Elections 2016 Archives

Exposing the Perversion of the Party-List System

CHEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer for looking into the state of the party-list system. In “Perversion of party-list system hit; SC blamed,” the Inquirer reported how the party-list system, which was supposed to improve the representation of marginalized sectors in the House of Representatives, has been “perverted”...

Election Day Reporting: Television Trumps Other Media

By: Melinda Quintos de Jesus with research by the CMFR Staff A Review of Campaign Coverage NEWS MEDIA plays a significant role in the campaign period. News and commentary, investigative reports and factual accounts contribute to the positive or negative projection of a candidate, the manipulation of public perception and...

TV5 Beats Rivals in News and Production Values During Election Day Coverage

TV5’s vote count MOST CHANNELS enhanced presentations with the standard polish of TV newscasting, but TV5’s countdown on the night of May 9 was a clear winner. CMFR noted TV5’s innovative efforts to make their coverage stylish and informative. More important, given the quality of vote tracking, the anchors...

Collective Voting in 2016

No Religious Vote LAST MAY 1, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released a “pastoral appeal” which said, “The Catholic Church has never asked any political candidate to seek its endorsement, but the Catholic Church has always demanded of Catholic voters that they cast their votes as an...

Television Rules: Bullying etc. Damage Social Media Credibility

By: Luis V. Teodoro TELEVISION RATHER than social media was the main source of public information on election-related developments during the 2016 campaign and elections. It was not only due to television’s still having the longest reach (90 percent of the population) of all the media compared to that...

Online Sites Push Envelope through Visuals

CHEERS TO several news websites and online platforms of news organizations for the effective use of visuals on the breakdown of votes. News organizations started reporting the numbers garnered by candidates, as soon as the vote counting machines began transmitting results. On the digital platform, BilangPilipino.com, GMA...

TV News Programs as Campaign Logs

Editorial Note: Up to the last week before the elections the TV news programs remained neutral but failed to provide the critical information that citizens need when casting their vote. THERE IS no noticeable difference in how television news programs covered the elections from March 21 to April...

Electoral Cockfight and Horserace

PREVIOUS CMFR monitors have pointed out the dominance of election-related reports in primetime newscasts (“Campaign Trail Story Dominates Election News”). But the reports tend to be repetitive, providing mere updates on the candidates’ activities, among them such details as where they’ve been and what they said while on the...

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...

Sober Conclusion to the Presidential Debates

THE THIRD and last presidential debate organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was the sober conclusion of the PiliPinas Debates 2016 series, with less personal attacks and bickering among the candidates who, this time, were more focused on presenting their plans and platforms. The debate hosted by...