description for what has been going on: “unconscionable” – or walang awa in Filipino.

COA’s Circular 2012-003 defines “unconscionable expenditures” as those that are “unreasonable and immoderate, and which no man in his right sense would make, nor a fair and honest man would accept as reasonable, and those incurred in violation of ethical and moral standards.”

For this series of reports, a seven-person team of PCIJ writers, content producers, and platform staff reviewed, sorted, and analyzed a volume of data from the agencies linked to the Napoles pork-barrel scam; the files of whistleblower Benhur Luy; the pleadings submitted to the Sandiganbayan; COA audit reports; the corporate records of some contractors behind pork-funded projects; and the political history of administration and opposition legislators who had been linked to the corruption in pork.

Too, the PCIJ sent letters to 20 lawmakers implicated in the pork-barrel cases to secure their side, and conducted interviews with relevant sources from the Department of Justice and other executive agencies, the Ombudsman, and COA, as well as with the lawyers and some of the respondents in the cases pending before the Sandiganbayan. - PCIJ, August 2015

All set for Data Journalism PH15!

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IT’S ALL SYSTEMS go for the launch on Monday, July 13, of Data Journalism PH 2015, a project of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) and the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF), with support from the World Bank-Philippines.

The event will be held at the HIVE Hotel and Convention Place in Quezon City with a panel of distinguished speakers — Commissioner Heidi Mendoza of the Commission on Audit, Budget Undersecretary Richard ‘Bon’ Moya, Kai Kasiser and Rogier van den Brink of the World Bank.

Mendoza will discuss the ground-breaking work of the COA, in partnership with civil society organizations, on their Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) project.

Moya, who coordinates the government’s Open Data Task Force, will focus on the story of Open Data and Open Government initiatives in the Philippines.

Kiser will tackle the topic, “Open Roads: Transparency and Accountability in the Roads Sector.”

After the project launch, 34 journalists and bloggers from 11 media agencies will participate in a three-day training seminar to be conducted by OKF and PCIJ.

Through an open search for teams of content providers and techies with data-story proposals, the following participants were selected:

1. From BlogWatch:

* Noemi Lardizabal-Dado, known as @MomBlogger on social media, believes in making a difference in the lives of her children by advocating social change for social good. She is the editor of Blog Watch Citizen Media and the features editor of thePhilippine Online Chronicles, a platform for alternative viewpoints and a synthesizer of ideas.

* Jane Uymatiao is a citizen advocate and resource speaker on digital citizenship and social media crisis communication. She co-founded Blog Watch, a citizen advocacy group, and actively engages different stakeholders via social media on a wide range of economic, social and political issues.

* Carlos Maningat is a Manila-based labor researcher. He works on data stories that cover labor, official development assistance (ODA) and financialization.

2. From Interaksyon:

* Patricia Aquino is a correspondent at InterAksyon.com. She is on general assignment.

* Edilvan Falcon is a senior web developer at InterAksyon.com. He is working on his master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

* Orlando Garcia is the Information Technology editor at InterAksyon.com. He has been a journalist for over 20 years, having started at Jingle Magazine.

3. From The Philippine Star:

* Alexis B. Romero has been covering national security for The Philippine star since 2010. He started his journalism career in 2006 as a reporter for BusinessWorld, where he covered finance, the Office of the President, the energy sector, House of Representatives and defense.

* Helen M. Flores is a reporter of The Philippine STAR covering politics and science issues. Aside from her regular beat, she also writes stories from survey data of the Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia. Flores graduated from Centro Escolar University-Manila with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication major in journalism. She completed her master’s degree in Communication at the University of Santo Tomas.

* Jan Victor R. Mateo, 24, is the education beat reporter of the Philippine STAR. He is a graduate student of development communication, and has an undergraduate speech communication from the University of the Philippines. He is a participant of the 2010 Study of the US Institutes on New Media Journalism held at the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

4. From the Calbayog Post:

* Rommel L. Rutor is a multi-platform Journalist based in Samar, works for Print, Radio, TV and Online, he is on his 20th year in the profession this year. A prime mover of local issues in his own right, he desires to provide more in-depth stories to the public, and be a catalyst of change in Samar.

* Jennifer Sumagang – Allegado graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Arts major in Communication Arts from the University of the East, Manila. Has been in the media work for more than 12 years now, correspondent of Calbayogpost.com and a radio broadcaster in the City of Calbayog, Samar.

* Jose Gerwin Babon is a media practitioner and communication instructor at the same time.

5. From inquirer.net of the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

* Frances Mangosing is a multimedia reporter for INQUIRER.net for four years. She mostly covers defense, disasters and weather.
Nestor Corrales is a multimedia reporter for INQUIRER.net. He writes breaking news and covers urban transportation, politics, among others.

* Dan Paurom is the one-quarter of INQUIRER.net’s social media team. He consumes reports based on big data almost daily.

6. From The Financial Times-Manila:

* Hannah Dormido, 25, is a senior production editor for the Financial Times. She specialises on visuals and is currently a QGIS sorceress in training.

7. From BusinessWorld:

* Christine Joyce S. Castañeda is a researcher from BusinessWorld Publishing Corp. since July 2014. She finished her Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Philippines – Los Baños in April 2014.

* Kia B. Obang, earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of the East in 2013. She has been with BusinessWorld Publishing Corp. since June 2013, starting off as a Research Assistant before being promoted to Researcher in December 2013.

* Leo Jaymar G. Uy graduated from the University of the Philippines School of Economics in 2013 and is a researcher from BusinessWorld Publishing Corp. since January 2014. He has a strong interest in history – particularly with the economic, social and political histories of East Asia, United States and the Philippines.

8. From Forbes Philippines:

* Lala Rimando is a business journalist with expertise in political economy and understands the dynamics of new and traditional media. She headed the business and other news units of investigative media publication Newsbreak, the online news site of Philippine media giant, ABS-CBN, and social media news network Rappler.com before joining Forbes Media’s Philippine edition as managing editor.

* Paul John Caña is a writer for Forbes Philippines and a contributor for various online and print publications. A Journalism graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman, he is a former newsdesk operations staff of GMA Network Inc. and was also the managing editor of a leading lifestyle magazine.

* Lorenzo Kyle Subido is the data journalist of Forbes Philippines, crunching numbers and scouring data bases online and off for the research needs of the magazine’s visual and text stories. He has a Creative Writing degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman and is keen to hone both his right- and left-brain skills.

9. From Bloomberg TV-Philippines:

* Regina Hing co-anchors the daily morning shows First Up and Starting Gate on Bloomberg TV Philippines. The shows aim to connect the dots for a broad audience–between politics and the economy, between macro and micro, between the movement of billions of dollars in the capital markets to the buying power of OFW remittances. Before joining Bloomberg TV Philippines, Regina was a Senior Producer/Evening Editor on the Business Desk at Channel NewsAsia in Singapore, helping oversee the channel’s coverage of business and financial markets globally. She holds a Masters in Business and Economic Reporting at New York University.

* Katria Alampay is a writer and segment producer for Bloomberg TV Philippines. She graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a B.A. in Journalism and previously worked for almost two years at the Korean Embassy in Manila.

* Alay Magno is a segment producer for Bloomberg TV Philippines’ evening news show In The Loop and weekly talk show on Startups, Igniters. Alay obtained his Masters degree in Finance from the University of the Philippines, where he also studied Computer Engineering before working in the tech industry.

10. From ABS-CBN:

* Marie Mamawal is the currently the Associate Dean of the Journalism Academy, ABS-CBN University. Currently a professor/lecturer at the Communication Department of the College of Liberal Arts, De La Salle University-Taft. Has been an Executive Producer for ABS-CBN Current Affairs’ investigative programs since 1988. Among them “Magandang Gabi Bayan” and “Assignment”.

* Gigi Grande, Multi-platform journalist for ABS-CBN’s Investigative and Special Reports Group, concurrently news presenter for ANC (the ABS-CBN News Channel.) Since 1997, covered a variety of beats including the Defense department, Commission on Elections, the Catholic Church and Department of Foreign Affairs. Produced documentaries for “”The Correspondents”” between 2003-2006. Proficient in English and Filipino, knowledge of Spanish.

* Rowena Paraan is a former Research Director of PCIJ and currently handling Bayan Mo IPatrol Mo, a citizen journalism/crowd sourcing arm of ABS-CBN. A journalist of more than 25 years.

11. From Rappler:

* Michael Joseph Bueza, or Mike, is a researcher/reporter for Rappler. He geeks out on books, maps, and pro wrestling.

* Gwen de la Cruz is a researcher from Rappler’s online disaster platform, Project Agos. She loves to write inspiring stories.

* Gerard Raymond Lim is a researcher for Rappler’s #PHVote. He hopes to teach philosophy someday.

A three-person team from PCIJ that will assist in the seminar completes the list of participants.

The seminar will be followed by months of mentoring for the participants by OKF and PCIJ so they could continue research and development work on their data-story projects. A public presentation of the participants’ completed projects will be held toward the close of 2015. – PCIJ, July 2015