The Philippine news media’s role is critical to the advancement and preservation of the country’s democratic institutions and way of life and in helping catalyze equitable development.  The issues and problems confronting the Philippine press revolve around its capacity to contribute more substantially to ensuring accountability of government even as it faces accountability challenges of its own.

Its journalistic functions can only be made more meaningful by upgrading news media standards and the quality of its outputs in order to continue to earn the trust and confidence of the general public.

It is hoped that the enhanced capacity of the media will in turn lead to the improvement of the public’s capacity to discern the objective truth and to make more informed decisions and opinions on matters that affect their daily lives.

But removing the constraints to effective media performance cannot be left to the industry or market forces alone.  Experience shows that a freewheeling approach can only lead to the emergence of a press community that cannot be held accountable except by market forces dominated by a public that fails, or refuses to, distinguish between good and bad journalism.

The work of building a mature press in the Philippines requires the involvement and commitment of media NGOs to raise the level of skills and of professional standards as well as helping journalists reach a consensus on their role in promoting democracy and development.  Improving the media also requires making information accessible to journalists so that they can report with substance on issues that matter to the public.  A mature press is not possible without access to information.

The public also has to be brought into the arena. Building a free press requires a public that understands and appreciates the media’s role, one that can tell the difference between good and bad reporting and demands that irresponsible journalists be held accountable, and one that is willing to be engaged in public life.

1. Media Ethics and Responsibility
2. Investigative Reporting Skills
3. Independent News Media
4. Access to Information
5. Citizen Engagement through Public Journalism

Acknowledged as the freest (and rowdiest) in Asia, the Philippine press today is faced with serious challenges: grappling with ethical, survival, safety, and press freedom issues in an increasingly overcrowded and fiercely competitive market. Emerging as it did from a sense of civic responsibility while battling oppressive conditions under martial rule, the Philippine press subsumed its primary role to the rambunctious practice that chiefly smacks of crass commercialization. The balance had tipped in profit’s favour.

In this context, press freedom can be considered part of the problem when news media outlets abuse this freedom to beat the competition. This is manifested by the proliferation of poor quality tabloids, gossip and gore masquerading as news on television, and daily doses of vitriol on radio. What is alarming is that much of the public doesn’t seem to mind as long as these are affordable and entertaining.

This situation is exacerbated by the deteriorating quality of many media practitioners brought about mainly by low pay, poor working conditions and low standards of training.

Studies have pointed to the deterioration in the quality of journalism practice as one major reason why practitioners are susceptible to “envelopmental journalism,” a euphemism for cash doles outs during press conferences and media events. For the major news media networks and conglomerates, low pay among the majority of their workers is still a usual concern but is somehow offset by the sense of job security that the stability and power these big media organizations offer.

The more insidious problem relates to the monopoly of the mass media by a few. Media ownership is concentrated in the hands of wealthy and powerful business houses that often use these media outlets to advance and defend their business, political and other vested interests. With media’s influential role in the daily lives of the public, which vocally support a “free press,” public perceptions and opinions on issues, problems and concerns may be misguided or twisted to ultimately affect the democratic institutions and way of life of ordinary Filipinos.

But it is in the day-to-day mundane affairs of the Filipino nation, when the press is a constant companion and a “consciencitizing” factor, that its watchdog role and impartiality in the never-ending quest for truth and freedom will ultimately assume the greatest effect and influence toward the safeguarding of democracy and the promotion of equitable human development in the Philippines.

Public Journalism Seminar-Workshop

The Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) has conducted three public journalism follow-through seminar-workshops in Pangasinan, Sorsogon and Iloilo in 2007. The seminar-workshops in Dagupan (July 16) and Sorsogon (August 28-30) were proactive responses to the specific needs of the community partners—media groups in Dagupan and KBP Chapter and educators in Sorsogon.

The November 6 seminar-workshop in Iloilo City helped in crafting a People’s Agenda through community-based reporting and feedback system called “Ulat sa Bayan.” This initiative brought together the media and various groups in Iloilo to articulate citizen concerns in the local government’s platform of governance.
Access to Information

CCJD in partnership with the Access to Information Network (ATIN) held the National Forum on Access to Information at Club Filipino November 20, 2007 entitled “We Have the Right to Know.” This also served as platform for encouraging institutions and organizations to join the advocacy for access to information.

Key organizations from academe and the NGO sector have signed up as new members of ATIN. Among those who signed were The Access Initiatives-Philippines; Code-NGO, Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), College Editors guild of the Philippines (CEGP), Consortium for Electoral Reforms (CER), PRRM and individuals formerly connected with government agencies.

Also, informal groupings of journalists and civil society representatives have agreed to form discussion groups focusing on the right and access to information especially in relation to the people’s right to know.

CCJD conducted three media briefings in partnership with the Access to Information Network (ATIN)—one each in Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon. These briefings tackled issues on constraints faced by journalists in accessing information from public authorities and government agencies, cases of denials, and possible responses.  Discussions also included sustained advocacy for the passage of a Freedom of Information act, local-level strategies for information exchange and experience sharing, and continuing capacity-building for community journalists and public awareness campaigns.

PJR Reports

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has published one issue (August 2007) of the PJR Reports, a publication designed to encourage best practice in the profession and call attention to inadequacies in reporting while suggesting ways to improve. An article on the relationship of media and government was also published in the October 2007 issue (“Should the press help the government? Media and Good Governance, p. 12).

“The PJR Reports’ impact has been cumulative,” said Prof. Luis V. Teodoro, the publication’s editor. Teodoro said PJR Reports’ effect on enhancing ethical compliance and upgrading professional standards cannot be measured in just one issue, but over time. Over the years, the publication has been a respected resource among media practitioners. The PJR Reports is also distributed to different universities and policy makers.

Ethics and Public Journalism Seminar-Workshop

Twenty-four (24) Luzon-based journalists attended the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s (CMFR) ethics and public journalism seminar-workshop in Baguio City on December 7 to 10, 2007. This first in a series of trainings under the Media, Democracy and Development project gathered community journalists both trained and untrained in journalism ethics. The three-day training provided those untrained with knowledge and understanding of the ethical responsibilities of the practice while reminding those who have had some training of the need to keep their ethical responsibilities constantly in mind.

Investigative Reporting Training-Workshops

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) conducted two three-day training-workshops in 2007 under the Media, Democracy and Development project. The investigative trainings were focused on the project’s themes governance and human rights. PCIJ also modified its investigative training modules for this project to reflect current realities affecting the media thus, discussions on the recently enacted Human Security Act and the killings of journalists were included.

The first training was held on September 24 to 27 at the Summer Place Hotel in Baguio City where 18 participants from Northern and Central Luzon, Batangas, Palawan and Metro Manila attended. On the other hand, 17 journalists participated in the second training held on December 3 to 6 at the Château del Mar Resort in Davao City. Sixteen (16) of these are Mindanao-based while one participant came from Metro Manila. Participants in both trainings are mid-level to senior journalists, with field experience ranging from three to 30 years.

Reporting Grants

Participants were asked to present story proposals focused on governance and human rights which could be pursued as investigative reports. Themes of the proposals submitted ranged from corruption to environmental concerns, from politics to the rights of indigenous peoples. From these, three writing grants were awarded to journalists who participated in the Luzon training. The recipients were:

• Mining applications threaten protected areas—focus on Mt. Pulag (Harley Palangchao and Arthur Allad-iw) and Palawan national parks (Lenny Escaro);
• Halsema Highway rehabilitation milking cow of contractors ands local politicians (Lita Jane Cadalig and Rimaliza Opina); and
• Bicol calamity fund mess: Where did the money go? (Mario de la Cruz).

Story outputs will be published in national dailies and in the online publication of the PCIJ website.

Online Database and Stories

Public Trust-Newsbreak put up a dedicated website (www.democracyandgovernancephilippines.com) where in-depth stories focusing on human rights, access to information, transparency and accountability in governance can be accessed. A total of 95 stories and documents under the UNDEF project were uploaded with the top 10 most popular were those about local government finance and security and human rights. These were:

• “More Rich LGUs Since Local Gov’t Code Took Effect”
• “A Dozen Kids Shot Dead Since 2001”
• “The Legal Eagles Who Nailed Erap”
• “Summary Executions of ASG Leaders, Suspected Carjackers Remain Unsolved”
• “Are the AFP’s Numerous Human Rights Directive Being Implemented?”
• “IRA Formula Makes Local Governments Complacent”
• “Caught in the Crossfire”
• “The President and Her Press”
• “No Test Case Despite Strict AFP, PNP Guidelines on Command Responsibility”
• “GMA Creating Too Many LGUs”

Gigi Go, PT’s officer-in-charge said data on the income classification of local government units and the distribution of the internal revenue allotment to municipalities were downloaded the most number of times.

Newsbreak Magazine Special Edition

A special print version of Newsbreak Magazine was published on December 2007 which tackled peace and development, local governance, the courts and access to information. The publication—this time, an issue-based—was well received by the readers compared to earlier ones tackling general interest subjects.

Newsbreak Magazine, which is circulated nationally, serves as an important resource for journalists to pursue more in-depth investigations as well as inputs for policy makers. The UNDEF-supported issue became a subject of discussion in the judiciary—a sector that is seldom subjected to media scrutiny.

Fellowship Grants

Three Luzon-based journalists worked as fellows of Newsbreak from November 5 to December 14, 2007, each of whom produced two-part investigative reports. The fellows—Dabet Castaneda, David Dizon and Melvin Gascon—were given the freedom to focus on issues they wanted to cover, with guidance of Newsbreak editors and consultants.

Castaneda wrote about how local governments have aided those who want to skirt the agrarian reform law. Dizon wrote about fraud committed through computer identity theft while Gascon on focused on multi-national mining firms operating in Cagayan Valley that violate Philippine laws and international standards.

Add to this the continuing armed conflict in many regions of the country especially in the south, latent insurgency, and the targeting of journalists, mainly members of the community press.  Since 1986 more than a hundred journalists have been killed in the Philippines, described by international press organizations as having an “atrocious record for journalists’ safety.”

Disaster risk awareness is at a premium but the news media that is supposed to provide the lens through which people can understand and cope with the effects of disasters is also hobbled by many constraints including the lack of training in covering disaster situations.  Most often coverage is focused on loss of lives and property, mismanagement of relief and rehabilitation funds or skewed disaster management policies.  Critical themes like disaster preparedness, mitigation, citizen and private sector participation, government relief and rehabilitation efforts are often underreported.

At the same time attacks on journalists tend to have a widespread chilling effect.  The attacks erode the ability of journalists to investigate and report, thus depriving citizens of their right to know.

Journalists cannot do their jobs well if they are put at risk when covering both natural and human-made disasters so their training must address two key elements: (1) covering disasters as news events for better citizen awareness and understanding; and, (2) ensuring their safety while at work so that their effectiveness will not be diminished.

The project aims to heighten media – especially journalists in small towns and cities — awareness and understanding of disaster risk reduction and their vulnerabilities while covering human-made and natural events.

At the same time, the project will enhance the reporting skills of community journalists thus enabling them to produce more interesting and compelling stories on disasters and disaster risk management.

It also seeks to promote continuing exchanges between journalists on disaster risk management issues and developments through the formation of an on-line exchange network to be hosted by the proponent’s website.

For several years, the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) has been developing and promoting journalistic approaches on how citizens and the media can begin to invigorate public life through engagement by situating journalists as community stakeholders and catalysts rather than as mere observers and reporters of unfolding events.

It may not have had all the answers but it did point out the direction where the answer may lie.  Often this was in the arena of multi-sector action where different groups of varying persuasions are able to articulate community concerns by focusing on shared values upon which many of their decisions are based.  This became possible through a shift towards a kind of journalism that encourages citizens and communities to identify and solve local problems, to increase participation in public life and in governance: it is called public journalism.

Public journalism is a philosophy, a framework that encourages and provides a forum for public debate over issues that are most important to citizens and how they can address these.  It also requires that when these public debates do occur, all voices of the community be heard.  It likewise requires journalists to focus not only on what’s wrong but also on what’s working, not only on problems but also on stories of success and hope.

Several media groups, newspapers, radio stations, and individual practitioners in several areas around the Philippines have initiated public journalism projects that somehow demonstrated that the community media can help refocus and add sinew to popularizing good governance initiatives at the local level without necessarily losing their cherished traditions of autonomy and independence.

These include:

* Working with multi-sector groups and local governments in adopting governance monitoring and feedback strategies using RBA in an MDG context (news weekly and press associations in Iloilo City)

* Developing a regional radio network (Bicol region) to consistently tackle governance reform issues in relation to mainstreaming RBA in governance

* Getting people to exercise their citizenship roles by actively engaging the local government in environmental protection, electoral exercises, development projects using a rights-based monitoring-feedback approach (Palawan community newspaper and the Palawan Community Media Council (PCMC)

* Sustaining interactive radio dialogue between citizens, multi-sector groups, and local government  on transparency and accountability issues (radio program in Kidapawan City)

* Media and citizen groups working together to strengthen multi-sector, community-based efforts in localizing the MDG (Calbayog City, Samar and Catbalogan, Western Samar)

* Mobilizing citizen action to support rights-based governance practices (using MindaNews video documentation of good governance practices in Mindanao as take-off strategy)

* Moro volunteers for peace developing communication strategies with community media (Tingog Mindanao Radio Alliance working in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi))

The project aims to:

1. Popularize RBA and localize MDG-responsive governance practices through public journalism approaches that result in published/aired stories and multi-sector dialogues
2. Develop and strengthen media-citizen councils or action boards as local mechanisms for media-citizen dialogues
3. Cascade media reform initiatives to local areas to address media issues such as ethics, professionalism, and the killings of journalists and their implications for people’s right to know

The Asia Foundation (TAF) and the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) recently signed an agreement to undertake a two-year project on human trafficking. The project, Strengthening Community Media Capacity and Multi-Sector Strategies to Address Trafficking in Persons, aims to strengthen the capability of community journalists—the print and broadcast media in small towns and cities where the most vulnerable segments of the population are located—to expose and report on trafficking in persons. At the same time, it seeks to develop and strengthen community-level multi-sector and multi-stakeholder strategies to address human trafficking issues discussed in the stories produced by journalists.

The project also intends to:

* Raise the knowledge and awareness of community journalists of the phenomenon of human trafficking. At the same time, it will enhance the reporting and writing skills of community journalists to enable them to produce compelling stories on human trafficking
* Train journalists on how to protect themselves in the course of coverage because human trafficking is often the work of criminal syndicates and covering this issue may be dangerous
* Provide community journalists an online outlet to create national and international audiences for their stories on human trafficking. It also intends to commission the writing of high-impact stories on human trafficking that would serve as reporting models
* Develop strategies for media and multi-sector interfaces through community dialogues as a follow-through to the writing and publication of stories on human trafficking

The Philippines has been identified as a source, transit and destination country for victims of human trafficking, and was placed on Tier 2–Watch List on the 2005 United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report. According to the United Nations, the Philippines has contributed 600,000 to 800,000 victims of trafficking in persons.

The number of victims remains disturbingly large despite the passage of an anti-trafficking in persons law in 2003 and intensified efforts by the government and nongovernmental organizations to curb human trafficking. Many reasons account for this: poverty, erosion of family values, graft and corruption, human trafficking syndicates, and police protection, among others.

The high incidence of human trafficking, however, is also due in part to the media’s failure to constantly keep in the public’s consciousness the plight of trafficked persons and, more importantly, the appropriate actions that can be and are being taken on the problem. Community journalists from both print and broadcast have a major role in performing this function as majority of the victims of trafficking in persons are destitute folk from impoverished rural areas enticed by promises of good jobs in the big cities or abroad. Sadly, many of these journalists lack the knowledge, skills, attitude and wherewithal to report on the organized and complex crime of human trafficking.

The project will be implemented in areas around the country identified as key transit points for human trafficking and will involve journalists, civil society organizations, law enforcement, and social service agencies of the government.

Course Objectives:

The course has been designed to specifically target practicing journalists who want to improve their skills, earn credits for further advanced studies in journalism, explore new and exciting ways of practicing journalism, and offer opportunities for contributing to community-building through their craft.

Course Description:

This course uses interactive and adult learning processes to enable participants apply new journalistic concepts to the day-to-day practice of the craft. It will likewise allow them to develop, should they decide, proposals for public journalism projects that they can undertake at the end of the course. Proposals can be submitted to the Center for Community Journalism and Development.

Tentative schedules for the training:

October 2007 – Luzon
March 2008 – Mindanao
May 2008 – Visayas