Journalists in the Philippines are calling for solidarity.
No to curtailment of press freedom. No to censorship. No to “government guidelines” on what can and cannot be published. Full text of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) here.
Leaders of Philippine society have spoken out against the government’s iron-hand tactics. The Philippine journalism community has also moved fast to unite against this grand assault on press freedom. Today, (Sunday, Feb. 26), the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines will lead various organizations and individual journalists in protesting the crackdown on media. The Philippine media community intends to send Mrs. Arroyo a strong message: We will not go gently into the night.
We call on all our colleagues in print, broadcast and digital journalism worldwide to support Philippine media in this dark hour. Please add your voice to our protest. Let us collectively condemn the crackdown on Philippine media and remind Mrs. Arroyo that no country can be free to prosper if its media is silenced and cowed. You can send protest letters to the government through the Office of the Press Secretary at osec@ops.gov.ph, with facsimile number (632) 735-6167 or deliver these to the nearest Philippine embassy and consulate. You can send solidarity messages to the NUJP through its email address, nujphil@gmail.com or post this on our website, www.nujp.org.
As pointed out, the Philippines is not one of the best places to practice one’s profession as a journalist. The danger of being a journalist in the Philippines is one of the reasons why my parents did not want me to take up journalism in university. This, and the fact that you earn peanuts if you’re an honest journalist. But people become journalists anyway because being a journalist is a calling.
It goes without saying that, like in every profession, there are bad apples in the lot.
But Madame President, you have gone overboard, especially with the scare tactics.
Media groups denounce press ‘crackdown’
LOCAL and international press organizations have denounced President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for trampling on democracy after the police raided an opposition newspaper and placed troops outside broadcast stations GMA Network and ABS-CBN.”We condemn in the strongest words possible the Friday night raid by government troops of the office of the Daily Tribune newspaper, and the sending of troops to ‘watch’ over broadcast stations, ABS-CBN and GMA7,” the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said in a statement.
The Philippines is was a democracy before the declaration of the State of Emergency with the questionable provisions that give you the power to “temporarily take over or direct the operation of any privately owned public utility or business affected with public interest” in times of national emergency.
And the gall to even suggest that the police liaise with the media. What do the police know about the media?
Police=force
Media=reasoning, thinking, threshing issues through exchange of ideas
Everyone is still waiting with bated breaths on how this drama will unfold. But you’re probably in too deep right now and thinking that maybe you should just take this all the way. After all, how long can one remain in a State of Emergency, with this kind of State of Emergency (not like the first one that you had) without losing face and racking criticism once the order is lifted?
God bless the Philippines and save it from the “Queen.”
2 Comments
May 27, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Why I’m for the Arming of Media
By: Mortz Marcelo Ortigoza
I’m a businessman but moonlight as a take -no -prisoner columnist in a news weekly in Pangasinan for several years. In this vocation I saw and learned the tentacles of corruptions at its worst as perpetrated by local officials in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government here.
Like our serious brothers and sisters in other parts of the country, we expose these malefactors not for monitorial consideration, but with patriotic dedication to extinguish these tumors that gnawed the moral fibers of this country
As a consequence, we are being peppered to death
The reasons why numbers of journalists being killed is rising in the Philippines because we have leaders like Vice President Noli de Castro who pooh-poohed the proposals from different sectors of arming us.
In an internet article posted at http://www.gmanews.tv on May 24, 2006, the vice president said that implementing a measure to arm media, people may see it as an indictment of the failure of our law enforcement authorities to maintain peace and order. He added that arming media men was, and never will be the answer to the spate of killings of journalists. It will only exacerbate the situation.
A failure of our law enforcement, Mr. Vice President?
You made me puked.
Our people have known a long time ago our law enforcement was a fiasco. Just take a look at those waylaid:
Since democracy was restored in 1986, there were 79 journalist killed. 42 of these were murdered under the administration of President Gloria Arroyo.
And I don’t know what lucky number I belong on this increasing figures of media guys who will be reassigned to take a beat in either Heaven or Hell.
Though an armed media is quite bizarre to look at, It’s the best thing we can do for now.
Imagine, my peer in profession as sitting ducks for target shooting by killers hired by corrupt government officials that we exposed.
The commonsensical thing this helpless government can do is to train us how to handle and carry firearms if not long arms.
With Secretary Raul Gonzales asking us what help the government can do for these alarming deaths, then it’s time to tell him, and the president that what we need is for them to teach us how to be responsible gun holders. For her to issue an order to the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to have a special mode of processing for us to avail for license, and permit to carry firearms outside our residence.
For majority of us who don’t have financial capacity to buy this lethal piece, then it’s time for Congress -pronto – to make this great service by amending the Firearms Law so our brother and sister who make our democracy more transparent can bear the said arms too for free.
Remember, these things are issued to them not only as protection but as deterrence to assassins to think twice before pulling the trigger.
It’s far fetch for Noli boy—the electoral product of the shallow minded bakya crowd– fearing the danger of an armed media men because they will abuse it
We have those high school graduate if not lowly security guards and barangay captains who strut on the streets with a gun tucked on their waistline. Have you heard them shooting each other, or poking their pieces to everybody’s face?
Seldom, if none.
That analogy will be the same, if not much better to a much intelligent media people whose talents made them taller then the “mechanical” blue guards, and those idiotic barangay officials whose only accomplishment was to crow their pathetic accomplishment before their friends in a beer drinking orgy.
Besides, the fear of de Castro, Senator Richard Gordon, many of our peers in the profession, and others about rogue in our rank is only a fly on the ointment.
These people can still be discouraged as what we see on the said guards and officials.
These people know any mishandling of firearms have respective criminal imprisonment.
Discharging of firearms, poking it to another, and shooting somebody have consequential penalties like alarm & scandal, grave threats, illegal discharge, attempted, frustrated, or consummated homicide or murder. Not to mention the civil liabilities for the culprits.
Our brother and sister would surely wouldn’t like these. What they want is they can practice their profession without fear because of a visible assurance of protection besides them.
So forget that fear Noli boy, Senator Gordon, and those nincompoops in the media industry .
What we should fear for goodness sake, our ranks are being decimated to extinction. And we have to do something for it.
Would the Filipinos allow the forces of evil reign on this country? Where the name of the game is survival of the fittest, the strong rules, and the weak-though they are great in numbers – play only the subservient role.
Oh by they way. With that justification of unnecessarily of arming us since the PNP can provide us bodyguard. Was it too much of a hassle for the police force who bellyache that it is undermanned? Was it a hassle for those poor media men who got pretty wives, who will pay for the jitney rides, and food of his body guards who most of time shadow him, notwithstanding the vulnerability of the fidelity of his wife because of the presence of a handsome police protector.
The primordial issue here is what makes our democracy ticks because we have a healthy media that check the abuses of the three branches of the government which couldn’t effectively check themselves.
What makes everybody’s life exciting is because we have these courageous members of the fourth estate that are willing to sacrifice their lives just to expose corruption.
Corruptions particularly in the local level like overpricing of government projects, protection of illegal gambling, prostitution, drugs, and other anomalies. Notwithstanding, corrupt judges, officials and rank and files of national agencies like those in Public Works and Education that are based on the provincial areas
As what the quote from Edmund Burke said: “All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.”
My fervent hope, there are still good men and women in the public and private sectors who can still hear our wail for the greater good of this country.
(Comments at totomortz@yahoo.com, or mobile phone no. 09192760964)
June 4, 2006 at 11:22 am
Reactions to my last week’s column on” Arming the Media”
By Mortz Ortigoza
I’m a member of Tapatt at Yahoogroup.com. This group is led by powerful columnist nonpareil Antonio Abaya, who has also a column at the Manila Standard Today. Compared to Amado Dorinila of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, for me, Abaya’s analysis is much deeper, clearer, and sometimes full of humor.
Thus, membership on this Tapatt varied worldwide- writers like Mangar Mangahas of the Social Weather Station, John Mangun of Graphics, former Generals , big wigs of multi national Corporations(who were awed by Abaya’s Politico Economic analysis of this country), policy makers, young officers of the Armed forces, to name a few.
Last week my column on this paper entitled:” Why I’m for the Arming of Media” received some reactions from this group. But I will be reprinting excerpts from Mr. Ronald Hector A. Villanueva and Mr. Abaya himself.
Here’s Mr. Villanueva who said he heard my cry about my peers in the industry at the local level who are unabatedly being gunned down:
“I hear your cry Mr. Ortigoza.
However, I think the long-term solution to the safety of media men is a larger base of credible and effective media practitioners. What do I mean by this?
The current set-up of the tri-media in the Philippines is focused around a handful of large entities owned by powerful persons/organizations that can protect themselves and the countryside media that is vulnerable to threats and violence as we have seen. Media persons who incur the wrath of the powerful are singled out. They are exposed, isolated, and have practically no one to turn to.
The ’small’ media people need to band together and protect each other in a more innovative way. Media, as it is structured in the Philippines, does not protect the media person who takes on the powerful. Beyond guns, the effort should be on expanding the media base and putting in place mechanisms that allow for widespread gathering of information, protecting the informant and media person, and ensuring that an expose leads to concrete action. My suggestions below propose that the task of “expose” media should go beyond being a profession, but should be a MOVEMENT for good governance. How to do this?
1. Those threatening or killing media people must be exposed immediately. They must be exposed, isolated, including their families, sources of (ill-gotten) wealth, political protectors, etc. Information is more powerful than guns and when used effectively can confront the powerful.
2. Disseminating these information must be done regularly for the long-term. Follow-up stories should be done.
3. A mechanism should be set up to receive tips, protect the informant, relay the information to the proper authorities and to the general public.
Media, and for that matter Filipinos, to protect itself, must make more use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Websites that expose the corrupt and the violent should be set up. These websites should have a flat organization using a cooperative approach, say 100 founders, some of which live abroad. Manning and running it should be such that anyone can pose an expose as long at it is verified and credible. The political MoveOn.org website (1 M volunteers) is an example. The Indian website that exposed official corruption is another example. Tips/expose to be posted should have a mechanism for its verification. Anonymous volunteers (think dedicated anti-corruption watchdogs, political and human rights activists, environmentalists, etc.) can help maintain and expand the site. If reporters are threatened to be quiet they can post anonymously. Blogs are another form of ICT that can be used. Just imagine if you have 100 blogs suddenly writing about
Congressman Taga ordering the hit on Reporter PatayKangBataKa for the next two weeks. What do you think the impact will be on the mainstream press and government?
Unity in numbers, effective management of information, and linking/ helping one another is the way to address violence against the media.
Best,
Hecky”
Mortz responses:
Thanks Hecky man to your concern and valuable ideas. But, what I was driving was the short term solution. As your long term solution is being deliberated, there should be a contingency measure like my proposal to arm us media folks.
Hope those movers in this pathetic country hear and act on our wail. Hope also Mr. Tony Abaya through his powerful and incisive column can do something about courageous and responsible local media guys being extinguished– like chicken — with impunity by the forces of darkness.
Xxx
Last Friday early morning when I was opening my e-mail. Mr. Abaya sent his column titled “Who’s Killing Whom?” for the Standard Today apparently in reactions to my shouts before fellow media people around the world (thanks for the internet) about those waylaid on our ranks .
Here’s Mr. Abaya:
“…But an overwhelming majority of the assassinated journalists were
practicing their trade in provincial urbanized centers, not in Metro
Manila. This suggests that they were involved in local issues,
either as crusading fiscalizers of erring local government officials
or as outspoken critics of illegal loggers, drug lords, gambling
lords, rogue policemen and other local or regional criminals (who
may also be the local government officials – mayors, vice-mayors,
councilors, police chiefs – or their relatives).
The inability or reluctance of the police to come up with suspects
in most of these murders suggests that the police themselves may be
in cahoots with the local criminals and/or local government
officials that the crusading journalists had offended with their
exposes. The actual killers are almost certainly guns-for-hire,
coldly stalking and waylaying their preys for cash.
If I were calling the shots, I would assign the investigation to the
National Bureau of Investigation. And the first step should be to
draw up a matrix of possible suspects, generically, without naming
any names.. This can be done by scrutinizing the printed opinion
pieces or the recordings of the radio broadcasts of the journalists
before they were killed, and comparing these individual details with
the generic matrix.
Whom were they attacking in their columns or radio programs before
they were killed? The mayor, the vice-mayor, a municipal councilor,
the police chief, the local jueteng lord, the local drug pusher, the
local illegal logger, the local prostitution lord? I believe a close
scrutiny will reveal a pattern and suspects can be identified in
most of the cases. And my sense is that there is little or no
ideology involved in the salvaging of these journalists. Just greed.
As long as there is no effort on the part of the national government
to scrutinize these murders in the manner outlined above, the
killings will continue. We are indeed the second most dangerous
place in the world for journalists, next only to Iraq. Another of
those humiliating distinctions that this country has had to suffer
in shame.
At least we are not the murder or kidnapping or drug trafficking
capital of the world. Those dubious honors belong to Colombia,
Brazil and Mexico.”
Jesus, that was beautiful. It only emboldens me to expose more shenanigans here in the province.
Brace yourself, Archbishop Oscar Cruz.
Xxx
Here”s another reaction:
“
It’s music to my ears whenever I read somebody is
listening and after listening offers his help. Be it
advice only, it is still a proper response, in any
language, to a call for help.
We are never short of good advice, even if it turns
out to be wrong in time, like what we are used to
getting from our trapos. Pwe! Pasaylo-a. Please
forgive me.
A couple of days ago, I suggested a “crazy” idea for
our “threatened” militants – to get police protection.
A day after I made the suggestion here comes the PNP
offering police protection for any activist who needs
it. [Somehow the PNP is on to me, he-he, wow, sikat!]
Could media go for police protection instead of
personal guns? Can’t trust the protection, do they?
Why not?
The way media seems to know who are the good guys and
bad guys in government and in society, it is a cinch
they would know also who the honest and trustworthy
police protector/s are. What’s the matter? They can’t
find any now a days? If so, what a pity and how truly
dangerous our Philippines is.
I happen to think there are still many who can be
trusted. Police protection is better than having your
own guns.
Aw, what is even better is having your own guns, [eh,
Mortz?] and having additional personal protection from
the police. [BTW Mortz, can you figure out, why
Filipinos, known to be great USA copycats, didn’t copy
the USA constitutional right to bear arms?]
This is not to say that Hecky’s “a community of
organized protective citizenry” is without merits.
Because it is meritorious! However, it takes time to
“move” to fruition such an idea, which is, as Hecky
pointed out is already being successfully done in
India. We can begin such a movement but in the
meantime what do we do with our threatened crusading
living heroes? Theirs is of immediate concern if we
go by the large number murdered in their ranks.
Hecky’s getting together initiative is actually what
is missing in our “Western adopted culture of
individualists” which is, observably, a very sad
departure from our parent’s community of extended
families. I believe we can only begin to get these
threats diminished once we begin to regain our family
and community values like those of old.
As a little boy I always looked forward to a “thief
chase” in our once quite and low populated barrio. I
would always get excited when the whole barrio, do
gooders, loafers and all would get aroused at the
faintest call of “kawatan!” and drop everything to
help catch the thief or thieves. Always, no matter
when, day or night, and no matter how long it takes,
the felons would be caught, often given the physical
punishment the community deemed proper.
That was how we kept our barrio safe. Everybody cared
to catch the thieves.
That was a sight I no longer see today. As the
population grew, natural resources diminished and jobs
became scarce, it seems the “catch the thief at all
costs” syndrome disappeared.
The community has greatly changed. Is it because we,
ah, most of us if not everybody, due to hard times
from overtly exploieted, destroyed morality,
mis-education, and wrong exposure, has become thieves?
My better half says, in a way, with the trapos coaxing
and modeling, we have been “influenced.” Who honestly
pays his taxes? Boy, I am glad that by some miracle I
am now legally exempted from paying income taxes.
Whew! Still…
I believe, right there, in the old community, as Hecky
subtly suggested, lays our answers to our threatened
lives.
Ogie”
(Send comments at totomortz@yahoo.com, or mobile phone no.: 09192760964)