Tag Archives: press freedom

Shit hits the fan

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After reading the news…

Twin I: Wait, whut? We’re bankrupt?

Me: In the loosest term, yes.

We have a debt overhang, in trillions, while the incoming president of this fucked up country doesn’t want to pay his taxes in billions of pesos.

We don’t have any money anymore for the next six months.

We’re so fucked up that the outgoing finance chief says we’re in dire straits that we need more tax measures because we can no longer borrow.

Then this monster did this:

My journo chat group is on fire. Other news orgs are no longer welcome, only crony media and bloggers/vloggers paid by Marcos himself like unTh*king P*noy, who says FDI is capped at 40%. (The idiot doesn’t know the difference between foreign direct investments and foreign ownership which are completely different 🙄).

So now we are all banned from government briefings. So we all had put our heads together and we now have an action plan that I can’t even write about here in case some stranger ends up here.

I can’t even… And my boss was messaging me, asking me about Philippine trends now and I need to chase gov’t investment plans, infra projects, and new regulations. 🤬

One of the journos in the chat group said maybe GMA was included to give legitimacy to crony media like SMNI and Net25. I said no, GMA is claimed by Imee Marcos. She filed her claims before the SEC in 2007, I was there. She said the shares owned by the Duavits are shares held on behalf of the Marcoses while they were in exile. That’s why she filed for an invalidation of GMA’s IPO.

My bff L, who is not even a reporter, messaged me, “The news are exhausting, right?” And I said, “I can’t even turn off news because I’m a reporter 😭”

And this idiot doesn’t know what a Solicitor General is! OMG!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=5302927769766274&id=100001473114871

Hell.

I asked for a break from my manager. So I’m no longer going to Singapore next week because our other Manila reporter will be flying to Bohol for a break. Then the following week, I will be the one taking a break. Screw conferences.

So I was telling bff L that maybe we need to get away for a while and stare into nothing. Here, I found the perfect place:

At mountainlake.ph (Caliraya)

For days like this, you need 90 proof drinks

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Patron Silver and the shot glasses I’ve downed this lunch time. 90 proof (45% alcohol). Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Things are so bad that press conferences come with alcoholic drinks because our hosts know how stressed we are right now. Twitter has made every reporter I know depressed today with a series of bad news after bad news, the primary one is having an incoming press secretary who is a lawyer suspended by the Supreme Court and her only claim to fame is being a fake news peddler VLOGGER/blogger. She red-tags people and is very hostile to media.

During Duterte’s admin, I have experienced being unwelcomed by the government as we legit reporters were not given seats in a national economic conference while the bloggers like uTh*king P*noy are given a special section where they can write and tweet inanities. These people who just add GDP cumulatively and declare that Duterte will end his admin with a 45% GDP growth 🙄 These people who cannot make heads or tails of FDI, stock market, mergers and acquisitions, and benchmark interest rates. I had to write my stories on the floor on those days despite my being in business clothes. That’s how bad it was.

My group chat has been on fire today. Marcos is putting hostile people in place to barricade us to prevent transparency and truth.

A lot of my friends and colleagues said they have turned off Twitter today due to the series of WTF stories coming out.

At UCC. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Despite downing a couple of shots of Patron, one of the strongest tequilas known to the market, I didn’t get tipsy. But just to be safe, I went down from the hotel where we had the lunch briefing to have coffee and work.

My laptop bag with cat scratches. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I wasn’t really productive today but I was able to secure an interview with an Indonesian company for one of my reporters. I’m a generous boss; I farm out the things that land on my plate and I do not hog them for myself. Besides, I should be doing more value-added things like big scoops and more global/regional stories so I shouldn’t be doing small stories that suck up my time.

Sketch. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
At UCC. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

But I’m so brain-dead now that I could not pull up my watercolors to finish this sketch. Perhaps tomorrow when I’m in the zone?

My friend from my old TV network told me he wants to quit now and join corporate. I told him, he better jump now when the offer still stands because the threat of the incoming justice secretary is serious. It’s martial law all over again, closing down independent media and promoting crony media like SNI (owned by a Duterte ally wanted by the US FBI for sex trafficking and other offenses) and Net25 (Iglesia ni Cristo station).

Oh WTF.

The political economy of media

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When I was still teaching in UP, I always introduce my students to the concept of political economy of media in real world settings. Not the kind that you read in textbooks or essays of academics. I tell them how the day-to-day decisions in the newsroom are affected by this. It’s about what story gets killed because the newspaper/TV network’s sacred cows would be offended. Or a real estate company would threaten the advertising department with an ad pullout if the article written by a supposedly independent-minded journalist is slanted differently. You have your ideals as a reporter and an editor but then the powers that be have a different view. As my ex-boss said before, it’s an everyday battle. You keep pushing the envelope; testing how far your sense of justice and fairness can get you.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer was the first newspaper I wrote for. I had been writing for them when I was still in college, which spilled over to my first few months as a fresh grad research assistant. It was born when the country was about to mount an uprising against dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It was founded by Eugenia “Eggie” Apostol, who led Mr and Ms, an innocent-looking magazine that contained anti-dictatorship articles, subversive stories that people like my parents were consuming like mad during the time all media outfits not under Marcos’ thumb are shut down (we had mountains of those magazines at the back of our house, together with Malaya).

It was a newspaper that defied the government when it was wrong. It fought for what was right. It was THE newspaper after Manila Times never recovered its footing after Chino Roces got imprisoned by Marcos and had to sell his newspaper. After some years, Eggie Apostol stepped down and Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc took the reins. She was an equally tough lady who faced a threat of closure by Joseph Estrada when his own presidency was threatened after scandal after scandal was uncovered (which led to another revolt against a sitting president). Manila Times under Lisa Gokongwei did not survive the economic pressures from Estrada after my friend wrote that famous “unwitting ninong” article about the insider trading involving BW Resources and the president. Gokongwei had to sell the Times to an Estrada crony.

Inquirer was the first newspaper that stumbled upon one of the biggest corruption stories of the decade, if not decades, which started with a simple kidnapping case filed with the National Bureau of Investigation around 2012-2013. (I also picked up this “pork barrel” scandal and was part of the investigative team for my own news organization that focused on this and our stories competed and complemented the stories produced by the Inquirer). That newspaper was instrumental for sending three senators ALMOST to prison (the courts have overturned whatever progress we had, after Duterte came into power because crooks gotta band together).

Now I feel that the Inquirer is already a puppet newspaper. It has folded under the pressure from some bit players in that pork barrel scam. The pressure though may not just be coming from one Melo del Prado but from some more sinister quarters of Duterte’s world. I don’t know; it normally wouldn’t succumb to such small fry. But then Duterte has already crippled the owners, the Prietos, when he came into power and there was a point that Ramon Ang, the president and CEO of San Miguel Corp, was about to take over the newspaper because financially they couldn’t cope anymore.

And here is Prof. La Vina’s take on the whole thing:

Waiting

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Cat waiting for her two-legged sister to come back. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Last night I had been chatting with an ex-colleague for hours while we were holding a vigil for another ex-colleague who was about to expire.

Basically we waiting for the expected and praying for his eternal peace. He got severe Covid and while in the hospital, it was discovered he had terminal liver cancer. After he was off the tubes, he was allowed to go home for palliative care. Then we were told by his family that we can send him voice messages. I wrote about this a few days ago.

So last night this ex-colleague, A, and I were talking about him. We also talked about how we got so tired fighting for what we believed in, for what is right, which our sick friend and colleague, N, did all his life. He died last night while we were talking about him.

We all cared so much for an industry that did not love us back, that we were so passionate about our profession but we got burned so many times. There was so much corruption and abuse.

So it’s about time that we should start to live our lives, she said. Start preparing for retirement. She told me I was one of the few very good and clean journalists whom she wanted to stand out and do more great things but the system is so rotten that she understands why I turned my back on it. I told her I went to the extreme end; at least my niche is unapologetic about serving the corporate big machine and no pretense that this kind of journalism is the crusading kind. That it is upfront about being all about making money for our audience. That’s why I can be emotionally detached from it. Just bring my skills and produce good stories and that’s it. It was no longer about saving the world.

Every now and then I still do take up the cudgels, when the messiah syndrome comes knocking. One day I can go back to it. In another form. In some way or another.

A and I were talking about retiring into our small homes, growing our own food, living sustainably away from the city. She will go home to Mindanao while I am still figuring out where I want to go. My girls and I could end up in my hometown, or near the sea, or in Hyogo Prefecture, or outside Utrecht, or somewhere.

I’m no longer trying to reach the highest level in the ladder nor chasing accolades and titles…But I haven’t really been chasing them in the first place. I only felt pressured to do so when J came into my life because it was what he was chasing after. It was the time I questioned myself, what was I doing with my life? Why am I just stuck as a journalist when I can be doing something in the finance world?

Then when he dumped me, I began to question again what was really my core? What is my essence? What do I want to do for the rest of my life?

Peace. I want peace and contentment. I want to live a life, my life, and not chase somebody else’s dream for them.

So I am working towards that goal now. I don’t know how but I know I will get there.

Every now and then it does occur to me that I can pivot and do what my other ex-colleagues are doing now. My ex-boss in HK (also came from here, we were in the same circle when she was still here in the country) is now a managing director in an advisory firm, which I can do as well if I devote more years into this company to reach some milestones to fatten up my resume. Another friend who also came from a hardcore journalism background is now doing partnership deals for a fintech company. Which I think I can also do.

Now the question is, do I want to do it? Let’s see what the wind may bring. All I know is I want peace and to live my life. To have time to stop and smell the roses.

And write.

I am waiting.

When things are meant for me, they just fall on my lap. Let’s see what happens.

Killing us one by one

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During Aquino’s term, I’ve never heard of anybody being sacked for doing the right thing. Even if one is being critical of government. I also wrote some analysis pieces and spot reports that had been critical of Aquino’s administration but I’ve never felt I was in danger.

This Duterte administration is so insecure, so afraid of a dead man that social media trolls are working doubly hard these days. Mainstream media like GMA is killing its own.

MASS MEDIA MOGUL ON PRESS FREEDOM IN AN ERA OF DISINFORMATION

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“And Katharine Graham made a very risky decision without knowing what the newspaper really stands for…The concept of standing up for the principles of press freedom. She made a very momentous choice by saying, ‘Publish’.”

And quoting from the movie, “The Post”, Pangilinan said, ‘News is the first draft of history.”

PLDT Inc chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan (or MVP, as popularly known in business circles) was our guest speaker during the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) induction of officers on 2 February. We were told he will not give a keynote address and would just induct the incoming officers for 2018.

He surprised us with an impromptu speech, starting with the story of The Post, the Tom Hanks-Meryl Streep movie about the Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post. I think he was inspired by the movie that he was prompted to give a short speech about mass media. (He watches at least two movies a month, he said).

And as the owner of two newspapers, The Philippine Star and Businessworld, and broadcasting company TV5 Network Inc, PLDT should know the pitfalls and difficult decisions a media outfit needs to make, especially during a time when press freedom is under heavy attack.

By telling the story of The Post to us business journos, Pangilinan was relaying to us his reflections on the repercussions or the rewards of bringing out the truth…and the snowballing of the Pentagon papers and later on, the Watergate scandal.

“So it just points out to the very valuable role that media plays in a democracy like ours,” he said.

“And everyone, including the leadership, must accept that is important. It is not a weakness but it is actually a source of strength.”