Media at workBeating the war drums in Mindanao

By Ed Lingao
Published in PJR Reports, November-December 2011

ON Nov. 2, 2011, The Manila Times, the country’s oldest newspaper, came out with a banner story that outscooped everybody else.

“Mindanao War Inevitable,” the headline screamed in big black type across the entire width of the newspaper.

It was a startling, if not alarming, piece of prophetic journalism, especially since a careful reading of the article that followed the headline did not even quote anyone as saying that the dogs of war were certain to be let loose on those intransigent and extremely uncooperative Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in Al-Barka, Basilan. In fact, the nearest anyone in the article said anything that appeared to remotely support the headline was statement from a Palace functionary that government soldiers “will do their job” if MILF rebels refuse to surrender Dan Asnawi, one of the subleaders of the MILF troops in Al-Barka. Asnawi is reportedly the subject of an arrest warrant for his alleged participation in the beheadings of several Marine troopers in an encounter in Al-Barka in 2007.

“We have made it clear from the very beginning, from the onset that we are pursuing not the MILF but lawless elements,” the Times quoted Palace deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte as saying in a radio interview. “Either they cooperate or they stand aside and let our law enforcers do their jobs.”

Whether this quote translates into the inevitability of conflict in Mindanao remains to be seen—although an entire month later, a full-scale war has still not broken out in Mindanao. Either Times editors had read too much into the statements of their sources, or government officials have also become extremely intransigent, uncooperative, and unresponsive to the war drums being beaten by the Philippine media.

For several weeks after the failed October 18 Army mission into Al-Barka, many in the Philippine media were certainly busy beating the drums of war, or at least cheerleading those calling for Muslim blood. At that moment, Philippine media again showed their Achilles heels—the reporters, opinion writers and broadcast talking heads whose opinions are firmer than their facts, and whose prejudices are stronger than their belief in the concepts of fairness and accuracy.

• A major national newspaper insistently and consistently used the words “massacre” and “slaughter” to describe the fighting that left 19 soldiers dead. This, despite the fact that there was still no evidence to show that a “slaughter” or a “massacre” had taken place, instead of a firefight between two opposing, equally armed sides.
• The same newspaper, in a paragraph that claimed to explain the background of the peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government, said the rebels were asking for “a sovereign state.” And yet the MILF has consistently taken pains to stress that it was asking for a “sub-state” that was still under the Philippine government. Unfortunately, the use by the newspaper of the phrase “sovereign state” plays into the line of peace talks opponents who insist that the MILF is asking for an independent state. For the record, the first time MILF leaders announced that they were dropping their bid for an independent Bangsamoro homeland was in 1997.
• One national television network ran the headline: “Pangulong (Benigno) Aquino III, nagmamatigas pa rin laban sa all-out war.” “Hinimok ba ng station na magdeklara ng gyera si Aquino,” asked one Mindanao-based journalist. At one point, angry residents in Marawi City burned photos of the network’s news anchors allegedly because of the loaded language being used in the newscasts.
• The delicate issue of the P5 -million grant by the Philippine government to the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute (BLMI) as part of its commitment to the MILF peace talks was by far the easiest angle to spin because it involved two elements generally considered very sexy by media: money and guns. The announcement that Aquino’s government had given P5 million to an organization associated with the MILF was just too tempting for everyone with an opinion column or a radio show to resist : What if the money had been used to buy the bullets to kill those soldiers? In one radio show, the commentators wondered aloud if the money given to the BMLI had been deducted from the budget of the Philippine National Police or the Armed Forces of the Philippines. “PNoy, Galante sa MILF!” screamed the headline of one popular television program.

Next Page>>