Media in the Philippines and Thailand: States of Emergency and the Press
Media in the Philippines and Thailand
States of Emergency and the Press
By Roby Alampay
BANGKOK—On Feb. 24, 2006, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo placed the Philippines under a state of national emergency, claiming that her government had uncovered yet another plot to topple her administration.
Invoking a newly-minted presidential proclamation—PP 1017—the President ordered the detention of oppositionists tagged in the alleged plot, the arrest of prominent personalities who were quick to denounce the state of emergency, and the padlocking of a newspaper known to be sympathetic to the opposition.
As police raided the office of The Daily Tribune, the Arroyo government ominously warned that the media should refrain from publishing “baseless rumors” that could further destabilize the country. Government officials likewise hinted of a possible takeover of public utilities, including media organizations. Officials insisted that they had merely asked the press to be patient and understanding. The media could aggravate the situation by sowing confusion, it was argued.
Even as it tried to make sense of the imagined or preempted coup, the Philippine press would have none of it. Media organizations and journalists supported the Tribune and government critics by legally challenging PP 1017 before the Supreme Court, thereby making a mockery of the government’s pleas to refrain from being too aggressive in their reporting of the coup.
Arroyo won the latest round against her challengers within the military. But not her battle with media. In the end, the Supreme Court sided with the Tribune and the media community that rallied around their colleagues. The high tribunal rebuked the government for flouting the Constitution and its guarantees of freedom of the press and of expression. It declared that the government may have the power to issue PP 1017 and declare a national emergency but in applying those powers to gag journalists, the administration had overstepped the bounds of the Constitution.
Thai coup
Months later, a successful military putsch 2,000 km from Manila would invite a familiar debate on the role of the free press in abnormal and unstable times.
On Sept. 19, 2006 in Thailand, a general led a bloodless coup to unseat Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. As coup leader Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin ordered tanks to secure Bangkok’s symbolic centers of control, the military asserted its control over all media in the kingdom.
Indeed, the late night coup became known when radio and TV programs gave way to the uniform playing of royalist songs. International cable news channels—CNN and BBC, specifically—were blocked. Via text messages and MSN chat rooms, Thais realized that rumors going around in the past months had finally come true.
Within the week following the coup, gatekeepers to the Internet (webmasters and online forum administrators) would themselves be warned and receive guidelines on proper conduct. Two online discussion boards popular with the academe and the younger Thai set, www.midnightuniv.org and www.prachatai.com, were targeted by the new government for the vigorous debates they had been hosting about the coup. Midnight University was blocked within a week. Prachatai.com received explicit “requests” to be stricter in choosing the contents for its site.
The official rationale for the state of media affairs was the same in Thailand as it was in the Philippines. Thai military leaders stated that abnormal times called for understanding and patience from all sectors. The media were not exempted from this demand.
In fairness to them, journalists in Thailand have largely enjoyed unrestricted movement in the country notwithstanding the imposition of martial law. Thais also do seem to have continuing access to the Internet in general as a vital source of diverse and independent news.
But there is no question that the governing council’s tolerance has limits. On Sept. 21, just two days after the coup—and as Filipinos remembered the declaration of martial law in their own country 34 years ago—the Thai junta ordered TV executives to stop posting people’s SMS messages about the coup. Radio programs were told to desist from airing call-in commentaries from their listeners. Outside of Bangkok, around 300 community radio stations were suspended.
Intermittent reports and complaints persist that CNN and BBC are still being blocked whenever their reports carry news about Thaksin.
At a recent forum at the Thai Foreign Correspondents’ Club, a senior reporter of Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper wondered aloud why his interview with the administrator of Midnight University had yet to see print.
Self-censorship, many Thai journalists now acknowledge, has become a problem in the newsrooms. The supposed “normalcy” in the working environment for journalists continues only with the tolerance of the junta.
Some of the initially suspended radio stations have since been allowed to go back on air. Newspapers are printing their usual runs. But official guidelines for censorship remain. The military maintains control over the airwaves. And with only an interim constitution keeping watch over Thailand, there is no official guarantee that press freedom is secure in the kingdom.
Lessons
It may be worth their while for Filipino journalists to imagine how things could have been had they not rejected the Arroyo government’s urgings to be more cooperative, and had the high court been swayed by the argument that restricting the press was essential to regaining order. At the same time, the Thai press may also find the Philippine experience worth thinking about.
For both countries, the nagging questions remain: Is it valid to argue that abnormal times justify restrictions on the press? And does it follow that a free press will do nothing but aggravate instability?
In ruling on PP 1017, the Supreme Court of the Philippines recognized the constitutional authority of the President to order the Armed Forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence. But the court drew the line on the government’s interpretation that it had the authority to stifle press freedom.
Such limits and distinctions obviously do not apply to Thailand, which has its own charter (which, however, was trashed by the coup and the consequent imposition of martial law). But the Philippine media’s successful argument to leave them out of the government campaign for order and stability may offer interesting points for consideration in Thailand or indeed anywhere else where claims of democracy persist alongside the theory that press freedom can be a destabilizing force.
The Philippine Supreme Court, for example, stressed that under the Constitution, “the President, in the absence of a legislation, cannot take over privately owned public utility and private business affected with public interest.” Independent media fall under this category of industries imbued with public interest.
At the same time, there is the actual experience to learn from. Notwithstanding the insistence of the press to remain free, there is little evidence that its independence had gotten in the way of anything the government wanted to do or achieve. Indeed, not only did the Philippines not descend into violence but the Arroyo government went on to commit other controversial and legally questioned moves against its perceived enemies on the left and on the right.
The Supreme Court’s backing of press freedom, therefore, was not only laudable; it proved to be vital. The government, it had determined, had no right to limit the movement of the press. On the contrary, a free press was needed to keep the government in check in abnormal times.
Roby Alampay is executive director of the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), an alliance of free press advocacy groups from the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility is a founding member of SEAPA.
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