Press freedom should be free

How easily those in government seem to forget the lessons of History. If it had happened twenty years ago I doubt that President Gloria Arroyo, if she were the President of the Republic then, would have closed down the Daily Tribune on the ground that its news reporters and columnists were inciting or were tending to incite readers to the crime of sedition. If he were already the Justice Secretary in 1986 I cannot imagine Secretary Raul Gonzales suggesting a "Rogues' Gallery" of media persons and coup plotters suspected of inciting the people to sedition.

The country having just freed itself from the Marcos Dictatorship and having felt first-hand how bleak life was with a muzzled Press, no self-respecting Filipino, much less President GMA and Secretary Gonzales, would have thought of threatening the Tribune with closure. No sir, better a critical, even bitter media, than one which is not free, Madame GMA and Attorney Gonzales would probably have declared in 1985. Today, 21 years after Mr. Marcos fled to Hawaii, our constitution and our laws on press freedom and inciting to sedition are still the same. It seems, though, as if our national leaders look at a critical press already differently. Now, they are the "enemy", to be charged criminally in court and to have their pictures plastered all over the country together with coup plotters. Marcos and his dictatorial government would have done that. It is hard to believe any government administration after him would do the same.

A free press is one of the pillars of democracy. Its protection is so important that the Supreme Court, in U.S. vs. Bustos (37 Phil. 731) even went so far as to declare it "so sacred to the people of these Islands and won at so dear a cost, [that it] should now be protected and carried forward as one would protect and preserve the covenant of liberty itself". A free press is our guarantee that citizens would be made so aware about what is happening to the country that no dictator can ever rise up from the ashes of the martial law regime that our nation once suffered from.

Of course a free untrammeled press can get rowdy and even malicious at times. Some sectors in media can get to be so one-sided against the Arroyo Administration that the President and all the President's men may feel definitely threatened. But look at the other end of the media spectrum - the government owned/controlled newspapers, radio and television stations are just as heavily biased in their presentation, though this time so in favor of Mrs. Arroyo and her Administration as to be just as incredibly unbelievable as the rowdy group on the other side. Both do not report the news fairly and accurately, but even they serve a purpose in a democracy - they allow us, the citizens, a chance to weigh one from the other, and to determine which bits of information to use when we collectively form what is known as Public Opinion.

A little reminder to our leaders in Government - we the citizens and your constituents do not believe in biased media lock, stock and barrel. This includes those whom you are thinking of charging with inciting to sedition, and the ones whom you have hired to make us believe that the President and her men can do no wrong, that everything is fine and dandy with the Nation even though the rumbling thunder everyone hears is the collective sound of millions of empty stomachs.

Don't you worry, biased media cannot fool Public Opinion. Do not think that a few rabid souls can get the country against you so much that 65 percent are reportedly of the belief that the President ought to step down. These media persons biased against you have as much chance to influence us citizens as your own reporters, columnists and commentators have to make us believe that your Administration is our gift from God.

Go ahead with your Government propaganda, with your praise releases and with your glowing accounts of successes. You have earned that right after People Power 1. But in the same vein leave those who disagree with you alone. Do not forget that, at one time, twenty or so years ago, you were with the "disagreeing lot", and you treasured your constitutional right to disagree with the same or even more passion than the editorial staff of the Daily Tribune or the telecasters of ABS-CBN whom you are now threatening with prosecution.

What we're saying is "Leave Press Freedom as it should be - Free."*

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