by Kathryn Roja G. Raymundo
The coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) bares media’s weaknesses in reporting public policy. In what has become a predictable pattern, most of the reports lacked background, context, and analysis.
Republic Act (R.A.) 6657, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), expired last June 10. But CARP caught media attention only a week earlier. R.A. 6657 was passed in 1988 under the social reform program of the Aquino administration and was extended for another ten years during the Ramos administration. CARL is the legal basis for the implementation of CARP, an asset redistribution program aimed at promoting social justice and industrialization.
From May 11 to June 20, PJR Reports monitored CARP stories, including reports on bills pending in Congress particularly the CARP extension bill (House Bill or H.B. No. 4077) and the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB, or H.B. No. 3059), President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s certification of the extension bill as urgent, and the clash of party-list representatives over CARP.
PJR Reports monitored three newspapers (the Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, and the Manila Bulletin), two news programs (TV Patrol World and 24 Oras), and three news sites (The Daily PCIJ, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak, and GMANews.TV).
Shallow reporting
The coverage uniformly failed to comprehensively discuss the issues of agrarian reform. The media organizations monitored also allowed the issue to pass without reporting the discussions and debates crucial to better public understanding of the urgency of land reform.
The press reported CARP only when Arroyo signed the extension bill as urgent and both the House and the Senate began their deliberations on whether to extend the law or not. CARP-GARB became an issue only after party-list representatives exchanged harsh comments on their opposing agrarian reform views. Another event that was much covered was the interruption of the House of Representatives hearing on the extension bill by a group of pro-extension farmers, which out of frustration over the blocking of H.B. 4077, rallied and made their wishes known in the House gallery.
Only five segments in the television news programs of ABS-CBN 2 and GMA-7 covered CARP-GARB during the entire monitoring period. Each segment devoted a minute or two reporting an issue as complicated as agrarian reform and the policies on it. For instance, TV Patrol in its segment “1 Minute Patrol” reported the rally of about a thousand farmers protesting the extension of CARP and the 20th anniversary of the implementation of CARL (June 10). Few who saw this report would have realized that agrarian reform matters at all and that it affects everyone. The in-depth reports and analyses on the policies on and consequences of CARP were also conspicuous for their absence.
In a PJR Reports interview, former agrarian reform secretary Florencio Abad said the media were badly covering CARP issues. Abad claimed that media did not bother to explain why CARP is significant for the Philippine society in whole, the differences of opinion between the party-list groups in the House on the issue of extension, the duplicity and hypocrisy in the actions of the President as she certified the extension bill urgent while her party and relatives were voting against it, and the implications of a non-extension. He added these were very important issues the people need to understand. Unfortunately, the media were failing to provide the information the people needed.
“The problem with media is (they) work (too much) on bites. But you know, it is hard to explain a program like this through bites and media gimmick lines. You cannot (do that). You have to devote time (to the discussion of salient issues).” He suggested the media should go back to the basics of CARP so as to get some perspective from which to analyze what is happening today.
Missing the context
That was exactly what the media did not provide. The public was at most getting running accounts of the debates without the background and context on the agrarian reform issue needed to understand it.
Only when Arroyo had certified the CARP extension bill as urgent did reports discuss the plans of the House and the Senate to extend it for another five to 10 years.
Although there were a number of reports on the state of the extension bill and CARP, few managed to exactly define what CARP is, how it came about, and what its purpose is. The reports also mentioned the benefits and/or failures of CARP. But media did not back up these claims with independent case studies and other empirical data. The media barely discussed the effectiveness of the program and its actual contribution to the development of agriculture and the economy. An assessment of the performance of the CARL and a presentation of the different views on CARP and GARB would have helped the public decide on the relevance of agrarian reform at present.
There were also several leads the media should have pursued but did not. Among them were the history of land ownership in the country, CARP’s relevance to the rice and food crises, and corruption allegations in the Departments of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (the fertilizer fund scam, the Agrarian Reform Communities, etc.). These could have connected the policy to such current problems as the rice crisis and poverty.
‘Word war’
Bayan Muna Party List Rep. Teodoro Casiño, an advocate of GARB, noted another shortcoming in the media coverage of agrarian reform. Media have the tendency to pit ideas and personalities against each other, he told PJR Reports. In the case of the CARP coverage, the rival groups were those for extension and those opposed to it. Casiño said the media tended to simplify the issues into being pro-farmer if you favored the CARP extension, and being pro-landlord if you opposed it, whereas GARB proponents were precisely fighting for it and opposing a mere extension of CARL in behalf of farmers.
The Star in its story “In lieu of CARP extension, House okays land acquisition, distribution” reported the word war between Akbayan Party List Rep. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel and Bayan Muna Party List Rep. Satur Ocampo and explained their different views on what genuine agrarian reform means (June 12, page 2). It would have been better, however, if the story had recalled the histories and differing orientations of both parties.
The editorial “Unparliamen-tary?” by the Inquirer also tried to sort out the conflict between the two progressive party-list groups in the House (July 16, p.A 14). But instead of reporting on policy formation, media fell into the trap of highlighting the personalities in battle and in engaging the public for the wrong reasons.
The GARB coverage came a little later. Casiño explained that GARB follows the “land to the tillers” slogan and seeks to correct the “congenital defects” of CARL in terms of land coverage, exemptions, and conversions. The CARP extension bill dominated the earlier reports with their own suggested reforms.
The similarities and differences plus the advantages and disadvantages of the House and Senate bills on agrarian reform rarely saw print or broadcast. This failure of the media limited the education of the public on the costs and benefits of CARP. Thus, it also limited the possibility of developing a sound policy on agrarian reform based on the opinion of informed citizens.
Casiño said the roles of the media in furthering the agrarian reform issue were providing information and policy advocacy. He also asked for continuing coverage, emphasizing that once CARP-GARB is forgotten by the media, the politicians will also lose interest in addressing the issue.
“Media play a big role in advocating social reforms. If they would not themselves advocate, then at least they should give enough space for advocates of genuine agrarian reform to air their views, and to participate in the bigger and broader debates on the issue,” Casiño said.
Online did better
The online reports did better than print and broadcast. GMANews.TV reported studies by IBON Foundation on the disadvantages of extending CARP, provided a case study in Negros Occidental showing the problems of agrarian reform, and discussed the provisions of the CARP extension bill as well as the GARB (“CARP extension meant to benefit landowners – IBON,” http://www.gmanews.tv/story/101838/CARP-extension-meant-to-benefit-landowners—IBON, June 18; “20-year CARP fails to end feudal relations especially in Negros Occ,” http://www.gmanews.tv/story/100310/20-year-CARP-fails-to-end-feudal-relations-especially-in-Negros-Occ, June 10; “House defers CARP extension vote, enraged farmers protest,” http://www.gmanews.tv/story/100349/House-defers-CARP-extension-vote-enraged-farmers-protest, June 10).
For its part, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak had several special reports which discussed the progress of CARL before and during the Arroyo administration including the state and position of the DAR on the extension of the bill. It also interviewed an agrarian reform expert to address the most frequently asked questions and misconceptions on CARP (“Arroyo’s lack of political will blamed for non-extension of CARP,” http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storyPage.aspx?storyId=122116, June 20; “DAR sees CARP extension, asks for P162B more,” http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storyPage.aspx?storyId=121234, June 10; “Slow CARP shows need to reform DAR, says former secretary,” http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storyPage.aspx?storyId=121537, June 20; “‘Senators should not demand an accounting when CARP’s life is on the line,’” http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storyPage.aspx?storyId=121216, June 11). |
