Luis V. Teodoro » More Engaged Than Critical

By LUIS V. TEODORO

In one of those turn-arounds that seem possible only in the Philippines, the media are not only being blamed for the arrest of some 30 cameramen, media technical personnel, anchorpersons and reporters last November 29. They’re also being urged to accept a “protocol” the Philippine National Police is drafting.

Both indicate an effort to downplay the assault on press freedom that the handcuffing and arrest of media people was, and to instead turn the tables on the media by insisting that it was their fault; they asked for it. This approach was totally expected from the Arroyo regime’s police. It is consistent with police reluctance to look into the killing of journalists for which the Arroyo regime has been globally distinguished.

After years of denying that the problem existed, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was finally convinced to create a police task force to look into the killings, and to issue policy statements condemning them.

But that was long after police officials downplayed both the number as well as significance of the slayings, in several instances even declaring that some of those killed were corrupt anyway. At one low point, a police official in Bicol was quoted as saying that he understood why journalists were being killed; he wanted to kill some of them himself.

As for the task force—that’s Task Force Usig, which is also tasked with looking into the killing of political activists—it looked into the killings with the same enthusiasm as a tiger contemplating a meal of salad greens, even as it insisted that the police had “solved” most of the killings. By “solved,” it turned out that the police meant they had suspects in mind. It didn’t mean the suspected killers were in custody, were on trial, or had been convicted. They had suspects in mind.

In the government response to most issues like the killing of journalists (corruption, inefficiency, poverty, hunger, etc.), a pattern has been obvious for years. Mrs. Arroyo would issue what amounts to policy statements, and would order a government agency to look into it, or in many cases create a task force or even a commission. As if told that they should not take the presidential statements too seriously, the task force would then meet, come up with findings blaming everyone including the victims but exempting government agencies, and then disperse into oblivion.

The same pattern was evident in the aftermath of the November 29th arrests. Mrs. Arroyo declared that the media were not government’s enemies, and that the police should not “unnecessarily (sic) rile (sic)” the media. Rather than issuing an apology for the arrests, which could have laid matters to rest, the police instead proceeded to accuse those arrested of obstruction of justice, and to threaten further arrests in future incidents. In addition, the police are now putting together a “coverage protocol” which would supposedly avoid police-media conflicts.

Any such protocol is of course superfluous. Journalists are governed by professional and ethical standards based on their fundamental duty of informing the public. The Philippine Journalists’ Code of Ethics has been in place for decades, and so has the recently-revised KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas) broadcast code.