ISLAND GARDEN CITY OF SAMAL, Davao del Norte (MindaNews / 05 March) — In a field that trains its practitioners to disappear into their stories — to become ghosts — trauma does not always survive as narrative; it often lodges in the body instead.
This insight was front and center of “BAYI-LINES: Stories We Carry, Lives We Write,” a three-day safety and healing retreat for Mindanawon women journalists.
Part of a broader initiative to strengthen independent journalism in the region, the retreat goes beyond building professional capacity, asking a quieter but urgent question: what does safety look like for women who report on danger?
The program forms part of the Safety Training Series of Media Impact Philippines implemented by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MinJourn) which runs MindaNews, in partnership with the International Media Support (IMS). Alongside professional training efforts, it places deliberate focus on the wellbeing, safety, and resilience of journalists who continue to tell Mindanao’s stories.
The retreat, which began on March 1 and ended evening of March 3, provided participating women journalists across Mindanao — those who had received trainings under the Media Impact program — the space to grieve, to share in one another’s sorrows as well as joys, to confront trauma and imagine healing together.
Slow breathing. The faint vibration of another person’s presence at your back. The moment of hesitation before speaking in a story circle. Here, the body arrives before the story does.
In Mindanao — where reporting often unfolds amidst conflict, calamity, and political violence — urgency is the norm and the story is always the priority. And in the process, the body — its safety and wellbeing, its limitations and need for care — is relegated to the background.
The body remembers
Clinical psychologist Dr. Gail Ilagan defines the body as “our most important piece of equipment.” In the same way that a reporter would never enter the field with faulty gear, she insists that their own body requires equal attunement and vigilance.
Journalists are trained to disappear into their stories, to diminish the “I.” But the body does not — cannot — disappear.
When working on a deadline, especially in breaking news, the body shifts into fight-or-flight mode. Adrenaline sharpens focus and heightens attention, pushing journalists to gather information as quickly as possible and remain alert in volatile environments. Sustained by cortisol, this tension lingers — especially for women who must navigate additional safety risks — leaving the body in a prolonged state of hypervigilance long after the story has been told.
As Dr. Ilagan explains, “While the mind focuses on facts, the body is processing the environment.” Trauma often bypasses narrative memory and lodges in the body. The body remembers what the mind may forget. The weight of it lodges in muscles and fascia, the connective tissues that hold tension over time. Left unprocessed, that trauma may surface in clenched jaws and tightened shoulders, gastrointestinal distress, hyperarousal — feeling wired, unable to sleep, heart racing — or, at the other extreme, dissociation: a state of numbness, struggling to stay present.
What we carry home
When participants were invited to share their experiences in a story circle facilitated by trauma-informed reporting advocate Vina Araneta, answers ranged from electoral violence to siege situations, from natural disasters to state-sanctioned killings. While the stories varied in setting, the emotional residue was familiar.
In reflecting on the stories that never left them, the burden proved to expand beyond immediate danger, into the gray area between witnessing and intervening. Some spoke of the discomfort of documenting tragedy while having to remain professionally detached: asking questions in moments of grief, walking away from the site while others could not, reporting on loss while remaining physically intact.
This strain lingers as guilt, as uncertainty, the question of what it means to keep reporting when lives are still unraveling. One participant recalled covering a landslide that claimed the lives of three young children. She remembered wondering whether journalism was enough, wishing, in that moment, that she had been a doctor who could save a life rather than someone tasked only to report the loss of it.
Another participant described being pulled into roles beyond reporting, at times serving as “go-betweens,” or bridges, among grieving families and state authorities in moments of crisis — a position that blurs the line between silent witness and active participant.
This burden, the cost of bearing witness, follows journalists back into the newsroom, where resilience is expected and vulnerability is often misread.
Ghosts in the newsroom
The body remembers, but journalism has long required its practitioners to move forward regardless. What Dr. Ilagan previously described as physical manifestations of stress, she suggests, are the cost of the “professional mask” — the learned instinct to set aside discomfort and remain composed in moments of crisis. The story must be delivered.
Participants reflected on how professionalism often means suppression. One participant recounted having to force herself to stop crying before reporting live on air; the broadcast couldn’t wait, emotion would have to.
Another participant shared that after experiencing harassment, she deliberately held back her tears, worried that showing distress might be interpreted as weakness.
In Mindanao, where “padayon” — keep going — is both mantra and necessity, resilience is deeply valued. Pushing through fatigue can look like commitment. But over time, that resilience may become something closer to a performance.
One seasoned journalist noted how organized spaces like “BAYI-LINES” are a relatively recent development. Earlier in their careers, there were no debriefings, no facilitated conversations about stress. In a fast-paced work environment, continuity was paramount; the work goes on.
Within this culture of dedication, many women journalists find themselves absorbing strain quietly, maintaining composure while navigating both professional demands and personal safety concerns. Over time, the weight of ghosting oneself accumulates. If the assignment shapes the body, and the newsroom shapes the role, what remains in the journalist’s hands?
Putting the story down
In one exercise during an art therapy session led by creative arts therapist Amanda Echevarria of The Art Pavilion in Davao City, participants sculpted creatures from clay, passing them around a circle, with each person adding to the form until the piece is returned to its original creator. The final step allowed the original maker the chance to enhance what had returned to her. The message was clear: while circumstances and expectations leave their marks, the final edit still belongs to the author.
This gesture towards agency continued the next day in a candle-making session led by Yenna Angkang, founder of the Davao-based intentional candle brand, Kandiletita. Participants poured the wax slowly, one by one; presence over efficiency. As the candles set, they waited. “Not everything,” they were reminded, “needs to be filled.” You decide how much you give. You decide when to stop.
Later that day, under Dr. Ilagan’s guidance, the retreat culminated in a session that invited participants to move from being characters — puppets, ghosts — in their own stories, to reclaiming authorship. Here, they revisited why they became journalists, the stories that changed them, and who they now wished to become.
One participant reflected, “The stories we write are not just stories about other people, nagiging bahagi na rin tayo ng stories na ‘yon” — over time, they become part of those stories as well.
For one journalist who once questioned her profession after covering the deaths of three children in a landslide, the answer shifted with time. While she could not save them, telling their story, she realized, might help prevent another loss.
Journalists may not always control the events they cover. But they can choose how to hold them, how to frame them, and when to set them down. They are not ghosts. What remains in their hands is authorship — and the steady, deliberate act of telling stories that can still change what comes next.
On the retreat’s final evening, participants gathered by the shore with their candles. Above them, a rare blood moon rose over the sea. One by one, they were invited to complete a simple sentence: “My voice as a woman is all about…” Answers ranged from love and compassion to determination, courage, resistance, truth; a commitment, as one participant put it, “to continue to give voice to the voiceless, to continue to fight for justice and peace.” After each reflection, a candle was placed at the center of the circle, small flames multiplying against the dark as the women spoke of the voices they carried forward.
In keeping with the retreat’s theme, “Stories We Carry, Lives We Write,” those reflections will not end at the shoreline. Each participant has committed to crafting a personal narrative — through text, video, or visual essay — reflecting on the costs and courage of being a woman journalist.
[BAYI-LINES is part of the Safety Training Series of the Media Impact Philippines project implemented by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MinJourn), publisher of MindaNews, in partnership with the International Media Support (IMS) with funding from the European Union and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.]
