World Press Freedom Day
by JB Santos and Melanie Y. Pinlac
Journalists commemorated World Press Freedom Day by honoring the father of press freedom in the Philippines.
In an event organized by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) last May 3, journalists from the National Capital Region and provinces of Central Luzon offered “press freedom wreaths” at the National Shrine of Marcelo H. del Pilar in Bulacan and called for an end to the culture of impunity and violence. Roses were also offered to slain journalists.
NUJP chose to honor Del Pilar, editor of the reformist, anti-colonial paper La Solidaridad, “to emphasize the need for journalists not to forget the past, particularly periods of history during which the media played a very important role to defend freedom and democracy.”
The NUJP, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, ABS-CBN 2, ABC-5, and Bulacan-based newspapers such as Punla and NewsCore participated in the event.
The need for solidarity and unity among media practitioners was also stressed during the celebration.
“Kailangan nating magkaisa, kailangan nating magsama-sama, at pakinggan ang kalayaan ng pamamahayag na sinimulan ng ating mga bayani tulad nila Marcelo H. del Pilar(We need to unite and listen to the freedom of the press started by our heroes like Marcelo H. del Pilar),” said NUJP chair Jose Torres Jr.
Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot compared our situation to the Spanish period when the Propaganda Movementstarted, stressing the need for the media to be more vigilant today.
“Ngayon ang kalaban natin ay hindi na mapang-abusong prayle kung ‘di ang mga mapang-abusong opisyales ng pamahalaan. Ngayon kailangan pa rin nating ipagtanggol ang ating karapatang-pantao at ang ating mga kalayaan kasama na ang kalayaan ng pamamahayag (Our enemies now are not the abusive friars but the abusive government officials. Today, we still need to defend human rights and civil liberties including freedom of the press),” Yambot said.
Davao-based journalists meanwhile marched on the eve of World Press Freedom Day to the local Hall of Justice to protest the imprisonment of radio commentator Alexander “Alex” Adonis over a libel case filed by House Speaker Prospero Nograles. In a statement, the Davao journalists called on the courts to “look into the facts of the case that has already caused so much undue suffering to our colleague.”
Nograles filed libel charges after Adonis claimed over his radio program in Bombo Radyo that Nograles and a married female broadcaster had been caught by police operatives and the woman’s relatives in an uncompromising situation during a raid at a hotel in Metro Manila. Adonis said he supported his report with interviews with one of the operatives involved in the raid.
Adonis was jailed after he missed several hearings, therefore forfeiting his right to present evidence and to plead not guilty. Adonis was unable to attend the hearings due to financial constraints, he said. Adonis is currently serving his sentence at the Davao Penal Colony.
Adonis now faces another libel case on the basis of the same report, but now filed by the female broadcaster. Last April, Adonis, with the help of lawyer Harry Roque filed a complaint, with CMFR as co-signatory, before the UN Commission on Human Rights regarding Adonis’s plight and calling attention to the country’s archaic criminal libel law.
NUJP also held a poetry/singing night for journalists “Pa-imPRESS ka JAM” at the Freedom Bar in Quezon City. Conrado de Quiros, Pete Lacaba, and Inday Espina Varona were among those who read poetry and sang.
Spotty coverage
Judging from the spotty coverage of the occasion, Philippine news organizations themselves were not very excited over World Press Freedom Day.
Most of the articles about World Press Freedom Day activities were mainly spot reports about the celebration in Bulacan, while no national daily reported the march of Davao journalists for Adonis.
Few news reports provided background on the current situation of media practitioners in light of the celebrations. No stories were published regarding what has happened to the many cases of the suspects in the killing of journalists now pending in court.
The Inquirer, however, published a report on May 5 “ARMM more journalist-friendly, says press group,” which cited updates on the cases of slain journalists Gene Boyd Lumawag, Hernani Pastolero, and Vicente Sumal-pong. The report also cited instances of attacks against journalists which had occurred in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao during the 1990s.
On the other hand, The Manila Times May 4 report, “Journalists mark World Press Freedom Day by honoring Del Pilar,” provided a listing of the number of killings of journalists and the number of cases filed in court. Highlighting other forms of attacks on press freedom, the report also interviewed a journalist in Pam-panga on the status of libel cases filed in the province.
The Philippine Star meanwhile ran a front-page report on May 3 about observations by the European Commission regarding press freedom in the Philippines, “EC: Press freedom still under threat.” The article cited the Freedom Housereport on the Philippines as background.
Some newspapers reported the findings of international press freedom watchdogs the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Freedom House. Though newspapers published articles from the wires on the global state of press freedom and the culture of impunity, the reports fell short of underlining the effects of global trends on the country’s press.
There were also no reports on the activities and celebrations held by other countries. Only Florangel Rosario Braid’s column in the Manila Bulletin mentioned the UNESCO panel on “Access to Information and Empowerment of the People”—the 2008 World Press Freedom day theme.
The importance of freedom of expression and of the press was mostly discussed in the opinion pages. The Bulletin, the Star, and the Times ran editorials on May 3 about press freedom. The Times and the Star editorialdiscussed the reports by Freedom House and the CPJ about the Philippines. The Bulletin’s editorialmeanwhile talked about certain “ingredients” needed for freedom of the press to survive.
“To make freedom of expression a reality, there are certain ingredients required, some of which are the existence of a legal and regulatory environment which allows for an open media sector to exist, political will to support the sector and the rule of law to protect it, a law ensuring access to information, and media literacy skills to analyze information,” the Bulletin’s editorial said.
TV Patrol Sabado and GMA Weekend Report also did spot reports about the celebration in Bulacan. Sentro meanwhile did a roundup last May 5 in its “Sidetracked” segment by reporter Jove Francisco of relevant news and blog sites reporting and commenting on World Press Freedom Day.
The press can argue that press freedom is not a reality in the Philippines, as shown in the high number of unsolved journalist killings and threats and attacks. But the press ironically did not go the extra mile in promoting an event dedicated to its own freedom and practice. Moving beyond spot reports regarding the celebrations and country reports by international press freedom organizations, the press could have done feature stories on the killings, or a status report on the cases of the killing of journalists pending in court. An article featuring probable reasons and explanations for the decline in the number of journalists killed could have further increased public awareness of the continuing threats to press freedom.
Impunity index
A few days before the celebration of World Press Freedom Day last May 3, several international organizations meanwhile released reports mapping out trends in the global state of press freedom.
The New York-based CPJ released its Impunity Index, placing the Philippines in sixth place worldwide with a rating of 0.289 unsolved murders of journalists per one million inhabitants.
CPJ’s Impunity Index calculated the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of the population in each country, from the years 1998 to 2007. CPJ arrived at the 0.289 rating by dividing 24, its tallied number of unsolved cases since 1997, by 83.1, the population of the Philippines in millions as per CPJ’s research data. Afghanistan, Nepal, Russia, Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, in that order, registered lower impunity rates than the Philippines.
“Most countries on the Impunity Index are democratic, are not at war, and have functioning law enforcement institutions, yet journalists are regularly targeted for murder and no one is held accountable,” CPJ’s Impunity Index noted.
“While the country has a free and vibrant press, journalists covering corruption, crime, and politics have repeatedly been targeted with violence. Broadcast commentators and reporters in provincial regions are especially vulnerable. Politicians and police have been implicated in a number of slayings, but corruption in the local court system has stymied efforts to prosecute,” the CPJ Impunity Index country report on the Philippines stated.
Joel Simon, executive director of CPJ, said that the failure to punish perpetrators “sends a terrible signal to the press and to others who would harm journalists.”
In response to the numerous unsolved cases of killing of journalists, an anti-impunity campaign for the Philippines was launched by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ), CPJ, Open Society Institute, and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance at the culmination of a three-day conference on impunity and press freedom last Feb. 27.
The FFFJ is a coalition of six media organizations formed in 2003 in response to the increasing number of slain journalists. The FFFJ members are the Center for Community Journalism and Development, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaser ng Pilipinas, PPI, US-based newspaper the Philippine News, and the CMFR which serves as secretariat.
The campaign involves a public awareness drive, generating more research data and reports into the killing of journalists, and mobilizing quick-response teams that will act when journalists are killed.
Freedom House report
Freedom House issued a report on April 29, “Freedom House: Press Freedom Losses Outnumber Gains Two to One in 2007,” stating that “(g)lobal press freedom underwent a clear decline in 2007, with journalists struggling to work in increasingly hostile environments in almost every region in the world.”
In Freedom House’s recently released Freedom of the Press 2008: A Global Survey of Media Independence, the Philippines registered a slight improvement as it climbed three places higher from being ranked 100th in 2006 to 97th in 2007, but remained under the classification “partly free.”
The Philippines shares the 97th spot in the 2008 Freedom House survey with Bosnia Herzegovina, where journalists have been “subject to political pressure and threats of violence,” with organized crime also posing as a potent threat to media practice.
“Press freedom in 2007 continued to face limits due to the ongoing threat posed by journalist-targeted violence and the use of defamation suits to silence criticism of public officials, while the arrests of 30 media workers covering a coup attempt in November and subsequent warnings infringed upon news coverage of a significant national event,” Freedom House’s country report on the Philippines said.
CMFR counted two journalists/media practitioners killed in the line of duty in 2007, while six were killed in 2006. Despite the decline in the number of journalists killed, CMFR has recorded instances of journalists attacked and harassed as well as other forms of incursions, like legal harassments into the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to freedom of the press and expression. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has also issued Executive Order 608 which further restricts media and public access to government documents while the country’s version of the anti-terror law, the Human Security Act, was signed into law last year.
“Tenuous gains”
But the unity among media practitioners provided significant advances in press freedom protection in the early half of 2008. On January 28, media organizations filed a civil suit before the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) against government agencies involved in the arrest of more than 30 media practitioners on Nov. 29, 2007 at the Manila Peninsula. Hours after the filing of the suit, Makati RTC, Executive Judge Winlove Dumayas granted a 72-hour temporary restraining order prohibiting the involved agencies from issuing “threats of arrests or from implementing such threats” against the media.
The Supreme Court meanwhile granted last March 11 the petition of Mindoro-based journalist Nilo Baculo Sr. for a writ of amparo after he discovered a plot to kill him by persons mentioned in one of his exposés. It was the first writ of amparo granted by the high court to a media practitioner.
A week after, on March 18, the Supreme Court also approved the transfer of the cases of the suspects in the killing of Rolando Ureta and Herson Hinolan from Kalibo, Aklan to Cebu City. The petition for change of venue was filed by the FFFJ and the NUJP, citing the influence of the accused in Kalibo as likely to affect the trial and compromise the safety of witnesses.
In a statement by the NUJP, Torres said these positive developments are but the fruits of media’s unrelenting drive to protect press freedom.
“As we celebrate (World Press Freedom Day), however, let us be reminded that the tenuous gains attained are not gifts from government,” Torres said.
“Indeed, that things are not worse than they are today is mainly a tribute to the local media community’s tenacity in defending press freedom.”
- with reports from Ergrace G. Reyes and Jennilyn Ruth A. Tamayo and research by Kristine Joy V. Ramos |
