DAVAO CITY, 10 July — Mindanao-based multi-sectoral groups have finally got fed up with “imperial Manila’s” alleged bias against the island and has decided to do something about this problem in time for the Mindanao Week of Peace in November. Thus, the launching last Saturday of the 1st Mindanao Competition for Peace Reporting, which will be, initially open to all Mindanao beat reporters and other Mindanao-based writers. “The Manila and foreign media looks at us as an ordinary beat that should be sensationalized,” Sun. Star editor Antonio Ajero, chair of the organizing Mindanao Center for Peace and Development said during the launching of the contest last Friday. The unfair reporting about events in Mindanao, he added, is because people outside Mindanao do not understand what’s happening in the island. Ajero said that through the contest, reporters are given the incentive to do the right thing. The contest is expected to encourage reporters to write more about the real stories about Mindanao and not just about the casualties of war, he added. “We will not only look for pieces that will report on the peace initiatives in Mindanao but also reports which would analyze the root of the Mindanao conflict,” Prof. Agusto Miclat, Jr. said.
