2024 IN REVIEW Of Salt Ponds and Central Markets

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

This year, I stepped back from active reporting to focus on completing my law degree and passing the Bar exams.

Although I only achieved one of these goals, I’ve returned to the Daily Guardian, eager to continue the work I began in 2020.

Here are my top three stories of the year and why they mattered to me:

‘PANGAYPOT’: Salt-making is no joke of a livelihood under the sun (April 26, 2024)

This feature for the Daily Guardian’s anniversary issue explored traditional salt-making using bricks by locals in Leganes, Iloilo.

While this was simply a feature story for some, this mattered to me because this was a livelihood that thrived under the scorching heat that affected not just our region, but the whole country.

For me, this was more than a simple story. It highlighted a livelihood that flourished under extreme summer heat, which impacted not just our region but the entire country.

However, the piece also revealed an imminent threat to this tradition, as rising property values linked to the anticipated Panay-Guimaras Bridge jeopardize its survival.

Through this story, I realized the importance of telling stories about our agriculture sector and how changes around us affect the lives of ordinary people.

***

‘HOT TOPIC’: Central Market demolition under investigation (May 20, 2024)

‘ALL ON PAPER’: Iloilo City Hall defends Central Market demolition (May 21, 2024)

If there’s any coverage that I could say “messed me up” as a journalist, and personally affected me, it would be these stories about the destruction of a heritage structure in Iloilo City.

A cultural official opened up about looking into the demolition of the 80-year-old façade of the Iloilo City Public Market (also known as the Central Market), but in doing so, failed to clarify which of his representations was doing the probe.

While I can admit that I needed to clarify the statements in the reports related to this story, I have to push back against being called “irresponsible”, because I worked with what I had at that time.

But this escalated to something else, and I never thought that I would be staring at the face of a potential lawsuit.

While Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas had defended the legality of the Central Market demolition in May, he also told me and Gerome Dalipe of Panay News, that he could file cases against us.

Treñas had been on a blitz after that episode, saying that it was aimed at provincial government information chief Nereo Lujan, who had been, and is still, harshly criticizing his administration.

The mayor also said he would not and had never sued journalists, but the mental and emotional damage to me was substantial that I still find hard to reverse.

Treñas call-out made me question whether I was still cut out for this profession, one that I have dreamed of since childhood and would intend to honor and respect until my dying breath.

Even as I write this, I find it hard to write or say why this story mattered—in a way that would not get me or our editor-in-chief, Francis Allan Angelo, sued by anyone who may have been tagged in this reporting.

These two coverages shaped me this year—one that continued to kindle the flame of wanting to tell more Ilonggo, Panayanon, and Western Visayan stories; and one that made me introspect deeply.

As we go into 2025, I expect that we could be able to tell more stories, not only because of an upcoming election, but also because our fires at Daily Guardian had never died but remains burning.