Q: We’re here to interview Mr. Cecil Morella. He’s a correspondent—senior correspondent—for… how do you say this?

A: Agence France Presse, a French news agency.

Q: Okay. So, nung bata po ba kayo, mahilig na kayong magsulat?

A: Not really. I read a lot. To the extent kung ano yung available—books, newspapers, magazines. But it wasn’t my first choice when I entered college. (short interruption)

Q: So did you always want to become a journalist?

A: When I enterd college, journalism wasn’t my first choice. I applied for Marine Sci, uh, Marine Biology program but I didn’t have high grades in science and math. It was required ‘casue they only accept the best students. So my second choice is journalism.

Q: So what made you stay? Ba’t din a lang kayo nag-shift?

A: When I entered the university, they made me fill up a form stating my first choice and my second choice. Uh, journalism was my second choice. So when I failed to get into the, my first choice after a few semesters then I pursued journalism instead.

Q: After graduating, where did you first work?

A: it was a weekly news magazine. It’s called, uh, Who magazine, published by this, uh, by this same group that publishes the Manila Bulletin. It’s a political magazine that published during the Ferdinand Marcos years. Um, and the last issue was published ano, I think a month after I left, a month after I graduated.

Q: Ano yung una niyong cinover while you were working there?

A: I remember covering a series of murders, political murders in Laguna province linked to um, quarrel of an access to Laguna lake, fish farms, stuff like that.

Q: What was that like?

A: Uh, wala. I just interviewed the victims’ families, local officials. That’s it. Yeah.

Q: Ano ba yung usually kino-cover dun sa…parang beat?

A: I worked in the magazine for about two or three months, and I was not a regular staff but I got paid for every story that I submitted to, that was used. So if I did not submit a story or my story was rejected, I didn’t get paid. I wasn’t a regular staffer. My first regular job actually was with AFP—Agence France Presse.

Q: How did you get into AFP?

A: I just heard about it from the university. I, um, I think I just graduated then, but I was still in one of the dormitories, um, looking for a job and we heard it through the grapevine that there was an opening. So I borrowed money for bus fare, went to the AFP office and applied.

Q: So, uh, where is it located, since, diba it’s an international news organization?

A: AFP runs a worldwide operation. It comes out in five languages: English, German, French, Arabic and Spanish. I work for the English service. It sells the English service mainly in Asia. It maintains a bureau in most of the capitals, country capitals around the world. There’s an office in Manila.

Q: What was the first story you covered when you were working for AFP?

A: (laughs) I forgot. I forgot.

Q: But what did you usually cover nung una ka pa nasa AFP?

A: Uh, well, I wasn’t entrusted the big stories, so I just followed up the political stories, disaster stories—storms, typhoons—um, pronouncements, mga political….politicians. Stuff like that. Crime.

Q: We’re you ever a cub reporter?

A: For six months, uh, I was called a “stringer”. I was a full-time reporter but I didn’t have a…they only had one permanent position there. I was the second one so they called me a stringer. I guess that’s equivalent to a cub reporter.

Q: What were your bosses like? Were they tough on deadlines? What were your editors like?

A: when you work for the AFP or some of the news agencies, you don’t really have a deadline in a sense that it operates 24 hours a day because your clients are newspapers around the world. So if you work for a local newspaper, for example, your deadline would be five P.M. uh, but if you work for AFP, or Associated Press or Reuters, your deadline is every hour because 5 P.M. here is 6 P.M. in Tokyo, 7 P.M. or 8 P.M. in Sydney. So you have to write very fast.

Q: What about the pay? Was it good when you were first starting out?

A: I think it was P2500 a month.

Q: A month? CM. Starting. But that was ’84. (laughs)

Q: Puwede na ba yon? (laughs)

A: Right now, it’s competitive compared to the other news agencies situated here in Manila.

Q: Right now, ano naman mga kino-cover niyo naman na stories?

A: Basically everything. Sometimes I’m asked to write sports stories. I was in China last month, over the Amateur Boxing Champoinships. I was there for two weeks and uh this Friday I was supposed to fly to Malaysia to cover the East Asian and ASEAN summit, but ihad surgery so it got cancelled. Uh, I also cover the entire Philippines. Uh, we wrote, um, spot news stories that have to be written and have to be published in the same day. But sometimes, uh, when there are not that many spot news stories, we write a lot of features. We travel to some oterh places outside of Manila and write a package of feature stories. Feature stories are stories that can be written, that can be used anytime in the future. They don’t lose their value, like, after tomorrow: if youwirte about the spot news story like Garcillano coming out, it’s a story until tomorrow. But after tomorrow it won’t be a story anymore. But if you write a feature story, it can be used for many months to come.

Q: What’s the most significant event that you’ve covered so far? I mean since you’ve been working for so long…

A: In ’84, I covered the trial of the, maybe you weren’t born by that time…

Q: No, not yet. (laughs)

A: when I covered the trial, the first trial, of the soldiers and civilians involved, accused of murdering Benigno Aquino, the murdered husband of Corazon Aquino, who later became president. I covered the EDSA People Power Revolt in ’86. I covered the presidential election two months before that. The presidential election campaigns…

Q: The Snap elections?

A: Yeah, yeah. I covered the Estrada…his arrest, his presidency, his arrest later on, his impeachment.

Q: The second EDSA?

A: Yes. Since ’84 (laughs) I’ve been working since ’84 so everything that happened, I, I was there.

Q: I heard na, kinukwento kasi sa ‘kin a pinapa-cover sa ‘yo mga war torn areas. Mga.East Timor.

A: Uh-huh. I’ve been to Cambodia, Sulu. I’ve been to the MILF headquarters in Mindanao. What do they call it? The main camp of the MNLF before. Of course, we covered, there were so many natural disasters that happened between ’84 and now. I covered the Pinatubo explosion in ’91. We covered the…I was there the day before it erupted.

Q: The Pinatubo.

A: Mm-hmm. The earthquake. Our building was damaged in the 1990 earthquake.

Q: Hindi ba kayo natatakot?

A: When you’re young… they say when you’re young you think you’re bulletproof. You like adventure. You like to travel. You think you won’t die. Ever die. (laughter in the background) There’s thrill in, uh, chasing a story. I remember after the earthquake we went up to Baguio and the last 10 kilometers I had to walk because of landslides.

Q: Whoa. That’s far. So what were the perks aside from traveling? Did you love to travel?

A: When I was younger, yes. Now, not really (laughs). Uh, you get, what do you say when you’re a journalist? Uh, you have a front-row view of history unfolding? But you don’t have a seat.You’re just standing in the side. You’re a kibitzer. But you’re on the front row. So tou’re a witness to almost everything.

Q: What was the most exciting thing you covered? You just can’t believe you were covering it.

A: The EDSA ’86 because I was young, 24 or 25 during that time. It was my first story. Although my first major story actually was the Aquino killers. The second one was the fall of Ferdinand Marcos. I think I slept several hours over those three or four days. I was at Malacañang Palace within an hour after Marcos left with his family to Hawaii, climbing over the gates with the people surrounding the palace, with the looters.

Q: When they looted the palace you were there?

A: Yes.

Q: What are your others memorable experiences as a young reporter? When did you start traveling?

A: ’87.

Q: Where was that?

A: I was in Hong Kong. ’88 I was in Malaysia. Short-term assignments. Last January I was in Indonesia. The tsunami? Aceh. I was in Aceh.

Q: What was that like: in Aceh?

A: the entire city of Banda Aceh was erased. Erased from the ground. Nothing left standing. Um, there’s some coconut trees, but that’s all.

Q: Other than that, totally gone?

A: Yeah. The city streets were turned into pools and there was a ship, we call it a power barge. The ship with a power plant on top of it, went inland, 7 kilometers inland, lying along the street beside the houses but the coastline was gone. None of it’s left standing.

Q: So, thank you that was it. Thank you so much.

A: That was easy. Thank you.