December 8, 2007 · Posted in: Cross Border, i Report Features, Media
Perils of the press
THEY are part of the world’s youngest democracy, but members of East Timor’s media now know that does not guarantee the full freedom to do their job. Indeed, just as their colleagues in Southeast Asian nations have realized, keeping the press unfettered is a daily battle — even in a supposed democracy.
Here in the Philippines, for example, a debate is currently raging over how journalists covering the standoff at the Manila Peninsula Hotel last week were handcuffed and hauled off for questioning by authorities. Some 70 Filipino journalists have also been killed in the line of duty since democracy was restored in 1986, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, meanwhile, says the figure as of June this year stood at 90, with 53 of the killings taking place under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In East Timor, which had its independence from Indonesia recognized by the international community only in May 2002, several members of the country’s infant media have been harassed, threatened, and beaten up in the last two years. Some of them have also been rendered homeless following the torching of their houses. The alleged perpetrators of these acts of violence against the press are supporters of the dominant political party there. Few of the journalists who have been attacked, however, apparently believe justice will ever be served.
Virgilio da Silva Guterres, chairperson of the Timor Lorosa’e Journalists Association (AJTL), observes that the media do not enjoy strong support from the public, which he says “is still not well-educated in the role of the media in the society.” He says there is a need for “extensive civic education” for the public so that people would realize “that their basic human rights include the right to information and that it is the duty of the media to inform.”
It’s a thought that Filipinos may want to mull as well.
Read on at pcij.org.
4 Responses to Perils of the press
art5011er
December 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Philippine democracy is our delinquent child. There are powerful forces working against it to succeed. Because it is our delinquency, the work starts with ourselves.
Give the press a hazzard pay.
jcc
December 9th, 2007 at 2:00 am
In 1971, and before martial law, I was a reporter of the local weekly newspaper in Naga City, Bicol Mail. I reported that some sacks of rice for the typhoon calamity victims were missing. The report makes some insinuation too that the Secretary of the late Governor Armando Cledera has something to do with the disappearance of these sacks of rice.
A day after the paper hit the streets, the Secretary barged into our editorial office and had it not been for Mr. Vicente Aureus, Jr., the Business Manager of the paper, a big fellow who now lives in Canada who placed himself between me and the official I could have been beaten up to the pulp.
I was luckier. One “Iran Boy Muslim” shot a Bicolano radio commentator to death because of his jueteng expose’ years after I have stopped writing. Some other brave and courageous news practioners also died while trying to bring the right information to the public.
Bubby Dacer, a friend, who was a former newspaperman turned “media consultant” (euphemism for highly paid propagandist) was also killed together with his innocent driver, Mr. Surbito.
So, whether you bring some people into a bad light for right reason or bring them into good light for wrong reason, the media practitioners’ situation is always precarious and dangerous.
jcc
December 9th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
ERRATUM: IN 1971, the Business Manager of Bicol Mail was LEON AUREUS, JR., not Vicente Aureus.
arvinortiz
December 10th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
It is saddening that media people do their jobs, to the point of risking their lives, without expecting any reward whatsoever from the public to whom their services are offered.
Media people are more often than not called the most persistent of critiques. But it must be made obvious, to paraphrase what Lorenzo Tañada said, that these media people are not anti-Arroyo, anti-Administration, anti-anyone, they are pro-human rights.
If, in the process asserting their rights, they become anti-anyone, then so be it.