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| BOOKS |
Publications of the Center are usually a fruit of its programs and projects in the task of building up the press and other news media as a pillar of democracy, oftentimes involving other sectors of society. |
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 The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has released Libel as Politics, a publication that examines libel from the perspective of law, history, politics, and press practice. The volume provides an insight why defamation remains a crime in the Philippines despite constitutional provisions guaranteeing press freedom and expression.
Efforts to decriminalize libel have not prospered as politicians often use it as an effective harassment tool against journalists who subject them to unflattering reports.
In 2007, broadcaster Alex Adonis was imprisoned for libel filed by Davao Rep. Prospero Nograles. Ironically, Nograles filed a bill for the decriminalization of libel last November.
The Supreme Court has issued a memorandum circular encouraging judges to penalize people convicted of libel with fines instead of imprisonment last January 28.
CMFR deputy director and UP journalism professor Luis Teodoro edited the book and discussed how journalists could avoid libel through ethical practice. Raul Pangalangan, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law analyzed the role politics play in the litigation of libel suits.
Free Legal Assistance Group chair Jose Manuel Diokno looked into how criminal anti-defamation infringes on the right to free expression. Lawyer Harry Roque discussed the civil suit filed by journalists against presidential spouse Jose Miguel Arroyo for his abuse of right in filing 46 libel cases against 11 journalists. A brief history of libel in the Philippines is also included in the book.
The book was published with support from the Royal Embassy of Norway. |
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 The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), which has been monitoring election coverage since 1992, recently published a manual on monitoring media coverage of elections in the Philippine setting.
The manual, “Monitoring Media Coverage of Elections: A Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) Guidebook,” is the final component of CMFR’s media monitor of news media coverage of the 2007 elections. Last August, CMFR released its findings on the media coverage of this year’s elections, “The CMFR Monitor: News Media Coverage of the 2007 National Elections.”
The publication contains principles, guidelines, and methods for understanding the news media and the importance of media monitoring.
CMFR Deputy Director Luis V. Teodoro, Prof. Danilo A. Arao of the University of the Philippines Mass Communication, and PJR Reports Assistant Editor Hector Bryant L. Macale prepared the manual. |
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 The killing of journalists is still the major threat to press freedom in the Philippines, Philippine Press Freedom Report 2007 has found. But other problems continue to adversely affect press freedom, among them “the tendency of the Arroyo government to interpret Philippine laws in a restrictive manner”.
The report noted that the killing of journalists has abated in 2007, but warned that the lack of resolution in the cases of several dozen slain journalists continues to encourage further killings.
The Report is the second in two years released by the CMFR, a member of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ), which was organized in 2003 to help the survivors of slain journalists prosecute the latter’s killers.
The Report identified the killing of journalists among several other indicators of the state of press freedom in the Philippines.
The legal environment has been protective of press freedom, but the report noted that the passage of the Human Security Act makes possible the wiretapping of journalists’ telephone conversations and journalists’ being “accused of terrorist acts if they interview terrorist suspects and present them in a positive light.”
“The government attitude towards free expression is another indicator of the state of press freedom,” says the Report. Unfortunately, the Arroyo regime has tended to interpret the country’s laws in a restrictive manner. The Report noted that while the State of Emergency proclaimed in 2006 was lifted after a week, “its effects persist in terms of threats of withdrawing the franchises of media organizations and threats of inciting to sedition charges against critical media”.
The Report noted that the media continue to regulate themselves despite these difficulties, and that, among other indications, “the KBP has instituted a system of accreditation to police its ranks, and local citizens’ press councils (CPCs) have been established by the CMFR to educate journalists and accept complaints against abusive media from the public”.
The diversity of media ownership also helps assure the exercise of press freedom, together with the media’s demonstrated capacity to defend themselves, as was evident in the class suit several journalists and media organizations filed against President Arroyo’s spouse Jose Miguel Mike Arroyo, and the formation of the FFFJ itself.
Meanwhile, said the Report, a career in the media continues to attract high school graduates, as evidenced by the continuing growth of enrolment in journalism, broadcasting, and communication arts college programs.
The killing of journalists abated this year, although attacks against journalists in the form of assassination attempts, libel suits and other forms of harassments have continued. The Report looks at the killings as the most crucial indicator of the state of press freedom in the Philippines, and warns that “unless the killers of journalists and the masterminds are brought to justice, the threat to Philippine press freedom will continue.”
The Report was written and edited by University of the Philippines Journalism Professors Luis V. Teodoro and Rachel E. Khan, with research by CMFR staff member Jose Bimbo F. Santos. |
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 Although some areas still need to be improved, the country’s major media organizations performed better in covering this year’s elections than in 2004.
This was the gist of the four-month study on media coverage of the 2007 national elections conducted by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), which has been monitoring media coverage of elections since 1992. The findings of the media monitoring project are contained in the book “The CMFR Monitor: News Media Coverage of the 2007 National Elections” launched last Aug. 17.
The CMFR study noted the widespread awareness of the professional and ethical responsibilities of the press in covering the 2007 elections among major networks ABS-CBN 2 and GMA-7, and leading broadsheets the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star.
The usual emphasis on personalities and controversies, however, persisted for the rest of the coverage.
CMFR’s 2007 news media election coverage monitoring project was only the second time the CMFR had partnered with other organizations to conduct such a study. CMFR did the first citizens’ monitor of the national elections in 2004, the findings of which it published that year (Citizens’ Media Monitor: A Report on the Campaign and Elections Coverage in the Philippines, 2004).
This year’s study covered the period Feb. 13 (the start of the official campaign period) to May 13 (a day before the May 14 elections), as well as election day itself. CMFR monitored the following TV news programs: TV Patrol World and Bandila (ABS-CBN 2); 24 Oras and Saksi (GMA-7); Sentro (ABC-5); and Primetime Teledyaryo (NBN-4). The broad-sheets monitored were: the Manila Bulletin, the Inquirer, and the Star. The remaining broadsheets were the subjects of regular monitoring by the CMFR staff.
Additional resources from the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) through financial support from US Agency for International Development enabled CMFR to expand its monitor.
Aside from the six TV news programs and three broadsheets, CMFR also monitored Manila-based tabloids Abante, Bulgar, People’s Journal, and Tempo. It also monitored three radio news programs: dzBB’s Dobol A sa Dobol B, dzMM’s Tambalang Failon at Sanchez, and dzRH’s Hataw.
Public affairs programs Probe, The Correspondents (both in ABS-CBN 2), I-Witness, Palaban, and Reporters Notebook (all in GMA-7) were monitored as well as special election programs Forum 2007, Isang Tanong, and Philippine Agenda. CMFR also reviewed the TV stations’ election day coverage and the political advertisements that appeared in the broadsheets and TV news programs.
The coverage by online news sites abscbnnews.com, Bulatlat, Davao Today, GMANews.TV, Inquirer.net, Inside PCIJ of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and Newsbreak were also analyzed. As a follow-up on the results of the 2004 PCIJ study that looked at the media preparedness in election coverage, CMFR also inter-viewed selected editors and reporters as well as the media handlers of various groups on how prepared the media were in covering this year’s elections.
A team composed of CMFR staff, journalism faculty, and students from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Mass Communication, and student interns from Far Eastern University, St. Scholastica’s College, University of Santo Tomas, and UP monitored the media coverage for the project.
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 The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has published the only refereed journal in Southeast Asia devoted to journalism.
The Philippine Journalism Review (PJR), which previously appeared in magazine form, will be launched as a refereed journal during the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) on Thursday, June 28, at the SGV Hall of the Asian Institute of Management Conference Center in Makati City.
A refereed journal is an academic publication the articles of which pass through a "double blind" review in which experts review articles for publication without knowing who wrote them, while the authors themselves do not know who reviewed their papers.
PJR ceased publication as a bimonthly in 2004, but a monthly monitor, PJR Reports, was published in the same year. In her foreword, CMFR Executive Director and PJR publisher Melinda Quintos de Jesus recalls that CMFR has always intended to republish PJR as a refereed journal together with PJR Reports (PJRR). PJR will initially be published annually, while PJRR will continue as a monthly.
PJR was CMFR's flagship publication as an instrument of self-regulation by and among journalists. PJR, according to De Jesus, will examine both issues of practice as well as journalism education. "Such integration is yet one more effort to further enrich and promote excellence in Philippine journalism," De Jesus said in her foreword.
Among the contributing writers to the PJR journal are Luz Rimban, who wrote on Web radio, and Yvonne Chua, who reviewed The CMFR Ethics Manual: A Values Approach to News Media Ethics and another CMFR publication, Limited Protection: Press Freedom and Philippine Law. Chua and Rimban were with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and two of only three JVOAEJ Hall of Famers.
UP's Georgina Encanto, Danilo A. Arao, and Lourdes E. Simbulan (Chit Estella); freelance journalist Ma. Cristina Rodriguez, St. Scholastica College's Ma. Aurora Lomibao, and UP graduate student Hazel Gulmatico complete the contributors.
PJR also contains the complete text of the class action suit filed by several journalists and media organizations against Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo as a study aid for journalism students.
The new PJR is edited by UP journalism professor and CMFR Deputy Director Luis V. Teodoro, who was the magazine PJR's editor for four years. Its managing editor is UP's Arao.
The members of the PJR board of advisers are Philippine Daily Inquirer publisher and Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC) lecturer Isagani Yambot; Elizabeth Enriquez, Georgina Encanto, Yvonne Chua and Jose F. Lacaba of the University of the Philippines; Rosario F. Hofileña and Violet Valdez of the Ateneo de Manila University; Ramon R. Tuazon of AIJC; Joyce Arriola of the University of Santo Tomas; and Ma. Aurora Lomibao of St. Scholastica's College.
This issue of PJR was supported by the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Norway. |
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 The media advocacy and press freedom group Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has released Philippine Press Freedom Primer: Quick Answers to Your Questions in commemoration of May 3 World Press Freedom Day.
The primer is meant to provide those unfamiliar with the state of press freedom in the Philippines a quick guide to and overview of press conditions in the country. It was launched in Jakarta, Indonesia during the joint United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) program on press freedom on May 3. The commemoration had the theme, “Press Freedom, Journalists Safety and Impunity.”
SEAPA is a press freedom advocacy group with media advocacy and journalists’ groups from Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines as members. CMFR is a founding member of SEAPA. Its Executive Director, Melinda Quintos de Jesus, is a member of its Board of Directors. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism is the other Philippine representative in SEAPA.
In her preface,CMFR’s Melinda Quintos de Jesus describes the primer as “designed to serve those making their first step of inquiry into the subject. It should be useful in planning research strategies for academic papers and as a quick reference for those writing articles and reports. For the general public, it is a ‘quick fix,’ a resource that will help contextualize current news about the press, from the violent attacks as well as the cases of libel which have caused journalists to be jailed.”
The primer looks into the Philippine media environment. It contains a short history of the Philippine press and past and present trends, as well as its ownership and market. Threats to press freedom in the country like the killings of journalists and intervention in the management of news organizations are also covered.
In its summary of press freedom laws in the Philippines, the primer also brings up several instances in which the right to free expression is being threatened through legal means, among them the rash of libel suits by the Presidents’ spouse against 46 journalists and the recently approved anti-terrorism bill (Human Security Act of 2007).
Self-regulation systems within the Philippine media are also taken up, among them the Philippine Journalist’s Code of Ethics, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas’ radio and television codes, citizen press councils, and media monitoring publications, among them CMFR’s Philippine Journalism Review (PJR) and PJR Reports. (CMFR is reviving PJR as a refereed journal for academics and senior journalists.)
The UNESCO-SEAPA World Press Freedom Day 2007 commemoration addressed the difficulties regarding the safety of media practitioners, examined the impunity with which journalists are being attacked, and came up with means to enhance journalist safety. |
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 As a contribution to the efforts to further professionalize journalism practice in the Philippines, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has released an ethics manual for journalists and media practitioners in the country last March.
Based on American journalism scholar Edmund Lambeth’s values approach to media ethics, The CMFR Ethics Manual: A values approach to news media ethics demonstrates the link between principle and practice, giving reason and meaning to both prescription and prohibition.
Written by CMFR executive director Melinda Quintos de Jesus and deputy director Luis V. Teodoro, the manual reflects CMFR’s stand that ethical journalism cannot be divorced from competent journalism. The standards of competence and ethics are not in conflict but support each other. Ethics promotes all basic human values. The requirement of speed has to be balanced by the more important need for accuracy, for example: ethical practice means journalists need to get it right and on time.
The manual is designed for those in practice —journalists who find themselves confronted by problematic situations during coverage and on the beat. Questionable practice has become the norm, unquestioned for its commonness.
A section of the manual examines how the conventions of news as developed by commercial media may sometimes get in the way of the ethical mandate. The manual also discusses special concerns such as conflict of interest, privacy, entrapment, and the use of hidden cameras. Guidelines in the coverage of special issues and concerns, among them war and conflict, disaster, terrorism, crime and hostage-taking, and women and children are also included.
This manual also intends to deepen the reader’s understanding of journalism and the press. Armed with that understanding, the public can evaluate and check the practice of the press, as well as demand press adherence to its established values. The quality of the press requires as much consumer vigilance as other professional services for it to develop and mature. The consumer of news cannot be vigilant without knowing the values, norms and issues of press conduct. |
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 The 1987 Constitution clearly protects freedom of speech and expression in the Bill of Rights. But the terms of this protection are vague, even in the interpretation of the courts, where those in power can file libel charges against journalists with the greatest of ease.
To provide journalist a better understanding of their rights and the protections they can seek from law, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) published Limited Protection: Press Freedom and Philippine Law last December.
The publication contains an assessment on the legal curriculum of the country’s law school by former University College of Law dean Raul Pangalangan. CMFR deputy director discusses the impact of the culture of impunity and the failed justice system on journalists and their families. Also included is a listing of landmark Supreme Court decisions on press freedom cases and an excerpt from Freedom and Expression and the Media in the Philippines, a joint publication by CMFR and Article XIX. |
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A study by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility
 The spate of journalist killings in the Philippines in recent years has brought undue attention on the country’s state of press freedom, supposedly one of the freest in the world. Since Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration started in 2001, there have been 28 journalists and media practitioners killed in the line of duty, further highlighting the worsening climate of violence or “culture of impunity.”
As the number of deaths reached an all-time high, CMFR realized the need to look beyond the numbers to try to understand the issues involved, examine the record of police investigation and judicial prosecution, and search for common denominators in the slay of journalists.
To provide a better understanding of this looming threat to press freedom, CMFR recently released a 52-page primer titled “Journalist Killings under the Arroyo Administration (2001-2006) – A study by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.”
This latest publication contains an updated version of the book CMFR published in 2004, “Press Freedom in the Philippines – A study in contradictions” and a study made by CMFR in 2005 analyzing the circumstances behind the high number of media killings in the country. The booklet also includes tips on how to report cases of killings, attacks against, and threats to journalists and media organizations. |
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A collection of Jaime V. Ongpin Award Winners, 2006
Edited by Rachel E. Khan
 This latest publication from CMFR and Anvil Publishing, Inc., anthologizes a selection of award winning articles from the first 16 years of the awards program. The book aims to provide models of investigative and explanatory reporting from a range of themes, such as business, politics, local government, environment and society.
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A study in contradictions, 2004
($4.50)
 This study reviews the history of the press in the Philippines and discusses the present state of the press, an overview of issues of freedom and responsibility, and the threats and attacks against press freedom monitored by CMFR. It also reports on the efforts of media advocates to protect and to uphold the constitution and its autonomy. The book also includes a section featuring brief sketches of the lives and work of journalists who were killed “in the line of duty.” A descriptive inventory of media organizations in the country and a compendium of laws affecting the press are included in this study.
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Edited by Lorna Kalaw-Tirol
($12.00)
 A starting point for media training, this book acts on the readiness of the media to improve their own understanding of the issues of peace and the complex questions raised in the national quest for peace and the course of peace negotiations. The publication will hopefully enable journalists to contextualize any news account involving the peace process.
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($9.00)
 This publication, a landmark endeavor for CMFR, contains the reports of the findings of CMFR’s project, “Citizens’ Media Monitor”. The project, which reviewed the media coverage of 2004 elections, involved citizen groups and journalism students in a broader media watch of press coverage. A first in Philippine electoral experience, the project includes monitoring of television news and public affairs programs.
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($4.00)
 This report, based on a regional conference on access to economic information on October 1997, contains discussions led by experts in business, government, and media in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia on the issues of gathering, disseminating, and using economic information.
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Guidebook for Reporters (1997)
by Nes Barrameda, Marites Dañguilan-Vitug, Perfecto V. Fernandez, and Luis V. Teodoro Jr.
($4.50)
 This guidebook provides a roadmap through the criminal justice system in the Philippines, designed for practicing journalists and journalism students. For most people, this could be a difficult but fascinating journey into an alien world that one only gets to enter either as an accused in a case or as a victim of injustice.
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($2.00 each)
  In order for the media to report crucial issues affecting women such as population, violence, politics, labor, migration, and reproductive health, media must need to grasp the complexities surrounding these issues. These guidebooks offer a comprehensive take on some of these policy development issues.
These guidebooks also come with a media reference pamphlet containing contact information of government agencies and non-governmental organizations involved in various issues.
  
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