(Bobby Timonera, editor-in-chief of MindaNews, delivered this piece during the “Unheard Voices of Climate Action Conversation” on 20 February 2026 at the Arete, Ateneo de Manila University. The forum was organized by ADMU’s Tagpuan Center for Dialogue, Research, and Collaboration, and MindaNews. MindaNews presented documentaries on climate action efforts of communities from the highlands of Upi in Maguindanao del Norte and Gumitan in Davao City, to the islands of Siargao in Surigao del Norte and Taganak in Tawi-Tawi.)

Two weeks ago, after Basyang battered my hometown of Iligan, we were not covering an abstract concept called climate change. We were covering flooded homes, fallen bridges and flood-control projects, soaked schoolbooks, and families waiting for the waters to recede, and wait some more for relief to come.

For a few days, I wore my rubber boots, cameras hanging on my shoulders, and once again walked on flooded city streets and villages — as I did more than 14 years ago when Sendong killed hundreds of Iliganons — taking photographs of children helping out in removing the mud from their homes, the elderly being carried to safety, residents crossing a makeshift bridge as a strong current rages underneath, houses damaged by floodwaters.

The images we produce are not just decoration. The films are not just videos. They are documentation. They are testimony. They are witness.

Photographs, we know, capture what statistics cannot. They preserve memory. They make distant crises closer and visible to us. They restore names and faces to policy debates.

For 25 years, we have used words and images to weave together these stories.

Climate change is not one storm, not one flashflood. It is wave after wave. And journalism must keep sailing, like the vinta that has symbolized our work, that you can see in our logo. We do no calm storms, but we document them. We ask who is responsible, we amplify the situation of those who are affected, especially the unheard voices.

They are the fisherfolk who notice changing currents. Farmers who adjust planting seasons. Mothers who carry children through floodwaters. Indigenous communities protecting forests. Youth organizing climate strikes.

We in MindaNews do not do parachute journalism. We do not see disaster as a spectacle. We look at its context, its history, and we follow-through.

For 25 years, we have been reporting on conflict and climate, from peace talks to rising tides. We see the pattern — the issues are connected.

Climate reporting is not seasonal. And thus it requires institutional memory, digging into our archives, and following up years later.

Climate stories are political. Environment degradation often involves power. It is thus independent journalism’s duty to protect the truth.

Disaster stories keep repeating year after year, and many of us — journalists included — may already have disaster fatigue. I remember writing about the Philippines being the most disaster-prone country when I was a young reporter in the 1990s. Here I am, almost 40 years later, in my senior years, still risking life and limb to cover disasters right in my hometown.

And for years I’ve been posting on social media the struggles we had at home every time strong rains come and floodwaters enter our house. [But, unlike the flood-control projects that cost billions, we have devised our own that has kept our house dry the past 10 years even as floodwaters flow on our street.]

But we cannot stop reporting about climate change. Because we see hope. We see the youth helping out mitigate the effects of climate change. We see communities rebuilding, the indigenous people taking leadership on environmental issues.

And we see like-minded people and institutions taking up the cudgels for the environment. Institutions like the Ateneo, the artists like Bevs and company, researchers, fellow journalists, ordinary citizens.

As MindaNews marks 25 years, we do not celebrate from a distance. We stand in floodwaters, in evacuation centers, in communities rebuilding. We continue to write stories. We continue to sail through waves. And we continue to listen to voices that deserve to be heard.