Inhumane and tasteless

JEERS TO TV Patrol Southern Tagalog for trivializing the plight of protesting workers and producing a report that was offensive, inhumane, and tasteless.

In a May 22 news report that featured residents of CALABARZON’s  (shorthand for Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon provinces) supposedly looking for ways to cool off in the face of unwonted summer heat, the  workers of Tanduay Distillers, Inc. in Cabuyao, Laguna, who have been on strike over the dismissal of 150 of their fellows from the company, were shown being dispersed by company guards with a water cannon. The reporter accompanied the clip with the statement, “Sa Cabuyao, Laguna naman, sinamantala ng mga raliyistang ito ang pagbubuga sa kanila ng tubig. Lumalapit pa ang mga ito para lalo silang basain.”(Meanwhile, in Cabuyao, Laguna, rallyists used the water being sprayed to them as a means to cool themselves. They even approach the water cannon in order to get wet.) (“Mga taga-CALABARZON, kanyan-kanyang diskarte para labanan ang init,” TV Patrol Southern Tagalog, May 22, 2015)

The Tanduay workers have been on strike since May 18 after receiving a memorandum ordering  96  employees to stop reporting for work. The contractual workers are demanding  the regularization of at least 397 workers, a wage hike and provisions for labor safety.  Violent  confrontations have since been taking place, with the company’s security guards and alleged “hired goons”  resorting to water cannon that spew water and sand, and other means to disperse the picketers.

Contrary to the report, the protesters shown in the video were only standing outside the gate of the Asia Brewery compound and were not approaching the water cannon. Although some of the workers were lengthily interviewed by the reporter, not a word about the issues in the strike was ever mentioned in the aired report.  Instead, the issues were sidetracked and trivialized in a mindless spin.

Given the lack of coverage of this issue as can be observed in much of the media, with The Philippine Daily Inquirer (“Violence erupts as Tanduay workers go on strike,” May 19, 2015) and InterAksyon (“KMU hit Lucio Tan, Baldoz over violence vs Tanduay strike,” May 25, 2015) being the only mainstream media organizations that have reported on it so far, the situation could not have been more opportune for presenting the plight of the workers.  Yet TV Patrol Southern Tagalog chose to poke fun at a serious matter that affects the livelihood, and ultimately, the families of the hundreds of contractual labourers at the picket line. This kind of reporting not only violates the fundamental responsibility of truth- telling but also that of humaneness, which demands that journalists look at their subjects as fellow human beings  rather than as means to an end. TV Patrol Southern Tagalog could have done better, but didn’t.