Celebrating free speech in Cebu

Today in line with the Cebu Media’s celebration for the 14th Press Freedom Week, we bring you a discussion on the issues affecting the media today with various topics ranging from the debate on whether to decriminalize libel or not and that other bill dubbed “The Right to Reply” which penalizes journalists who do not reply to people who send them letters to reflect their views and self-censorship. With us tonight are two well-known Cebu media personalities, Ms. Eileen Mangubat, Publisher of Cebu Daily News/Inquirer Publications, Inc. and The Freeman’s Managing Editor Mr. Nimrod Quinones who will give us a shop talk about the media as an industry. So watch this show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm tonight.

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The 14th Press Freedom Week reeled off yesterday with the traditional Freedom Walk from the Cebu Business Park all the way to the Provincial Capitol, a Holy Mass and the Miss Cebu Press Freedom, (the selection of which actually started last Saturday) the usual fun and entertainment, which through the years have grown into operatic or cinematic proportions and yes a basketball tournament. But Cebu’s celebration of Press Freedom Week isn’t just fun and games, there are forums on major issues relating to the media, like those laws that would decriminalize libel or the right to reply act.

The lead convenor this year is The FREEMAN. Today is the only day that all the three Cebu-based newspapers, The FREEMAN, SunStar Daily and the Cebu Daily News will feature a pooled editorial and discuss one single topic pertaining to our constitutional right to the Freedom of Speech. This is very unique in Philippine Journalism and we’re proud that we are doing this in Cebu. No they don’t celebrate it in Manila.

The reason why Cebu is celebrating Press Freedom Week is due to the fact that 36 years and a day ago, on Sept. 21, 1972, then Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos plunged the whole country into that darkness called Martial Law. He threw away the 1935 Constitution, the best Constitution this country ever had and ruled this archipelago with an iron fist. He shut down the Legislature, had then Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and my father’s (and eventually my) favorite columnist, Sir Maximo V. Soliven thrown into the same cell and even had the Supreme Court in his pockets.

The country has never recovered from that solitary act when Filipinos were arrested for freely talking against the Marcos dictatorship. If I wrote this piece then, I’m sure that our newspaper would be shut down the next day. The mainstream newspapers became the propaganda machinery of the Marcos dictatorship. The Filipino people had no way of knowing what really was the truth about certain events. Celebrating Press Freedom Week reminds all Filipinos that at one point in our history, our basic freedoms embodied by our constitution were curtailed by one man who wielded vast powers all from one political family and no longer a nation of laws.

I can’t forget that so often repeated phrase, “Power Corrupts, but Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!” The rise and fall of the Marcoses was due to that unbridled power that led them into temptation to use the government coffers as if it were their personal bank accounts. Worse, they needed to keep that power for as long as Mr. Marcos continued to live. But 14 years into Martial Rule, the Filipino people started to believe in the rumors rather than what was printed in the newspaper headlines. This caused the creation of the so-called “Mosquito Press” where sir Max wrote for Mr. & Ms. Magazine and the Malaya news.

But the killing of Ninoy Aquino was probably the final blow to the Marcos-owned media facilities especially during the funeral of Ninoy wherein the Daily Express only headlined the story of a man who was struck by a lightning. It was then that people learned that credibility is the cornerstone of a newspaper, not prestige. When a media outlet loses its credibility, people don’t buy the newspapers anymore and advertisers go elsewhere.

But the ghost of Martial Law continues to haunt our country. Every President since Marcos is always accused of finding ways to declare Martial rule, even Tita Cory who was the subject of numerous coup attempts. Yet we know it is no joke to declare Martial Law because even if you shut down all the newspapers, radio or tv, the Internet is there to carry out what the former Mosquito Press used to do.

But anyone can write anything about anyone under a different name in the Internet. Hence today, all the more we need newspapers, radio and tv in order to verify whether what is written is true or not. The media has a symbiotic relationship with the Internet, needing each other to check out the truth.