Depsite another year of scandals
by Hector Bryant L. Macale, Don Gil K. Carreon, Junnette B. Galagala,
Melanie Y. Pinlac and Kathryn Roja G. Raymundo
The central role of a free press in any society hardly needs elaboration. A free press provides the sovereign citizens of a democratic society the information they need to make decisions on public issues, to demand transparency and honesty in governance, and to hold their elected officials to account. In democratizing societies, the information a free press provides is often the crucial factor that makes the transition possible. Authoritarian regimes fear a free press for these same reasons. But by providing citizens information vital to their concerns, a free press can also hasten the fall of dictatorships and the dawn of democratic governance.
Recent events in the Philippines have again and again validated the vital role a free press plays in public affairs, and demonstrated as well the need for press freedom in any society. During the Marcos dictatorship the emergence of a press that dared challenge the martial law version of events was a major factor in the EDSA 1 citizens’ uprising that overthrew the regime. The critical and free press played a pivotal part during the Estrada presidency, when investigative reporting on the anomalies involving former President Joseph Estrada helped make his impeachment in 2000 possible. Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has also had to contend with press reporting and criticism of corruption and bad government. She faced the possibility of being removed from office, and in fact entertained the idea of resigning, in the wake of the public outrage that followed the critical reports of 2005 and early 2006 on the “Hello, Garci” election scandal.
Since Arroyo’s infamous “I won’t run in 2004” pledge that she made in 2002, her reneging on that pledge in 2003, the fraud-ridden 2004 elections, Arroyo’s “lapse in judgment” apology in June 2005 over her calls to former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano while the votes were being counted, and the first failed impeachment attempt against her in August that same year, the country has been reeling from one scandal to another. The year 2007 indeed proved to be another showcase of controversies and scandals, with most of them implicating Arroyo and other high government officials in various acts of wrongdoing.
The press was not remiss in covering the details of these scandals and controversies as it went about its daily task of reporting on governance and politics and other public issues. Through in-depth and background reports, as well as editorials and other opinion pieces, the press also provided background information and analyses in furtherance of helping the public arrive at informed opinions.
But a more careful look at the coverage of last year’s political issues and controversies reveals a lean harvest of the kind of investigative reports that were so crucial in shaping public opinion and even moving citizens to action during the Estrada impeachment crisis and the “Hello, Garci” scandal of 2005 and 2006.
For the most part, the press limited itself to updates from the key actors involved in the controversies. Reporting was largely dependent, for example, on developments in Senate or House of Representatives hearings, as well as public officials’ admitting knowledge of, or committing, certain acts of corruption and other wrongdoing.
Without the pro-active commitment to look into the controversies, this dependence proved pivotal in diverting public attention, away from some of the most crucial issues of governance that have arisen since the Marcos period. No matter how serious, issues of public concern eventually disappeared without closure from the news pages and the airwaves whenever the Senate postponed or ended its investigation, or if another controversy erupted.
Probing the NBN-ZTE deal
The press coverage of the $329.5-million national broadband network (NBN) project, last year’s biggest story, was a case in point.
On an almost daily basis, the twists and turns of the controversy and the reactions of those for and against the project were splashed all over the front pages of the dailies, with the TV news programs following suit by headlining them. While this reporting was helpful in keeping the issue alive in the public mind, it was nonetheless limited to the more sensational aspects of the subject, and in most instances failed to provide the detailed information that only documentation and a meticulous hunt for human sources could have provided.
There were efforts to shed light on the topic, but these laudable attempts were mostly consigned to the inside pages of the broadsheets. For example, one of the first substantial reports on the controversy, a two-part special by the Philippine Daily Inquirer published on April 11 and 12, appeared in the inside pages, in the business section (“Controversy hounds gov’t communications network project”; “Unknown bidder toughs it out in DOTC process”). The series was the first to flag the brewing controversy over the NBN project by reporting the protests of Amsterdam Holdings Incorporated (AHI), a firm partly owned by Jose “Joey” De Venecia III (son of Jose de Venecia, Speaker of the House of Representatives and formerly a close Arroyo ally), against the inclination of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to award the project to the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE (Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment Company Limited) without first considering the AHI proposal.
It could be argued that the press was focused on the May 2007 elections at that time. But the NBN project was so hugely funded that that fact alone should have raised alarm bells in the newsrooms once questions were raised over the integrity of the awarding process. The vast corruption that infests the bureaucracy was the context in which these questions could have been better appreciated. It should have provoked reports examining the validity or weakness of Joey de Venecia’s protests, which in turn could have provided further leads for other stories.
Another report by the Inquirer on the NBN project, a three-part explanatory series outlining how the project took shape, was released only in its online version from July 12 to 14 (“Questions hound national broadband network”; “National broadband network to save RP billions, say DOTC”; “Should the national broadband network project be outsourced”). The series of explanatory reports detailed the process behind NEDA’s approval of the NBN project, starting from the DOTC’s endorsement of it. The report also presented the proposals of the three groups competing for the project and why the DOTC felt that ZTE’s was the best among them.
The author also sought the opinions of experts on the necessity of a broadband network for the government—which, in the first place, was an issue basic to the project’s wisdom or lack of it. This very question kept recurring as the controversy wore on, the answer to which was crucial to public perception of the motives of the project principals including those who did not seem to have any official direct role in it, but whose names kept surfacing, such as Mrs. Arroyo’s husband and then Commission on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos.
To its credit, the Inquirer did publish a two-part investigative report on the project in its July 12 and 13 print editions (“Doubts on $329-M broadband deal swept under the rug”; “ZTE deal may be another ‘white elephant’”). The story tracked the irregularities in the deal by following the paper trail of official communications among the government officials involved in the issue. The report said that “documents obtained by the Inquirer showed initial government hesitance and confusion before it plunged into the broadband pool,” although it provided little documentation.
The report alleged that there were huge costs not included in an ad released by ZTE in some newspapers which provided a breakdown of projects costs. As an aid to readers, the report defined and explained technical telecommunications jargon and detailed the processes involved in the approval and award of government contracts.
Some reports analyzed China’s growing status as an aid donor to the Philippines—a fact that at the height of the controversy was largely unremarked. On Sept. 23 and 24, The Manila Times published articles (“Growing dependence on an economic giant”) that tracked the various Chinese-funded projects in the Philippines. The Times also noted the similarity between the NBN project and the North Rail project, another China-financed government project under severe criticism for being overpriced.
On the other hand, the BusinessMirror provided an international perspective to the dynamics of Philippine–China relations by examining it from the perspective of Philippine mem-bership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN from Oct. 5 to 6. (“No simple symbiosis in ASEAN-China relations”)
The BusinessMirror also reported the existence of a government broadband network, the Philippine Research, Education, and Government Information Network or Preginet (“Pre-ginet: DOST’s broadband network”), and proved thereby that such a project did not need foreign experts and can be developed and implemented by local experts.
Preginet was developed by the Department of Science and Technology, and has been operating for seven years. It connects 14 universities, 28 research institutions, 33 government offices, and a non-government organization nationwide.
ANC should also be credited for covering, almost in their entirety, the Senate hearings on the NBN-ZTE, as well as the other scandals that erupted in 2007.
Despite the exceptions mentioned above, however, it was still the he-said, she-said type of reports that dominated the coverage of the NBN-ZTE controversy.
Reports on the issue generally picked up only after Philippine Star columnist Jarius Bondoc wrote in his Aug. 27 “Gotcha” column a blind item alleging that a high-ranking election officer had brokered for ZTE. The issue gained greater media attention after Joey De Venecia alleged that Abalos and presidential spouse Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo were involved.
Another feature of the media coverage of the NBN-ZTE controversy was the inability of the press to confirm some of the allegations of the principal characters in the controversy and to probe deeper into the government’s claims of addressing the problem.
For example, it was Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, not an investigative reporter, who unearthed documents showing that Abalos had flown to Hongkong five times from October 2006 to August 2007.
Although Bondoc had written in his column of Aug. 27 that an election official had flown to China several times to be wined and dined and accompanied by women in exchange for lobbying for ZTE, the reports that followed were merely on Abalos’s reaction over the allegation.
The press also took at face value Malacañang’s statement that it had conducted an investigation on the NBN-ZTE project, and found that the allegations of irregularities had no basis. And yet, during the Senate hearing on the scandal on Sept. 26, when Sen. Pia Cayetano asked each of the executive officials implicated in the controversy who among them had been investigated by Malacañang, no one was able to confirm that an investigation had indeed taken place. This should have been enough of an incentive for an investigative report on the subject, given the possibility that Malacañang had lied and probably had something to hide. No such report, however, was ever written.
Reporting the “cash gifts”
Closely following the NBN-ZTE controversy was Malaca-ñang’s purported distribution of “cash gifts” to 190 congressmen and 48 governors last Oct. 11. The press covered the issue once it broke out, providing daily reports on what happened during the event and the claims of various personalities as to the source of the funds, estimates of which ranged from a low of P120 million to a high of P200 million.
The unrelenting coverage of the alleged bribery attempt, which happened at the height of a new impeachment initiative against Arroyo over the NBN scandal, did encourage public officials to admit receiving money during the Palace meeting as well as inquiries into the real source of the cash gifts, which amounted to between P200,000 to P500,000 for each official present during the meeting.
To the press’s credit, both the calls for an investigation on the alleged Palace handout were rigorously reported, as were the reactions of Palace officials, lawmakers and other sectors.
Some reports explained the constitutional and legal provisions on government spending, as in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “Charter requires receipts, vouchers in all gov’t spending” and a Saksi report on Oct. 16.
When League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) secretary-general and Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone claimed that the funds had come from LPP, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) provided background information on Evardone—his work as a former Malaya reporter, his present career as governor of a poor province, and his close ties with Arroyo (“From newshound to news target,” Nov. 12).
The Inquirer, also on Oct. 24, had a timeline of the Palace handout based on the account of Bulacan Gov. Joselito Mendoza, who was present in the meeting and admitted receiving money (“Mendoza account of Palace handout”).
The ABS-CBN/ANC video footage of some officials leaving Malacañang last Oct. 11 carrying bags that allegedly contained bribe money was one of the high points in the coverage, the first and only time video footage validated allegations that “gifts” had changed hands.
The editorials and columns also tried to paint a clearer picture of what had happened. The Inquirer’s Amando Doronila (“Where did all that money come from?” Oct. 17) wrote that what were clear, among others, was that some officials had admitted receiving the money, that no documents were signed, and that Palace officials were “muddling” the issue to conceal the real source of the money.
It was also pointed out in a number of reports and opinion pieces (examples include 24 Oras on Oct. 16, an Inquirer editorial on Oct. 18, and PCIJ’s blog entry (“All the President’s funds”) on Oct. 19 that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has access to billions of pesos in discretionary funds and from government moneymakers such as the Philippine Amuse-ment and Gaming Corp. (PAG-COR). When two officials of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO) were identified as involved in the Palace handout, PCIJ also provided information on the agency, and which of its officials have been involved in other controversies (“No Coming out party for PLLO,” Oct. 22)
Notwithstanding these stories, there was no investigative report to establish the source of the funds. Much of the reporting was on the vast amounts at Malacañang’s disposal. Some looked at the issue in the context of a new impeachment initiative against Arroyo, but there was no investigative report providing the detailed documentation that could have conclusively established who or what the source of the funds was, who authorized their release, and who directed their distribution.
The press also failed to place the Oct. 11 “gifts” in the context of past bribes and bribery attempts by Malacañang officials and their allies to cover up the host of scandals and contro-versies that had followed the “Hello, Garci” issue. Some editorials and columns tried to provide readers the big picture by doing exactly that. But there were no explanatory or investigative reports to provide readers and viewers this perspective, which was crucial to their understanding of the present state of governance in this country.
When Evardone claimed that the funds came from LPP as part of its supposed “capacity-building programs”, the press failed to ask such questions as whether LPP had the capacity to raise the huge amounts involved, whether the funds, if indeed from LPP, were public funds, and how the funds had been distributed. The answers to these questions were critical to the credibility of Evardone’s claim, and yet much of the coverage focused on Evardone’s statements and the reactions of Palace officials and other governors.
Unanswered questions
Deputy Speaker and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Partner of the Free Filipino/Kampi) party member and Occidental Mindoro Rep. Ma. Amelita Villarosa claimed later that the funds had actually came from Kampi following the supposed requests of members for financial help for local projects. Again the press failed to investigate her claims, or even to ask the same questions they should have asked when Evardone said the money had come from LPP.
Did Kampi have the capacity to raise the amounts involved, and how were the funds distributed to some governors? There were more reports on the reactions of other Kampi officials, such as Interior and Local Government Sec. Ronaldo Puno, and other administration personalities.
The press also merely reported, but did not look closer into, Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s claim that the funds came from the Philippine National Police (PNP) counterinsurgency budget.
The Malacañang “gift-giving” was the top story in the media for several days. But with no additional information on the issue and with other controversies erupting, such as the Oct. 19 Makati blast, the pardon of Estrada last Oct. 25, the barangay elections, and the latest impeachment complaint against Arroyo, the “cash gifts” controversy eventually passed into the same oblivion into which other issues have similarly fallen without closure, to be forgotten despite the seriousness of its implications on governance and the Arroyo regime.
Garci’s brief return
Some stories do return from the Filipino regions of forgetfulness. The reappearance of former intelligence agent Vidal Doble Jr. last Aug. 21 because of his announced willingness to testify on the alleged election cheating in 2004 brought back the “Hello, Garci” scandal to the public and press consciousness, albeit briefly.
A number of reports did attempt to explain the importance of the reinvestigation, with most of them recalling the roots of the “Hello Garci” tapes which the public had first come to know about all of two years ago.
For example, the Inquirer had a story on Aug. 23 on how former National Bureau of Investigation director Samuel Ong was able to get hold of the tapes in July 2005 (“Hello Garci mess started with a dare over drinks,” A1). The same Inquirer issue also explained how the mobile phone of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano was tapped.
On Sept. 8, the Inquirer provided information on PLLO official Remedios Poblador and her alleged role in crisis management at the height of the scandal in 2005 (“Who’s Medy, Why she makes things happen.” p. A1). PCIJ posted on its blog last Aug. 23 (“It’s ‘Hello, Garci’ time again”) video footage of Doble’s testimony.
Most reports on the Senate reinvestigation, however, did not provide enough background and context. Much of the reporting focused on how the senators were handling the reinvestigation, and largely relied on the goings on in the hearings and the views of politicians.
What the reporting did not fail to do was, as usual, to devote considerable space to such “interesting” aspects of the investigation as Doble’s marital problems and the heated arguments among opposition and administration senators.
Apart from Doble, who testified before the Senate on the military’s wiretapping opera-tions during the 2004 elections, most of the sources quoted in the coverage of the “Hello, Garci” reinvestigation were Palace officials and administration senators.
The press also allotted enough space to air the views of representatives of telecommunication companies and government agencies who tried to explain the nature of phone wiretapping.
Largely missing in the coverage, however, were the views of other sectors, such as civil society organizations. The views of other sectors were reported only in a few stories that received less prominence compared to the views and statements of Palace officials and lawmakers.
The coverage of the reinvestigation waned soon after, when the NBN project with ZTE became controversial and assumed truly scandalous proportions. Doble and the Senate reinvestigation disappeared from the front pages and the airwaves when the NBN-ZTE deal scandal exploded.
Estrada and the press
Another controversy in 2007 was former president Joseph Estrada’s conviction for plunder on Sept. 12, and the subsequent presidential pardon he received six weeks later.
Days before the Sandigan-bayan’s promulgation of the result of Estrada’s trial, a number of reports were already providing background infor-mation on the charges against Estrada. The timeline and highlights of the plunder and perjury trial were thus recalled in such papers as the Inquirer and the Manila Times, and in online news organizations such as Newsbreak and PCIJ. PCIJ also revisited the investigative stories it did in 2000 on the Estrada presidency as the date of the Sandiganbayan decision neared.
Some reports explained the results of the Sandiganbayan decision. Some broadsheet opinion writers tried to do so in editorials and column pieces. These included Inquirer columnists Randy David (“Erap conviction and the rule of law,” Sept. 15) and Fr. Joaquin Bernas (“It’s enough to make a grown man cry,” Sept. 13), and Geronimo Sy of the Times (“Guilty as charged verdict heeds the spirit and letter of the law,” Sept. 16 and 17).
When Estrada was pardoned Oct. 25, some reports looked into the possible reasons behind the pardon. When the pardon was granted, PCIJ offered in a commentary on the same day perspectives on the Palace decision to pardon Estrada (“Estrada pardon: Transactional politics yet again?”).
Apparently sensing that a pardon was to be granted anytime soon, the Times had a two-part special more than three weeks before the pardon itself. The reports explained what a presidential pardon is and why granting it might be beneficial for both Arroyo and Estrada (“Understanding pardon, amnesty,” Oct. 1 and “Pardon of Estrada too early, ill-advised, says prosecutor,” Oct. 2).
Much of the coverage, however, failed to highlight or put in context the issues of corruption raised against Estrada that had resulted in his ouster from office in 2001. The public would have understood the pardon better if the issues raised against Estrada had been re-examined or at least revisited.
Media and elections
In last year’s controversies and issues, the press was most pro-active during the senatorial and party-list elections, and, to a lesser extent, the local elections.
The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s monitor of the media coverage of the May 2007 elections found noticeable improvements in the coverage of the senatorial and party-list elections compared to 2004’s.
The media organizations provided more contextualization on the 2007 elections than they did during the 2004 presidential elections. The press was also able to provide readers and viewers with in-depth analyses of election issues and other much-needed information.
The 2007 May elections coverage devoted more space to policy and development issues, unlike in the 2004 presidential elections when most stories were on the horse race/cockfight aspect of the elections. Print, for example, provided senatorial candidates space in which to answer questions on the economy, the environment, and other issues.
The media also gave voters the opportunity to get to know their candidates better, beyond their names and physical appearance. For example, GMA-7 and ABS-CBN 2 hosted separate television debates and Q & A shows for the senatorial and party-list candidates, during which the candidates’ positions on various issues were rigorously solicited.
Television giant ABS-CBN also directly engaged the public in election reporting. Its “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” campaign enabled citizens to provide the network, through text messages (SMS) or multimedia messages (MMS), information on electoral fraud and other poll-related issues in their communities.
Online publications such as abs-cbnnews.com and gma-news.TV also provided in-depth coverage of issues. Bulatlat, Davao Today, Newsbreak, and PCIJ also published several analytical and investigative reports on election-related issues.
Still evident in the May election coverage, however, was the media tendency to report only the major parties and the most well-known candidates, leaving other senatorial and party-list candidates largely voiceless in the coverage. Compared to the coverage of senatorial candidates, the press seldom reported on the party-list candidates and groups, except when they were involved in controversies.
CMFR’s 2007 monitor of the senatorial and party-list elections also highlighted the need to reform the system of government-run media organi-zations, which generally behaved as clumsy administration mouth-pieces.
On the other hand, the press did attempt to provide ample coverage of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections in October. A number of in-depth stories explained the complexities of the issues concerning the barangay and SK elections. The reports often provided needed background information.
But unresolved issues and unexplored angles were among the gaps in the coverage. The “relative peacefulness” of the elections was frequently and uncritically repeated in most reports. Many reports mentioned the laws governing local elections but what these laws mean was not explained.
Given the widespread tales of corruption at local levels, it would have been interesting to read a thorough report on the Internal Revenue Allotment and the barangay units’ dependence on it. This angle was not explored, much less explained compre-hensively, even in the special reports.
Letting issues die
The dearth of investigative reporting and pro-active coverage that can help provide the public with complete, relevant, and comprehensive understanding of the issues weakened the coverage of political and governance issues in 2007 by letting them die the natural death that follows any media failure to keep their focus on them. The immediate consequence is to get erring officials off the hook, but the long term damage consists of the political class’ growing brazen-ness as a result of the impunity with which it has been clothed. The country has hopped from one controversy to another, but what is astounding is that not only have these controversies multi-plied; the actors involved have basically remained the same incorrigible lot.
In an earlier interview with PJR Reports, the Star’s Bondoc tried to account for the difficulty of producing more substantial reports on the NBN-ZTE deal. He said there was a dearth in documents and people who would corroborate the information that journalists obtain. This claim suggests that this is a recent development. After all, investigative journalists were able to get the documents and to find the human sources that made the reports on Estrada’s hidden wealth possible in 2000, as well as in the “Hello Garci” scandal in 2005.
“It was next to impossible to get independent confirmation for a story such as this,” said Bondoc, who said he shared the information with the Star news department.
So what has changed since 2005? BusinessWorld editorial board chair Vergel Santos blames the current political climate. He said there should have been more investigative reports about the issue, but given the current political climate, it is “understandable” why journalists find it hard to produce more substantial stories.
“The media today are dealing with a government that has made stonewalling a policy,” said Santos, who is also a CMFR board member.
According to Santos, some journalists and news organi-zations frustrated by the government’s lack of trans-parency have given up in pursuing some stories, or simply rely only on second- or even third-hand information for them. (Bondoc, for example, was forced to disclose information that was revealed to him in confidence by Neri about the project, apparently for lack of other sources of information.)
It doesn’t help the press either that under the Arroyo administration, the scandals and controversies have come one after the other in a bewildering and swift sequence that hardly permits journalists, including some of the most senior, enough space and time to evaluate them and to develop the sources needed to report on them with some depth.
“The continuous appearance of scandals and the daily demands of beat reporting also prevent journalists from providing more substantial reports,” Santos said.
Leonor Briones, former national treasurer of the Philippine government and a public administration professor at the University of the Philippines (UP), agrees. Given the array of scandals that keep coming “every second,” selecting which issue to highlight and which is important is a challenge for the press, said Briones, who is also a columnist for BusinessMirror.
For Far Eastern University constitutional law professor Edwin Lacierda, critical and investigative reporting may have diminished in number compared to the time of Estrada, but he still believes that “media have been relentless in covering the various scandals” anyway.
Relentless coverage
The press continues to relentlessly cover scandals and issues, despite government efforts to make reporting on public issues more difficult. The Arroyo administration, Lacierda said, is blocking the free flow of information to stop information on the scandals from reaching the people. “(You have) sources who clam up because of fear,” said Lacierda, who is also a convenor of the governance watchdog Black and White Movement.
But Ma. Rosa Feliciano, a UP broadcast communication pro-fessor, said the high number of controversies should not be an excuse for journalists not to provide more in-depth reports.
“If journalists really want to write good investigative reports on a particular issue I think they can do them,” Feliciano said, citing the investigative stories during the Estrada administration.
The coverage of Estrada’s pardon was itself sorely lacking in context and explanation. For Rowena Paraan, secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the press should have returned to the original issues raised against Estrada in 2000 and 2001 so as to put the Estrada pardon in context.
“Why did we have an impeachment trial? Why did we have People Power II?” Paraan asked in Filipino. “The issues should have been explained and contextualized.”
But even those not encumbered by daily beat reporting were likewise unable to provide that context, Santos said. It was easier to practice journalism in Estrada’s time because there was greater transparency then, since, he said, the deposed president was “not as clever and as secretive” as Arroyo.
“This is a closed regime. The idea, for instance, of executive privilege has been stretched till kingdom come,” Santos said.
Danilo Arao, a UP journalism professor and an editor of online magazine Bulatlat, thinks that the fall in the quantity and quality of investigative reporting can be a result of two factors: an “analysis fatigue” and the chilling effect of journalist killings and other attacks on the media.
For Feliciano, the greater hindrance in good investigative stories is the lack of training of the current corps of journalists in investigative reporting and the misplaced priorities of the TV networks.
“Look at the reports XXX and Imbestigador are coming out with. Hidden camera segments showing how fishballs and danggit are made—and they call that investigative reporting?” Feliciano said.
No closure
While the news organizations have covered the issues, Feliciano believes that the NBN-ZTE scandal may suffer the same fate as the “Hello, Garci” controversy, about which, despite press and public vigilance, no proper closure has come about.
The tendency of the media to do piecemeal reporting instead of presenting to the public the larger picture should also be addressed.
“The challenge is to simplify without being simplistic. Media should look not only at personalities but also at the political system,” Arao said.
The problem with discussing the system, is that media might think it is an abstraction rather than a concrete reality, Arao said. “Abstraction is sometimes seen as ‘boring’, and therefore, not ‘sexy’ enough for publication or broadcast.”
“There should be proper contextualization in terms of taking analysis to another level,” Arao said. “It’s not just providing background for a specific issue but how a specific issue relates not only to current events but also how it relates to it historically.”
Inquirer columnist and UP sociology professor Randy David agrees. To a certain extent, the media lack the capacity to make the connections, he said.
“Our media are not inclined to do that because they want to report events as they happen, and they also feel, I think rather erroneously, that their audiences do not have any patience for reports that are driven by perspectives, so that most reports take the form of he-said-she-said, he denied-he corrected, etc.”
As a result, there’s very little historical context in how the media present news, David said.
For Vincent Lazatin, executive director of the corruption watchdog Transparency and Accountability Network, there were still a few remaining examples of good investigative pieces from organizations such as Newsbreak, PCIJ, and some broadsheets in 2007. He admitted, however that there was a general lack of good, hard-hitting investigative journalism in the year just past.
For Lacierda, the decline in investigative reporting has not resulted in the lack of public appreciation of—and outrage over—the scandals and controversies that have characterized the Arroyo watch. The public already knows that “this government has a corrupt streak in it,” he said. But it will always go back to the question: Who’s going to replace Arroyo?
“All this critical, analytical reporting only provides substance to what is already a known fact: that this administration is very corrupt,” Lacierda said. “Media should continue to do its role as a watchdog,” he added. “The apathy does not come from the lack of reporting. In fact, there’s a lot of reporting on media regarding the scandals, but sometimes, it has become too overwhelming.”
“It doesn’t mean however that the outrage is any less,” Lacierda said.
Santos says that in every scandal the government has weathered, Arroyo has consistently called on the Filipinos to just move forward. But Santos said the media are not pointing out that the move forward is of the wrong kind.
“The media do not point out that this nation has moved forward from fraud to fraud. From Garci to Bedol, from fertilizer scam to Malacañang bribery to all sorts of corrupt contracts, to the NBN deal. That’s how we have been moving,” Santos said.
“If blame must be assigned, media must accept a large portion of that blame for the kind of public discourse we have today which is so impoverished.” David said. “Don’t blame people for the way they vote. Don’t blame the people for the kind of electorate that they are if you have not done your job as mass media. People have got to see the connections. An enlightened public does not just appear overnight from nowhere. That public is developed over time by the media.” |
