Monitors

Rumors of a plot to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from Malacañang were again rife in February and March. Malacañang gave credence to the talk as it cited the alleged conspiracy among the elements of the opposition, the extreme Left, and the extreme Right to bring down the Arroyo administration as basis for the issuance of Presidential Procla-mation no. 1017 on Feb. 24, putting the country under a state of national emergency.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer did a three-part series from March 11 to 13 chronicling the involve-ment of high-ranking Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) officials in the alleged Feb. 24 coup plot that was supposed to have involved AFP chief Generoso Senga and Army Chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon. The series also reported on civilian personalities who were being considered for a transition government that was to immediately replace the Arroyo administration.
Without doubt, the report was thoroughly researched. It offered the public a glimpse of the events that transpired at the height of the politically tense week of February, when the country was celebrating the 20th anniversary of People Power I.
The use of unknown sources was certainly understandable, given the sensitive information contained in the reports. But without identifiable sources who could corroborate the informa-tion given by those who prefer to remain anonymous, the series had a high degree of deniability. And that was exactly what some of the top military officials identified in the series promptly did. Esperon was quoted as saying that the Inquirer was “provoking a fight among the top brass.” There was even a report that the military was planning to file appropriate charges against the paper.

The benefits of a rewind
When the justice department announced that the police was ready to arrest former senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan for his alleged involvement in the 2003 Oakwood mutiny, the former senator quickly went into hiding. With the man of the hour on the run, Saksi on March 17 went back to its files and unearthed Honasan’s interview with the defunct GMA-7 program Brigada Siete in 1995. In the nine-year-old interview, Honasan explained how he managed to elude authorities when he was charged for leading several coup attempts against then President  Corazon Aquino.

The Manila Times bannered on March 16 that Honasan was the “ringleader of the nipped plot to install a junta after President Arroyo has been toppled” (“Gringo was to lead transition ‘troika’”). The report identified Honasan as the chairman of the Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, a group of soldiers who also took part in the Oakwood mutiny. The basis? A military intelligence report which “describes the setup of the transition government and the personalities who would com-pose it.” It supposedly con-firmed the alliance between Magdalo soldiers and com-munist rebels against the administration
According to the report, Honasan would join Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and retired colonel Jake Malahacan as members of the “coordination council” while Senate  President   Franklin Drilon and former President Aquino would compose the council’s “outer circle,” and Estrada and Lacson the “inner circle.”
The report was based solely on an intelligence report and did not have any corroboration from other sources.

Many reports on alleged destabilization plots hardly bothered to differentiate which information had basis and which were plain rumors. But some papers looked into the veracity of these alleged plots. Such was the March 2 report of the Inquirer that raised doubts about the existence of “Final Talk 2” (“‘Final Talk 2’ a tall tale, says lawyer,” p. A7). “Final Talk 2” was a supposed planned alliance “between communist guerrillas and rebel soldiers” which was allegedly contained in a computer flash disk seized from rebel leader 1st Lt. Lawrence San Juan who was arrested on Feb. 21.
The report noted that San Juan’s arresting police officers “did not report any computer files or documents found in his possession” during the arrest and that it was only “six days later when authorities claimed that they had recovered from him several documents and flash disks that contained an 18-page document detailing an agree-ment between the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Makabayang Kawal Pilipino (MKP) to bring down the Arroyo government.”
The report focused on the gap in the days between San Juan’s arrest and the military’s declaration of the existence “Final Talk 2.” It also got the side of San Juan’s lawyer who denied that his client had a flash disk when he was arrested.
The Inquirer report was useful in detecting a propaganda spin.

Fingering the Times
Was it lack of vocabulary or was it too much imagination?
The Manila Times banner story on March 14 had the headline: “Hooded ex-NPA fingers Dinky.” The story was about government witness Jaime Beltran Fuentes who identified former social welfare secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman as a coup plotter. Fuentes was supposedly a former member of the New People’s Army who claimed to have first-hand knowledge of the conspiracy to oust President Arroyo, a claim denied by leftist groups.
While the term “finger” obviously referred to Fuentes’s act of accusing Soliman as a coup plotter, its malicious undercur-rents cannot go unnoticed. As a verb, the term “finger” first refers to the “touch or feel (something) with the fingers,” as in the sentence: “The thin man fingered his moustache.” (The New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition: 2005) “Finger” can also be used when one plays a musical instrument, especially in a tentative or casual manner, such as in the sentence: “A woman fingered a lute.”
Inquirer columnist Rina Jimenez David criticized the Times headline in her March 15 column, saying it “smacks of sensationalism, to say the least.”

Left out in the rain
Manila Standard Today’s March 14 banner smacked of bias. The story, “Lawmakers linked to coup snub probe,” reported that the party-list congressmen accused of conspiring to oust Arroyo (known as the “Batasan Five”) “failed to show up for their preliminary investigation yes-terday, even though the proceedings were held in the same building complex in which they had sought refuge.”
Readers might have thought that the solons indeed snubbed the preliminary investigation. But a closer look at the report would show otherwise, in fact it carried a denial from the lawmakers that it was a boycott, and said “they received copies of the subpoena—originally scheduled for the afternoon—a few minutes before the proceedings.”

Was it Marcos who started everything that’s wrong with the government?
The recent crackdown on leftist congressmen who allegedly planned to oust Arroyo brought back memories of Martial Law when then President Ferdinand Marcos imprisoned political enemies. But the similarity goes back a longer way in the country’s political history. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journa-lism recalled that in 1946, leftist lawmakers were prevented from taking their seats in Congress despite the fact that they were elected. It is an incident “that is hardly mentioned in Philippine history.” (“Haunted by the past”).

It looked harmless enough but only at first glance. Although Executive Order no. 511 was issued by President Arroyo to ostensibly create a new communication group that would integrate and supervise all public information dissemination activities of the executive branch of the government, media was quick to smell a rat. The EO includes a provision on advertisements from government agencies, including government financial institutions and government-owned or -controlled corpora-tions. With media dependent on ad revenues, including those from government, the EO made sinister sense.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported the views of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. that the administration could use this EO “to threaten media companies critical of the administration with an ad boycott.” The paper remembered only too well the five-month ad boycott declared by the Estrada administration in which the Inquirer lost tens of millions of pesos in forgone revenues (“Palace to regulate all gov’t ad budgets,” March 23). The next day, the paper got the reactions of prominent media organizations and government officials on the EO.
News programs like TV Patrol World and Insider likewise got the side of Cerge Remonde, who heads the government-owned media organizations.

Right away, The Daily Tribune came up with a March 23 report on EO 511 declaring, “Palace bans gov’t ads in critical media.”   Its lead went, “President Arroyo is tightening the noose on the media critical of her alleged cheating, lying and stealing ways, the subject of an impeachment case that was filed against her last year but was killed by her allies in the House of Representatives.”
The headline and the lead shoots down several journalistic rules all at once: accuracy (No “ban” has yet been declared or imposed), objectivity (the word “alleged” somehow doesn’t remove the sting from the words that followed it), clarity and coherence (readers may wonder if a copy editor was present on that day).

When a kiss is not a kiss
Jaded as they are, even journalists at the top of the totem pole can have problems with guests who can be intimidating. With the weight of her office behind her, President Arroyo took advantage of an interview by GMA-7’s Mike Enriquez to hit back at media that have criticized her. And she did it the old-fashioned way, by praising her interviewer.
In her first media interview after lifting the state of national emergency, Arroyo told Enri-quez, “Para sa akin, Mike, huwag mong akalain na ako ay naglalangis sa iyo, pero ikaw, isa kang huwarang journalist. Nambabatikos ka, ikaw ay hindi isang langisero, pero gayon pa man, hindi ka seditious.”
“Iyong kultura ninyo dito ng responsible journalism palagay ko iyan din ang dahilan kung bakit Number 1 kayong malayo ngayon. Malayo doon sa Number 2. Kaya taumbayan mismo ay kinikilala kung sino ang responsible at kung sino ang hindi,” added Arroyo, taking a potshot at ABS-CBN.
Enriquez barely defended the media and its role as the watchdog of the government, and could only come up with a meek question when Arroyo started lambasting the press. He asked, “Pero responsible naman ang media sa pangkalahatan, di ba, Mrs. President?”
After Arroyo said that it was GMA-7’s “responsible journa-lism” that made them Number 1, Enriquez could only reply: “Naloko na.”
But what did a kiss from the President really mean? Was GMA-7 scrubbing its cheeks later that night when 24 Oras featured Enriquez’s interview with Arroyo but without focusing on her statements favoring the station and criticizing the others, including its rival?
Rival ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol World promptly quoted Arroyo’s statements and got the reactions of BusinessMirror editor Lourdes Fernandez and Times columnist Larry Sipin on the continued clampdown on the media.
In his blog, a former Enriquez fan, lawyer Theodore Te (of the Free Legal Assistance Group) disdainfully wrote: “To say that Mike was fawning over Gloria is gross understatement. Not even Ronnie Nathanielsz was that bad and at least, for Nathanielsz, it was under-standable. But for Mike E. who attempted to project a sense of objectivity and independence? And even through the airwaves, you could feel palpably Mike’s chest (and head) swell when the dictator rewarded him with effusive praise on air” (“Tumiklop si Saksi,” ).
Knowing disaster when it sees one, GMA-7 tried to put a spin on the lamentable Enriquez interview by running an ad quoting personalities who in the past attested to its fair and balanced coverage. It included oppositionists such as former President Joseph Estrada and Susan Roces—and was that ABS-CBN’s Maria Ressa?  Its cheeks red from scrubbing off the President’s kiss, GMA-7 also showed a past incident where Arroyo berated GMA-7 reporter Tina Panganiban-Perez for interviewing former Sen. Gregorio Honasan in the wake of the Oakwood mutiny in 2003 (Honasan was accused of being involved in the mutiny). “Ginagawa lang naman natin iyong trabaho natin,” Perez was quoted saying.

ABC-5 reporter Jove Francisco discussed the issue in his blog, mentioning the Perez incident and how GMA-7 at that time was “painted in a bad light.” He said: “They were the target AT THAT TIME.”
He scored Arroyo for her “selective amnesia,” recalling the time when ABS-CBN was Arroyo’s media darling.
“Don’t you remember those times? Those times when ABS-CBN News got first crack of her reactions to many develop-ments? Korina Sanchez and even Boy Abunda, di ba? When she declared she’s not running anymore in Baguio City, she granted my kumpare Gene Orejana an interview, right?” Francisco wrote.

The Manila Times on March 20 quoted a source from the intelligence community as saying that the authorities were monitoring a news editor and a female reporter from a Manila-based newspaper. The two reportedly met with a Chinese-Filipino believed to be financing destabilization efforts and coming out with exposés on alleged anomalies in the government. The source was unnamed (“2 journalists met up with coup financier”).
Had the source been identi-fied, his claim corroborated and the two journalists named, then a witch-hunt of journalists wouldn’t have happened. As such, it fueled much speculation, with the names of Gerry Lirio and Fe Zamora of the Inquirer as those journalists being watched. Lirio and Zamora both denied meeting with a Chinese-Filipino coup financier. So did the government. And that left the Times holding an empty bag.

When reporters protest too much
Malaya reported on March 20 that Malacañang reporters were now subjected to various restrictions, including the time they spend in the media office.
The report (“Mediamen no longer welcome at Malaca-ñang?”) said: “Last Friday, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye earned the ire of some reporters when he ordered that the regular Friday merienda be brought up to the New Executive Building (also called Borloloy), where his new office and the new MPC press office are being set up so the media will attend his briefing there and have me-rienda afterward.”
“Several reporters opted not to go feeling that they were being baited with ‘mami’ and ‘siopao,’ the report said.
Just two questions: In the first place, aren’t Malacañang reporters there to cover events, such as statements made by public officials like Bunye, whether or not merienda is offered? Would the reporters have been so sensitive about the matter if they were used to bringing or buying their own merienda on Friday or any day of the week?
Malaya also said that under the Arroyo administration, “presi-dential issuances and documents are no longer handed out to reporters, unlike in the Ramos and Estrada administrations.” It added that during Ramos’s time, “documents were given out complete with background information, including income tax returns of the President and statements of assets and liabilities.”
That means added work for the press but isn’t getting documents and background information part of their job as journalists? Like the Friday merienda, has the press gotten too comfortable with the pam-perings made by the institutions they cover?
The Times on March 22 reported on a different gripe of Palace reporters—a stricter dress code imposed by the Palace.
“Failing to control ‘freedom of the press,’ Malacañang instead resorted to imposing a stricter dress code,” began the article with the headline, “Dress code used to browbeat press.” The article said that two reporters were warned by Presidential Security Guards that they would not be allowed to enter Kalayaan Hall (which houses the press center) if they wore maong pants the next time.
“As a common practice and protocol, reporters who cover the activities of the President in the Palace compound should at least wear slacks or semi-formal attire,” the report said. “But when there is no scheduled official function, reporters are allowed to wear any kind of pants.”
Should the wearing of maong pants of the reporters be an issue at all? For the record, old timers in the press always considered it part of their job to comport themselves well during coverage. And that means dressing appropriately. It has more to do with respecting an institution (like the presidency) than the person occupying it.
Two lessons here for the press: Bring your own baon. Review your wardrobe.

How was it like back then? In an article written by Ramon R. Tuazon of the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC), BusinessWorld ran a study that focused on the laws and unwritten guidelines during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos that had the effect of stifling media (“Media Censorship 101: The Marcos years” March 17-18).
According to the study, one of the decrees that “operated as prior restraints” was PD 970 which  increased the penalty for authors of rebellious or seditious literature.
The study cited unwritten guidelines for the press that prohibited the media from reporting anything critical of the First Family and any story that would jeopardize national security.

There was a very important piece of information that The Philippine Star left out (“Renewal of Pagcor franchise backed,” Feb. 24) in the story about the application for a renewal of franchise by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor).        The story did not provide PAGCOR’s background or short history – necessary to contextualize its newsworthiness. Focused on the plans to extend the franchise of PAGCOR, the report failed to explain how the government-founded gaming corporation became a franchise virtually supported by invest-ments from foreign companies.

Manila Bulletin missed a crucial data in its March 12 business story, “ADB lists NPC privatization con-cerns.” It did not mention any time frame insofar as the ADB feasibility study of the National Power Corp. privatization was concerned.
On the side, newspapers would really be better off using the acronym Napocor, instead of NPC when identifying the National Power Corp. Napocor is the more popular name of the state-owned power firm.

In the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s March 11 article, “Consumers see better times ahead,” readers were properly introduced to a key variable used in an economic forecast—the diffusion index or DI.
The report’s explanation was very simple: DI is “the percentage share of respondents who answered in the affirmative less those who answered negative in a given indicator.” It said that a “negative DI indicates a bearish view when measuring confidence levels.”

The BusinessMirror report “‘Peso won’t breach 50:$1’” (March 8) quoted former central bank governor Jose Cuisia as saying that the peso won’t breach the 50:$1 level “based on fundamentals.” The story cited enough background on the peso’s upsurge, but it did not say what fundamentals Cuisia was referring to.

Malaya’s March 2 story “No gov’t takeovers: Favila” was a virtual press release from the secretary’s office. It had no other inputs except Favila’s statements on the feared government takeover of the businesses.

The BusinessWorld article “Gov’t seeks strict car import ban” (Feb. 27) tackled the Supreme Court’s prohibition on the importation of used cars without even mentioning, among other things, how many second-hand cars have been imported and sold so far. Neither was any mention made of what a stricter automobile importation would mean for the local car industry, the importers, the economy, and the consumers.

In less than three minutes, 24 Oras was able to cover last Feb. 28 the positive, negative, and neutral effects on the economy of the controversial Presidential Proclamation 1017.
It quoted Philippine Stock Exchange Director Alejandro Yu as saying that several govern-ment financial institutions, like the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System, bought stocks to pro-bably to offset the effects of 1017. Standard & Poor’s was cited as saying that the country’s credit rating will remain despite the crisis and government inter-vention. It also reported on Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya’s explanation that buying stocks was a usual practice of the GSIS and SSS.

On March 15, The Big News reported that the unemployment rate in the country increased from 7.4 to 8.1 percent. The report merely cited an estimate of 30 million employees and three million unemployed workers.  It didn’t answer the question on every reader’s mind: Why the rise in unemployment figures?

Not quite the end for PP 1017
How else to cover a lightning rally but with lightning speed?
The arrest of former social welfare secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman and Black and White Movement convenor Vicente Romano last March 17 was on TV news programs as flash reports.
Newspapers provided the much-needed analysis while websites and blogs discussed the arrest of the two anti-Arroyo personalities wearing the same black protest shirts while about to take a stroll at the Baywalk.

Reports echoed the views of various sectors on the government’s continued suppression of civil liberties even after the lifting of the state of national emergency. The Philip-pine Center for Investigative Journalism posted in its blog on March 17 the plea of a group of lawyers and constitutionalists urging the Supreme Court “to speed up its resolution of cases questioning the constitutionality of Proclamation 1017 and acts carried out under two General Orders that implemented it.” The post carried the views of the lawyers’ group and constitu-tionalists, such as retired Supreme Court justice Vicente Mendoza. (“Lawyers’ groups urge Supreme Court to rule on 1017” http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=730).

TV Patrol World on March 1 reported that the intelligence community was against the lifting of Proclamation 1017 because of the massive cons-piracy in the military to oust Arro-yo. No source was cited to corro-borate or deny the information. Instead the report segued to how the military was handling the problem, including discussions of the issue inside the camps.

Remembering the murky past
Five years after he was ousted from the presidency and jailed for corruption charges, former President Joseph Estrada finally gave his testimony before the Sandiganbayan on March 22. It was the first time for Estrada, the last witness for the defense, to answer the charges.
At the time that Estrada was to give his testimony, allegations were raised that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who succeeded Estrada to the post because she was his vice president, conspired with anti-Estrada groups to oust him from the post. To this day, the country keeps going back to that tumultuous period.

On March 22, morning news programs were waiting for news about Estrada’s testimony. Unang Hirit’s Arnold Clavio, for example, gave background information from time to time on the cases invol-ving Estrada and his impeach-ment trial in 2000.
Newspapers like the Manila Bulletin and the Philippine Daily Inquirer ran a statement by Estrada (“Erap testifies at Sandi-gan hearing today”). The Philip-pine Center for Investigative Journalism and ANC’s RG Cruz posted Estrada’s statements in their blogs as well.
The Inquirer provided readers with a good background infor-mation of the issue, including a sidebar of the nature of the cases filed against Estrada, such as his alleged secret bank accounts, alleged involvement in an excise tax scam, illegal gambling payoffs, and intervention in the stock market (“Moment of truth: Erap in the dock”).
Dateline Philippines of ANC and The Big News in ABC-5 were even able to interview Estrada on the cases filed against him, among other issues.

There was no doubt where The Daily Tribune stood on Estrada. Right on its front page on March 22, the newspaper declared: “Erap raring to testify; junks deal with Gloria: Vows to bring an end to rule of force, injustice”
“Vows to bring an end to rule of force, injustice?” Just where did this come from? Not even Estrada made such a claim as the rest of the Tribune’s report would show.

It was a skeleton raring to get out of the closet. When leftist congressmen accused of rebellion by Arroyo said that she conspired with them to bring down Estrada, the claim got ample coverage from the press. But some reports forgot to be balanced, such as the March 21 reports of the BusinessMirror (“Gloria involved in ‘rebellion’ against Estrada, Satur says”) and Malaya (“Ghost of Edsa past haunts Gloria”). The reports did not get the reaction of Arroyo or her officials and allies.

The Tribune on March 23 quoted Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz as saying that a ranking Palace official admitted to him that he was part of the oust-Estrada campaign and that even before Estrada was sworn in in 1998, “the group of plotters had already sewn up its agenda for a coup d’etat, from the staging of the so-called Edsa II down to the eviction of Estrada from Malacañang in Jan. 2001.” The source was unnamed, making Cruz’s second-hand information more doubtful. The paper did not get any source willing to be identified to corroborate or even deny the information. The report instead shifted the topic to Armed Forces chief Generoso Senga on his views about the attempts to grab power from Arroyo.

Elusive reporting
Truth must really be elusive even among media. Was former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcil-lano’s passport fake or not? The answer depends on which media organization one gets the information from.
Most papers branded Garcillano’s passport as a fake: The Daily Tribune  (“Garci’s passport, tampered, fake—BSP”),  Malaya (“Garcillano passport found fake: Document presented to prove he did not leave the country”), and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, (“Garci passport faked, says BSP: ‘Central bank finding shows conspiracy’).
The conclusion was based on the statements of congressmen involved in the investigation of the wiretapping scandal and the certification they got on Garcillano’s passport from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The BSP, which prints all Philippine passports, found out that the “paper, print, and size” of Garcillano’s passport “do not conform to standard.”
The Philippine Star stopped short of labeling Garcillano’s passport a fake, saying law-makers merely “insinuated” that the passport “may be fake.” The report pointed out that none of the committee chairmen investigating the case “would categorically declare it a forgery” although Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin said in jest that it could have been a “product of one of our cottage industries.” It immediately added, “(Locsin) clarified that they were not experts in the field of document examination and that the Department of Foreign Affairs should determine if it is a genuine passport.”
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) said in its post that Garcillano’s passport was “irregular” (“BSP finds irregularities in Garcillano’s passport,” http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=749).

Indeed, there’s a lot of difference between the words “must” and “can” and media ought to know the difference. The Inquirer headline last March 12, “Noli: GMA must explain: Veep advises boss it’s time to clear air on ‘Garci’,” was based on an alleged statement by Vice President Noli de Castro that Arroyo “should squarely address the ‘Hello Garci’ scandal in order to stem the restiveness in some sectors of society, particularly the military.”
The Inquirer banner spawned a number of stories. Inquirer reported on the reaction of Malacañang the following day. The Tribune pursued the story and said that the Palace “virtually humiliated Vice President Noli de Castro when it junked the latter’s suggestion for President Arroyo to publicly explain her side on the ‘Hello Garci’ controversy.” It also got the side of the militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) which asked De Castro, “Why only now?” (“Palace junks VP call for Arroyo to answer poll fraud raps,” p. 1)
Finally, the Vice President appeared before ANC and TV Patrol World and denied saying that Arroyo must address the issue. He said Inquirer’s March 12 headline was wrong. The paper should have used “can” instead of “must.” The Times reported De Castro’s clarification.

Last March 10, 24 Oras looked into the history of Arroyo’s relationship with the Senate which was supportive of the President until the “Hello, Garci” incident. Through infographics, the program showed the shifting alliances in the Senate before and after the scandal.

Was it for lack of space or was it the pressing deadline? On March 20, the Manila Bulletin ran a story entitled, “Local Liberal Party leaders affirm support.” Support for whom? For the faction led by Senate President Franklin Drilon or for the one by Manila Mayor Lito Atienza?
The story referred to Atienza’s faction, but it did not carry the side of Drilon or his supporters. If not for the tagline of reporter Reden S. Viaje, the report could be mistaken for a press release of the Manila mayor’s camp.

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