Cross-overs: Mass Media Practitioners in the Senate of the Philippines

The growth and development of the print and the broadcast media in the Philippines is perhaps unique in Asia because political development was established before economic advancement (Camagay 7; Doronilla 201, 209). This sequence of developments characterized the print and the broadcast media in their impartiality in politics and in their position in shaping the destiny of the nation (Doronilla 201).

When the United States of America began its civil government in 1901 and its Philippine Assembly in 1907, its primary task was to prepare the country for absolute independence (Camagay 7-10, Doronilla 201). The rigorous preparation involved the establishment of the judicial, educational, political party, and local government systems; the commencement of civil service, social justice, public health, and infrastructure programs; and the encouragement of agrarian reform and agricultural development, diversification, and industrialization (Camagay 8-10, 16-17; Doronilla 201-202).

After US President Woodrow Wilson signed the Philippine Autonomy Act, Governor General Francis Burton Harrison inaugurated the Philippine Legislature, a bicameral body composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives (“History of the Senate” 1-5; Totanes 183, 255). The Philippine Legislature served as the legislative body of the Philippines from October 1916 to November 1935. It was succeeded by the National Assembly upon the inauguration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines provided by the 1935 Philippine Constitution. By virtue of a constitutional amendment in 1940, the two-chamber Congress was restored. On April 23, 1946, the legislature was called the First Congress of the Third Republic of the Philippines that shared governmental powers with the executive and the judiciary (“History of the Senate” 1, 7).

On July 4, 1946, the Philippines regained its independence from the United States, but it was only in the 1950s when industrialization began (Doronilla 202). Consistent with the government framework for economic development, the liberal political party system approved that the print and the broadcast media must be owned and controlled by private entrepreneurs. The power of the print and the broadcast media commenced when magazine and newspaper owners were allowed to control and to operate radio and television stations (Doronilla 205).

Such power nurtured the adversarial and confrontational tradition of the print and the broadcast media that proposed a healthy formation of public opinion and democratic society through public debates and discussions. Thus, the print and the broadcast media were not merely instruments to provide social, cultural, political, and economic information. They are important players in politics who maintain equilibrium in the government (Doronilla 205).

Early Crossovers

The history of print journalism in the Philippines is defined by the influences of the Nineteenth Century European press when newspapers were carriers of liberal ideas and were centers of political activities. Over the next century, newspapers proliferated during periods of wars, revolutions, and upheavals. Successive wave of colonizers-the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese-used the press to promote colonial agenda and to impose severe censorship (“Philippine Journalism” 1).