Filipino Culture

During the 1968 anti-Vietnam War protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the protesters, faced with guns pointed at them and police goons ready to beat them to a pulp (many were, in fact, beaten) would point to the cameras and yell “THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!  THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!”  Implicit in the whole drama over these days of rage against the government was that the MEDIA, the so-called Fourth Estate, would protect those who exercised their rights by merely doing their job–reporting and broadcasting.

When I think about the many consequences and implications of Maguindanao, I think of those video clips from the 1960s and realize that the MEDIA has been effectively CASTRATED here in the Philippines.  One of the candidates’ spouses, who was to hand in his COC for him, was quoted as saying that since they cannot get police protection for the COC filing she was hoping that the presence of media would deter enemies.  These proved to be fatal notions as the twelve mediamen in the convoy were among the over fifty people massacred.  Their bodies dumped where they fell or buried by a back hoe.  This tragedy should not surprise anyone.  It was a barbarity bound to happen because of the lack of a truly centralized powerful government in the Philippines.

The sham of a Philippine “nation state”

A strong powerful government and a competent functioning unbiased judiciary willing to enforce the rule of law are the necessary components of real media freedom and power.  Without these two institutional pillars, the media’s power of providing refuge to the weak and providing an accessible vehicle through which unpopular and unsanctioned views can be broadcast without fear of retribution are reduced to a pathetic farce.  Filipinos can scream “THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING” all they want but they will only end up butchered like the hapless tenant farmers of Hacienda Luisita, the Mendiola Massacre vicitms, or most recently, the Maguindanao Massacre victims.  Indeed, the dozens of “unresolved” journalist murders during the current administration speak volumes about the true state of the power of local media.

Media corruption and abdication of moral power

Instead of being a brake against the wanton and unjustified exercise of state power against the powerless, the media has not just been impotent but often implicated as being part of the general culture of corruption.  Besides the sad showdown attending the politics behind the National Press Club’s dramas over recent years, there’s always been persistent rumors of recognized broadcast journalists and columnists asking for “tong” in exchange for their silence.  Such allegations and rumors, regardless of their veracity (and they are too frequent and too numerous to simply dispel), lends to the general perception that all the players are corrupted–the local warlords/private armies doing the killing, the judiciary tasked with enforcing justice, the police tasked with enforcing the law, and the media tasked with broadcasting the truth.  It is a sad toxic mix of disregard for whatever legal or moral standard and the most shallow hypocrisy done within the context of a faux ‘republic’.

How you can help

Institutions rot when the people who they are supposed to serve turn a blind eye to their hypocrisies and failings.  Institutions become malignant when the people they are supposed to serve expect corruption, incompetence, and impotent.  Expectations are very powerful since they establish and maintain shared assumptions.  Expect more from institutions by asking hard questions, filing complaints, making your voice heard.  If you just sit silently by because you have accepted that all Filipino institutions are corrupted, you are providing cover to the killers who disrespect the rule of law and moral civility.  You are, in effect, helping pull the trigger.