How about those who live in Mindanao?

I think the controversy on who should be appointed Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process misses an important point. It is not just about a choice between Secretary Teresita Quinto-Deles or Presidential in-law, Margarita Cojuangco.

There must be a better way of deciding who could best push forward peace in the region. This is a difficult situation given our elitist political system and the contenders belonging to two powerful factions of the Aquino government, one from Hyatt 10 and the other allegedly from the Noybi faction?

What about the sentiment of the people of Mindanao themselves?

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For those of us who long for good governance, the problem should have been framed with what is best for the people of Mindanao. The most important task then would have been to facilitate a continuing dialogue with the people. Had direct communication between the government and the people been in place I am sure it would have generated new ideas in the exchange and moved forward with the peace process.

The vehicle I am talking about is community radio, an important tool of communication in both developed and developing countries.

It can be likened to a broadcasting facebook where information is open and freewheeling. In poorer communities, most do not have a computer or able to express themselves except verbally.

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What is truly surprising is that we have had community radio – Tambuli – in parts of the Philippines but like most good initiatives it was not given enough support by the powers that be. Happily cyberspace is now buzzing with renewed interest among development writers and academics. Louie Tabing, one of community radio’s pioneers and now in China helping set up community radio there says “it reflects the real need for change.” Dr. Florangel Braid, chairperson, Committee on Communication, Unesco National Commission of the Philippines has also given her support.

Indeed the community radio concept was brought here by Unesco. Its Filipino former head of communications in Paris Carlos Armaldo sent this column his comments about “Community radio and its relevance today.”

“Almost everywhere community radio has been set up, it has been successful in serving its community and in supporting the tasks of development. The difficulty is not setting up community radio, it is sustaining it over long periods. He cites examples of how community radio was used to bring peace in troubled areas. “It certainly can help the peace process in the Philippines.

“When it was set up in the Tamil areas of northern Sri Lanka, there were fears that the Tamil rebels would use the radio to rabble rouse the people and incite them to violence. On the contrary, the rebels protected the radio and urged the people to listen and benefit from their own programs. After all these programs were produced by the communities themselves. It was their radio! The central government also made use of it as a listening post to what’s going on in that region.

“In Maputo, one small project equipped village reporters with a cassette-radio, gave them a week’s training in reporting using the cassette recorder. Over a period of two years, the reporters filed stories to the local and regional radio stations and this helped ‘calm’ the angry villagers who in turn set down to development tasks and particularly supporting the village school system.

“Community radio could be that dynamic forum, so badly needed at the barangay level, to discuss the relevance of key issues to villagers. This could make a big difference for politics at the barangay level, for even pork barreling could be more squarely focused on regional, municipal and barangay issues instead of individual pockets. The whole issue and concept of independent ‘chartered cities’ might be brought into question, either to circumscribe them or to define them more rigorously, so as to prevent the proliferation of chartered cities with no means of economic survival. The same could be said of the proliferation of provinces with little economic sustenance.”

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The renewed advocacy for community radio and a public broadcasting system comes from Filipino admirers of Mario Vargas Llosa who received the 2010 Nobel Prize Award for Literature. They cite Llosa’s “The Cultural Battle” written for Unesco Courier in 1990, which I have excerpted.

He says that ensuring freedom of information and the right to critical judgment is the first problem a country has to solve before it can provide a satisfactory solution to any of its other problems.

The media problem in Latin America is no different from ours and he gives an evenhanded appraisal of both privately owned and state owned media.

“The view is often expressed, in all good faith, that if the media is in private hands, they will necessarily defend the interest and express the opinions only of those powerful enough to acquire them. And there is indeed an element of danger if media are placed under the control of the state, this is like treating an illness with a cure that kills the patient.

If the purely commercial criterion of market domination is uppermost, the inevitable result will be lowering of the quality of the media and a cheapened, popular presentation of news that can be taken to extremes that threaten culture. The mediocrity to which the press, radio or television can descend, when motivated solely by a desire to dominate the market and to displace commercial rivals, may well have tragic consequences and democratic bases of a society...”

He gives fair warning if nothing is done to correct media shortcomings that are so relevant to the Philippines.

“Nothing is so destabilizing for society as systematic distortion of reality that is the hallmark of sensationalist media.

“It is essential, therefore that the heads of media undertakings, upon whom rests responsibility for maintaining freedom of information, should fulfill their functions with ethical and political considerations in mind, rather than in an exclusively commercial spirit. This is the only way to ensure the development of democratic culture.

“Another danger to be faced is that of the media being used to serve a single center of power, such as, for example, an economic power bloc. A democratic society can defend itself against this danger by eliminating monopolies, tied payments and privileges and maintaining an open, competitive system. If this system remains open to the forces of competition, the danger of the media becoming totally subordinate to an economic power bloc is virtually eliminated.”