Chit Estella – ellen tordesillas

Road safety journalism award launched

Published by Ellen on April 21, 2016

By Jake Soriano, VERA Files

Journalist and VERA Files trustee Ellen Tordesillas announced on April 12 the launch of a new award to honor the best student work on road safety issues.

The Chit Estella Road Safety Journalism Award, named in honor of journalist Lourdes “Chit” Estella-Simbulan, will be given next year as a special category in the Philippine Journalism Research Conference (PJRC).

PJRC is an annual event organized by the Journalism Department of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Mass Communication.

The new special award expands the current Chit Estella Memorial Awards for Journalism Research, given at the PJRC, for the best student work in journalism research, special projects, and investigative journalism.

“It will be given to the most outstanding research paper or in-depth report, multiple formats allowed, on road safety by journalism or communication students,” said Tordesillas, during the closing program of the 2016 PJRC.

“VERA Files is offering to cover the cash prize and the trophy for this award. This is in addition to the yearly support it extends to the [PJRC],” she added.

Highlighting the importance of research in journalism

Published by Ellen on March 7, 2014

University of the Philippines students Darlene Cay and Vince Nonato (third and fourth from left) receive the Chit Estella Journalism Award from Roland Simbulan and VERA Files President Ellen Tordesillas (center) along with the panel of judges. PHOTO BY The Plaridel Bulldog

Congratulations to the winners in this year’s Philippine Journalism Research Conference (PJRC) held at the University of the Philippines Wednesday.

The project is commendable because, these days when many people are dismayed by the preponderance of sloppy journalis, it gives importance to research in the practice of journalism.

Aiming to highlight commendable researches of journalism students,this year’s PJRC gave the Chit Estella Memorial Awards for Journalism Research to students with the most excellent work.

Chit Estella Journalism awards focus on human rights reports

Published by Ellen on December 6, 2012

Congratulations to the winners in the 1st Chit Estella Journalism awards.

The awardees were Elizabeth Lolarga of the Philippine Daily Inquirer for her print story, “365 political prisoners go on hunger strike” and Ina Alleco Silverio of Bulatlat.com for her online story, “Three months after Sendong, Iligan residents still far from rebuilding their lives.”

The winners of the 1st Chit Estella Journalism Awards will be known Friday (Dec 7) in an event at the UP College of Mass Communications Auditorium that will also include a Memorial Lecture.

The Chit Estella Awards honor the best journalistic report on human rights in print and online, published between October 1, 2011 and October 1, 2012. Each awardee will be given a cash prize of P10,000 and a trophy.

This year’s finalists for online media are:

-Three months after Sendong, Iligan residents still far from rebuilding their lives by Ina Alleco Silverio

-Jonas Burgos, gentle and brave by Ronalyn Olea

-Privatization of government hospitals, further marginalizing the poor in the name of profit by Anne Marxze Umil

Run for road safety in memory of Chit Estella

Published by Ellen on May 10, 2012

Friday the 13th last year, at about 6 p.m., fellow VERA Files writer and trustee, Chit Estella was riding in a taxi for a reunion dinner with high school classmates at UP Ayala TechnoHub .

A rampaging Universal Guiding Star bus rammed the taxi along Commonwealth Avenue. Chit never made it to the dinner.

On Sunday, on the first anniversary of her passing, Chit’s family will hold a Metro-Manila wide Run for Road Safety for all victims of road crashes.

Chit Estella Awards for Journalism: continuing her advocacy for good journalism

Published by Ellen on June 23, 2011

Last Tuesday, June 21, on the 40th day of the death Chit Estella-Simbulan, journalist and teacher, her family and friends brought her ashes to her earthly resting place at the San Agustin church columbarium in Intramuros after a mass officiated by Fr. Joe Dizon and Fr. Robert Reyes.

At the dinner that followed the interment, we launched “The Chit Estella Awards for Journalism.”
The idea of the awards came about in a brainstorming session with Chit’s husband, Roland, and her father in-law, Dante, about two weeks after she passed away.

Chit died early evening of May 13 when the taxi she was riding in was rammed by a Universal Guiding Star bus she was in near on Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, near the Ayala Technohub where she was supposed to have dinner with some of her high school (St. Joseph College) classmates.

Chit, aside from fighting for genuine democracy for the Filipino people which includes freedom of the press, has always stood for good journalism. And that means excellent writing.

Justice for Chit Estella is crusade for road safety

Published by Ellen on June 9, 2011

On June 21, a Tuesday, the family and friends of journalist Chit Estella-Simbulan will mark the 40th day of her death in a car accident on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon city last month’s Friday, the 13th.

At 6:30 a.m, there will be a “Run for Road Safety” to be led by running priest Fr. Robert Reyes starting at the College of Mass Communication, where Chit was a member of the faculty. The run will take the route of University Avenue, then Commonwealth towards the site of the accident, in front of the Ayala Techno Hub, which Fr. Reyes will bless. The participants will be escorted by MMDA motorcycle units and traffic will be rerouted briefly for the activity.

(We will never be this complete anymore.Photo is the last of VERA Files trustees together. From left: Booma Cruz, Chit Estella, Ellen Tordesillas, Yvonne Chua, Luz Rimban, Jenny Santillan-Santiago.

(This was taken during the award ceremonies of the 2010 Ninoy and Cory Aquino Fellowship Award for Journalism to Yvonne last Aug. 10,2010 at the Manila Peninsula.)

Everybody concerned of safety in our roads are invited to join.

At 3 p.m. there will be a mass at San Agustin church in Intramuros, Manila. After the mass, at 4 p.m., Chit’s ashes will be interred at the San Agustin columbarium crypt.

Chit Estella: ‘She lived the life she wanted’

Published by Ellen on May 17, 2011

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/metro-manila/05/15/11/journalists-pay-tribute-simbulan
By Yvonne T. Chua
VERA Files

Chit Estella and I were well on our way to obtaining tenure as professors of journalism at the University of the Philippines in Diliman when classes open this June. We had survived the university’s dreaded “up or out” policy after graduating this month with a master’s degree in public management from the UP Open University.

At long last, we could put aside the gnawing fear we had shared for years – of whether longtime, aging professional journalists like us could and should still make a life out of the academe.

Both of us could also focus more on Vera Files, the small media nonprofit group we co-founded with four journalist-friends three years ago to keep us abreast not only of the journalism profession but, more important, of one another.