Mending fences where there are none to mend

President Arroyo is now trying to mend fences with the press, with whom she has had a rather nasty brush after calling journalists as purveyors of doom, and has declared December as National Press Congress Month, whatever that means.

Actually, there is no use in Arroyo trying to mend fences with the press because there are no fences to mend. There has never been any. Whatever fences she thinks needed to be mended exist only in her mind.

She cannot be blamed totally for this, though. Arroyo is, after all, a political animal.

And like all political animals, their brains are conditioned to perceive anyone and anything as either for or against them.

When the Philippine press began running stories unflattering to her presidency, it was not because the Philippine press embarked on a crusade to put her governance down. The press merely reflected, as it is supposed to do, the view as it sees it.

When President Arroyo trained her guns on the Philippine press, she only succeeded in two things, both of them negative consequences. One, she alienated herself further from the people, and two, she posed one more threat to an already embattled press.

The president alienated herself further because, as she probably realized later, no one wins a war against the press. Not only do you get hammered all the time but, in a choice before the public, people will always find the press a notch more credible than politicians.

And the president became another threat to the Philippine press which is already reeling from being in the most dangerous place on earth for journalists next to Iraq. Their ranks already greatly diminished by killings, journalists need an enemy at the Palace like a hole in the head.

Of course, both the president and the press can put up the charade embodied in such motherhood statements as recognizing the need to work hand in hand for the greater glory of God, country and people. But both parties know there is no such thing.

To the press, a story sees print or gets broadcast not on the basis of whether it is good news or bad news but whether it is in the public interest that it goes public. To the president, she can die trying, but in the end, it all boils down to how she does in office.

So what is this National Press Congress Month? Whatever it is, and whatever it hopes to achieve, the president should not pin much hope on it. If at all, what congress is she talking about in such a fractious journalistic setting as the Philippines?

To show that the president does not even know what she is up to, or how to go about doing it, she promptly set off on the wrong foot, thus scuttling the mission even before it can get to embark.

She did this in her appointment of the lead organizer for the undertaking, an association that has lost both relevance and respect in Philippine journalism. Most news outfits in the print media are still members of the group, but at most, only perfunctorily.

Most media organizations in the Philippines today have found even membership in industry or professional groups too shackling. That is the extent to which the Philippine press had been willing to take its notions of freedom and independence. Good or bad, that's the way it is.

And so what is this National Press Congress Month for again? It is already quite an extraordinary achievement for anyone to be able to glue down the press to a day-long affair, how much more for a month-long congress.

The president has to be hallucinating. But then, we can only wish her good luck. As with anything, there will always be mavericks. There are no fences to mend because the president and the press are not enemies and never really had a falling out. Trabaho lang, walang personalan.

But if that is the way the president sees the situation, and that is how she thinks it has to be remedied, then she has all the right and freedom to do so. The one thing that continues to be beautiful in this country is the continued ability of its people to remain free.