Wait and see

Herbie Gomez

VETERAN journalist Froilan Gallardo called up early this week to ask if we can call for an emergency meeting over the way President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has been dealing with members of the press. According to Froilan, there are calls from some of our media colleagues (emphasis: some) for us to take to the streets so we could express our worry over the incoming President’s pronouncements.

I told Froilan that I think it would be premature for organized journalists to do that in that Duterte has yet to assume the presidency, and there is no way of telling if the things he has been saying would be translated into action and would become government policy.

Didn’t Duterte ask for some time for him to enjoy his crassitude in the remaining days before he takes over the country’s leadership? He did promise to metamorphose into a President by June 30, didn’t he? And so, my position is, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Am I not bothered by the thought that the next President thinks that Filipino journalists who were killed had it coming because they were “corrupt,” and those who murdered or had them murdered had a good reason for doing what they did? Like Froilan, of course, I am alarmed.

For years, we have been asking Presidents to rid this country of the culture of impunity by making the killing of journalists a highisk undertaking so that the country would no longer be in the list of most dangerous places in the world for journalism. And so President-elect Duterte was asked about what he plans to do about the problem. His reply, in effect, was that the journalists who were killed had it coming because they were corrupt!

Let me point out that a 2006 study made by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) “found that an overwhelming number of those killed since 1986 were exposing corruption and criminal syndicates in the communities.” CMFR said it has been established that 152 of the slain journalists as of 2006 were “killed in the line of duty…”

Note that CMFR has also found that “a significant number of those accused of killing journalists are local officials, as well as police and military personnel,” and that “the killings also suggest that the slain had been successful in exposing official wrongdoing and collusion with criminal groups.”

If Duterte is serious about his promise to launch a “war” against corruption and the illegal drug trade (he has repeatedly declared: “My God, I hate drugs!”), then he should realize that he and media are on the same side although not necessarily the same fence. Regardless of the incoming President’s low regard for media and his opinion about them, the 2006 CMFR data show that a significant number of the victims were killed because they performed their watchdog role.

No one is denying Duterte’s assertions that media are plagued with problems on corruption and irresponsibility, and steps really have to be made against these abuses. Admittedly, only small steps have been made in the media to address the problem that is so huge and complex that it would likely require a gargantuan social effort to fix it.

That the media audience are keeping an eye on news organizations and are demanding good journalism is a welcome development. It should pressure reporters to shape up and people manning the newsrooms to do their work properly. That is exactly what the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) wanted to happen in the city years ago when it asked a multisectoral group, including the local Roman Catholic Archdiocese, to organize citizens so that the local media audience would have a voice and watch over the watchdogs themselves. The idea was that citizens are the “consumers” of the “commodity” we call news and commentary, and they have all the right to complain when media are producing garbage in print and on air.

But what does Duterte propose we do with the problem? Kill journalists because there is corruption in media, or encourage it?

Do we burn the entire house now just to smoke out a rat? Or should the incoming Duterte administration regulate or close down all newspapers, TV and radio stations, and replace them with state-owned media? Ferdinand E. Marcos did just that so that the country can have his version of “responsible journalism” under his watch. Not a good idea.

Or do we give all the corrupt officials in government and the mob an excuse to assassinate all the journalists who expose their wrongdoings? Until now, I have yet to hear any corrupt official state that the journalist who reported about the things he did is responsible and objective. Understandably, journalists who step on their toes will always be “irresponsible” and “biased” in their eyes.

We can understand Duterte’s beef with slain Davao broadcaster Jun Pala. But the murdered man was never the Philippine media. No one deserves to be killed for speaking his mind even if we disagree with that person. The problem with using the Pala case as an argument for murder is, in the process, you’d end up seeing good journalists shot dead. They are the same media that brought to the nation’s consciousness the wickedness of martial law, the Kamag-anak Inc., the Centennial Expo scandal and PEA-Amari deal, the Erap mansions, “Jose Velarde,” “Jose Pidal,” “Hello Garci,” and the PDAF/DAP pork barrel scam. The list of Philippine media exposés that make me proud to be a journalist can go on and on. Yet the politicians and officials linked to these scandals thought the journalists who brought all these to the light were “biased,” “irresponsible,” and yes, even “corrupt mercenaries.”

The last time I checked, I was born in a country where it is unacceptable and illegal to shoot gossipmongers and drunken men even when they are cussing loudly in the street. Come to think of it, if corruption justifies murder, then why is Joseph Estrada Manila’s mayor now? Fact is, the only reason why he escaped punishment for plunder was because of a presidential pardon granted by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who, subsequently, was arrested for corruption. Despite the public outrage caused by their presidencies, the reason why Estrada and Arroyo, and smaller politicians like them are still alive is because our democratic society rejects mob rule, doesn’t correct a mistake with another mistake, and does not subscribe to laws similar to injunctions in the mythical Code of Kalantiaw. Simply put, civilized people want the corrupt punished but not assassinated.

A reporter was taking photos of traffic law enforcers doing their job in the rain on CM Recto Ave. in the evening of June 6. One of traffic guys, a certain Jay Salcedo, confronted the reporter and asked why he was taking photos. When the reporter informed him that he was a mediaman, the angry Salcedo allegedly told him, “Walay media, media sa amo karon. Mao nang ga-ambuson mo, pamatyon mo kay wala mo kabalo sa inyong trabaho!” All that simply because the reporter took photos of the commendable work the traffic people were doing.

How many others are taking the next President’s pronouncements as their cue? I worry that they now think that if Duterte can go ballistic every time he is asked about his health, then it’s okay for them to do the same thing to journalists who take pictures of them while they are working. (No, no, no, the President’s health is not a private matter; it is a matter of public interest.)

Ritchie Salloman, a businessman who was once a correspondent of the now defunct Daily Globe, writes: “I voted (for) Digong not because of his intelligence but because of his being a Mindanaoan. But things are shaking up so fast. The man who I supposed could give us a change has turned into a madman. Why all these?”

But Ritchie adds he is still expecting Duterte, the President he voted for, to bring total change.

Like Ritchie, I’m worried, too. But I say let’s give Duterte the benefit of the doubt, and hope that by June 30, he would already have morphed from being a man who behaves like a loud and rowdy old mananggiti who’s had too much tuba into a President who would start afresh, unite his people, inspire the nation, and respect democracy and its institutions. That’s exactly what a President should be doing. Otherwise, we’re screwed.

Pastilan.