00:02A wonderful Monday evening and new work week to all. Proud Filipina Luisa Erispe here who is happy to bring
00:09you PTV News now. Kicking off our major stories tonight.
00:13It may be spring in the western and northern hemisphere right now, but here at home and in the southeastern
00:19part of the Pacific, it's just been officially declared the cool winds of the northeastern monsoon has gone away and
00:26the season of dry and the high heat on.
00:28And with one and a half weeks to length, the Philippine National Police announced it will shortly deploy nationwide up
00:35to 60 battalions of personnel, mostly foot patrols and surface street checkpoint security under its Oplan Ligtas Semana Santa 2026.
00:44The PNP summer security scheme seeks to send out some 39,500 policemen and women to be backed up by
00:52a force multiplier of 5,200 and 14,700 members of advocacy groups.
00:59The public should expect strict enforcement of traffic loss and road checkpoints in key areas to clamp down on those
01:06under severe fatigue or the influence of alcohol while behind the wheel.
01:11PNP HPG records show close to 36,000 road crash incidents in a two-month period from March 30 to
01:20May 30, 2025.
01:24In a monumental victory last week, a federal court judge ruled for the reinstatement of over a thousand Voice of
01:31America workers put on administrative leave by Trump-appointing Carrie Lake since mid-March last year.
01:37The judge's ruling orders the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent company, to go back on air beginning
01:45this week.
01:45This as three VOA officers to include my sister-in-arms and Washington, D.C. Bureau correspondent Patsy Widakoswara weigh
01:54in with a rather even keel of mind.
01:57One year ago, the Trump administration shut down Voice of America, a network reaching over 360 million people worldwide, often
02:06in countries without a free press.
02:09Now, a court says, bring it back.
02:12Well, if there's one thing that I've learned this past year in our fight to save VOA is not to
02:16feel overly excited when something good happens or overly sad when something bad happens.
02:21And while this is a monumental ruling and we are very grateful, we also know that there's still a lot
02:27to do and this fight is not over.
02:30There have been, you know, logistical pathways disrupted, equipment sold off or scrapped or fallen into disuse, bandwidth and radio
02:40and shortwave taken over by other broadcasters and people who have gone on to other jobs.
02:47And as a result, you've had, you know, hundreds of millions of people turn elsewhere for the information that they
02:53might want or need or not seek it at all.
02:55Yeah, there's a few anecdotes.
02:57And one that I would like to highlight is our viewer from Africa who contacted my colleague and said, what's
03:03happening?
03:03Is there a coup in the United States?
03:05Because that's usually what happens when there's a coup is, you know, the media shuts down.
03:10Whether the administration will now want a real news organization or whether it will prefer to try to organize some
03:22sort of a mouthpiece or a messaging operation instead.
03:25You know, trust is one of those things that in commerce, in one's personal life, it takes years to build
03:31up and can be destroyed in a flash.
03:33And that is true for news organizations as well.
03:36Voice of America may be coming back, but whether it returns as free voice is still unclear.
Comments