MANILA, Philippines — It pays to write dirty.
Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Margaux C. Ortiz and two other journalists from Indonesia won the “Best Sanitation Reporting Award” in the 2007 media competition of the first ever East Asia Ministerial Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene (EASAN).
The stories of Ortiz, and two others from Jakarta, bested more than 40 entries from Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
The entries came from news agencies/wire services, television stations, radio stations, newspapers and news portals, the World Bank said.
Ortiz’s story, “Curbing water pollution,” deals with how bodies of water in Metro Manila and the rest of the country have become polluted and the steps that can be taken to prevent the problem from worsening.
She wrote the story after attending a World Bank water and sanitation workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this year.
The story appeared in the Inquirer’s Talk of the Town section on Aug. 26.
“Unknown to many Filipinos, their homes are the biggest source of water pollution in the country,” Ortiz said in her article. “Forty-eight percent of organic pollution comes from households. In contrast, agriculture contributes 37 percent and industries just 15 percent [to the problem].”
“Septic Tank Record for Indonesia” by Elly Roosita of Kompas (Daily) and “Water Shortage Spells Disease” by Ria Ernunsari of Televisi Transformasi Indonesia (Trans TV) also won in the contest organized by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program for East Asia and the Pacific.
Roosita and Ernunsari are both from Jakarta.
