“Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.” –Walter Cronkite
I am a Filipino community journalist, not an enemy of the state. I belong to the so-called “Fourth Estate;” the chief vanguard of democracy that serves as a catalyst of change and watchdog of government’s three branches – the executive, legislative, and judicial. I believe the alleged “Oust Duterte” matrix, supposedly plotted by journalists and human rights lawyers, is not only a dud but a hoax; it does not exist in reality and is only a figment of the imagination – it is meant to shift public attention from bigger national issues and scandals to scaring those critical of the President Rodrigo Duterte administration.
A Malacañan Palace “think tank,” along with spin masters, put together the narrative in order to cushion the impact of media flak, especially effective criticism that has influenced public perception.
Logic and common sense suggests journalists and lawyers are apolitical by nature and, unlike the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and Muslim separatist groups, ousting a sitting president does not and will not benefit them. We experienced similar threats of “hara-kiri,” or suicide performed through disembowelment, which all failed – and even backfired.
In 1991, when the administration of President Corazon Aquino was unable to handle media criticism against her “Kamaganak, Inc.” program, which was believed to be siphoning taxpayer money through unjust means, along with spiraling cases surrounding alleged human rights violations, they fired back at the press with a Bulldog named “Oplan Malunggay,” which tagged several journalists as members of the CPP-New People’s Army and labeling them “enemies of the state.”
Then-Philippine National Police Director General Gerardo ‘Gerry’ Flores, who is currently running for congress in Iloilo’s first congressional district, recently threatened to “investigate” journalists and lawyers “in the matrix” without waiting for official orders. While serving as Aquino’s “Oscar Albayalde,” he and his police “witch hunters” threatened to arrest “Communists” in the press and charge them with sedition by gathering phony dossiers and spying on certain journalists as if they were cosmic terrorists on a mission to launch an intergalactic battle.
It had a chilling effect on many journalists as it spurred abduction and disappearance fears, but many were unfazed and continued to blast and lampoon the Aquino administration.
The media killings began to rear their ugly heads again five years after former President Ferdinand Marcos was toppled in the 1986 EDSA Revolution.
The spying and harassment of journalists continued under the subsequent presidential administrations of Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with incidents of media killings continuing to pile up at an alarming rate.
Ramos, who had black eye from the scandalous multi-billion peso Amari land deal, used carrot and stick tactics to ward off humiliation from the expose; Estrada miscalculated and underestimated the power of the press when he engaged in an unorthodox arm-twisting power play, pressuring advertisers to nix critical newspapers and broadcast networks; and Macapagal-Arroyo allegedly made many critical (but corrupt) journalists rich by awarding them “lucrative” government positions, if not making some of them “dummies” in multi-billion peso anomalies allegedly perpetrated by the first family and their cronies.
No dictator (or aspiring dictator) has succeeded in muzzling the press.
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Alex P. Vidal, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo./WDJ