Day 02 - Of Showbiz Police Reporting and CommRes all over again

** Cross-posted from http://lfs.jmtuazon.net **

*Subtitled Of 75 pesos and the Will To Survive

Today was a pretty eventual day for me and Claire.  Today we officially start to do two shifts of work--one for Police Beat in the morning/afternoon and one for the Research Department of the paper in the evening.

The day started off with a trip to the Quezon City Police District Station 10--erstwhile known as the Kamuning Police Station, the epitome of blood and gore when it comes to the kinds of crimes reported.  The call time was at 9am but basing from the experience yesterday and Claire's stories from last week, I decided to be quite late.  When I arrived, I learned that...

I was still freakin' early.  I had to wait for Sir Marlon for another fifteen minutes or so pa, so I sat by the desk officer's--what else--desk and waited for Sir Marlon.  Soon after all kinds of gruesomeness started coming into the station, most remarkable of which was this guy with a bruised (and take note bleeding) eye that sat beside me on the bench.  I wanted to cringe and transfer seats but there were no other chairs around, so I just sat around praying Sir Marlon arrives soon or the earth'll swallow me right then and there.

When Sir Marlon arrived, he had a smirk on his face and asked why I wasn't in the Press Office, if I even know the place.  Of course I told him I wasn't aware there was a press office because it was my first time there.  He introduced me to another reporter-friend of his named Jet, who's a reporter for Abante.  We proceeded to the intelligence section of the station to look at the blotter.

Our stories today involved the parents of Mickey Ferriols figuring in a vehicular mishap along EDSA and some rumble in a nearby club which we didn't pick up because no suspects were arrested.  This is when Sir Marlon told me the news that the Nino Muhlach story Claire did yesterday was published in the Inquirer (yes!  Look for it in the Metro Section of the paper today).  I texted her since she wasn't there yet to congratulate her.  Minutes later, she arrived, apparently somehow bothered by the condition of the prisoners in the station.  It was kind of disturbing, really, seeing those men packed in the cell.  There wasn't enough room for everybody, so some had to resort to squatting on waist-high partition walls and kitchen sinks.  Tsk, tsk...

After our stint at the Police Station, we proceeded to our usual stop every day: Camp Karingal.  We interviewed the Police Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) about the recent robbery/theft case at RC Cola in Novaliches.  The cops and the reporters were laughing at how some uniformed policemen broke into the office/factory (I wasn't able to clarify) of RC Cola and took lots of cash.  Too bad they didn't know that they were being filmed on CCTV camera, so now the police is after them.

The PSupt. (oha, alam ko na mga abbreviations!  =P) gave us another police record of a good case--something about Former Senator Tito Sotto reporting a theft incident over at his house in White Plains, Quezon City.  The thief(s) took his wallet, his mason ring and his precious, precious iPhone.  No wonder the old senator's fumed, people will find out he owns an illegal unit of the iPhone!  LOLz.

After this Sir Marlon typed his Senator Sotto story (through his Sony VAIO mini-laptop-thingamajigger) and filed it online.  It can now be found here.  This was posted just a little over an hour after Sir Marlon sent it over the net (there was WiFi in the QCPD, would you believe?!).  Aaaahhh, technology.

The stories we got today prompted us to think: why are we getting a lot of Police Stories involving famous celebrities this week?  Are we to become the local version of Gossip Girl?  Haha.  Scratch that last part.

We then went to the rear part of the Camp to talk to the informal settlers whose houses were being threatened of being demolished by the police.  We talked to their President and gathered some info about the recent case of demolition.  We found out that the lot is owned by UP and was just leased to the PNP.  Hmmm... so it didn't just start with the S&T Park.  I wonder if the establishment of the Camp was widely opposed by UP students when it was first built?

We then proceeded to the NUJP Headquarters to type the stories.  But before going there, Claire and I had to eat our lunch first.  It was 2pm and we haven't eaten a thing.

But, the problem of the day soon struck me in the face:  I only had 75pesos today, how am I gonna squeeze that into the different expenses I have to endure for the next few hours or so?  An idea came to mind, and I'm glad Claire agreed to my plan, so we dined at Jollibee for more variety (yesterday we ate at McDo).  I ordered the ultimate grepa meal: the lumpiang shanghai with macaroni soup and drink for only 49 pesos!  Hooray!  I still had about 26 pesos to spare.  That'd have to go to the fare going to the Inquirer office.

We returned to the NUJP HQ stomachs full, and we did our stories separately.  Claire did the full story on the Sotto case, while I wrote the Ferriols one which was quite tough because I didn't know half the details.  I had to keep asking Sir Marlon what happened so that I could finish the stories.  Several camwhoring sessions and hours after, Sir Marlon edited our stories, gave us his comments, and off we went to the Inquirer Head Office!

The travel to the head office took about an hour.  Good thing we didn't have to battle it out with the rush hour, lest we arrive at the office scathed and bruised.  We barely knew the exact directions going to the head office from Morato, and I just swear we somehow got on the wrong jeepney on the way to the MRT.  Thankfully, we both survived, arms, legs and all.

Upon arriving at the office Claire got her tuition check and we went straight to Sir Yambot who was so nice to escort us (actually, he does that everytime--escort us everywhere.  Such a nice guy, Sir Yambot is.  *sipsip* :P) to the Research Department, where Ma'am Miner, the Department Head, interviewed us for a short while and gave us our assignments.

Somehow, both Claire and I were shocked with Ma'am Miner's strictness.  She asked us our definite times of arrival and departure to and from the office, because, she said, interns aren't allowed to have flexible time schedules.  It was somehow a great departure from what we got used to in the field, where somehow anything goes, so long as you meet your deadline.  So we told Ma'am Miner we'd stay at the office from 5pm til 9pm everyday, and she agreed.  Then off we went to our assignments.

She gave us a small sheet of paper each with two topics and three questions written below them.  Claire took the Scarborough Island topic and I ended up with the Habeas Data topic.  Basically, they wanted us to do a research on the topic on the Inquirer archives, so this is why it's like CommRes all over again.

About two hours later and both Claire and I finished, so we submitted our papers to Ma'am Miner for evaluation.  When she returned our papers, she asked Claire to look for a map of the island while she asked me to look for certain provisions on the writ of habeas data, and to follow strictly the Inquirer Stylebook.  But along the side, she commented how she was naiinis because we did the job very quickly and very efficiently, and she even told me that I did a very comprehensive job, save for a few misses here and there.  Wahoo!

Somehow, Claire and I loved doing our work in the Research Department.  It's not as haggard as the Police Beat rounds and it feels like we've already done this a million times in school.  But this is only the first day of the job, and it gets harder every day.  Tomorrow we deal with phone calls to different schools to ask for their tuition rates.  Haggard.  That's a lotta school, just looking at my list.

At around 8pm, they told us to have dinner already.  Because I didn't have money anymore, I just accompanied Claire to KFC to buy her food.  I wasn't that hungry anyway, and home is just about an hour away.   So we quickly got back to the office where Claire ate her food and I checked my bank account online.  And guess what?  I have freaking money on my account.  Whatta loser.

At 9pm we said our goodbyes to Ma'am Miner and our co-workers who were Journ people as well, such as Ate Kate, Ate Cyril, Ate Iza(?) and Ate Shiatsu (Oh no I don't know how to spell her name!).  Claire offered a ride but I told her I'd commute na lang, since I'm out of the way.  On the way home I withdrew money from an ATM and ate my heart out at ChowKing.  Boy, was I hungry.

So that concludes our 2nd day at work.  It was a very tiring day and I have reasons to believe this'll go on for the next few weeks or so.  But the good thing is, somehow, the haggardness of the Police Beat is balanced out by the fun workplace and workload at the Research Department.  We get experience interviewing, looking for stories and writing them on the field, and we get knowledge on how to do effective research in the office.  I guess this internship is turning out a little better than how I pictured it before I start, so yay!  Hooray for 12-hour workdays.  =))

I'm looking forward to reporting for work tomorrow. =D

Hours covered today: 7 1/2 hours on the field, 4 1/2 hours in the office (12 hours in all)