Ian Disend
Third Year
Centre for Media Freedom & Responsibility(Phillipines)
One of the main reasons I was excited to find myself in a summer student placement with Goodmans LLP was their participation in the firm-funded International Human Rights Program. As a result, I was able to work from May through mid-July in Toronto, and then embark on a journey to an archipelago nation at a point situated almost precisely opposite Toronto on the globe.
Makati, a suburb of Manila yet also its central business district, is home to a rash of banks, embassies, shopping malls and a small non-governmental organization called the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). My name had been given to them by a former roommate of mine, posted in Manila by the Canadian Foreign Service. CMFR having just received the McLuhan Prize for investigative journalism from the Canadian embassy, the two institutions were on very good terms, and the prospect of receiving free labour from a North American law student obviously went over well enough.
CMFR, referred to almost exclusively by its initials in a longstanding Filipino tradition of creating, and moreover actually using, acronyms for any possible word combination, does essentially what its name suggests. Through conferences and publications – most notably the Philippine Journalism Review (PJR), one of the country’s most esteemed journals which, sadly, is in its final days – the organization criticizes both government interference with, and poor reporting habits by, the national media.
Both of these aspects feature regularly in PJR articles. On the freedom side, for example, in the waning days of his administration in 2001, much was written on impeached president Joseph Estrada’s exploitation of personal connections to silence journalists critical of him. (Among other things, this resulted in the owner of a major daily shutting down his own newspaper as a favor to the maligned former actor). On the responsibility side, through the pages of the PJR, the group criticized the use of anonymous sources, alarmist reporting and the placement of fluffy stories (such as an editor’s birthday) on the front page of a national newspaper.
Another focal point for CMFR, as well as many other journalism-related NGOs, is the tremendous number of (generally unsolved) murders of journalists in the country. Since 1986, when the ‘People Power’ revolt removed dictator Ferdinand Marcos from office, approximately forty journalists have been slain, a mind-boggling figure for a relatively functional democracy. Though the victim’s occupation is thought to be coincidental in at least some of the cases, most killings are nevertheless suspected to be the work of local government officials looking to mute criticism.
Given a day to overcome the immense jet lag – the Philippines during the summertime is a full 15 hours ahead of Vancouver, where I had stopped off to visit my family – I met up with the organization on my second day in Makati. Their modest office in the SalcedoVillage district belies the influence and respect which the NGO commands in the Philippine journalism community. Melinda Quintos de Jesus, the executive director, was a prominent journalist dating back to the Marcos era, against whom she worked as a member of the ‘alternative press.’ She has won numerous awards for her work, and her husband was, until recently, the Secretary of Education in the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The PJR editor, Professor Luis Teodoro (a former dean at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City), was also a dissident in the Marcos era. The rest of the CMFR staff is young, but very able, and had a wonderful time answering my questions about their country, such as distinguishing the local citrus fruits (calamansi or dalandan?) or understanding transportation (the fine art of taking a jeepney).
The task with which I was charged was to organize an open forum on freedom of information in the Philippines. I met with members of such domestic NGOs as Action for Economic Reforms, the Center for Community Journalism Development and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. I also met with a young Congressman called Joel Villanueva who heads the party ‘Citizens Battle Against Corruption’ or CIBAC. This last meeting resulted in an unexpected formal welcome for me by Philippine National Congress.
The forum itself, held on August 26, coincided unfortunately with flooding hitting the region as a result of a typhoon. About half of the guest list was forced to cancel, while two of the three panelists had to be replaced at the last minute. In light of the disastrous circumstances, this end result was more of a modest success than a disappointment.
The Philippines, as a former colony of the United States, features many traits which make a placement there extremely amenable to an English-speaking Westerner. English is extremely prominent in the country – virtually all billboard advertisements in Manila are in English, for example – and most anyone is extremely proficient in it. (Even when speaking Tagalog, the native language in Manila, speakers tend to sprinkle their sentences with English words and phrases, creating a vernacular known as ‘Taglish’). Working with a media-related NGO is not too foreign for the non-Filipino, either. Though the Philippines was administered as a colony, it did inherit many aspects of American democracy, including a long tradition of press freedom (despite the astonishing number of journalist killings, the Philippines is still said to boast the freest press in Southeast Asia).
What the country may sometimes lack in exoticism (this is inevitable after a half-century of U.S. rule, perhaps reflected most clearly in the lack of spicy food) it makes up in charm. The people are kind and helpful, and greatly appreciative when a Westerner (or ‘Joe,’ as we’re apparently all called) shows an interest in their country and culture. With the occidental influence also comes one of the strongest, most active civil societies in Asia, and one which has no shortage of challenges. In only a month and a half, I was able to gain a true appreciation for the media, politics and political culture of the ‘Pearl of the Orient.’