Marcos’ press suppression starts, bloggers first

THE hearing the other day by three merged committees of Congress is the start of the Marcos regime’s suppression of the press, with essentially the same congressmen that grilled last year former president Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, turning their guns on bloggers, who now make up the most critical of this administration, the equivalent of the mosquito press during the Marcos dictatorship.

I won’t be surprised if next would be libel suits against opinion writers.

With Congress’ committees turning into Marcos’ Gestapo — as it did in their hearings investigating former president Duterte and daughter Sara — two female bloggers were shamelessly bullied to tears by, yes, the same two bullies in previous committee hearings against the Dutertes, Manila 6th district representative Bienvenido Abante, purportedly also a religious pastor, and party-list representative Joseph Stephen Paduano, a former member of the Alex Boncayao leftist assassination squad.

The two demonstrated gross ignorance of what social media posts are. These aren’t “straight news.” They are opinion pieces and reportage of, yes, sometimes rumors. Opinion writers in the past termed these rumors and anonymous claims they reported as coming “from the grapevine.”

The legendary Luis Beltran, one of the most respected journalists pre- and post-martial law, called his sources a “bubwit.” So did the equally legendary Teodoro Valencia often report even astounding things citing “Malacañang sources,” as when he reported that his “impeccable source” claimed that Serge Osmeña and Geny Lopez did really escape Marcos’ prison in 1977 but were secretly released by the dictator.

These claims are not posted out of the blue, or imagined by blogger, and without some basis. A blogger’s post reports of mass resignations in the PNP were made by a number of netizens. If these were false, then the PNP, with its massive propaganda, should have simply debunked it. But what if it were true? Was there an individual hurt by that post?

Mosquito

A month before the EDSA I the mosquito press, especially the Philippine Daily Inquirer, were reporting that a number of colonels were planning a coup and their organization had even been named, RAM. Would it have been better if the Inquirer’s owners had spiked the reports, as the reports could not identify a source of the rumor?

Ramon Tulfo the other day posted in his blog that a “macho senator has a boyfriend, a male nurse in the US.” Should Tulfo not have posted that? I hope he releases who the senator is, if he’s so sure about his post. It would, however, be Tulfo’s problem — and not that of idiots in Congress — if it turns out to be false and the person he named as the senator’s boyfriend sues him for libel. That’s the risk he takes for the work he’s chosen.

We have libel laws to check journalists who report blatantly false claims with malice. If bloggers who were bullied to tears by Abante — Krizette Chu and M. J. Quiambao — would post in the coming days that Abante is not really a man of God because he loves guns, and that Paduano himself pulled the trigger in several assassinations by the ABB and these are proven blatantly fictitious, then the two would be guilty of libel as their posts are obviously in revenge for the harsh treatment they got from the two congressmen.

Representative Paduano demonstrated his ignorance of what journalism is when he castigated blogger Quiambao for writing that the claim of massive extrajudicial killings was a hoax. Quiambao, however, based her statement on the recent exposés that a number of those claiming to be relatives of EJK victims were not so. Paduano, however, claims that the existence of EKJs was based on findings by the Commission on Human Rights.

Indeed, the CHR did put out a report that there were 579 extrajudicial killings, which therefore would debunk Quiambao’s claim. Several problems here, though. Did the 579 EJKs occur as a result of Duterte’s order, or was it due to the usual excesses of rogue bloodthirsty comps? Who were the CHR’s investigators? Were they professional investigators or activists already with the bias that there were widespread EJKs? Were those who claimed their relatives were victims of EJKs cross-examined to test if they were telling the truth or merely expecting some compensation? Contrary to Paduano’s uneducated views, “documents,” even government documents, don’t necessarily contain incontrovertible facts.

EJKs

In the case of EJKs during martial law, I inarguably proved in a column many years ago that most of those who claimed they were innocent victims of martial law (and were paid compensation of as much as P1 million) were either soldiers or cadres of the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the New People’s Army, and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Even Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the CPP, and top commanders of the NPA were classified by the CHR as human rights victims.

At the end of the day, Quiambao posted her claim based on some data, the exposés of fake EJKs. Paduano may be making a stronger argument by citing the CHR report. Still though, Quiambao didn’t post fake news, but merely questionable conclusions on a different set of facts.

A free press is the foundation of a democracy, as citizens won’t be able to make correct decisions if they are deprived of information.

I would prefer a country without press repression, even if fake news is disseminated, rather than one in which nitwits or politicians decide what news should be allowed to be posted. It is the market which really decides what are fake news, as other bloggers expose these as such and the viewers of bloggers (really trolls) who regularly post fake news gradually vanish, as in the case of the once famous Pinoy Ako blog.

Without our bloggers — mostly anti-Marcos because, unlike most people, including congressmen, they closely monitor what’s happening in the country, especially this administration’s widespread corruption, and its colossal policy errors — it would be like the 1970s, when this president’s father allowed only four newspapers, all controlled by the dictator, to operate, thereby fooling citizens that the country was moving forward.

We cannot allow this tri-committee to be successful in this regime’s first step in press control. Members of this committee should get to regret their bullying so there will be no such committees in the future. The over a dozen bloggers bullied by the committee, with their over 5 million followers, should post every week a call to the citizenry not to vote for these suppressors of a free press, especially the tri-com head Dan Fernandez and its noisy members Abante and Paduano.

I’m quite sure such action won’t be libelous but merely an announcement of your political opinion. Title the announcement: Makibaka, huwag matakot!

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Marcos’ press suppression starts, bloggers first
Source: Breaking News PH