"how was it?"

By now I'm sure everyone in the Philippine blogosphere has put in his/her two cents' worth about the kidnapping of ABS-CBN senior reporter Ces Oreña Drilon and her companions cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion and Professor Octavio Dinampo.

I must admit, I haven't been following it much so I don't feel I can really comment.

But yesterday, after seeing her press conference on TV, I felt like I just had to say something.

Drilon, Encarnacion, and Dinampo were held for more than a week by the Abu Sayyaf. When they were finally released, they had to endure a 5-hour hike in the hinterlands of Sulu to get to where "friendly forces" were waiting for them.

At the press conference, a tired-looking Drilon gamely and bravely answered questions.

And then one reporter asked: "How was it?"

"How was it?" Drilon repeated the question, leaning forward, eyes on the reporter.

Was that a deliberate pause? And was it me or did her voice -- and her eyebrows -- rise a bit higher than usual?

One can only imagine what the woman had just gone through -- the terror, the mental and emotional anguish, the dark uncertainty of having your fate in the hands of a group such as the Abu Sayyaf, not to mention the living, eating, and sleeping conditions.

And after all that, she gets asked: "How was it?"

In that slight nanosecond of a pause, I remembered the reporter who asked a child trapped in the rubble after an earthquake (or was it a landslide), "Anong nararamdaman mo ngayon (What are you feeling now)?"

Drilon could have come up with a dozen snappy answers (in the tradition of the MAD series "Al Jaffee's 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions'") for the reporter.

But to her eternal credit, Drilon remained silent. The reporter asked a follow-up question.

I forget what that question was, but it must have been a more appropriate question, as Drilon answered.

At the risk of getting some snappy answers myself, I ask:

Can't we have a little more empathy for the people we interview?

Aren't there more sensitive questions we can ask in such situations?

Aren't there more effective ways to get soundbites or quotes?

Aren't there better ways to get the story?