Sandra Aguinaldo (born April 29, 1975) is a Filipina television news anchor journalist, writer and documentarian. She is best known as one of the news reporters of 24 Oras and one of the hosts of I-Witness. In 2015, Aguinaldo together with her co-hosts in I-Witness won as the Best Documentary Program Hosts during the 29thPMPC Star Awards for Television.[1]
Early life
Aguinaldo is the only child of Felipe, her father who is an engineer, and Irene, her mother who died when she was four years old.[2] She grew up at Angono, Rizal and she spent her childhood liking different kinds of art.[2][3] She developed her writing skills in high school and decided to take up journalism at University of Santo Tomas (UST) where she graduated. In 1993, she became the editor-in-chief of The Flame, UST Faculty of Arts and Letters' official student journal.[2]
Career
After Aguinaldo graduated from college, she became a copywriter at an advertising firm.[2] In 1996, she entered the broadcast industry and was the head writer of Usapang Business, a television program of ABS-CBN.[2] After a year, she went to print media and became the senior report of The Manila Times.[2]
Eventually, she worked for GMA Network as news reporter for 24 Oras and Saksi.[2] She also hosted I-Witness, a television documentary program of GMA Network.[4][5][6] She initially joined I-Witness in 2006 when Vicky Morales took a leave of absence and she was a temporary replacement but eventually, she became a regular of the show.[4][3]
In I-Witness, she was able to produce different kinds of documentary including topics about poverty, which was questioned in 2012 when Aguinaldo and her co-hosts were at the "docufest" in Baguio.[3] It was asked that "in continuing to feature stories of poverty, are documentaries a form of exploitation?".[3] For Aguinaldo, when she makes documentary about poverty, she tries to give inspiration instead of making the poor people depressed.[3] Her documentary entitled "Pasan-Pasan" is about children with disability who goes to school despite being handicapped.[9] She also presented the documentary entitled "Iskul ko No. 1", which is about the Sindagan Elementary School, a school in Southern Leyte ranked top one in the 2006 National Achievement Test for graduating students.[3] "Iskul ko No. 1" won silver medal during the 2007 New York Festivals.[4]
