Howie G. Severino

Howie Severino writes, produces and hosts television documentaries, and is one of the Philippines' most awarded journalists. In 2007, he was named to the Rotary Journalism Awards' Hall of Fame after he was named Broadcast Journalist of the Year twice and Investigative Journalist of the Year twice. In October 2007, GMA Network, where Severino's TV stories and documentaries have been appearing for the past decade, released "Ten Years of Howie Severino," a DVD compilation of ten of his more notable documentaries, including Huling Hala Bira, a documentary about a family living under the railroad tracks in Pandacan, Manila. That documentary won second prize in an international broadcast competition in 2007 for stories about development sponsored by the United Nations.

Together with Sheila Coronel, Marites Vitug, Rigoberto Tiglao and several others, Severino also co-founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, where he served four years as a full-time staff member and made his mark as an environmental journalist. His article on the chemical poisoning of Filipino farmers won the JVO Grand Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1995. The International Herald Tribune has called him the Philippines' "top environmental reporter."

Before he became a full-time journalist in 1988, Howie was a teacher and activist. He was arrested in 1985, charged with sedition and spent eight days in prison, five of those in solitary confinement in Fort Bonifacio, the Philippine Army's main camp.

He earned an MA in environmental policy from Sussex University (UK) in 1993 and a BA in History (magna cum laude) from Tufts University in 1983. He graduated from the Ateneo de Manila High School in 1979.