Daigdig will be publishing several pieces on the presidential candidates for the upcoming Philippine elections this May. The series of features will be called Irritants and will focus on an issue which persistently surrounds each of the candidates.
The hope is to finish the series before the actual elections.
With the Philippine Supreme Court prohibiting live television coverage of the Ampatuan trial, members of the media are quick to revisit the age-old question of how much should the general viewing public be allowed to know. This is, of course, to be weighed against the so-called rights of the accused (specifically, his rights against a trial by publicity).
Let us be truthful here. The Philippine media–no, the Metro Manila media–is arguably the most influential socio-political force in the country. Whether prohibiting the live coverage will harm the public’s right to information (which strictly applies to government documents and not judicial proceedings) is beside the point. The real truth is that the media can spin anything any which way it wants.
In a particularly interesting display of this influence, the ABS-CBN News Channel’s Media In Focus, hosted by Ces Oreña-Drilon, interviewed Supreme Court spokesperson Midas Marquez, ostensibly pitting him against one of the widows of the journalists killed in the Maguindanao Massacre. Marquez explained the logic behind the proscription of the High Court, and the priority list of people who are allowed to witness the proceedings (among them 30 members of the media). Oreña-Drilon then proceeded to ask the widow if she would attend the trial. The widow assented. She was then asked if it was possible for her to attend all the days of the trial, considering that she lived in Mindanao, and if she would like to have the proceedings shown on television if she couldn’t make it. She said yes. Oreña-Drilon then faced Marquez. What now?
This is the kind of questioning that is seen on most cross-examinations, where the lawyer already knows the answer, the answer that he wants. Marquez tried to reiterate the risks of influencing the mind of the judge should the trial be made public so that, as Atty. Theodore Te (another guest on the episode) said, “no judge can ever acquit Ampatuan.”
In the second batch of guests, Oreña-Drilon faced that question: has the coverage of the Ampatuan trial been fair so far, and will it, assuming that it is, continue to be so when the trial is covered? What strikes one as odd is that the people invited to answer this question are themselves members of the media. One of them, Marlon Purificacion, an officer of the National Press Club, even admitted to staging a protest movement by showing Atty. Sigfrid Fortun, Ampatuan’s legal counsel, photographs of the slain mediamen while they were covering the preliminary investigation. In the same coverage, there was an allegation that Ampatuan was intentionally hit with a camera. Such allegation aside, it does not take an imaginative mind to conclude that protesting against the lawyer of an accused (who is entitled to counsel, not to mention the right to presumed innocent until proven otherwise) belies the contention that the coverage has been fair, so far.
It has been fair, Purificacion claimed, even stating that it was Ampatuan who does not want to grant an interview. Coverage is one thing, what the media chooses to do with/to it is another.
Why is live television coverage important? At one point in the show, Oreña-Drilon said it was so that the public could be the judge of the proceedings themselves. Astonishing, considering that in the Philippine justice system, we have what is called a judge.
It is difficult to remain objective when a news item hits close to home, as in this case. But if one’s business is the relaying of information, it seems that choosing to be a mediaperson is like choosing to marry fairness and objectivity, for better or for worse. In this sense, maybe divorce has been legalized in our country.
So before weighing two constitutional rights against each other, the more fundamental question is whether the right to information is the right to be informed by the Philippine media.
Judgment always comes after the fact, and in terms of sheer number, determining whether 2010 is the most violent election year in Philippine history should be done after the elections. This is not to say that election-related violence is nonexistent after voting.
What bears emphasis, however, is the brazenness of the manner in which this sort of violence is being undertaken, this year. Leaving the massacre of member of the Mangudadatu family, as well as members of the media aside, two local council candidates from different Philippine provinces have been killed today alone.
Unfortunately, it hardly makes for interesting news the way these attacks are done, precisely because of their rampancy. The oft-repeated buzzword is desensitization, when something that is supposed to have a sensory register loses such because simply of repetition.
Indeed, the more gruesome an attack is carried out, the more we pay attention. What can be said of a society with a developing threshold for violence? How may such a cultural attitude seep into its way of life?
More importantly, how much are we willing to condone in this year’s elections?
Daigdig 