REMEMBERING THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE OF THE GALLANT SAF 44

On January 25, 2023, the Philippine National Police Academy pays tribute to the valor of the SAF 44 in commemoration of their ultimate sacrifice at the Mamasapano incident eight years ago. It was a privilege that we met the five members of the gallant SAF 44 who fought and survived the Mamasapano incident. My most important takeaway from listening to them is how loyalty prevails. Despite having issues at the higher levels of the operation, the survivor of the incident still remained loyal to the government. In terms of the brave men on the ground, they also remained loyal, both to their commanders and to the oath that they took. They may have appeared to be betrayed and failed by the government, but they still stood on their feet and continued with their mission. It is indeed an exemplary display of loyalty and heroism, of which you can be proud.

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Our lesson for today is about "Videography 101," which refers to the basics. This lecture is short and quick, since what really matters is how we apply it. First, we familiarized ourselves with the basics. Our instructor is ASN Rocky Kabigting (PN).

During my college days, we also had the subject of "police photography" or "forensic photography," wherein we took that subject for one semester. During that time, we started with the history and the derivation of photography, which is writing with light. We learned about photography in the course Criminology because it is important in law enforcement and investigation because it serves as a permanent record and can be used as evidence in court hearings.We also learned about and became familiar with all the different types of cameras, but most of them were already replaced by the Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera due to the advent of technology. Even the manual SLR and the chemical processing were replaced by printing. However, our instructor told us that there is a difference between producing images from a chemical reaction and from printing. Although the chemical process takes effort and time, it also lasts longer than that of the photo produced through printing.

In today’s lecture, we were taught about three things to consider, especially for those who have no experience yet. When using a camera manually, we should always remember the gain or ISO, the aperture, and the shutter speed. We only need to know how to operate it and be familiar with all its properties. After the lecture, we tried to take a video by applying the techniques discussed, and by doing so, we learned a lot of techniques and applied them to our iPhone camera.