Take it or Leave it
BY JUN PRADO

The Bad News

The press in the Philippines has often been criticized for imbalanced reports by stressing the bad over the good news. The former strongman of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, in fact, offered an unsolicited advice that for the Philippines to achieve economic stability it should rid itself of free-wheeling and adversarial press.
In Singapore, as well as in Indonesia and Malaysia, the press is considered, not an adversary, but a partner or an accomplice of government.
In an article, “Different Views of Press Freedom,” Australian writer-diplomat John Milne said that in Indonesia, the government’s stated role for journalists is to provide a “positive interaction” among the three major components of the nation, namely the government, society and the press.
Indonesian journalists, according to Milne, are obliged “to promote public optimism for national development and exercise constructive social control.”
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, partners of the Philippines in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), do not have the free-wheeling press that we have.
Like Marcos and Suharto, Lee Kuan Yew who stepped down from power had an imperial rule over Singapore also for more than two decades.
In Malaysia, there is a strong state control of the media. On the other hand, the Philippines, after the departure of dictator Marcos, has fully recovered its press freedom as enshrined in our Constitution.
Writing bad news is one of the primary responsibilities of a democratic press. This will, of course, not endear media to the powers-that-be. “Nobody,” wrote Sophocles, “likes the man who brings bad news.”
But without the vigilance of media, how can shenanigans in government could have been exposed; the likes of the P100,000 Christmas bonus for each congressman, the construction of the presidential “Borloloy” palace, the multi-billion dollar called the Petroscam, the government’s unannounced NBN broadband deal worth millions of US dollars with China’s ZTE Corporation, the involvement of the First Gentleman with regards the WB-financed road construction projects, etcetera, etcetera.
The honorable Senators of the Republic would have imported their luxury cars had the media been on the government’s side as in the case of Singapore and Indonesia.
There are those, like Lee Kuan Yew, who asked that the media here in this beloved country of ours, should be tamed in order for the Philippines to grow economically. Not a few are saying that to strengthen democracy in this country, it is necessary to weaken the media.
According to them, the media has become licentious, indulging more in destructive rather than constructive criticisms and, in effect, aiding enemies of the State, the destabilization from the Left and the Right.
But a free press, as what Jefferson and other political thinkers have said, is one of the cornerstones of a democracy. Democracy cannot survive or only be a lip-service if people are gagged. The press should be the vital link between the people and the State institutions.
Without a strong and independent press, the public will have practically no way of keeping track of what the government is doing, as in the case of the Marcos regime. It was only after Marcos’ departure that Filipinos knew that their government had incurred close to $30 billion in foreign debt. Measures, therefore, that will limit press freedom, are dangerous. To clip media’s power is to embolden government functionaries to do what they want without consideration of the public good.
As Peter Stoler, in his book, The War Against the Press, says, by imposing restrictions on media, “the public would not only punish the press; it would also punish itself.”
Stoler adds that restricting the press may keep it from reminding people that they are less than perfect.
Weakening the press, according to Stoler, will strengthen the hand of government and allow it and its officials to conduct their business free from the scrutiny they so frequently find embarrassing.