Do you have a dream to serve the Filipino people, without being a politician? To fight corruption and injustice without being a lawyer? To accomplish heroic acts without being a soldier? To struggle against ignorance and lack of sufficient know-how without being a teacher?
In short, do you dream to become a JOURNALIST?
Reality Check!
The Philippines is now the second most dangerous place for journalists outside a war zone, next to Russia. Reporters Sans Frontier (RSF) recently published the World Press Freedom Index, an international-based organization that provides data of countries according to their respect for press freedom. It recorded the Philippines as one of the seven Asian countries (along with Bangladesh, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, and Burma) that steadily garner negative ratings in terms of press freedom.
In the 2007 Philippine Press Freedom Report of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), 70 journalists were killed in the line of duty since the post-Marcos regime. Half of this figure was killed when President Arroyo assumed power.
In the same report, CMFR’s in-depth study on slain journalists indicates that of all the killings of journalists during the Arroyo administration, 15.2 percent were still under trial, 51.5 percent were under investigation, and 12.1 percent were pending prosecution. It also added that 15.2 percent had been dismissed by courts due to lack of evidences against the suspects. Most of those killed cluttered in the provinces, particularly in Regions III, IV (CALABARZON), IX, and XII.
Culture of Impunity
In search of the roots of these evils against journalists, Luis V. Teodoro, CMFR deputy director and a retired journalism professor at the University of the Philippines (UP), published an analysis of Philippine press freedom’s current situation in a booklet, Limited Protection: Press Freedom and Philippine Law. Teodoro said that the “culture of impunity explains why journalists are threatened, beaten, jailed, tortured, and killed despite laws protective of press freedom.”
Teodoro explains that the culture of impunity is the manner wherein society “ignores, permits, or even encourages various forms of violence against journalists as well as their harassment and intimidation, and allows these to go unpunished.”
He also noted that this scenario is happening because of the weakness of the Philippine justice system and the lack of concern and interest among the citizenry.
For press freedom and media advocacy groups, like the CMFR and journalists organizations, like the National Union of the Journalists of the Philippines, the main reason behind this increasing number of killed journalist is the “near-zero arrest, trial, and conviction of their killers.”
Journalists’ Flaws
Amid all the murders of journalists and media practitioners, and the continuous suppression of press freedom, issues against journalists still need to be addressed.
Teodoro believes that issues related to “journalists’ training, corruption, lack of skills and knowledge, and unprofessional conduct” should be taken into consideration especially nowadays when human rights are less prioritized.
Government officials who always became the subject of scandals and controversies, answer these headlines as malicious or bad journalism.
Furthermore, Philippine National Police officers, claimed that the killings of journalists would stop if journalists were fair and honest. Cebu Provincial Police Officer Director Vicente Loot, in 2006, was quoted in the said booklet that broadcast journalists should be fair to stop the attacks.
“Media should be fair. They should report facts and real issues and not resort to personal attacks. You can… shout to the whole world about alleged anomalies or illegal deeds as long as they’re within the ethical standards of broadcasting,” Loot said
Students Perception
Despite the tarnished image of the press and media industry, a career in the field of mass communication, communication arts, broadcasting and journalism are still popular and attractive among students.
Also in the aforementioned Press Freedom Report, the enrolment statistics of the students enrolled in the communication and journalism programs is due to “increasing government repression and by now well-known fact that journalists are being killed in the Philippines.”
However, Teodoro stated in his blog posted on July 18, 2003: “…these courses rank among the most popular for high school graduates who regard them as passports to glamorous jobs as news anchors or newspaper columnists.”
He also said, “This is an illusion far crueller than the truth that in the poor country that is the Philippines, the media professions, like most others, is in far less need of new graduates than of new perspectives. The job market for journalism graduates is a shoe into which not all can fit; and sometimes the foot has to be cut to fit the shoe.”
