Filipino journalists in Toronto laud McLuhan fellow Gigi Grande

Hermie Garcia, editor and publisher of Toronto’s The Philippine Reporter, presents the certificate of appreciation from PPCO to Gigi Grande. INQUIRER/Marisa Roque

TORONTO, Ontario – Philippine tourism’s loss is media’s gain, the Philippine broadcast media’s, specifically.

ABS-CBN’s Geraldine “Gigi” Grande, the 2016 McLuhan Fellowship Awardee, disclosed that when she was choosing what to study in college, she broached media studies to her mom, who vetoed it.

Instead, Mom told her to go for tourism as it was a promising field, and the school was close to home.  Reluctantly, she complied.  But when her mom and aunt went to the US for a holiday, she joined a broadcast station’s call for interns and was accepted.  She asked her dad’s permission and he gave his okay.  And Gigi Grande went on to make history.

Now a 20 -year broadcast media veteran, Grande has won the annual award sponsored by the Canadian Embassy in the Philippines to honor Marshall McLuhan, the iconic Canadian who was a professor, philosopher and the coiner of the aphorism “The medium is the message.”

Widely regarded as the prophet of the Information Age, McLuhan is considered the father of communications and media studies. Every year, his estate, in collaboration with the Canadian Embassy in the Philippines, selects an outstanding Filipino broadcast journalist who has excelled in covering a groundbreaking event for 2016.  For 2016, that event was the presidential election.

Victims of the Ampatuan massacre are remembered through a memorial service with flowers and lighted candles. INQUIRER/Marisa Roque

Grande edits, writes, produces and manages news teams as part of ABS-CBN’s Investigative Research Group.  She also served as bureau chief for ABS-CBN Pty. Ltd. network operations in Australia prior to her return to the Philippines in 2009 to be one of the hosts/presenters for the station’s Mornings@ANC.

The Philippine Press Club Ontario (PPCO) honored Grande on November 29 with a certificate of appreciation at a meeting attended by Filipino Canadian media practitioners and newspaper publishers in the Greater Toronto Area.

Held in the banquet hall of FV Foods on Wilson Avenue, the meeting also held a memorial to remember the victims of the Ampatuan massacre in 2009.  Flowers were offered and candles were lit as the names of the 38 victims, who were media practitioners, were read.

The certificate of appreciation lauds Grande “for her excellent and insightful presentation on the practice of journalism in challenging times and the state of the media in the Philippines.”

Gigi Grande, normally the interviewer, becomes the interviewee, during the question and answer portion. INQUIRER/Marisa Roque

The certificate also states, “We salute you for your body of work as a reporter, editor, and broadcast journalist, network news anchor and for producing investigative in depth reports on the recent presidential election and your outstanding practice of professional and responsible journalism.”

The certificate was signed by PPCO officers Rosalinda Tijam (president), Mila Astorga Garcia (vice president) and Joe Damasco (secretary).

Toronto is the last leg of Grande’s Canadian tour, which is part of her prize for winning the fellowship.  She has been to Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal.