Philippine Journalism in the 1990s: the Problems of a Free Press
by The history of Philippine journalism is defined by the influences of the Nineteenth Century European press, when newspapers were the carriers of liberal ideas and were the 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.
One lasting and important legacy of the 50 years of American colonialism is the privately owned mass media forms competing in a free market. After the proclamation of independence and the establishment of a democratic government, a free press patterned after that of the United States was manipulated by competing business and political groups to advance their interests and ideologies.
Media ownership poses real constraints on the freedom of journalists to report freely and responsibly. Most media owners are business tycoons who operate interlocking corporate concerns and who use newspapers to promote their business interests and to influence a society where, in doing business, whom you know often counts more than entrepreneurial expertise.
In October 1995, the Manila Bulletin ran daily news stories and opinion articles criticizing the sale of the Manila Hotel to a Malaysian consortium. The paper asserted that the hotel was part of the national patrimony and should be sold to a Filipino company. As a result, former President Fidel V Ramos intervened by asking his aides to work out a compromise with the Malaysians, and the Supreme Court of the Philippines, in a controversial decision, decided in favor of the owner of the newspaper, Don Emilio Yap.
This case demonstrates how press proprietors have abused their powers, setting aside the canons of good journalism, by using the news and opinion pages of their newspapers to campaign for their business interest. Media owners have put the profitability of their business enterprise over that of their newspapers’ duty to report without fear and favor. It would be simpler, however, to say that newspapers are merely mouthpieces of their owners.
On the other hand, some editors manage to strike out a relationship where media owners have a hand in drafting editorial policies but leave the newsroom decisions to professional journalists. In other newspapers, editors unquestioningly accept the rules set by owners and dutifully execute orders to highlight or stop a news story. Sometimes, no rules are laid down, but there is an unspoken understanding that critical stories about the owners and their friends will be toned down, buried in the inside pages, or not printed at all.
In March 1999, former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada filed a libel case against the Manila Times, then owned by the industrial complex of the Gokongweis. Estrada accused that the morning daily was a part of an orchestrated effort to discredit him. He asked the respondents to pay PhP101 million for exemplary damages.
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