Estela Grace ‘Jinky’ Rosit, who is one of the pioneer reporters in TV5 Cebu. ( Photo grabbed from Jinky’s FB Profile)
Thirteen employees of TV5 Cebu were laid off Monday morning.
Estela Grace ‘Jinky” Rosit, who is one of the pioneer reporters in TV5 Cebu confirmed to Cebu Daily News that their human resource officer and an executive from Manila arrived on Monday morning and had a meeting with the Cebu staff.
“We were told about the plans to close. Cheques were prepared already with all the computation in it,” Rosit said.
They were told that the reason for the lay off was because of financial difficulties and continuing substantial operating losses.
A 30-day notice was already served until March 30 but Rosit said affected workers have the option not to work starting tomorrow.
Thirteen employees were composed of two reporters, five cameramen, three drivers, news manager, a marketing officer and a technician.
Only five people were left in TV5 Cebu who are all technicians.
“Even if we don’t go to work from February 28 to March 30, it’s included in the pay,” Rosit added.
Rosit had been working for TV5 Cebu for five years and nine months.
In 2016, she won the ‘Reporter of the Year’ during the Globe Media Excellence Awards (GMEA) in Visayas for her “El Nino sa Sugbo” story.
Though she was sad about what happened to her and her colleagues, she said her life has to go on.
Rosit plans to leave for Australia and will soon come back in Cebu to go back working in broadcast or print media.
She also thanked their televiewers and supporters of Aksyon Bisaya for the support.
” I just wanna thank our televiewers and supporters of Aksyon Bisaya for believing in us.”
To recall, Aksyon Bisaya aired their final episode in September 2016.
“Despite the decreasing number of reporters lately yet they never left and still continued to support our program. My salute to everyone. To TV5, thank you for a very fruitful, challenging and rewarding experience. I will forever be grateful to the network. I am proud to be a kapatid,” she said.