She was kind and soft-spoken.
That was how her friends and col-leagues at CNN Philippines described Cebuana veteran news anchor Amelyn Veloso who passed away last Thursday after three years of battling cancer.
Veloso used to pinch-hit on CNN Philippines’ Cebuano News for fellow Cebuano anchors Jun Tariman and Menchu Antigua Macagapal.
“Amelyn was an incredible journalist. I’ve never seen her frazzled, never complained, always came to work prepared and with a smile on her face even during the times she was undergoing chemo and when she was obviously in pain,” Macapagal told Cebu Daily News.
Veloso was also remembered as a person who always had encouraging words for junior anchors and correspondents and was never stingy with her wealth of knowledge and experience.
“Every Christmas, she would bake her brownies for us and I was always excited to get my share. She was a talented baker and cook. You know how people say a person was beautiful inside and out? She was the epitome of that. Kind, generous and incredibly strong. I will miss her so much,” Macapagal added.
Veloso’s death was first reported by CNN Philippines’ senior anchor Pia Hontiveros during the network’s tribute segment of its main news broadcast on Thursday night.
Veloso, 43, was surrounded by her husband Rodney Zapanta, 14-year-old son Gab and mother Amelita before she died, said the tribute.
‘Not a typical Cebuana’
Tariman described Veloso as “not a typical Cebuana.”
“She wasn’t a typical Cebuana. Not the Cebuana nga isog (plucky). She was soft-spoken and so kind. Murag dili kahibalo mangaway (She looked like she didn’t know how to pick a fight),” Tariman told CDN.
Veloso was a Class 1991 high school graduate of Sacred Heart School, a privately run all-girls college in Cebu City, and a native of Tipolo, Mandaue City. She was born on April 25, 1974.
According to a CNN Philippines report, Veloso finished her degree in Broadcast Communication at the University of the Philippines-Diliman and master’s degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines.
Tariman, a broadcast journalist then based in Cebu, first met Veloso in 2013 when he was hired that year by Solar News and Current Affairs to man its news desk and anchor the Solar Daybreak and Solar Headlines.
She, like Tariman, were former Solar broadcast journalists who became CNN Philippines pioneers when the network was launched in 2015.
Tariman said that Veloso did newscast for English, Filipino and Cebuano news in CNN Philippines.
Like a sister
Alan Luigi Flores, a Cebuano and a former employee of CNN Philippines, considered Veloso as his older sister that he never had.
“Buotan kaayo. There were times when I thought of her as an older sister,” Flores told Cebu Daily News.
Flores recalled he was able to work with Veloso as her writer and producer when she would pinch-hit for Macapagal and Tariman.
Off camera, Veloso often found time to talk with Flores and other news production staff prior to broadcast to ask about the background of the stories she was going to present.
Flores said Veloso was always calm and collected even during the times when the whole news studio would be thrown into panic over some technical or new material-related problems.
He never heard a complaint from the veteran anchor. She was pleasant, always smiled and never forgot to greet everyone.
Flores also paid tribute to Veloso on a Facebook post and said, “She never stopped learning. Whenever she would do the newscast, she’d get the approved scripts, and practice reading them aloud in front of me and Jun (Tariman), telling us to correct her “if masayop ko (If I get it wrong).” If she ever made mistakes, she’d smile and say “hala, sorry ha.”
What Flores could not forget about Veloso was her advise for him to hone his skills in English, Cebuano and Filipino. She considered tri-lingual media people an asset.
“Even if I write mostly in English now, I could not abandon my writing in the native language, thanks to this lady’s encouragement,” Flores said.
According to Macapagal, Veloso will be buried this afternoon after the 1 p.m. Requiem Mass at the Santuario de San Jose Greenhills in Mandaluyong City.