Ang tagal ko nang ginagawa ’yan, ngayon lang kayo nanood,” an amused Karmina Constantino said over the phone.

It was days after the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) anchor’s interview with presidential candidate Jose Montemayor Jr. went viral. Constantino was talking to Montemayor about his claim that Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso had received a donation from Bill Gates for his presidential campaign. That led to this exchange:

Montemayor: “You are in the media, you should have known better, unless Isko Moreno paid the ANC and ABS-CBN—”

Constantino: “I’m sorry, I’m not going to let that pass, Dr. Montemayor. We are not in the business of getting paid. I am personally insulted by this insinuation. We can go on with this interview, we can leave this topic and move on but let me tell you, this is not an insinuation that I will take lightly. This company is not in the business of getting paid. This journalist you are talking to right now has never been or ever will be paid by anyone to ask or not ask any questions.”

Netizens hail the no-nonsense journalist.

Montemayor: “Ok.”

Constantino: “Let’s move on. What kind of leader will you be if you believe in fake news, Dr. Montemayor?”

Montemayor: “Is that a personal question?”

Constantino: “It’s a question.”

For Constantino, it was just another day on the job. Like she told us, she’s been doing this for a long time—almost 26 years, in fact. But something was different this time. That moment struck a chord with people and they started posting about it on social media.

“Who is this Karmina Constantino and why is she a goddess?”

“Kween Karmina Constantino, sinupalpal si Jose Montemayor!”

Karmina Constantino: “Truth can be relative, but facts should be unassailable.”

“Karmina Constantino, everyone. She is the moment. She is an icon. She is a queen. Sit down, Montemayor.”

“Karmina Constantino is my new spirit animal.”

“Queen Karmina Constantino is on fire and Montemayor just got burned to a crisp!”

When she realized that the interview had gone viral, Constantino was surprised. Her reaction? “What is this? What’s happening?”

Hard-hitting questions

The fire emojis continued to rain and then, days later, Constantino went viral again, this time because of her interview with Cavite Rep. Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla. #BoyingSinungaling had trended on Twitter after Remulla’s accusations that people who attended Vice President Leni Robredo’s rally in Cavite were paid supporters and that Robredo’s camp has connections with the communist movement. The broadcast journalist lobbed these questions at him.

“Are you a liar, Congressman Remulla?”

“What is your proof of this?”

“And why should we believe you?”

“You’re a political veteran, you’ve been through so many elections in the past, gawain niyo rin ho ba ito, ang manghakot at magbayad?”

“How can your statements not be seen as endangering the lives of these supporters?”

“’Yun na nga po ’yung problema, ano po ang totoo, eh wala naman ho kayong pruweba?”

Netizens responded with even more tweets, posts and memes.

“Breaking news: QC RTC (Quezon City Regional Trial Court) issues warrant of arrest for Karmina Constantino for arson. Sinunog on air si Boying Remulla!”“As usual, Karmina slayed again.”

“When I grow up, I wanna be Karmina Constantino; magaling mag-barbecue.”

“Miss Karmina Constantino putting trash male politicians in the garbage where they belong.”

“We need more journalists like Karmina Constantino.”

Uncomfortable

Constantino is amused by all the attention she’s been getting but she’s also uncomfortable with it. “Since day one when I started in this industry, it’s always been clear to me that I’m doing this for the country. It’s never been about myself. It’s never been about, ‘I want to be sikat’ or ‘I want people to notice,’” she told Lifestyle during a Zoom interview.

It can’t be denied, though—people have taken notice. She’s been inundated with messages both from strangers and friends. Even her mom has been getting so many messages. “My mom still can’t wrap her brain around it. All of a sudden daw all her friends started texting her and all our relatives . . . and she has 64 first cousins.”

She’s grateful and she appreciates the support, Constantino said, but there’s a part of her that’s thinking, “Can I just go back to slaying silently?”

Constantino did not grow up wanting to be a journalist. The granddaughter of historian Renato Constantino and the daughter of activist Renato Constantino Jr., she went to film school at University of the Philippines and had dreams of becoming a screenwriter or entering the advertising industry. “I wanted to be a storyteller of that kind. I remember in film school, I’d get lost in creating all these stories.”

But, Constantino shared, “My mom said, ‘You know, Makati is far, mapapagod ka . . . why don’t you try ABS-CBN?”

ABS-CBN was just five minutes away from their house. Constantino said, “I followed my mom, plain and simple. I’ve had many misadventures in my life as a young girl that I’ve learned to follow what she said.”

She applied for a job at Sky News, the news channel of Sky Cable which was then headed by David Celdran. “David said there’s an opening for reporter. I said, ‘I don’t know sh*t about reporting. But I am willing to learn. Can you please give me the lowest position that’s available?’”

Anniversary

And so Constantino was hired even before she graduated from college. Her first day on the job? May 1, 1996. “Labor day is always special to me. It’s my anniversary with this company.”

Constantino started as a production assistant. “Nagwalis ako, nagtimpla ako ng kape, nag-floor director . . .” She worked her way up. “That’s the beauty of having the correct mentors, when they see something in you, they will try to guide you and guide me they did—from work ethics, writing and being creative, to, you know, how do I tell the story today? How do I ask this question? Little by little, they started trusting me with writing teasers, special features and working on documentaries.”

Then, an anchor got sick. “It was Luz Rimban who said, ‘It’s your turn . . . can you sub for the anchor?’ It was fast. I think after a year, I made anchor already. It was a very small outfit and there was meritocracy in our little family. It was more like, what are your strengths? Can you do this? Give it a shot. If you can’t, try some other thing. That was the leadership of David Celdran.”

Constantino counts Celdran, Rimban, Ed Lingao, Kara Magsanoc and Dondi Ocampo as her mentors.

ABS-CBN introduced the Sarimanok News Network and then SNN and Sky News merged and became ANC. Constantino has been there the whole time—she had fallen in love with journalism. “It’s my longest relationship ever,” she said.

And those viral moments just showed Constantino doing what she’s always done: “I ask the questions that need to be asked regardless of where you stand because this is about the country. This is not about a specific candidate or a specific color. This is about the one country that we have, and this is my way of being of service to the nation.”

Challenging times

These are challenging times for journalists in the Philippines—this age of misinformation, historical revisionism and rampant attacks on press freedom, something Constantino and her colleagues experienced with the closure of ABS-CBN in 2020. She said, “It’s sad and it’s painful and it angers me, you know? It’s not lost on me that we’ve lost a lot of our colleagues. It’s not lost on me that we’re one of the lucky ones . . . I will forever keep that in my heart and in my mind. Every time I go on air, I think of the 11,000 and more. It angers me that we were put in this situation but I’m so proud of the team. Because despite everything that happened, we’re still here. We’re still trying to get what’s important for people to know out there. And it’s fueling us, make no mistake about it. It’s not just me who feels this way. We’re not gonna back down. I was telling my team the other week, these are the times why we exist.”

And so Constantino soldiers on. “Truth can be relative but facts should be unassailable. Let’s take, for example, the Edsa Revolution. Your truth may have been you didn’t join for whatever reason. My truth would have been I joined. But the fact remains that there was a bloodless revolution and it spelled the end of a dictatorship, a dictatorship that murdered people . . . hundreds disappeared, there was famine in the Philippines. Those are unassailable facts. If we stick to the facts, the story will be clear . . . ’Yung truth can be bent depende sa biases mo, sa kinagisnan mo, but when you focus on facts, that’s the reality that can never be erased or even be rewritten. Let’s just stick to the facts. But I do feel that that is the challenge right now, facts are being challenged, facts are being revised.”

Has it gotten harder to stay objective as a journalist? “Not really,” she said. “To borrow Congressman Remulla’s words, ‘Alam mo na ’yung galawan nila.’ So enough, enough of this. And I think it doesn’t just go for journalists. It goes for everyone. If you’re faced already with something that you know goes against your core values as a person, as a Filipino, you speak out.”

She added, “I think it can be attributed to our colonial past. Because we’ve been taught to say yes, to be subservient and this is why we’re here. This is why we’re in the situation that we’re in right now. Because not a lot have been questioning, have been speaking out, but we should. That was how my parents raised me—to respect authority but question authority if the need arises. Enough of this. Public servants sila. They should serve the public’s interest. We should have the last say, not them. They should listen to us. It shouldn’t be the other way around.”

Making things right

That’s what she hopes people would take away from her moment in the spotlight. “If they should take away anything from this, it’s that they have the power to speak out. And you have the power to make things right.” And one way of exercising that power is in the coming elections. Constantino said, “I have no illusion that they will listen to me but if they do, when you cast your vote, it doesn’t end there. ’Yung pagkasagrado ng boto mo doesn’t end when you cast your ballot. It lives beyond the precinct. Its life is during the administration that you voted into office. So you don’t just vote for someone and then become a blind follower. That vote is sacred until that term of the person that you voted into office ends so that person should be held accountable for every single action that they do. It’s not just putting someone into office, it’s putting the country’s future on the line, as well.”

Each time she votes, she asks herself who she’s vAng tagal ko nang ginagawa ’yan, ngayon lang kayo nanood,” an amused Karmina Constantino said over the phone.