Column: Yellow, red, blue, white, black

Ahead of President Duterte's last #SONA2021, journalist John Nery (@jnery_newsstand) says the #ABSCBNFranchise denial should be an election issue.

Nery says the closure of the broadcaster is the "single worst scandal of the Duterte administration." #ANCRundown pic.twitter.com/IbXn3paH9u

— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) July 26, 2021

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.

How does the danger manifest?

Bok

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.

Wag Kukurap

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.

Column: Who is opposition?

Potent issues can be raised against President Duterte’s misgovernment, in the long run-up to the 2022 elections. Are the politicians who raise them, or work behind the scenes in raising them, part of the opposition? Who IS opposition? Simple questions, necessitating complicated (but possibly big-tent-pitching) answers. This week’s column, out on all Inquirer platforms except (inexplicably) on Inquirer.net. Published on February 23, 2021.

I continue to think that while President Duterte remains truly popular, this popularity, as measured by surveys, is a thin kind of popularity. I do not mean that it is not real, or that it doesn’t have sticking power. It obviously is real, and it obviously has lasted for years. By thin, I mean that the President has not been able to change longstanding attitudes about crucial issues among voting-age Filipinos—even if those issues stand as obstacles to his political agenda and threaten to define his historical legacy.

The clearest example is his brazen pivot to China. Despite years of Palace praise for the Chinese superpower and undisguised warnings about Beijing belligerence, despite many unprompted testimonials to alleged Chinese business largesse, public worry about China remains high. It’s the same case with extrajudicial killings, which (separate from support for the President’s so-called war on drugs) continues to prompt fear among Filipinos. It’s also the same case with “RevGov,” which continues to fail to make a substantial dent on decades-long attitudes favoring democracy. It’s very much the case with the government-provoked shutdown of the ABS-CBN network; most Filipinos continue to support both the network and its return to regular business. It’s even the case with the Duterte administration’s attacks on press freedom, which has failed to undermine majority support for the media. (I would even add the manifest government incompetence in securing COVID-19 vaccines.)

Taking up any of these issues, running against Malacañang on them, would allow candidates to gain real traction. Would politicians running on these issues be considered opposition? A simple question, but our answers may actually say as much about us as about the politicians in question.

Column: Privilege, claim, power, immunity

Column No. 612. Also, Inquirer.net-declined-to-run-column No. 8. Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and on INQ Plus and Inquirer Mobile today, September 8, 2020. This is a layman’s explanation of a powerful analytic framework with which to understand freedom of expression and other rights—and, in passing, the self-censorship that is the voluntary ceding of that very right.

Wesley Hohfeld, an American lawyer who died in 1918 (quite possibly of the Spanish flu), created a powerful analytical system that allows a clearer understanding of rights. He identified four kinds of rights: the privilege, the claim, the power, and the immunity.

I will not attempt to explain his system in detail. This hundred-year-old analytical framework is new to me, and I still get lost in the technical thicket. I will only try to sum it up through a series of examples.

Here is my cell phone. It’s mine; I have rights to it.

I have the right to use it. In the Hohfeld system, that’s called a privilege (sometimes also called a liberty). I have the privilege, for instance, to send a Viber message on it to—what do you call a group of plant enthusiasts?—a pot, or a pothos, of “plantitos.”

“What press freedom?”

I served as a session moderator in a webinar for diplomats this morning. My session was an exploration of the current media landscape in the Philippines, led by three expert guides who walked us through the thickets of business ownership, the deserts and occasional oases of press freedom, the hills and valleys of media consumption. One of our guides was Vergel Santos, a true eminence in Philippine journalism, who read a powerful speech that posed difficult questions about freedom of the press. I asked his permission to run his words here; may they disturb us in all the right ways.

By Vergel O. Santos

Not long ago, our pioneering national pollster Social Weather Stations did a survey on the state of press freedom in the Philippines. Actually, anyone observant enough needs no survey to be able to tell that press freedom hereabouts is in grave danger.

In fact, not seldom, Philippine surveys, for all their professional and well-meant zeal, tend more to confuse than to inform, let alone to enlighten. And sometimes they end up only shaking, instead of validating, one’s trust in what one’s own eyes plainly see and what one’s own ears plainly hear.

“[A] Duterte scam …
consists of false hopes
and quick fixes
held out in an iron hand.”

But that’s not always the pollsters’ fault. Pollsters only ask and count. They don’t explain or reason out their findings; they are not expected to do that. And neither does everything they get out of their respondents lends itself to any confident deciphering.

Findings on other issues — not just press freedom — and by pollsters in general — not just SWS — are similarly befogged. Constitutional change, federalization, and authoritarianism are all roundly opposed, extrajudicial killing is condemned, the Chinese are distrusted, yet, despite President Duterte’s express espousal of all that, he remains popular.

I seem to detect two mutually reinforcing factors driving and muddling these surveys: one is the fear struck by Duterte’s high-handed regime in the hearts of many, the other a compulsion among a long-suffering people to try to square everything in their minds in order to rationalize their desperate hopes — and these are people who happen to be just the precise type to fall easy prey to a Duterte scam, which consists of false hopes and quick fixes held out in an iron hand.

Rethinking freedom of expression

Happy to join the Friedrich Naumann Foundation as it starts its second Learning Series, with a reflection on freedom of expression: What, exactly, is under threat, and what, exactly, is the nature of that threat? TO REGISTER, please click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cgAqFfQwRPmlLN6Zzj5i5w

 

“The pattern is clear: The free press is under attack”

In the first seven months of the year, the Consortium on Democracy and Disinformation—a national network of journalists, academics, and civil society representatives, supported by four universities—issued three joint statements to defend ABS-CBN from the predatory tactics of the Duterte administration. (The Consortium, to which I belong, has also issued statements in defense of Maria Ressa and Rappler, and of Ellen Tordesillas and several other journalists.)

I thought putting all the ABS-CBN statements together in one place can give all of us a clearer picture of the pattern of predation. Once Duterte’s political allies realized early this year that the President was dead serious about his often-repeated threats to shut down ABS-CBN, they went on the attack.

Report was a “rationalization,” denial of ABS-CBN franchise was “legislative murder”

Interview with Christian Esguerra for his Matters of Fact program on the ABS-CBN News Channel, on the rejection of a new franchise for ABS-CBN. July 14, 2020.

Column: What’s really at stake in ABS-CBN issue

Published on February 25, 2020.

Last Friday, at the height of the biggest protest against the shutdown of the ABS-CBN network, Mocha Uson, the government-salaried propagandist and failed party-list candidate, tweeted: “Naku libo libo ang dumagsa sa ABSCBN babagsak na ang pamahalaang Duterte,” followed by a parade of sarcastic emojis.

A quick translation: “Oh, wow. Thousands have thronged ABS-CBN. The Duterte administration is about to fall.”

This joke purported to make light of the street action outside ABS-CBN headquarters, but in fact it was an act of bravado, revealing through its end-game scenario the biggest fear of the Duterte administration’s die-hard supporters: That it will lose its popularity, and fall from power.

Column: Assault on press freedom? Q and A

Published on February 19, 2019.

Last week, on Twitter, I was asked by someone critical of Rappler editor Maria Ressa whether I had ever been sued for libel. (Yes, I said, twice for libel and once for cyberlibel.) The reason for the question became clear when I gave my answer. “Did you also cry for suppression of press freedom?” was the response.

Well, no—because the circumstances are completely different. My second, longer answer is rooted in the current Philippine context; perhaps the following short question-and-answer can quickly describe that context.

Is libel, per se, an attack on press freedom?

No, but many journalists have long sought the decriminalization of libel in the Philippines, because it hampers free speech and the freedom of the press. Decriminalization would render libel and other forms of defamation only a civil offense, punishable not by imprisonment but the payment of fines.

When, as happens often enough in the Philippines, libel suits (or the mere threat of legal action) are used to stop news coverage and publication, or prevent journalists from doing their work, then our libel laws, which date back to 1932 when the Philippines was still an American colony, are turned into weapons against the freedom of the press.

Column: A dangerous time

I posted the speech I read at the 2018 Philippine Journalism Research Conference soon after the event, here. It occurred to me, while traveling later in the year, that I could reinforce the message and reach a potentially larger audience if I ran excerpts from the speech in my column. I did so on October 30, 2018.

In New York, tracking the terrible arc of online abuse becoming offline violence, I am reminded again and again that the hostility in the air is familiar. In the Philippines, under a foul-mouthed, free-associating, force-worshipping President, the same potential for a tragic escalation also exists. Last May, to keynote the Philippine Journalism Research Conference, I spoke about one aspect of the danger, focusing on “hyped-up hostility” against journalists. Allow me to share excerpts:

What does it mean to be a journalist, or to do journalism research, in the Duterte era?

Column: ‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome Rappler?’

Published on January 16, 2018, after the Duterte regime’s continuing offensive against press freedom entered a new and more dangerous phase. Please also see: 10-tweet thread I posted on the same day the column came out.

If you squint hard enough, you can pretend that the little you see in front of you is the most important thing to see. If you do it long enough, you can even convince yourself that the little you do see is all there is to see in the world.

This sleight of sight explains the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission, when it ruled that Rappler, the social media network, had violated constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership of media entities and revoked its certificate of incorporation. If this revocation stands, Rappler will effectively be shut down — the first time a news organization will be closed by government action since the dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

“To the gallant journalists who work in Catholic media and to the Catholic journalists who work in secular media”

A response to Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle’s keynote speech at the “Catholic Media in Challenging Times” forum in San Carlos Seminary, Makati City. Friday, January 19, 2018.

The responsible shepherd 

It is an honor to be here; I don’t know if taking part in today’s forum qualifies as a plenary indulgence, but this sinner certainly jumped at the chance when the invitation arrived.

I share Cardinal Chito’s misgivings about not having a female perspective on this panel; I hope we can help cure that in the Q&A. But I look at the panel and I realize—this is not only missing the female perspective, it’s missing other male perspectives too, because we are all graduates of the Ateneo. It’s the Jesuit mafia at work! But keeping our limits in mind is good. We are only offering our views from the limits of our own experience.

My experience is primarily that of a journalist.

Indeed, I am wearing black today because today the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and other alliances and associations are marking #BlackFridayforPressFreedom, in support of our colleagues at Rappler, the staff at the 54 Catholic radio stations whose licenses to operate have been I think deliberately ignored, and other journalists on the receiving end of the government’s iron fist. 

An assault on press freedom

A 10-part Twitter thread on the SEC decision revoking the certificate of incorporation of Rappler, the social media network. (With a link to today’s column—and an 11th tweet.)

 

Reductionist, grossly disproportionate, and just plain wrong: SEC revocation of Rappler incorporation attacks press freedom, to pluck thorn from Duterte's Fentanyl-fortified side. https://t.co/34mXZy9TZO

— John Nery (@jnery_newsstand) January 15, 2018

Column: The ‘handpicked’ hypocrisy of the Rappler lawsuit

Published on March 1, 2016.

I HAVE many friends in Rappler, and I think highly of the work of a good many members of the Rappler staff. In fact, just three weeks or so ago, I found myself in the position of recommending a senior editor from the online-only news organization for a prestigious fellowship.

But I vigorously take issue with Rappler’s decision to sue Commission on Elections Chair Andy Bautista; the case is not only based on a highly selective reading of the facts, but also wrapped, self-justifyingly, deceivingly, in the mantle of freedom of the press and public interest.

What is essentially at issue here is Rappler’s unarticulated assumption that, because it is an online-only news organization, it deserves lead-organizer status in all three presidential debates.

Column: P-Noy’s Kabayan problem, and ours too

Published on July 31, 2012.

President Aquino is wrong to think that the fundamental nature of news has changed. But he is entirely in the right when he calls journalists to account according to journalism’s own standards. Unless, of course, journalists think those standards are only meant to be paid lip service.

“Negativity” in the news—the word the President used in his remarks at BusinessWorld’s 25th anniversary rites last Friday—has become the shorthand defining what an ABS-CBN story online would later call his “scolding spree” against the media, even though the real controversy erupted only after the President directly criticized ABS-CBN anchor Noli de Castro at the 25th anniversary party of the iconic “TV Patrol” newscast, later that same Friday.

Column: Migz replies: Nery out to destroy my reputation

It may be best to think of this piece as the middle part of a trilogy of columns; it responds to the previous column, and it is followed by a detailed counter-response. Published on January 25, 2011.

IN THE last few months and until last week, I had been more or less incommunicado, completing a book project. But I was never completely out of the loop, and when I found out that Sen. Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri had written our publisher a lengthy letter in reply to my column on Sen. Loren Legarda and Zubiri’s case at the Senate Electoral Tribunal last week, I asked for a copy. His letter, it turns out, is too long for our Letters page (we cannot accommodate anything more than 3,000 characters long). Instead of sending it back to him to cut it down to the right size, however, I thought of running it here instead. I have done exactly that in previous instances, and I am only too glad to do the same thing for him.

Column: The end of “media” as we knew it

Published on November 23, 2010–the first anniversary of the Ampatuan, Maguindanao massacre.

I do not wish to add to the unbearable burden of the families of the victims of the Ampatuan, Maguindanao massacre, especially those who lost loved ones who were not media workers, with another reflection on the massacre’s implications on Philippine journalism. The horrific killings—57 bodies recovered, one still missing—reveal more about life in the Philippines than the state of the media: The Philippine polity as an anarchy of families (to borrow Alfred McCoy’s evocative book title); the role of violence in society; the wages of greed; the coopting of much of the country’s security forces; even (in the case of the unfortunate victims who
merely happened to be driving by) the very gratuity of life when you are poor
or not powerful.

Column: Saving Rizal

Published on December 29, 2009.

AT LEAST TWICE A YEAR, I SEIZE THE CHANCE to write about Rizal. As an opinion writer, I have long since come to the conclusion that the Philippines is incomprehensible without reference to the patriot and polymath. I have also belatedly come to realize, in the last two years or so, that Rizal is indispensable to an understanding of the modern democratic project.

One quick example: the classic arguments for a free press are derived from American constitutional history. But I have only lately come to appreciate the difference in Rizal’s own home-grown arguments (and those of Del Pilar too) for freedom of the press.

It is vital, then, to save Rizal both from the “veneration without understanding” that Renato Constantino warned us against a long time ago, and the “understanding without relevance” (to coin a phrase) that alienates younger generations.

* * *

A marriage of, ah, convergence

WAN and IFRA, the two global media associations the Inquirer is a member of, have decided to merge. (I think the newspaper I work for is also a member of two regional conferences, the Society of Publishers in Asia and the Asia News Network.) The explanatory letter, in the age of Facebook and Twitter, is definitely worth a close read.

We are delighted to inform you that WAN and IFRA, the leading international associations for print and digital news publishing, have merged into a new organisation, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The combined new organisation will represent more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. WAN-IFRA is dedicated “to be the indispensable partner of newspapers and the entire news publishing industry worldwide, particularly our members, in the defense and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity, and the development of prosperous businesses and technology.”

The mission statement of the organisation can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org.

The merger, which becomes effective on 1 July, has been approved by the Boards and the annual meetings of the two organisations. The new organisation will maintain the two current headquarters in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany.

Gavin O’Reilly, the President of WAN and Group CEO of Dublin-based Independent News and Media, will serve as President of the new organisation through 2010. “Both IFRA and WAN are strong organisations providing key services to our industry,” he said. “We believe that combining their strengths will allow us to be even more resourceful and effective in responding to the growing needs of our members and industry partners in the fast-moving and evolving media matrix. This is a necessary merger which, indeed, has been on the cards for some time”.

Horst Pirker, President of IFRA and CEO of Styria Medien AG in Austria, will serve as First Vice President, and become President in 2011. “Like the whole news publishing industry, WAN and IFRA are currently facing serious challenges. I think we need to concentrate our resources to support our members in the best possible way”, he said.

The new organisation will appoint a Chief Executive Officer shortly. In the meantime, the current CEOs of WAN and IFRA, Timothy Balding and Reiner Mittelbach, will jointly manage the merged association.

Members of the respective organisations will continue to enjoy their current benefits and will shortly be informed of the details of the future membership structure. A letter detailing benefits will be sent to you very soon, but if you have immediate questions, please direct them to Ms. Birke Becker (birke.becker@wan-ifra.org).

Any other inquiries you may have to: Larry Kilman, Head of Communications and Public Affairs, WAN-IFRA, Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: larry.kilman@wan-ifra.org.

We are grateful for your continuing support and are looking forward to working together with you in WAN-IFRA.

Sincerely,

Reiner Mittelbach
Timothy Balding

Columnists’ secrets

From the invitation:

In his dissenting opinion on the landmark press freedom case In re Jurado, Chief Justice Reynato Puno (then an Associate Justice) wrote: “As agent of the people, the most important function of the press in a free society is to inform and it cannot inform if it is uninformed.”

A free press does not only inform; it also forms—public attitudes, the public’s appreciation of important issues, public resolve. In short, public opinion.

Opinion columnists bear a great responsibility for that crucial task of formation; the most influential columnists not only provide incisive analysis, they also on occasion do original reporting. In this way, they help shape the climate of opinion, the public discourse that sustains the democratic experiment.

How do they go about their work? What have they learned over the years about the handling of sources? Who do they trust? When they come under severe pressure, how do they cope? And why do they write what they choose to write? Two of the country’s most influential columnists, Jarius Bondoc and RIna Jimenez David, answer these and other questions.

In discussing and documenting their answers, “The Shaping of Opinion” seeks to deepen our understanding of the nature, and the possibilities, of public discourse.

Should be fun!

Column: Is advertising good for democracy?

Published on November 20, 2007

This week, all roads lead to Subic. The Ad Congress, the advertising industry’s biennial extravaganza — part conference of ideas, part festival of winning works, part street party of loud and lively revelers — begins tomorrow in the former American naval base. At one time one of the biggest military installations outside the United States, Subic is a fitting venue to discuss the power of advertising. After all, what is “projection of force” by forward-deployed units if not advertising in its most fundamental form?