Anatomy of a headline

There are days in the newsroom when reporters hand editors stories that are fully formed, requiring only minor grammar edits and a few clarificatory questions over the phone. Just the same, everything, despite the constant deadlines, must pass through the wringer of rigorous fact-checking.

Then there are those other days, when what lands on your desk before the noontime story conference looks less like a story and more like a journalistic booby trap.

Take that purported affidavit of Ramil Madriaga, the notary details of which were redacted except for the address of the notarial office — which, when checked on Google Maps, did not look like any place where a lawyer would hold fort.

But then, this is the Philippines, where all the space needed for notarial work is a small table on the sidewalk, a chair, a dry seal and the notary’s stand-in, many times in slippers and clothes that looked slept in.

And so peruse the document we, DAILY TRIBUNE editors, did. We checked the details against verifiable facts about the man, such as his being a law graduate, and his calling the New Bilibid Prison home for years before being acquitted by the Supreme Court on kidnapping charges.

It panned out that Madriaga did campaign for Sara Duterte in 2022 when she ran for vice president, and that he had formed in 2020 ISIP (Inday Sara Is My President) Pilipinas to prop up what was then a plan for her to take over the post to be vacated by her father, Digong.

Back in prison since 2023 on fresh kidnapping charges, Madriaga, other sources would say, was visited several times in detention by personnel of the Office of the Vice President, if not Sara herself.

Madriaga’s lawyer later validated the affidavit, saying his client felt left out, abandoned by the Dutertes, and so he had come out to tell all — foremost of which was that Sara’s vice presidential run was bankrolled, in part, by drug and Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) money.

If one was to read between the lines of the narrative, the no-brainer conclusion the jaded public may reach is that there had been an effort to dissuade Madriaga from spilling the beans, so to speak.

Well, it’s all past that, and DAILY TRIBUNE has done its part to let the contending parties contend with their charges and counter-charges.

Named by Madriaga in relation to the alleged receipt or transfer of POGO or drug money, Reynold Munsayac and Col. Raymund Dante Lachica vehemently denied his revelations.

“A narration, to be believed, must not only proceed from the mouth of a credible person, but the story must be credible itself. Here, aside from the fact that it comes from a polluted source, the allegations simply defy logic and common human experience,” Munsayac said.

“I do not know him personally and never had any dealings with him. My interaction with the group ISIP was limited to Atty. Ryan Quilala,” he added.

Lachica, for his part, said: “I categorically state that I do not know Mr. Madriaga and had no personal or professional dealings with him at any time. Any assertion suggesting that I was associated with, recommended by, or worked with him is false and devoid of factual basis.”

Now here’s the dilemma: affidavits are cheap, and declarations are cheaper still. The easiest way to blow up a newsroom is to publish one without the armor of reaction, context, or verification. You don’t run an affidavit, you run a story; and a story needs friction — someone to push it and push against it.

Which is why, before anyone touched the keyboard, reporters were dispatched like EMTs to every number in their phones. Call the OVP, call the Army colonel, call the former spokesperson who, on a normal day, is allergic to microphones. Call the Ombudsman prosecutor; call anyone in the blast radius.

This is the paradox of journalism: you chase denial not because you don’t believe the accuser, but because you don’t trust anyone until they speak on the record. In our line of work, silence is ambiguity, but denial — even a furious one — is clarity.

By afternoon, the walls started talking. “Preposterous.” “Polluted source.” “Defies logic.” There it was — the other side of the story, the missing counterweight that allows an editor to say, we can now proceed without committing professional suicide.

Reactions do not endorse an allegation; they justify its publication. Without them, you don’t have a headline; you have a grenade.

By early evening, the story had taken its final shape: allegations, context, denials, institutional reactions, and enough detail to show there was a need to let the story others wouldn’t touch explode.

Some days, that’s the closest thing to truth a newsroom can deliver. And some days, that’s enough.