Raul Del Mar moving for media: Count the ways
Rep. Raul Del Mar (second from right in bottom right photo) with U.P. Cebu College mass-com program teachers and students. Public funds secured by Del Mar enabled the school to improve its teaching equipment for future journalists. Other media projects partly assisted by Del Mar’s PDAF include the CJJ Gallery (top left) at Museo Sugbo and media medical aid fund (CEMMAF, top right) managed by Cenewof and DSWD.
Raul Del Mar moving for media: Count the ways
MAYETTE Q. TABADA
September 2013 (CJJ8)
While the scandal over the alleged malversation of P10 billion of Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) over the past 1o years has fed public debate whether the pork barrel should be suspended or abolished, one lawmaker has used some of his PDAF to help news media workers in Cebu.
Since the 1th Congress (July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2007), Rep. Raul Del Mar has included the welfare of media workers among his priorities, with his P2 million PDAF contribution to the P3 million seed money, which started the Cebu Media Medical Fund (Cemmaf) project in 2006.
It’s not only with his PDAF that the 72-year-old politician from Cebu has shown his support for local media. (He was 72 in 2013 and 79 when he died Nov. 16, 2020.)
After wining in May 2013 a fresh mandate to represent the north district in Cebu City for his seventh term May 2013, Del Mar immediately filed 20 bills when the 16th Congress opened.
Included in the list are three bills crucial for a free press.
House Bill #26, “An Act to Strengthen the Right of Citizens to Information Held by the Government,” was originally filed by Rep. Marguerite del Mar, Raul’s daughter, on July 29, 2010 during the 15th Congress.
But as early as the 14th Congress, Raul Del Mar had already supported the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill by co-authoring HB #3732 or the Freedom of Information Act of 2008 originally filed by Juan Edgardo M. Angara.
Aside from the FOI bill, Del Mar also re-filed with the opening of the 16th Congess HBs #362, which sought to amend Republic Act #53, a.k.a. the Sotto
Law, and R.A. #363, which would fix the venue of libel against community journalists and publications/radio stations at the principal place of business of the media outlet. The bill on venue was re-filed from the 13th to the 15 Congress. (It was again among the bills filed by Rep. Marguerite “Cutie” del Mar, who won her dad’s seat in the 2022 elections.)
(As to the bill expanding protection of the Sotto Law to include broadcast and digital/online journalists was signed into law, R.A. #11458 by then president Rodrigo Duterte in September 2019. The House version, repeatedly filed by Del Mar until its passage and enactment into law, was drafted with the help of CCPC.)
Cenewof-Cemmaf poject
IN cooperation with Department of Social Welfare & Development (DSWD), Cenewof or Cebu News Workers Foundation has run Cemmaf, the local media medical aid program. . The fund started with P1 million from Rep. Antonio Cuenco’s PDAF and P2 million from Del Mar’s PDAF, later to be increased by another P2 million Raul pledged in 2012.
As of Jan. 16, 2013, 183 print and broadcast journalists and their families had benefited from the Cemmaf since 2006, as reported Cenewof social worker Lesly Comiso-Magalso.
In 2006, the first phase of Cemmaf identified as primary beneficiaries print, radio and television reporters, editors, news desk persons, photographers, feature writers, columnists, artists, correspondents, camera crew, radio commentators and anchor persons. The requirement: the beneficiary must have served his or her news outlet for at least two years.
Secondary beneficiaries were included in the 2011 supplemental proposal of Cenewof for the second phase of Cemmaf’s work: direct family members, children under 21, and legitimate spouses; support staff in print and broadcast news organizations; and MBF Cebu Press Center secretariat that administered the program.
Media gallery
For the CJJ (Cebu Journalism & Journalists) Media Gallery at the Cebu Province-owned Museo Sugbo – which held its soft opening on Sept. 24, 2010, — Del Mar gave half a million pesos (P200,000 , then P300,000) from his PDAF for the initial exhibits. The gallery was initiated and set up by the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC), which entered into a 25-year agreement with Gov. Gwen Garcia, with the approval of the Provincial Board. Del Mar’s donation funded the gallery’s broadcast booth and the roof over the linotype machine displayed near the gallery door.
Future journalists
Under a “Future Journalists” program of SunStar Cebu and CCPC, Del Mar, who was then a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, donated to the University of the Philippines Cebu College P500,000, which paid for refurbishing the school’s mass communication program’s multimedia newsroom. The grant upgraded the old newsroom to meet industry standards of converged news production.
The newsroom was inaugurated on Sept. 20, 2007, with Del Mar leading the ceremony. The newsroom has been used for lectures and productions of U.P. Cebu mass-com undergraduates in preparation for internship and employment with news organizations in Cebu and other metros in Visayas and Mindanao.
An additional half a million pesos, also from Del Mar’s PDAF, provided U.P. Cebu’s students and faculty with laptops, digital/video cameras, and other audiovisual equipment . It also equipped the news editing room, video editing room and Center in Media Education (CME), which carries out the mass-com program’s extension activities for media literacy with non-mass-com students of U.P. Cebu and the public. With P300,000 more, prompted by Del Mar’s concern for journalism and future journalists, CME was renovated, along with the Arts and Humanities Cluster office of U.P. Cebu.
( In transferring the article from CJJ print edition to the CJJ website, a few changes of the text, which haven’t affected its substance and style, were made. — Editor) 