Political wars spill over to media

Notwithstanding intense rivalries, newspapers normally do not attack one another. Still, it did not come as a complete surprise to me when the Manila Standard Today fired last Saturday a page one broadside against the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I am not saying this with absolute certainty. But based on my perception (and the reader can easily check this out by reading both papers) the Standard is staunchly pro-Villar while the Inquirer is rabidly pro-Aquino, and thus anti-everyone else, but most especially Villar.

This is understandable. The presidential race is between Aquino and Villar. And having very obviously taken sides, it was inevitable that all pretenses at neutrality would collapse and the two newspapers would clash.

While, to their credit, the two newspapers tried mightily to wage their political wars within the confines of chosen slants in their stories and opinion pieces, it would appear that the Standard broke hostilities wide open first.

In its issue last Saturday, the Standard carried a page story titled "Inquirer resurrects year-old story to attack Villar." The story came complete with a two-column color photo of some Inquirer bigwigs captioned "Fearless Views, year-old news," a dig at the Inquirer motto.

I wrote this on the day the attack occurred, so I do not know if the Inquirer retaliated. But I expect that it would. The story can be answered, explained, or even ignored. But not the photo. Publication of the photo had an intent the Inquirer is not likely to take lying down.

The Standard story was its way of rebutting an Inquirer story the day before about how Villar supposedly tried to exert influence on the Philippine Stock Exchange while still president of the Senate back in 2009.

The Standard contended that the story was old hat. Not only was it old hat, it was a story that, "for still unclear reasons," the Inquirer news desk back in May 2009 decided to kill or shelve.

Thus the Standard wondered why it was resurrected now that, a year later, Villar is running for president. The obvious implication of the Standard line is that the Inquirer recalled the story from the depths of the dead to attack Villar, chief rival of its bet Aquino.

Filipinos are known to hijack certain meanings to devise something of their own. This has happened with the way they view the media. Filipinos have hijacked the meaning of democracy to a level that borders on the absolute: Absolute press freedom, absolute press neutrality.

Well, to their great disappointment they must be reminded that nothing is truly absolute. Press freedom is curtailed by the right of others to be secure in their persons and reputations, hence the universality of libel laws.

And, contrary to popular Filipino belief, there is no such thing as absolute neutrality of the press. The press is expected to be neutral and objective only in the presentation and handling of news stories. Otherwise, it can and must engage in advocacies and take up causes.

Much of Philippine public life is patterned after that of the United States, which introduced democracy and democratic government to us. But media outfits in the U.S., including some of the most respected, like the New York Times and CNN, have been known to take sides.

And this brings us back to the Standard and the Inquirer. As it is, both newspapers cannot be criticized for openly taking sides if the practice is accepted in the U.S., from where we learned our democratic processes. The DNA of taking sides must appear at source and in clones.

What makes the idea of taking sides seem scurrilous is when it is used with the intent to hurt, malign, or otherwise put down, especially in favor of another. When the American media take sides, it is in a manner that is objective and instructive, making it acceptable, even desirable.