Media Asia

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Media and Democracy in the Philippines

Glenda M Gloria

To cite this article: Glenda M Gloria (2000) Media and Democracy in the Philippines, Media
Asia, 27:4, 191-196, DOI: 10.1080/01296612.2000.11726622
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2000.11726622

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 Media and Democracy in the Philippines

The Philippines has been on the news for five long months now due to a noisy, media
savvy group of kidnappers that had abducted foreign hostages in April. During that period,
we witnessed the spokesperson of the Abu Sayyafjoin the league of world leaders and
experts in gaining precious airtime on CNN live. Local reporters as well were free to visit
the kidnappers' lair by foot and air their interviews with them day after day. This would
have been unthinkable in Malaysia or Singapore or even maybe Indonesia.
However, the Philippine military later imposed a news blackout on its operations on
Jolo Island where the kidnappers had encamped. Journalists who had been allowed to
deliver soundbites on kidnappers were now banned from delivering the civilians'stories
about the devastation of their province by the military.
How exactly should media act in such a tough situation? What judgments should it
make that would serve public interest and adhere to the fundamentals of a functioning
democracy? This paper seeks to answer these questions.

GLENDA M GLORIA

ecause of its critical role in the dying years of the
B Marcos dictatorship that eventually culminated in a
mass uprising in 1986, the Philippine media takes pride in
its role in bringing democracy back to the country. Because
of its long tradition as the freest press in Southeast Asia, the
Philippine media is often expected to take the lead in
debating, shaping and crafting media's role in a democracy.
But we sometimes could not meet such expectations for
a number of reasons.
The Philippines is a nation in perennial transition trapped
in many contradictions. It is a nation that made world
history when it ousted—through a relatively peaceful mass
uprising—the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. But
it is also a country that continues to be wracked by the same
insurgencies and rebellions that many thought it had already
succeeded in defeating just a few years ago.
As its population balloons to about 70 million diverse
people, the Philippines enters the 21 st century with unsettled
problems that are rooted in the complex historical
circumstances that had shaped its state-formation. There
are 80 languages spoken in the Philippines, excluding
English. And its geography of 7,100 islands makes its
regions fragmented and divided by seas and mountain
ranges. Most residents of Metro Manila, for example, are
so far removed from rural life. The young educated elite
probably know more about the United States than about the
Philippines' troubled region, Mindanao.
In Southeast Asia, the Philippines stands out as what the
West would generally describe as the 'freest democracy' in
Glenda M Gloria is Editor, Philippines Center for Investigative
Journalism, Manila.
the region. It is a kind of democracy inherited from and
even patterned after America: a presidential form of
government, a bicameral congress, a noisy press. The
United States seized the Philippines from Spain in 1898,
after the latter's 350-year occupancy of the country. Under
Spain, Filipinos staged Asia's first war of national liberation.
Under the United States, Filipinos were perennially torn
between collaborating with this colonial power or fighting
it. (Table 1). Yet the most compelling political experience
that Filipinos had to undergo since gaining independence
in 1946 is the dictatorial rule of Ferdinand Marcos, who
had served longest as president, from 1965 to 1986. Faced
with twin problems posed by communist insurgency and
Moro separatist rebellion, Marcos declared martial law in
1972. Hejailedhis opponents, shut down critical newspapers
and broadcast stations, and launched massive attacks on
villages known to be rebel enclaves.
But the EDS A people power revolt came in 1986, and
with it a newfound hope for Asia's bastion of democracy.
Marcos was forced to flee to Hawaii where he died four
years later. A strongman had bowed down to the sheer
strength of a mass of people demanding his ouster. Still, the
post-Marcos era rebuilding process has not been easy.
While the previous Aquino government laid down the
foundation for a transition from authoritarianism to
democracy, it had to put down six coup attempts against it
by the rebel military officers that had played a critical role
in ousting Marcos. The first free local elections in the post-
Marcos era were held in 1987. By 1992, then former
President Corazon Aquino supervised a smooth leadership
turnover that witnessed the first free presidential race in
two decades.

191
MEDIA ASIA, VOL 27 NO 4, 2000
Table 1
The Philippine Media — A Numbers Game
Newspapers
• 11 English and 2 Filipino broadsheets circulated nationwide.
Biggest circulation is Inquirer (about 240,000)
e 18 Manila-based tabloids and five Chinese-language daily
newspapers
• 408 Community Newspapers (daily, weekly, bimonthly, etc).
About 22 are published daily (circulation a low of 500 and
high of 45,000).
Radio
• 539 stations nationwide (273 of them AM). Of these, there are
11 religious stations and 5 educational stations.
TV
6 63 principal TV stations (6 of which are Manila-based & 2 run
by government)
• 150 smaller TV stations in provinces.
• 24 UHF stations.
• Cable TV: 300 cable operators nationwide
(as of 1998/Sources: PCU, KBP)
The current president, Joseph Estrada, is the third
president in the post-Marcos era of democratic rebuilding.
Fresh into his term as president in 1998, Estrada did not get
the traditional honeymoon with the press. Newspapers
immediately went to town with critical stories about him.
As he entered his second year in office, he filed a libel suit
against one newspaper that forced the latter's temporary
closure. Almost simultaneously, his friends from the
business community pulled out their advertisements from
the country's largest newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
causing revenue losses estimated at P10 million. But that
is going ahead of the story.
Media profile
Many would say that the Philippine media, while probably
the freest in Asia, has abused its freedom. It is, critics say,
noisy but vulnerable, powerful but irresponsible.
Without doubt, however, Philippine media enjoys an
advantage not present among its counterparts in the Asean
region. It not only operates in a democratic environment; it
appreciates the democratic freedom afforded them. It is
this that allows Philippine media to recognize the link
between empowerment and information.
The rowdy and mighty media agencies play a big
influence over Philippine society. They expose the abuses
or incompetence (or both) of politicians and bureaucrats.
As such, media have played a role in the democratization
process—by holding public officials and institutions
accountable to their oaths of office. But the excesses of
media are well known. As such, media has sometimes been
blamed for the absence of sober and intelligent debate that
is also crucial in a democracy.
Indeed, like most Philippine institutions, the Philippine
media is weak, hobbled by the same systemic and contextual
problems that threaten democracy today.
192
Traumatic past
This is partly due to institutional factors. The trauma of the
Marcos years has made some media entities naturally
adversarial to government. The gain from this kind of
approach is it puts the power elite on their toes as they
perform their public functions. The downside to this is a
self-conscious effort on Philippine media's part to go for
the 'big' stories, fight the 'big' powers at the expense of
many other important stories on policy and other 'little
people.'
The 1986 'people power' revolution that ended 14 years
of state control of the press brought about vast changes in
the entire industry. Overnight, a dozen newspapers were
published, many other radio and TV stations opened up,
and the formerly Marcos-controlled news agencies either
closed down or were seized by the new government.
Newspapers
Today there are 11 English and two Filipino (the main
Philippine language) broadsheets circulated nationwide,
compared to only three broadsheets during the Marcos era.
At present, there are also 17 Manila-based tabloids and five
Chinese-language daily newspapers serving the huge
Chinese community in the Philippines. (Table 2)
The big number of newspapers in circulation does not
mean a wide reach for them. Estimates made in 1990
showed that only a little over three per cent of the population
buy newspapers. Yet, according to a 1994 survey of the
Asia Research Organization (ARO), 63 per cent of the
population read newspapers, many of them only sharing
copies of those with the means to buy (Coronel, 1998).
Readers are concentrated in the urban areas, mostly
Metro Manila. The tabloids also enjoy tremendous edge
over the newspapers. In 1990, although tabloids were
about a third of the total number of dailies, they accounted
for half the total circulation figures.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for instance, has a claimed
circulation of 240,000. The former leader of the pack, the
Manila Bulletin, is down to less than 200,000, according to
various industry sources. The informal consensus in the
newspaper industry, however, is that the total circulation of
the Manila-based broadsheets and tabloids is about 1.5
million. The Philippines has a population of 70 million.
Thus, it can be said that the increasing number of
newspapers nationwide despite stagnant readership is in
itself a phenomenon.
Radio and TV
The performance of radio and TV stations is a different story
altogether. There are 539 radio stations nationwide. The
bulk of the radio stations are commercial, although the
government has retained ownership of 32 AM and one FM
station. There are 11 religious stations and only five
educational stations, most of them on FM. AM radio is still
the dominant format nationwide, except in Metro Manila
where FM radio controls 68 per cent of the audience.
There are six Manila-based TV stations that have a
national reach. Two of these are ran by government—

Table 2
The Philippine Media — Historical Context
1890-1900 (Spanish period) Rise of the revolutionary press
1901-1946 (American period) A Filipino bought The Manila
Times from an Englishman. Began a chain of
newspapers
1922 Radio introduced in RP by an American
1946-1972 (Post-Independence) US-inspired press
1972 Declaration of Martial Law. Newspapers/
broadcast stations shut down
1977 Rise of Alternative Press ("We Forum')
1980 Formal 'lifting' of Martial Law
1982 New wave of arrests of journalists
1983 Assassination of Ninoy Aquino; rebirth of
alternative press
1983-1984 Boycott campaign vs 'crony' press
1985 Birth of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, etc.
1986 EDSA revolt; Marcos is ousted
1987 Cory opens doors for more media agencies
1987-1989 Coup-prone years of Cory government
1992 Presidential race; Ramos elected president
1992 Inquirer catches Ramos' ire
1998 Estrada elected president
1998-1999 Critical press catches Estrada' ire
Source: Maslog, Crispin, The Metro Manila Press, 1994; Own
inputs
RPN-9 and IBC-13, pending their eventual privatization.
In addition, over 150 smaller TV stations operate in the
provinces. There are 24 UHF channels. Cable television
has grown in the 1990s, with some 300 cable operators
currently operating nationwide.
Records showed that in the 1980s, only a third of all
Filipino households owned TV sets. In the last decade,
however, broadcasting executives estimated that Filipinos
bought some 500,000 new TV sets every year.
In 1992,82 per cent of families owned radios, while 54
per cent owned a TV set. By 1997, the ARO found that
nationwide, 84 per cent watched TV compared to 81 per
cent who preferred radio. Indeed, in the last decade, the real
growth in terms of audience reach has been in radio and
television.
The ABS-CBN TV station is the acknowledged leader
of the TVpack. In 1995, ABS-CBN contributed55 percent
of the PI.6 billion net income of Benpres, the Lopez
conglomerate's parent company. ABS has cornered 45 per
cent of the billions in advertising money poured into TV
stations.
State of affairs
The media had come to this not by accident. For Philippine
media today is a product of context and history.
Four milestones in Philippine history have shaped the
structure and values of the media. The revolt against Spain
MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINES
in the 19th century had been preceded by the growth of a
revolutionary press. After the US' takeover of the
Philippines from Spain, the Philippine press drew heavy
influence from US style of reportage and private ownership.
The repressive martial law years from 1972 to 1981,
however, killed critical media and out of it grew a crony
press. A controlled press for 14 years concealed problems
of corruption in government and mismanagement of the
bureaucracy. When freedom was restored after the 1986
ouster of Marcos, the nation was witness to a freewheeling,
market-oriented press that had come to take its watchdog
role seriously.
The history of the Philippine media reflects the
contradictions of how the Philippines was shaped as a
nation. The American legacy is a freewheeling, enterprise-
based press system. The situation turned for the worse in
1972, when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared
martial law. Nonetheless, a fearless bunch of young and old
journalists did not take this repressive rule lightly. In 1977,
veteran journalist Jose Burgos Jr put up a fiercely
independence weekly magazine for the youth called We
Forum. Five years later, the magazine was padlocked and
Burgos was put to jail.
Military censors continued to padlock critical press
agencies. They reported directly to then defense Minister
Juan Ponce Enrile and Public Information chief Francisco
Tatad, who both headed the so-called Committee on Mass
Media (Maslog, 1994).
The lifting of martial law in 1980—a mere facelift—did
not help improve the situation. In 1982, in fact, the military
staged a second wave of mass arrests of journalists. After
his release from jail in 1983, journalist Burgos decided to
publish a daily newspaper called Malaya. That year, Ninoy
Aquino was assassinated, and the media was never the
same again.
Press freedom in this case is not only a product of street
struggles. It is stipulated in Philippine laws. The Philippine
Constitution of 1935, 1973 and 1986 guaranteed that "no
law shall be passed abridging freedom of speech and of the
press."
Development of democracy
The 1986 EDSA people power revolt strengthened the bias
for accountability and respect for human rights. Out of it
emerged a vibrant civil society with a strong developmental
orientation (Magadia, 2000). The post-Marcos era unleashed
the Filipinos' energy and stamina for democratic reform.
The 1987 Constitution crafted by the Aquino government,
for instance, spells out clearly the role of NGOs in nation
building.
With press freedom restored, the media went beyond its
traditional sources of news and gave NGOs and mass
movements a bigger voice in and access to the news
process. The NGOs and protest movements had found new
and reliable partners in media.
Media, for instance, took part in the healing process for
victims of military abuses under the Marcos regime.
Newspapers and TV stations uncovered and exposed various
193
MEDIA ASIA, VOL 27 NO 4, 2000
stories on past killings, massacres and kidnappings of
political activists by abusive soldiers. In this case, media
highlighted human rights stories as well as advocacy issues
on land reform and workers' rights by sectors. In 1990, the
issue of US bases took center stage. Media played up the
highly charged debate on whether or not to allow the
continued presence of American troops on two bases in the
Philippines. In 1991, the Senate, despite pressures from
various sectors, voted against the US bases.
Post-transition
In short, the Philippine media took its task seriously in the
post-Marcos transition regime of Mrs Aquino.
But sadly, Filipino journalists' defence of democracy
has not gone beyond protesting bad government and
denouncing perceived threats to press freedom. Thus at
every turn, when it smelled threat to press freedom, media
was the first to raise howl. In 1995, the Ramos government
flirted with thought of amending the Constitution to extend
the President's term. Major media players protested this no
end. In 1995, The Manila Times exposed a draft constitution
of the National Security Council, and the campaign to
tamper with the Constitution began to die.
But a nation in political transition had to confront other
challenges. These include the demands of a changing and
growing economy, the problems of a mismanaged
bureaucracy, the long-festering feudal character of its
politics, badly needed electoral reforms, poverty, etc. The
democratic institutions—judiciary, legislative, executive—
were hobbled by structural problems brought about by long
years of neglect. Media, to fulfill a role in a democracy, was
expected to go beyond the expose-and-oppose type of
reportage that it had been used to under Marcos and
Aquino.
Critics have accused media of focusing too much on the
horse race in election periods. In key policy issues, media
would often report more on the personalities entangled in
the policy mess and seldom get to the bottom of the issues
being debated. This is where the media have largely failed
to meet the demands of a growing democracy. But it could
be argued that media is a mere reflection of a democratic
society that has not fully matured and which continues to
be confronted with many challenges to this day.
Manila-based journalists remained so centered on the
goings-on in the capital, far removed as they are with the
real stories in the countryside. The Local Government
Code, which was implemented in 1992, gives local
government units better access to financial resources. This
is in the form of automatic appropriation of 40 per cent of
internal revenue collections to LGUs, greater taxing powers
for them, as well as authority to incur debt and to solicit
official development assistance. Decentralization is
generating profound changes in local politics, but that has
not been fully documented in general by Philippine media.
Mindanao remains to be the source of war stories as far
as many Manila-based media are concerned. The many
success stories of development efforts in select areas in
Mindanao are underreported or in most cases ignored.
194
Challenges
What causes these obstacles to a free but responsible and
proactive press? There are key reasons for these:
Ownership
The media are owned by big business (The only exception
to this is the Businessworld, a respected business newspaper
that is 70per cent owned by its staff). Business people buy
newspapers even if they seem to be a losing venture. The
explanation to this is simple: business people buy
newspapers because their aim is not profit but influence
and power.
Some owners have been using their newspapers either
to put down their rivals or even merely to seek political
legitimacy by cozying up to the powers that be.
To be sure, the nature of media ownership over the last
two decades has been influenced by the fortunes of big
business, too.
Immediately after 1945, Spanish-mestizo business
people like the Roceses owned the presses. The 1980s
(after the dictatorship) witnessed the emergence of a new
media clique in business: the Chinese-Filipino community.
Thus, Emilio Yap purchased the Bulletin', the late Betty
Go-Belmonte produced the Philippine Star, the Yuchengco
family came up with the Manila Standard; and the
Gokongweis bought the Manila Times.
The Yuchengcos had sold out to a Filipino owner,
however, and so have the Gokongweis.
It is a known fact that except for the top three newspapers
(Inquirer, Bulletin and Star), nearly all the rest are being
subsidized by their owners' other businesses.
It is the same business interests that make them
vulnerable to government pressure, as what the Manila
Times case has proven. (The Gokongweis, who were
pressured to sell their newspaper in July 1999 to a friend of
President Estrada, had been publishing the Times for 10
years and had kept a comfortable distance from editorial
matters. However, Estrada filed a libel suit against the
newspaper in March 1999, over a story that called him an
'unwitting ninong (godfather)' to abad government contract.
The Gokongweis eventually sold the newspaper to
presidential friend Mark Jimenez. It is widely believed that
prior to the sale, the Gokongweis' had encountered problems
in their other bigger businesses that were subject to
government regulation. The Gokongweis are also into
food, airline, telecommunications, banking and finance,
real estate, hotel and recreation, power generation, and
mining and oil exploration.)
Families with interlocking business interests own two
of the country's biggest newspapers:
1. Philippine Daily Inquirer—the Prieto/Rufino families
are into food, real estate, paper production, and other
services.
2. Manila Bulletin—Emilio Yap's interests include the
Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Corp.; Manila Prince
Hotel; US Automative Co. Inc.; and Manila International
Port Terminal, among others.
The third largest newspaper, the Philippine Star, is run by

the family of Feliciano Belmonte Jr., member of the House
of Representatives and currently minority leader
representing the Larkas-NUCD party.
The top radio station is DZRH, owned by the Elizalde
family. The business clout of this Spanish-mestizo family
has diminished over the years. Meanwhile, ABS-CBN TV
station was given back to its former owners, the Lopez
family, who returned from exile in the United States after
Marcos' ouster in 1986. The Lopezes' other business
interests include telecommunications, power, water and
infrastructure. They also own DZMM, the country' s second
largest radio station.
Government is also into media. It runs three TV stations,
RPN-9, IBC-13 and PTV-4. Privatization, however, is
being finalized for RPN-9 and IBC-13, because both had
suffered huge losses over the last decade.
Government also continues to own the Journal group of
publications, which now runs two tabloids (one in English
and the other in Filipino). The main publication of the
government-run Journal group was the Times Journal, but
this closed shop early this year due to heavy losses.
Corruption
This problem is pervasive in Philippine media and it is by
no means a new phenomenon. Early written accounts about
it go back to the 1950s, when journalists were bought off
with cash by politicians and businessmen, according to a
study conducted by Chay Florentino-Hofilena in 1998. She
said a more systematic type of corruption emerged in the
1960s and early 1970s, when payoffs became an integral
part of the regular news beats.
Post-Marcos corruption of the Philippine press is more
pervasive and even more systemic. The study said: 'It is
also disturbingly creative and difficult to detect.
Transactions have become more sophisticated, and in
some cases, even institutionalized.' The organized way in
which corruption takes place, the study explained is through
a network of journalists reporting to other journalists or to
professional public relations or PR people. This 'makes it
more like the operation of a criminal syndicate, a mafia of
corrupt practitioners,' the study concluded.
In a survey conducted among 100 reporters by the
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism from
September 1997 to March 1998, many of them
acknowledged that reporters are offered money by their
sources. Two of every five said they had received offers of
money in the course of their coverage a number of times
while close to one of every four replied rarely.
The same survey showed that in some news beats, a
number of reporters appeared to have taken a different role:
that of brokers. Of the 71 reporters who said they had been
offered money by their sources, nearly half identified
another reporter as having made the overture. One third of
the reporters who were offered money admitted to taking
it. Of these, a third said they turned over the money to then-
editors, although twice as many said they pocketed it.
Skills and 'tabloidization' of news
The freedom enjoyed by the media after the ouster of the
MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINES
dictatorship has given journalists virtually blanket licence
to hit anybody. Several exposes in the media had led to the
resignation of public officials, the rescinding of bad
government contracts, and the investigation of politicians
and government executives as well. The environment has
been conducive to investigative reporting and stories that
raise public awareness on such issues as generic drugs,
AIDS prevention, women's rights, etc. But in the race to
get a big share of a limited market, Philippine media have
also resorted to coming up with news that 'sell.' Stiff
competition has distorted the conduct of journalism in this
country, as well as the content of newspapers and the
programming of radio and TV programmes. The result is the
so-called tabloidization of news. TV stations have been
forced to be more commercial, an abdication of their
educational role.
A bigger problem, however, is the level of skills of both
reporters and editors. The media explosion in the post-
dictatorship era has flooded the industry with inexperienced
journalists. Reporters were young and fresh from college,
while the editors were mostly plucked from the Marcos era
yet. The generation gap had a disastrous effect: on one
hand, a bunch of young, idealistic but neophyte reporters
who needed guidance; on the other hand, a bunch of aging
editors many of whom had lost the stamina to direct, inspire
and coach reporters. There is not enough on-the-j ob training
and the turnover is fast, with young journalists eventually
opting out of the profession in search of better-paying jobs.
Starting pay for newspaper reporters ranges from P7,000
to PI0,000 a month. The same is true with photographers.
Salaries in TV stations are higher, while contractualization
is rampant in radio stations. Of the broadsheets, only the
Inquirer, Bulletin, Malaya and Standard are unionized.
The rest discourage their reporters from forming labor
unions.
Harassment/Government pressure
There remains a high casualty rate among Filipino j ournalists
based in the provisions. The New York-based Committee
to Protect Journalists puts the number of Filipino journalists
killed since 1986 at 33. It is difficult to say how many of
these were killed because of their work. But community-
based journalists face real danger in the provinces, where
there is less tolerance for critical reporting.
Philippine libel laws, which are patterned after that of
the US, are less restrictive than those elsewhere. Libel in
the Philippines is both a civil and a criminal offense.
Officials and other parties who feel offended by critical
reporting have been filing harassment suits against
journalists. Fortunately, Philippine courts have tended to
rule in favour of the freedom of journalists to report and to
comment.
The threat of advertisement withdrawals in retaliation
for adverse reporting is common knowledge. Former
Economic Planning Secretary Solita Monsod quit writing
a column for the Star when a column she wrote critical of
Lucion Tan, an Estrada crony, never saw print.
In mid-1999, the Inquirer experienced a rush of ad
pullouts by firms owned by business people close to
195
MEDIA ASIA, VOL 27 NO 4, 2000
President Estrada. These include Tan's firms, the PLDT
owned by Manuel Pangilinan, all car companies owned by
Chinese-Filipino business people, etc. Estrada also got the
cooperation of movie producers who withdrew advertising
from the paper. The Inquirer is the newspaper that has been
most critical of the president. When its editors held a no-
holds-barred meeting with the President end of November
this year, the ads began returning to the newspaper, one by
one.
What the Manila Times and Inquirer cases have shown
is the sophisticated manner by which the present government
deals with its 'media problems.' While state control a la
Marcos days is not evident, the governmenthas nonetheless
come up with more subtle and creative ways in muzzling
the press. What has emerged is this: those who wish to
control or silence the press do so through market
mechanisms rather than the strong-arm tactic of the state.
These are in the form of organized pressure from advertisers;
more intense attempt to bribe journalists with perks and
cash; and putting pressure on media owners who are
vulnerable to government pressure because they own
businesses that are subject to official regulation.
Thus, while there exist open lines between government
and media at this time, this is subject to constant test due to
the latest incidents cited above.
New landscape
The landscape is also changing for Philippine media.
Patricia Arches, president of McCann Erickson Phils, cites
studies showing declining newspaper readership. In many
markets newspaper circulation is flat or declining while
paper costs and other resources continue to drives
advertising rates up. Today's youth, or those under 35,
have stopped reading newspapers which they consider as
their parents' medium. Says Arches: 'Newspapers
worldwide are coming to the realization that the era of
product-led internal decision-making in publishing is over,
and marketing-led decision making is taking hold. Media
owners are not steering the boat anymore, consumers are.'
But one welcome development in this new global
landscape is the Internet. With a very sensitive president
currently at the helm, some critical stories that had been
ignored by the major media have found its way on the
Internet. The first story on Estrada's unexplained wealth by
the PCIJ was circulated largely on the email. The website
of the PCIJ also had a high record of visits in the aftermath
of the stories. The new media is largely unexplored, but has
potential for keeping alive the flow of information needed
by a public hungry for more independent news from
independent sources.
196
Conclusion
'The media, even in the freest countries, are therefore
squandering their potential to be an agent of positive
change, to preserve a diversity of views, to give a voice to
minorities, and to serve as feedback mechanism for
policymaking in a democracy,' says journalist Kunda
Dixit.
That is the real challenge. The present situation calls on
media to make a difficult balancing act between what a
democracy like the Philippines needs and what it wants.
Between this lies the role of media in fostering participatory
governance. The Philippine media has served as forum for
sectors and marginalized groups to air their grievances
against government and present their views about specific
government policies and decisions.
But because of its weaknesses cited above, media's
performance of that role leaves much to be desired.
Beyond advocacy, after all, is the public's need for
issues to be clarified, for events to be contextualized, and
for complex issues to be given a broader perspective. The
problem of the Philippines is not lack of information, but
lack of proper information. It is not lack of opinion but a
dearth of informed opinion.
Notes
Almonte, Jose T. (2000), Philippine Politics in Transition, Politik,
Ateneo Centre for Social Policy and Public Affairs.
Asian Intelligence (1997), a quarterly report on Asian business
and politics by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy
Ltd., Hong Kong.
Coronel, Sheila, The State of the Philippine Press, A paper
presented in various form in 1998.
Press Freedom Endangered: Real, A speech before the
Makati Business Club, 5 August 1999.
De Jesus, Melinda (1996), Asian Values: Do They Exist? Media
Asia, Asian Mass Communication Research and
Information Centre.
Philippines: The Problem with Freedom, News in Distress
(The Southeast Asian Media in a Time of Crisis), Philippine
Centre for Investigative Journalism and Dag Hammarskjold
Foundation.
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This paper was presented at the Amic Conference on 'Media and
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