Theres The Rub
Under siege
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:04:00 10/08/2008
A couple of recent developments bode ill for the free press.
The first is the aborted press conference of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The FOCAP cancelled the event after Malacañang insisted on two things. One is that the journalists submit their questions beforehand. Two is that the journalists limit their questions to the economy and not stray into political ones.
Naturally, the FOCAP refused to accept those conditions. Nowhere in the world do leaders, far more powerful and far more legitimate, impose them. It is a humongous trespass against press freedom. At the very least it presumes that Arroyo knows best about what news is, the press may only take its cue from her. At the very most, it presumes that the truth, which is best revealed in spontaneous answers, can possibly harm the nation.
This is by no means the first time Arroyo has done this. She has done it before without bothering to supply the formal excuses for it. It’s taken the form of her throwing a tantrum whenever a reporter asks a question she does not like and storming out of a press conference in a huff. Or berating a reporter, such as when our Malacañang reporter asked her last year why her vaunted growth wasn’t trickling down to the masses. She fumed and upbraided the “offender.” As though the question that had been put to her wasn’t completely legitimate. Well, she has always had problems with the concept of legitimate.
What this points to is Malacañang’s attempt to twist the press — and not just the local press at that! — in the direction of “development journalism.” That of course was what Marcos foisted on the country after he declared martial law, the idea being that the press should be an ally of government in promoting development, and toward that end should only talk about “positive” things. Certainly it might not criticize government or depict it in a bad light because that was “negative” in the extreme.
I for one believe that is the kind of journalism Arroyo will increasingly — and with a calibrated use of force — try to force on the country over the next few years. That is so because I do not believe she intends to leave after 2010.
The second thing that bodes ill for the free press are the bills in the Senate and the House calling for public officials to have a right to reply to criticisms of them by the press, and be given equal space for it. Frankly, I cannot understand how Aquilino Pimentel Jr., a human rights lawyer, can possibly have anything to do with it. But he is the sponsor of the bill in the Senate. Monico Puentevella is his counterpart in the House.
The silliness, quite apart from insidiousness, of it is patent. Its equivalent would be for people to demand that they be given equal time in the Senate and House to reply to accusations made against them by senators and congressmen when they deliver their privilege speeches. At least journalists have to worry about libel when they say certain things against senators and congressmen. Senators and congressmen can malign their enemies to death without fear of retribution, other perhaps than the mockery of the world for making fools of themselves.
Just as well, its equivalent would be for people to insist on being given the opportunity to reprimand judges whenever they figure they or their loved ones have been given a raw deal. Journalists can only ruin the reputations of the people they wrongly judge to have done wrong, judges can ruin the lives of the people they wrongly judge to have committed a crime. At least journalists for the most part do so out of honest mistake, judges for the most part do so out of dishonest ones — they get paid to make their mistakes.
The insidiousness of those bills is even more patent. Those bills pass and, as most everyone has pointed out, every other day the Inquirer’s front and opinion pages will consist only of replies by public officials who feel offended or imagine they can write. Those bills pass and the press will have lost its right to determine what news or commentary to print, what act of heroism to extol and act of deviltry to condemn. Might as well pack up and sell “balut” [boiled duck embryo, a popular snack — Ed.].
Is the press sometimes unfair in its reportage and commentary? Yes — that goes with the territory. However you try to get to the bottom of things, by the sheer tyranny of deadline and the amount of writing you do, you will get things wrong now and then. I know I have. I don’t mind apologizing and admitting I was wrong when the facts are shown to me. You simply have to trust in reporters, opinion writers and editors doing their job well and in good faith. That is what we do with congressmen and judges when they legislate and render verdict: We trust them to do their jobs well and in good faith. Heaven knows journalists deserve the trust far more than congressmen and judges.
Arroyo’s attempt to turn the free press into “development journalism” and the “right of reply” bills are an assault on press freedom. And lest the public imagine that is a concern only of the press, it should imagine again. As it stands now, the press is one of the last bastions of democracy in this country. It’s one of the few things left that’s keeping the embers of democracy glowing. We allow the iniquities above to prosper and we’ll be back to the days when a couple of million people saw Ninoy Aquino off to his final resting place and the Times Journal reported only that a man had been electrocuted while climbing an electric post. We allow them to hold sway, and we’ll be back to the days when a We Forum could only be published on the sly, with only a courageous Joe Burgos to publicly claim having anything to do with it.
There is something worse than a free press. It’s not having one.
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