<p><b><center><font color='blue'>ABOUT US</b></font></center>
<p><center>By Vittorio V. Vitug</center>
<center>General Manager, PNA</center>
<center>Director III, NIB</center>
<p>The Philippines News Agency (PNA) is a web-based newswire service agency under the
supervision and control of the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines,
through Supervising Secretary Conrado A. Limcaoco Jr., also Director-General of the
Philippine Information Agency (PIA).
<p>In a move to streamline and ensure the capabilities of government media entities to face the
challenges of information gathering and dissemination with the onset of globalization, Her
Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Executive Order No. 576 on the 7th day
of November 2006 which, aside from PNA, effectively placed five other government media and
media-related entities under the operational supervision and control of Secretary Limcaoco.
<p>These media entities, either wholly-owned or sequestered by the government, are directly
under the supervision and control of Secretary Limcaoco “By authority of the President” as
mandated by E.O. 576, which also paved the way for the abolition of the Government Mass
Media Group (GMMG). These are the following:
<lu>
<li>Bureau of Broadcast Services which oversees and manages the day-to-day broadcast
operations of Radyo ng Bayan DZRB with regular broadcast on 738 kilohertz AM radio band
and DWBR Business Radio at 104.3 Megahertz on the FM radio band.
<li>National Broadcasting Network Inc., or NBN Channel 4 on television free broadcast.
<li>Radio Philippines Network or RPN Channel 9 on television free broadcast.
<li>International Broadcasting Network or IBC Channel 13 also on the television free broadcast.
<li>The Bureau of Communications Services, an office which has the primary task of planning
and implementing media campaigns and programs.
<p>Thirty-five years after it launched its newswire operations relying mainly on teletype
machines and typewriters, PNA has evolved today as an internet-based news service agency that
caters to the global demand for news and information to its subscribers, readers and a host of
other clients. PNA employs about a hundred journalists and stringers across the country with
several foreign-based correspondents. PNA’s website address is http://www.pna.gov.ph.
<p>PNA’s mission is spelled out clearly: to provide the government, the Presidency, the public,
as well as the media and non-media clients, both local and foreign based, sober, factual, impartial
and objective news and information through. PNA provides news 24/7, including photos of
major events, feature stories, sports news and events, local and global opinions, general
information as well as global news and feature stories.
<p>Three and a half decades after it steadily conquered the highly competitive and changing
waters of Philippine journalism, PNA is now slowly but surely gearing up to be at par with the
challenges posed by globalization of media communications that has deeply shaped the modern
journalism field and the news media organizations as well that have been instrumental in creating
the very conditions that have made globalization a reality.
<p>The Presidential issuance of E.O. 576, however, mandated that PNA will remain under the
administrative and budgetary jurisdiction of its original mother unit, the News and Information
Bureau (NIB), the singular operating bureau of the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS), headed
by Press Secretary Jesus G. Dureza.
<p>The PNA Headquarters and Central Desk are housed at the 2nd floor of the PIA building
along Visayas Avenue where the PIA and BBS also hold their respective offices. Within the
same compound are the offices and main studios of NBN 4. Currently, PNA has news bureaus
across the country from the Cagayan Valley region in the north to Zamboanga City in Mindanao
to the south.
<p>These bureaus specifically hold offices in the cities of Tuguegarao, Dagupan, Baguio, San
Fernando, Legaspi, Tacloban, Iloilo, Cebu, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Puerto Princesa, Cagayan de
Oro, Zamboanga, Davao, Cotabato and General Santos.
<p>From 01 March 1973 when it kicked off its newswire dispatch operations to the present,
PNA has consistently remained on the forefront of news gathering and dissemination with
notable, reliable and factual coverage of crucial events that helped shape Philippine history as
well as natural and man-made disasters that struck the nation.
<p>From the rise and fall of the Marcos regime, the historic events that shaped EDSA I and II
which both saw the assumption of two lady Presidents, to the violent eruption of Mt. Pinatubo,
floods, landslides and other disasters, PNA upheld its journalistic credo of factual, timely and
responsible reportage of all events. PNA likewise made its presence felt by reporting major
world events that were held in the country such as the APEC summit, World Youth Day,
ASEAN Conference in Cebu, and Centennial celebration, among others.
<p>PNA beat reporters and stringers are deployed practically in every government office and
agency, including the main offices and camps of police and security forces to cover and dish
out news 24/7 to service the news requirements of both its local, regional and global subscribers
and readers. PNA likewise maintains active news exchanges with news agencies of
member-countries of ASEAN and the Organization of Asia–Pacific News Agencies (OANA).
<p>Other active partners include Xinhua of China, Kyodo of Japan, PTI of India and Central
News Agency of Taiwan. PNA likewise carries a special wire partnership with Asianet, a
conglomerate of news wire service agencies based in Australia.