I wrote on the real dangers to press freedom we face, and (irony of ironies) Inquirer.net decided not to run my column. But it’s in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, on INQ Plus, and on Inquirer Mobile. Published on July 27, 2021.
ANC’s “The Rundown” with lawyer Mike Navallo and Nikki de Guzman gave me an opportunity on the morning of President Duterte’s last State of the Nation Address to speak on press freedom in the Philippines. I tried to offer what we may call a different kind of color commentary.
But first, it is important to emphasize that it isn’t only journalists in the Philippines or their colleagues abroad who believe that press freedom is in danger under President Duterte. In the November 2020 Social Weather Stations survey, some two-thirds of voting-age Filipinos agreed with the statement that “it was dangerous to print or broadcast anything critical of the administration, even if it is the truth.” That’s a clear indication that the public knows that journalism that is critical of the administration meets a hostile reception from the administration. (To my mind, that finding also indirectly reflects the climate of fear that the surveys have arguably labored under since 2016, when the extrajudicial killings began en masse.)
The finding—65 percent in agreement with the statement that read, in Filipino, “Mapanganib na mag-lathala/mag-print or mag-broadcast ng anumang kritikal sa administrasyon, kahit na ito ay ang katotohanan”—was up from 51 percent only in the July 2020 survey, and must certainly have been caused by the shutdown and the rejection of the new franchise of the ABS-CBN network.
A winning example from the past might have a lesson for the political opposition. This week’s column, published on July 20, 2021.
If memory serves me right, Vicente “Ting” Paterno ran for the Senate in 1987 on a simple campaign theme. While his track record was clear and clean, it was also complicated; he had served as a minister in Ferdinand Marcos’ presidential-parliamentary Cabinet, before becoming an independent assemblyman, then Metro Manila chair of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, then one of “Cory’s Candidates” for the Senate.
His campaign poster cut, or melted, that Gordian knot of complication with a warm but also accurate slogan: “Ting Paterno. Mabuting tao.”
As I have argued before, Cory Aquino had the longest coattails in Philippine history; in that first election for the Senate since the fall of the Marcos regime, 22 of her 24 candidates won. Paterno was one of the non-politicians who rode those same coattails; like them, he also had an impressive personal reputation, backed by a sterling curriculum vitae, that recommended him to the voter. In 1987, the only time he ran for national office, 9.6 million voters cast their ballot for him.
I am reminded of this virtually forgotten moment in history because it might have something to say to us today. Ten months before the first vote is cast, I’ll step out on a limb (again), and suggest that the 2022 elections will be about change.
Late post, in part because the second dose of the vaccine knocked me out for a good part of the working week last week. Published in all Inquirer platforms on July 13, 2021.
The rejection a year ago of the franchise renewal application of the ABS-CBN network by the House of Representatives committee on legislative franchises was a political decision; it should have political consequences.
It was political in the barest, most basic sense: It was a display of power, made against the evidence provided by the very government agencies invited by the committee, against clear public opinion in favor of the network. At the end of the lengthy process, involving 12 hearings altogether, one of the three leaders of the anti-ABS-CBN inquisition, Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, summed up the entire proceeding with an unforgettable phrase. Notwithstanding the favorable testimony of the representatives of the various government agencies called to Congress, and the testimony of the network’s own representatives, Marcoleta said, “it is the will of Congress that must be accorded respect.”
When I heard the news of Nonoy’s passing, I was hit in the gut, like many of us. It had been only a month or so since we first learned about his serious health issues; the end, when it came, was so sudden.
Since then, I have been obsessively reading all the news stories and personal accounts about the man we called Bok, our fearless leader and faithful friend.
I tried to recall the last time I saw Nonoy face to face, and it turns out it was during one of those Black Friday protests that he helped organize, in front of ABS-CBN. It was late February 2020, just a few weeks before the pandemic became official, and the Black Friday protests that started as a very small gathering on Roces Avenue had become a large mass action on Sgt. Esguerra Avenue.
After I said my piece, I stayed on the sidelines, and then said to him:
“Bok, tawid lang ako. Hindi pa ako kumakain.”
There was a restaurant right across the street from the protest, and it was open.
Nonoy replied immediately and naturally:
“Samahan kita, bok.”
And so I ended up having dinner with the chair of the NUJP, at a table that looked out into the street and to the street protest. It occurs to me, now, that for half an hour or so, I was able to share his vantage point.
What did he see from that vantage point? Allow me a personal reading. First, that courage is contagious. The small group that rallied on Roces Avenue had generated a real groundswell of support. And second, that conflict requires company, or companionship. Many of the stories and accounts about Noy stress that he was both a fierce advocate of press freedom and human rights AND a beloved, caring mentor; that he was both always on the frontlines but always ready to keep us, even starving columnists, company.
Young people these days have a meme-ready saying: The duality of man. But Nonoy, Bok, did not live a dual or divided life. He focused on the struggle, yes, but he also lived a full, happy, well-rounded life. He showed us the unity, the integrity of the journalist’s life, that we are all capable of.
He was the best of us; that’s why when he led, we followed.
Remarks prepared for a video sharing during the “media night” wake, July 14, 2021.
Hundreds of journalists have signed on to the following Election Pledge. The many commitments in this Pledge can be summed up in the Wag Kukurap campaign, which was launched today; the familiar phrase means Don’t blink, which resonates with the traditional watchdog role of the press. But Wag Kukurap also suggests a secondary meaning, based on sound: Don’t be corrupt. It’s an important reminder, to both the journalists and the people they cover.
Every election is a reckoning for democracy. As journalists reporting on another critical moment for our country, we have a duty to provide accurate, reliable and essential information that will empower voters and encourage public discussion and debate.
Affirming that:
Election integrity is not just about credible counting of votes, but about clean, level, legal, transparent, and accountable campaigning;
Credible elections need credible media; conversely, corrupted media can further corrupt politics;
Citizens need issues and debates to be clarified, not simply amplified.
We pledge to:
• Put voters and the integrity of the electoral process at the center of our reporting.
• Focus on issues not just on personalities.
• Examine the track record and qualifications of candidates and political parties vying for public office and hold them accountable for the veracity and honesty of their every statement and promise.
• Cover as responsible and accountable the institutions mandated to ensure an even, orderly, and credible electoral playing field.
• Stand in solidarity with each other when any journalist or news organization is harassed by state agents, political parties, candidates, or private groups for their evidence-based journalism.
• Be accountable to the public. We will hold each other to higher standards of impartiality, credibility, and integrity.
In line with these principles, we commit to:
• Challenge and correct statements and claims that have no basis in fact.
• Avoid highlighting or amplifying falsehoods, hate speech and incitements to violence.
• Report on the partisan activities of government officials, including those working for national and local agencies, the courts, law-enforcement and the armed services.
• Monitor the independence of the Commission on Elections, the courts, the military, the police, teachers and all other individuals and entities involved in the conduct of the election.
• Highlight the efforts of the public and private sectors to uphold the honesty and integrity of elections.
• Monitor vote buying, campaign spending and the use of public funds to win elections.
• Contextualize reporting on surveys and the winnability of candidates. We will not report on surveys without verifying the source of the polling data, the track record of the companies conducting the polls, the methodologies used, and the questions asked.
• Focus on voter education, citizen participation and empowerment.
• Organize and report on town halls and debates and encourage candidates and citizens to take part in them.
• Uphold codes of ethics and professional conduct and disclose potential conflicts of interest.
• Make a clear distinction between reportage and opinion.
• Promote safety, public health and security protocols for and among journalists and be mindful of the impact of our work on the safety and well-being of the people and communities we interact with in the course of our reporting.
• Share best practices, knowledge, and experience, and raise our individual and collective capacities and competencies in covering elections – as well as the politics, issues, policies, leaders, and people beyond the elections.
I ran out of space in today’s column to discuss other developments I see taking place within the ranks of the political opposition. Here are three more “disturbances.”
Unnecessary. In paying tribute to Aquino’s leadership in the pushback against Chinese expansionism, retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio unnecessarily roiled the waters with his unfortunately one-sided account of what he said was “bitter” divisions between Aquino’s advisers on the matter of the case filed against China—something that former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay demolished with a detailed deposition in all but name. (I was moved to write somewhat tangentially about this controversy because I had the utmost respect for all the principal figures involved, in “While there is peace, there can be no traitors,” 8/26/2014.) Once a candidate for the Senate under the political opposition, Hilbay’s response has sharpened the unease some in the opposition share about the 1Sambayan initiative, which Carpio heads. (Retired SC Justice Francis Jardeleza’s commentary in today’s Inquirer promises a reckoning with “pretenders.”)
Absurd. For some reason, an opposition influencer like Philip Lustre has come out swinging against Vice President Robredo, calling her spineless and describing her and Liberal Party president Kiko Pangilinan as opportunistic. His reasoning is absurd, not only because the opposition leader he favors, Sonny Trillanes, belongs to another party but also because the very leaders he calls on to bring Robredo and Pangilinan in line, such as Frank Drilon, have in fact also reached out to other potential anti-Duterte allies. It’s called pitching a big tent. But Lustre, whom I know and respect, thinks essentially in black and white, and while that is a strength in resistance, that is a weakness in alliance-building and campaigning. In Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tufekci found that online movements end up privileging “informal but persistent spokespersons—with large followings on social media,” resulting in a “conflict-ridden, drawn-out struggle” for agenda-setting and leadership. I understand Lustre’s broadside as an example, and an omen.
Old. I relied on Tufekci’s insights when I had the chance to speak at the first lawfare summit convened by the office of Sen. Leila de Lima in February 2020; I focused on her findings regarding capacity-building by social movements. Instead of emphasizing narrative, disruptive, and electoral capacities, however, perhaps I should have directed attention to her related findings on “tactical freeze”—which she defined as “the inability of these movements to adjust tactics, negotiate demands, and push for tangible policy changes” after initial success, a consequence of the essentially leaderless nature of online social movements and the strength-and-weakness of “dealing with issues only as they come up, and by people who show up.” The events of the last 10 days or so seem to me to have proven that, after the rediscovery of Noynoy Aquino’s true legacy, many in the opposition have fallen back on old, familiar methods: engaging yet again in purity politics, diluting the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea issue, rushing headlong into the “distraction” trap.
I do sense that the campaign to draft Leni Robredo is gathering momentum, but these disturbances leave me worried about 2022, and whether we can finally arrest democratic erosion.
Some 10 days after the unexpected death of ex-president Noynoy Aquino, and about 10 months before the 2022 national elections, it might be good to ask: What is the state of the opposition?
Colleague Manolo Quezon has responded to my previous analyses of the prospects of the political opposition with a sweeping conclusion: Everyone becomes opposition anyway, the closer the next elections get. If true, this makes “opposition” as an analytical concept porous, ambiguous to the point of irrelevance.
But history shows us that this in fact isn’t true. In 2016, both the Roxas and Poe campaigns promised continuity with the reformist agenda of the second Aquino administration, and even candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who did campaign on a platform of change, used the three Comelec-sponsored presidential debates to also promote a corollary message: that he would have no problems implementing other campaign platforms, including that of administration candidate Roxas, as long as they work. The 1992 and 1998 elections featured more than one viable candidate campaigning for continuity: Ramos, Mitra, even arguably Salonga in 1992; and De Venecia, Lim, Roco in 1998. It’s possible that the two elections which served as a referendum on President Gloria Arroyo may be the rare events with only one continuity candidate each: Arroyo herself in 2004, Teodoro in 2010. (The last reading, however, depends on whether Manny Villar would be classified as a candidate for continuity—remember “Villarroyo”?—or change.)
So even on the simplified basis of continuity or change, “opposition” remains a very real thing. Are there prospective candidates in 2022 who represent change, and thus should be classified as opposition? Of course.
"exposing false appearances of his own society and pointing at the systematic abuse of power; giving expression to his people’s deepest sense of how they ought to live, using the common language which he raises to a new pitch of intensity and argumentative power; reiterating the regulative principles by which one might set things right; and insisting that there are other forms of falseness and other, equally legitimate, hopes and aspirations. Such a critic is bound but never wholly bound to the life he shares with others. He is never uncritical of those in power or of his allies whose similar complaints he often regards as wrongly directed or incompletely stated. He is at once inside and outside, a member apart, a critical patriot, civilly disobedient, committed to a democratic politics that is never democratic enough." - J. Peter Euben
John Nery | Newsstand 
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