UNTIL someone pointed it out, Cheche Lazaro did not realize the significance of the beginning and the end of the television show that she launched almost a quarter of a century ago, which became the longest running investigative documentary and magazine show in the industry.

?The Probe Team,? with Lazaro at the helm, produced the one show that heralded a new age in broadcast journalism at the heels of an ousted dictatorship and the start of the Cory Aquino administration in 1986. This year, it ended its run at the start of the presidency of Cory?s son, Benigno Simeon Aquino III.

Through those 24 years, ?Probe? had earned a distinction beyond mere longevity. Lazaro has guided a group of broadcast journalists to formulate the right questions, seek the truth, and find answers to social ills, political controversies, and just plain talk of the town. ?Probe? and its several incarnations in various television networks ? ?The Probe Team,? ?Probe Documentaries,? and recently, ?Probe Profiles? ? lighted the proverbial beacon that investigative reporters followed and now regard as a standard that news producers strive for in documentary and magazine show programming.

In an interview with Sunday Inquirer Magazine, ?Probe? host Cheche Lazaro expounds on her unforgettable moments in producing and running the show. She credits her exceptional staff who, through her patient mentoring, have made names for themselves in broadcast media here and abroad.

SIM: What was ?Probe?s? 24-year journey like?

Cheche Lazaro (CL): It?s like a regular journey in life: there are rough spots, there are straight roads, there are curves, everything. And you learn lessons along the way. When we started 24 years ago, I didn?t think I would last this long. I thought if we could get through one year, that would be good enough. I really didn?t look beyond a year. That we made it to 24 years is a constant source of amazement because I am not a business person. When we formed the company, it was for the sole purpose of producing a program that we enjoy doing, that was a challenge and that would make a positive contribution. That was the objective; making money and becoming popular were not part of the equation. We?re still not making money and we?re not rock stars?but we?re doing stuff that we really enjoy.

SIM: What was it like to be hounded by controversies every now and then?

CL: When I decided to close the weekly, I just thought, let?s do it when President Noynoy is sworn into office. So okay, we said June 30 is a good time, we will end the season of ?Profiles.? And then someone pointed out, ?Probe? began when Cory was installed and now it?s ending when her son is installed.

Those 24 years chronicled the lifespan of our nation in almost a quarter of a century. We have a curious thing in the office. We have this huge ball of masking tape. Every time we?re doing a tape, we prepare a label for it on a strip of masking tape ? whether it?s ?Edsa 3,? or maybe ?Erap delivering a speech,? ?GMA SONA speech.? We take a strip of masking tape, six to eight inches long, and we place all these strips, one on top of the other, forming a ball. It really started as a kernel of a ball; but today it?s a huge ball. And when you peel away each masking tape, you will see layers of history, as well as what ?Probe? covered and what stories were relevant at each time the masking tape was put there.

One of the former ?Probe? staff uploaded a picture of the masking tape ball on Facebook. Every ?Probe? person wrote in and said, ?Ang laki na niya [it has grown so big].? They made this little inanimate ball come alive. ?Ang laki na niya. Natatandaan ko pa nung maliit pa siya?,? or ?Inuupuan ko ?yan pag nakikipag-tsismis ako sa library [I remember how small it used to be. I used to sit on it while chatting away].?

SIM: What do you consider as ?Probe?s? greatest achievement?

CL: Our biggest point of pride is the people we?ve worked with. We?ve worked with so many people in 24 years and all of them have stood out for different reasons. Some of them have become very good producers ? they went on to CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters, MediaCorp. We have ?Probe? people who are there now, and who are all over the place. They?re in GMA 7, Channel 5, Channel 2. The ties remain very strong because we have common hardships, in a manner of speaking, which include late nights working towards a specific goal and trying to achieve the ?Probe? standard ? not having enough money but doing good with what we have. We have shared awards, shared recognitions, shared hardships in getting stories, in being kicked out, in being brought to court. So there?s a shared life. And so when you see Probers get together, they talk of these common things. I think that?s our greatest asset, the people we?ve worked with.

And secondly, we have this wealth of stories that have chronicled this history of 24 years ? hopefully, the most crucial points of our history. We have a video library of over 10,000 tapes that recorded each of the stories we?ve done. We?ve had children?s shows, travel shows, long-form documentaries, the weeklies, a sports show, an agricultural show ?we?ve tried everything. We expanded because we saw, in the profile of our audience, that there were kids among our audience, and so we introduced the kiddie show ?5 and Up.? We realized there were sports-minded-people who were following our sports stories, so we put up a sports magazine show (?Game Plan?), and launched a travel program (?Lonely Pinoy?) for those interested in our travel stories. For people who like the long-form documentary for the issues that we chose to tackle, we put up a documentary show (?The Probe Team Documentaries?). At one point in our lives as a company, we had all of these different shows going on at the same time. But at the core was the magazine program, which until June 30 was the core competency of ?Probe.?

SIM: What is the secret behind ?Probe?s? success and staying power through the years?

CL: I don?t think it?s really a secret. It began with a passion, it continues with a passion. I think this is one thing ?Probe? has consistently engendered in all the people we?ve worked with. It?s not a job ? it?s a passion, it?s a calling.

SIM: What do you consider the most difficult period for the show?

CL: ?Probe?s? mission has always been to contribute to Philippine television in a positive way, meaning not just good stories, but making a positive impact. When people watch our shows, we want them to have what we call a ?take away? ? to leave the program feeling that they?ve learned something or that their view has been altered or expanded, that they now know a little bit more than when they started watching the show. The virtues we treasure as journalists are our integrity and our professionalism ? to be called professional and for people to say you have integrity is the highest compliment for any journalist.

In our lifespan as a company, there was an instance when we were called ?unprofessional,? when we were booted out of Channel 7. One of our reporters did a piece on PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) ? a lifestyle check. It was right after former President Arroyo challenged people to do a lifestyle check on her officials for the sake of transparency and corruption.? So our reporter did it, but at one point, we were called ?irresponsible? as we did not present enough facts. Of course, it hurt to be called irresponsible, because integrity is the one trait that you try to protect or that you live for ? that?s at the heart of everything.

You?re not there for the money ? although money is good ? and you?re not there for the awards because awards pass. You?re there for a reputation that you want to preserve long after you?ve left the business. Integrity is something that has to be vetted on a daily basis. Every story that you do has to be matched against this measure, this parameter of whether you have been true or factual or transparent, whether you have been fair, and whether you have been accountable for what you say.

We thought we were. But some people thought otherwise. So that was a rough point. We were kicked out and we came back to Channel 2, which is where we started. They said this is like a homecoming, and I said, that?s right. We?re back here.

But being a journalist and wanting to protect your integrity, you also want to vet yourself at all times, whether you?re adhering to your principles. So there was introspection ? asking ourselves what we did wrong and what we did right. And we felt we did justice to (the story). Some people may say that?s arrogance but I feel that, no, we looked into the processes that we went through and that we continue to observe. We did not shift from that process. I think we exercised due diligence in that respect.

Many people say there?s no such thing as an unbiased report. That?s true, because every reporter has his or her own biases. But in our case, because it?s a team effort, we try to cut our biases. You have a reporter, an editor, a writer, a graphics person ? you have all members coming to the fore. So we?re able to check each other. We have a lot of post mortems, and we?ve made it a tradition in ?Probe? to critique each other?s work during Monday meetings. There are sensitivities, of course, but even I have been criticized by my team internally.

SIM: What stories are you particularly proud of, and which made an impact on your audience?

CL: We?ve had sad stories of abandoned children, teenage mothers who really don?t care about the kids who are born out of wedlock. We saw these kids at the back of the CCP or under container vans at Port Area, living alongside the tires where they could get run over. We did a story on that.

We also did a story on women ? and men ? who are prostituted. So we ran a gamut of all these stories that are a sad commentary on our social structure.

But we also did stories that elevate your feeling about being a Filipino. Because one of my personal beliefs is that what this country needs is a feeling of who we are and taking pride in who we are. When we did a story on children of Filipinos who?ve migrated abroad and we asked what was their nationality is, they?d say, oh I?m American, I?m German, I?m so and so. There was no mention of or reference to their roots. Not because they had forgotten, but because they were not proud of that part of their heritage. They did not want to own up to being Filipino.

So we do stories on Filipinos who do well because we need icons in our society. We choose icons who represent virtues we want to see in Filipinos: integrity, transparency, accountability, in so far as government officials are concerned. In doing ?Profiles,? we look for people who have gone through self-sacrifice, many trials in life but who have succeeded despite that. We?ve done stories on people who really manifest their pride in being Filipino. They tell us, every time I sing, every time I appear, every time somebody compliments me, I always make it a point to say I?m a Filipino.

We interviewed somebody who started an orchestra of Filipinos in the States. His name is Bob Shroder, and he looks American because his father is American and his mother is Filipino. I said, you look so American, but he said, ?no, every time I speak and every time they ask me of my heritage, I say first I am Filipino.?

You ask yourself, where does that come from, where does that pride in being Filipino come from? It comes from knowing about who we are and taking pride in those things we can take pride in. There are so many things we can be ashamed of, but there are many more things we can be proud of.

So when we do stories on domestic workers, we highlight their self-sacrifice, perseverance, dedication. When you see a Filipina domestic worker and you compare her to any other domestic worker, is anybody else sending three-fourths of her salary home? Nobody, just the Filipino. Does anybody spend half of her salary on telephone bills just to keep in touch? Only the Filipino. So it?s like, we show that the Filipino is really something else. Then we also feature Filipinos who have helped lift up other Filipinos. That?s a personal mission.

SIM: Among the segments of the show, which one do you think has had the biggest influence on the broadcast industry?

CL: We did a series called ?The Good News,? which we did for business and which I would have wanted to continue. After that, I think many programs now are highlighting the good stuff, which I think is admirable.

SIM: What were those stories that changed your outlook, made the biggest impact on you personally?

CL: We?ve been doing NPA stories from the very beginning. When you do stories on the NPA, you look at them as rebels, as people who are just lawless elements. But when you actually meet them ? Ka Roger, Ka Hector ? the first thing you notice is that, hey, we?re both Filipino. In fact, we look alike in skin color, in the language that we speak. So you connect with them as a human being. Idealistically, it?s a dichotomy ?you are not aligned, but from a human point of view, you are the same. And so you wonder why can?t there be peace. If they say they are moving towards justice for all and equity for all Filipinos, don?t we also like that? People will say those are just platitudes but really, when I first met them, it opened my mind not to label people ? not to say these are the bad guys, these are the good guys.

And then you meet the military who also want to restore peace. I mean, the good military guys and your mind also opens. And you think of them and you say, well, why can?t there be peace?

Then in the course of those NPA stories, I also met a farmer who had traveled over two mountains because a relief mission was giving out two gantas of rice, two cans of milk, some sardines in a giveaway pack. This family went through two mountains just to get that. When I interviewed him and he talked about the military conducting raids and strafing their area in search of NPAs, I asked, ?Ano ang kahulugan ng kapayapaan sa iyo [What does peace mean to you]?? He answered, ?Kung makatago lang ako sa butas ng lupa, yan ang kapayapaan para sa akin [If I could hide in a hole on the ground, that?s peace for me].? That was like, whoa, that?s peace for you? Just physically not to hear the strafing?

Here I am, thinking of peace in large terms, while this farmer, who came from two mountains away just to get this little bag of goodies, thinks that peace is just to be free from the sound of strafing. And you can?t give it to him? That opened my mind. And then he said, they are caught in the middle. If the NPA comes in the middle of the night and says ?Pwede ba kaming matulog dito [Can we sleep here]?? they are Filipinos and answer, ?Please, matulog kayo dito [Yes, come and sleep here].?

The next day, when they are gone, the military comes. ?Meron bang natulog na NPA dito [Did some rebels sleep over]?? What do they answer? If somebody answers yes, then they are arrested. And he says, they can?t even cook rice because if they do, there?ll be smoke rising up. They [the military] would know somebody?s there, and they?ll strafe the area. When I met this guy, it was an eye-opener for me. The meaning of peace is like, my God, if all he wants is a hole, give it to him. Give him the peace. Don?t strafe. And yet, it?s not as simple as that.

SIM: What is the biggest reward of doing ?Probe??

CL: Doing the ?Probe? stories over the past 24 years has been a personal experience for me. Each story tells me something new and I feel blessed for having gone through all these years and all these thousands of stories that have really opened my eyes. The net effect of all these is that I feel proud of being Filipino. I do. ?