The Ties that Bind

THE FEBRUARY election monitor of CMFR had already noted the ties that could possibly explain the favorable media mileage senatorial aspirant Martin Romualdez has been getting, particularly in The Standard. Sitting as chairman MST Management Inc., the paper’s publisher, is the Leyte representative’s brother Philip Romualdez, who also happens to be the husband of Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez, president and chief executive officer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

From February 21 to April 25, CMFR monitored the coverage by the Manila-based newspapers (Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin, The Manila Times, Daily Tribune, The Standard, BusinessMirror, BusinessWorld, and Malaya Business Insight) of Romualdez and found that The Standard had been giving him considerable attention, followed by the Inquirer. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1. Total number of reports on Martin Romualdez

A total of 51 stories on Romualdez were published during the period. The Standard still had the biggest share (35 reports) followed by the Inquirer (eight). The Inquirer published most of its stories on Romualdez in the News section, with one making it to the front page (“Aquino signs into law Romualdez’s PWD bill,” March 30), while stories in The Standard were placed in the inside pages. Stories found in Malaya and the Bulletin were mostly in small sections such as “Campaign Trail” for the former and “Newsbits” for the latter. (See Figure 2)

Figure 2. Placement of reports on Martin Romualdez

Full reports were published by The Standard in its inside pages, which chronicled the candidate’s stand on particular issues. For the month of March for example, the stories published on him were the following:

•             “Solons to House: Pity the PWDs” (March 1)
•             “Romualdez bats for CCT reforms” (March 3)
•             “PWD bill up for Pnoy’s approval” (March 3)
•             “‘Farm loans, cloud seeding to mitigate El Niño’s effects’” (March 4)
•             “SSS request for performance bonus immoral—lawmaker” (March 5)
•             “Romualdez posts gains in senatorial bet’s poll” (March 6)
•             “Solon pushes airports’ upgrade” (March 9)
•             “Romualdez, 4 others backed by 100 NGOs” (March 11)
•             “Romualdez takes up cudgels for newsmen” (March 14)
•             “Urban poor groups go for Romualdez” (March 15)
•             “Romualdez pushes climate department” (March 16)
•             “Romualdez hopeful on PWD bill” (March 18)
•             “Cavite leaders back Martin” (March 19)
•             “Romualdez batting for women’s rights and welfare” (March 23)
•             “Romualdez’s PWD bill signed into law” (March 30)
•             “Romualdez hails signing of ‘malasakit’ PWD law” (March 31)