Team Unity: Groaning under the weight of media’s demands

Covering the Campaigns
Team Unity
Groaning under the weight of media’s demands
By Leilani Lee

CANDIDATES DO the most unexpected things during a campaign. They do so for additional media mileage and in the hope that those precious moments on television or paragraphs in the newspapers would result in more votes.
Thus, one sees a video footage of 80-year-old re-electionist Sen. Joker Arroyo trying whitewater rafting in Cagayan de Oro or Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III playing basketball—or at least posing in  basketball attire—with re-electionist Sen. Ralph Recto.
The three belong to the administration’s Team Unity (TU), whose other candidates include Sen. Edgardo Angara, representatives Prospero Pichay Jr. and Juan Miguel Zubiri, governors Vicente Magsaysay and Luis “Chavit” Singson, former presidential chief of staff Michael “Mike” Defensor,  former senators Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and Teresa “Tessie” Aquino-Oreta, and actor Cesar Montano.
Two weeks into the cam-paign, TU adopted the American style of campaigning, which meant holding town hall meetings  called Pulong Sulong.
The 12 candidates were divided into three teams that went to the different regions. Upon reaching a region, the four members of a team parted ways to campaign in four different provinces.

A logistical nightmare
Several staff members working for the candidates described the setup as a logistical nightmare. In addition, they said the town hall meetings were not getting enough media coverage. Television crews, for example, would choose one or two candidates to cover in a sortie and then leave.
As the campaign period for the local elections drew near, Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, who is also spokesman for TU, announced a shift in strategy.  All candidates would now go to every province and then spread to the different towns where the Pulong Sulong would be held. Before going to the towns, however, the  candidates would be holding a press conference.
It was not a pleasant experience for neophyte can-didate Montano, said one of the actor’s aides.
Being the crowd drawer, Montano would be required to be at the campaign site ahead of the other candidates. In a number of cases, he was also asked to be the last speaker to ensure that the people remained in the hall until the end of the political rally.
“Imagine, we would be there for four hours while the other candidates would come only when it was their time to speak,” the aide said. “Now we are wiser. We ask that Cesar be allowed to speak first and then leave for another engagement.”
Because the candidates simply repeat their spiels in every town they visit, these are no longer written about in the press. Instead, reporters ask candidates for the latter’s reactions to issues of the day. Sometimes, news stories are written about what the candidates did while cam-paigning, such as when Singson donated money for a raffle in El Salvador, Misamis Oriental—an act of generosity that caught the attention of the Commission on Elections.

A well-oiled machinery
The administration ticket has a well-oiled machinery and the press benefits from this as well.  Meals are held in fancy restaurants, if there are any in the area, and media members freely avail themselves of these.
In the first proclamation rally in Cebu, several members of the press went home with a box of danggit (a special type of dried fish). In Pampanga, some went home with watermelons bought from a fruit stand along the highway.
In other sorties, some media members were given pocket money of at least P1,200 each, purportedly for “cellphone load and pambili ng pasalubong,” said some reporters covering the sorties.
Despite these “accommo-dations,” aides of the candidates complain that some media members still “ask for allowances, transportation, and other freebies” during their coverage of sorties—expenses which are supposed to be shouldered by their respective news organizations, said a reporter.
In some areas, money was openly given to some members of the press, ranging from  P1,000 to P20,000, according to the accounts of different reporters.
There are some reporters, however, who “say no politely and they would be spared,” a female reporter said. The same reporter said that some media handlers had told her that they would often hide or just ignore the phone calls of some members of the press who let them know they were expecting “something” after every coverage during the campaign.

Bukol
“We do shoulder the accommodation expenses sometimes since it is very important for us to get media mileage. We spend for the food as well but not everyone asks for this freebie. Plane fares are too much so we just provide for land transportation,” the female reporter said, quoting her source.
In some instances, reporters would request that a certain candidate meet them for a press conference and would give specific names of media people who could be invited, she added.
On the other hand, some reporters also complained that certain media handlers would use the names of the journalists to ask for a budget from the candidates but would only pocket the money for themselves, according to the female reporter.
The practice,  referred to as bukol, is done by media handlers and by reporters as well.
The reporter said, “Of course, there are media handlers who really pay but only because there are those who accept it. It’s like the chicken-and-egg question: which came first? But there is no bribery when nobody from the media accepts the money being offered him or her.” n

Leilani Lee is the pseudonym of a reporter who has been in the media  for 10 years. Assigned to a major political beat, she now covers the elections.

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