Postscript to my complaint to NorthBound Magazine -- a beneficial conclusion

In the interest of fairness and transparency, I am writing a postscript to an earlier blogpost when I called attention to the usage/publication of my Cagayan images without my consent/permission.  After meeting up with the editors of NorthboundMagazine and PICO Publications sometime in October 2009, I requested for  compensation/settlement (the amount of which I choose not to disclose for the sake of charity and modesty) to be made payable to my favorite charity organization, the 700 Club Asia for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. Happily, this request was accepted and honored by NorthBound Magazine and PICO.

I am doing this postcript in response to a recent request by the publication that I delete the post or edit references to the company or magazine.  This is the concession I struck with the publication:  I will write a postscript but not delete the post or amend it in any way.  To do so is tantamount to stating the incident never happened at all or that circumstances were different from what I originally wrote. 

For the sake of transparency, I report that the publication's editors agreed to the settlement/donation I requested in October 2009 and reassured me that necessary steps were taken to avoid the incident from happening again. In this case, I was told the artist responsible for the unauthorized use/publication of my images was subjected to disciplinary action (non-renewal of employment contract) and that stricter measures were put in place to make sure permission was obtained from the owners of the images prior to usage by the publication. 

I hope that from this incident, some good truly came out -- like lessons learned, rights upheld, commitment and promises kept and most importantly help extended to those who needed it most.