Daily Guardian named among International Fund’s 10 PH grantees

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Daily Guardian, one of the largest newspapers serving Western Visayas, has been selected for new grant support from the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM), making it one of two recipient organizations in the Visayas and the first in Iloilo community journalism to be included in such an initiative.

The International Fund said in a announcement dated Feb. 13, 2026, that it has made new grants to local or regional independent news outlets in the Philippines and “will fund ten media organizations as of 2025.”

The grants range from USD 10,000 to USD 220,000 per media outlet and are intended to support a diverse set of independent newsrooms, including digital start-ups, TV stations, newspapers, and other media organizations.

“Independent media organizations in the Philippines have an essential role to play to inform communities across the country about issues that matter for them,” said Ivygail Ong, the International Fund’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. “This group of media outlets is as diverse as the regions and language groups they are serving, and we are proud to be able to support their work.”

The fund’s statement situated the grants within the Philippines’ scale and complexity, describing a country of 115 million people spread across more than 7,600 islands and speaking more than 180 languages.

It also noted that the Philippines has historically been recognized for the dynamism and broad variety of its media, reporting despite targeted attacks and harassment of journalists and media outlets viewed as critical.

In its profile of Daily Guardian, the International Fund described the Iloilo-based outlet as “one of the largest newspapers serving the Western Visayas region,” with a role in ensuring public access to accurate, verified, and locally relevant information.

The fund said Daily Guardian is evolving to expand its digital footprint and promote collaborative journalism models.

The other independent media outlets listed for support include Digibrn Media Production (BicoldotPH), which the fund described as a digital news outlet providing local coverage and content in both English and Bikol via its website and social media platforms.

The fund said BicoldotPH serves a broad audience in the largely agricultural region of southern Luzon, the country’s largest island.

Also included is CLTV36, which the fund called the only regionally owned and operated TV broadcaster in the Philippines.

The station broadcasts news, current affairs, and entertainment to five million cable subscribers and reaches over 40 million people through its social media channels, mainly in Central Luzon, according to the fund.

The list also includes Digicast Negros, which the fund said is one of only two locally owned newsrooms in Negros, a mainly agricultural island in the central Philippines.

The fund said the Digicast Negros team broadcasts through its Facebook channel and reaches nearly half a millionfollowers.

Another grantee is the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MindaNews.com), which the fund said publishes content relevant to citizens of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second-largest island, and an area that has suffered from ethnic and religious armed conflict for several decades.

The fund said MindaNews’ daily coverage focuses on regional news and underreported topics, including regional peace processes, natural disasters and climate change, and business and regional development.

The fund also listed Mindanao Gold Star Daily, describing it as an outlet that has evolved from newspaper-only roots into a multichannel digital publisher with a local newspaper arm.

Gold Star Daily serves a broad audience in Cagayan de Oro City and the surrounding region of northern Mindanao, according to the fund.

Among the grantees is Probe Productions Inc., which the fund described as one of the pioneers of documentary production in the Philippines, using documentaries to explore social issues and provide in-depth coverage on corruption, public health, food security, and the environment.

The fund said Probe Archives is an effort to digitize the organization’s video archive of over 14,000 tapes so the public can access them.

Also included is Oasis Media Group (Palawan News), which the fund described as the leading news outlet in Palawan, publishing daily content on digital platforms and a weekly print version.

The organization played a key role in informing the public by reporting on the ongoing West Philippine Sea dispute, the fund said.

Palawan News’ follower base has grown to include nearly half of the region’s population of nearly one million people, according to the fund.

The International Fund also listed ColLab by Rappler, describing it as a decentralized community platform based on the open-sourced Matrix protocol.

The fund said ColLab offers secure and responsibly moderated chatrooms where people can discuss stories and engage in community conversations shielded from toxicity.

It described ColLab as an AI-powered platform that leverages content archives and user comments to help media develop new approaches for broadening and deepening audience engagement.

The fund said the technology will be shared with other public interest media to build a global federation of independent newsrooms, enabling them to use chat and community-building features to deepen engagement with audiences.

The International Fund said the review and approval of the grants followed its funding processes and procedures, including its Conflicts of Interest Policy.

In background information accompanying the announcement, the fund said the International Fund for Public Interest Media was launched in 2022 and is “the only global, multilateral initiative designed to support independent public interest media in low- and middle-income settings.”

It described IFPIM as an international organization hosted by France and supported by more than 20 governments and philanthropic donors.

The fund said it provides grants to media organizations and ecosystem-level interventions across four focus regions: Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe.

It said its mission is to help ensure people worldwide live in healthy information ecosystems with access to journalism that provides information of public interest, including by increasing financial resources for trustworthy, ethical, fact-based journalism and empowering a resilient, independent media ecosystem that can work for democracy.

The fund added that it also aims to foster a paradigm shift in how public interest media is resourced to ensure it is independent, inclusive, and resilient, noting that to date, IFPIM has supported more than 140 media organizations in 34countries.