Celebrating press freedom in Cebu

For this entire week in Cebu, the Cebu print, radio and television media is celebrating the 21st Cebu Press Freedom Week with week-long activities lined up to show to the nation that our freedom of the press is very precious and that it is our way of remembering that 43 years ago, on Sept. 21, 1972 Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos declared Martial Law all over the Philippine archipelago.

I submit that few people remember those dark days because one of the ugly traits of the Filipino people is that they are a forgetful lot. It is a fact that our media counterparts in Metro Manila also do not have a similar observation of press freedom, when history have shown that the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship targeted journalists in the early hours when Martial Law was declared. In fact, my mentor, the late Sir Max Soliven would tell me stories that he was arrested with a photocopy of an arrest, search & seizure order (ASSO) signed by then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile.

But today the threats to press freedom still exist and haunts many journalists and in fact many of them have been killed for telling or broadcasting the truth. Under the Presidency of President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III, there have been 26 journalists killed in the five years he was in office as President. This is not to mention the veiled threats against journalists and the libel suits filed against so many media personalities.

At this point, I can only hope that the Filipino people would realize that our freedom of speech and expression, which is guaranteed by our 1987 Constitution gives them that confidence that the truth would always prevail through the media and that the Philippine government should not practice propaganda which hides the truth from the Filipino people. This is why we celebrate Press Freedom Week in Cebu.

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Finally last week, Sen. Grace Poe went to the Bahay ng Alumni at the University of the Philippines (UP) to declare her bid to run for President of the Philippines. As expected, she ran into a hail of criticism from her potential political rivals. Even the Liberal Party (LP) came up with an official statement that they were not threatened by her declaration. Hmmm, if they were not threatened, then why come up with such a statement?

There is no doubt that when Sen. Grace Poe threw her hat into the Presidential race she became a threat to Vice-President Jejomar Binay who long ago declared that he was seeking the Presidency and to former DILG Sec. Manuel “Mar” Roxas who’ve always believed that the Office of the President is his family heirloom and handed to him on a silver platter.

However, in my book, Sec. Mar Roxas represents the old unlamented politics that permeated Philippine society for the last 70 years since we gained Independence from the United States of America. As for Vice-Pres. Binay, for me, he represents Philippine politics since we got rid of the Marcos Dictatorship 29 years ago. It is the kind of politics that clings to political power no matter what the cost in keeping that power for decades. In the end the corruption controversy that has hounded VP Binay only proves to Filipinos what Lord Acton once quipped, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Why VP Binay kept his leadership as national president of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines for 19 years that only has a limit of seven years is truly revealing of the personality that is VP Binay… that if given the chance… he would stay in power forever. It reminded me of the background music at the Quirino Grandstand during one of the inaugural ceremonies of then Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos, which was taken from Handel’s “Messiah,” where the lyrics goes, “And he shall reign for ever and ever and he shall reign for ever and ever!”

So back to Sen. Grace Poe. Her critics say that she is “hilaw,” but in her speech last week, I found her to be a person who knew what are the problems of this nation and what is needed to fix them. Although she fell short of saying that this nation needs to do Charter changes. She probably forgot that her main troubles stem from a constitutional prohibition on her citizenship and her residency…something of a stumbling block to her Presidential ambitions.

In my book, the dream of the ordinary Filipino is to line up at the US embassy and get a US visa or better, US citizenship. I still believe this to be true until that day comes when this unique Filipino dream disappears from the national psyche. So the question is, just because a Filipino acquires a US citizenship, does that make a person less a Filipino? I know of so many Filipinos who still love our country with a passion, but have left this country because of financial and political reasons. But there are very few Filipinos who already acquired US citizenship, but gave it up to return and serve our country.

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