The year 2016 in Philippine mainstream news reporting saw a maelstrom of events that ranged from Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential victory to late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
In the natural ebb and flow of Philippine current events, there lay an undercurrent of significant issues that did not receive the surge of corporate media coverage they ought to have.
Here are the top 10 underreported issues of 2016.
1. Activist and media killings in the guise of the drug war
We already know the drill. In the morning or evening news the anchors round up the number of drug suspects killed either in legitimate police operations or by so-called vigilantes.
It is bad enough that the bodies and numbers pile up without us, the public, actually hearing investigations being completed and perpetrators brought to justice as much as we are not hearing sharp analyses pinpointing the reasons why suspected people use or peddle illegal drugs in the first place, or if the war on drugs that has left 6,000 dead is actually curbing drug abuse. What makes Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war worse is that it has made criminals out of media workers and activists.
The first recorded casualty is environmental and youth activist Joselito Pasaporte, who was shot in Compostela Valley in October. Just last month, tri-wheel driver Joel Lising was shot once in the head and six times in the body by unidentified men. Lising was an active member of Pagkakaisa ng mga Tri-wheels para sa Kabuhayan (PATOK), an organization resisting Manila City’s plan of phasing out tri-wheels and replacing them with e-trikes.
Read: Manila tri-wheel driver and association officer is latest activist EJK victim
Publisher Larry Que of Catanduanes News Now was shot three weeks ago after the community newspaper published an article criticizing local provincial officials about one of the biggest shabu labs raided by the police. Pangasinan radio commentator Virgilio Maganes narrowly escaped death after being gunned down by motorcycle-riding men. As Maganes pretended to be dead, another man placed a cardboard bearing the words, “Drug pusher, huwag pamarisan” [Drug pusher, don’t emulate].
2. Ceasefire violations amid GRP’s unilateral ceasefire declaration
What was trumpeted as Rodrigo Duterte’s “explosive news” during his first State of the Nation Address wasn’t the big change we thought was coming, as human rights group Karapatan reports several cases of ceasefire violations perpetrated by the armed forces.
While the unilateral ceasefire declarations of both the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front are still in effect, fully armed soldiers have entered communities to conduct peace and development operations or anti-drug check-ups under the armed forces’ counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. Locals have reported the same soldiers subjecting suspected New People’s Army supporters to psy-war and harassment. The arrest of NPA fighters and the death of Jimmy Saypan, peasant activist and NPA supporter (as the military says) warrant the claim that soldiers still conduct military operations despite the armed forces declaring suspension of military offensives. Paramilitary groups continue to sow fear among the Lumad in Davao del Norte and Surigao provinces.
While mainstream media reportage on the ceasefire and the peace talks is timely, news on this remains to be on the surface level. Why is there armed conflict? Why the need for a ceasefire to bolster the peace talks? Or can the GRP and NDF talk peace and still have their guns? These are the questions left unanswered, or not asked at all by the media.
3. The state of the country’s political prisoners
Along the same wave as the peace talks between the GRP and the NDF are the neglected state of more than 400 political prisoners in the country.
Read: Ten reasons why political prisoners should be released
We did not hear about the death of ailing Eduardo Serrano last January, who was about to be released as trumped-up charges against him were dropped one by one by the courts. He languished under harsh jail conditions for 11 years. We did not hear the anger and disappointment in the voice of Bernabe Ocasla’s daughter Choan as she together with human rights defenders picketed at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process for allowing her father to be imprisoned seven years before suffering a fatal heart attack.
Read: Release of political prisoners is a life and death matter
The last week of November kept busy news outfits who churned out news after news about late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Around this time, calls for the immediate release of political prisoners as well as nationwide hunger strikes intensified. But instead of allotting airtime for this, news execs instead chose to air reports about Sandro Marcos’ Twitter posts and his lasting friendship with Jake Ejercito despite his grandfather’s hero’s burial.
4. The chronic traffic crisis in Metro Manila
Aside from drug-related killings, police raids, and reports culled from police and CCTV videos, the usual news round-up includes the worsening traffic situation in Metro Manila. Although news is abundant with man-on-street interviews and other similar forms of reporting the traffic crisis, we are fed with information that we already know. What we do still don’t know are the underlying factors contributing to heavy traffic, the viable solutions to the problem, and the possible results of granting emergency powers to President Duterte.
Activist-writer Michael Beltran presents research data showing that the country’s socio-economic conditions directly affect Manila traffic. He also warns the public of the trade-offs that come with the president’s emergency powers, should these be given.
One traffic solution proposed by both commuters and government leaders is to focus on mass transportation like the MRT and LRT. However, controversies hounded the Manila railway system, particularly on the common station controversy.
Mainstream media did a meagre job of reporting these issues by lacking analyses and commentary on the construction of the MRT 3, LRT 2, and MRT 7 common station, which involved concerned government entities giving concessions to favor Ayala and SM malls and businesses.
5. Continuing demolitions in urban and rural communities
President Duterte’s declaration of suspending demolitions until proper relocation is provided has already been broken several times in 2016.
While urban poor group Kadamay says that the issue of housing has its roots in the country’s socio-economic quagmire, Duterte’s earlier statement regarding relocation gives a chance for residents to pursue legal action and gain collective strength against unlawful demolition practices. This kind of analysis is absent in media reports on urban development and housing.
Kadamay reported several demolition cases in both urban and rural areas last year, including a land-grabbing issue in Maragondon, Cavite, by Henry Sy and local landlord Virata family.
Last November, a shot was fired at the Kadamay Malabon Chapter office by unidentified men, while informal settlers’ homes in Pangarap Village, North Caloocan were set to fire by suspected members of the military.
6. Election malfunctions
Commission on Elections chair Andres Bautista is in hot water for the data leak that compromised the personal data of over 16 million Filipinos. Aside from that, Comelec faced criticism over blunders during the May 9 elections, including difficulty of finding voter precincts, hot and congested polling areas, and non-functioning or malfunctioning vote-counting machines. Some voters had to leave their ballots and just trusted the election officer to feed the ballots into the VCM once they started working again. Because of the delay, around 1.5 to 2 million people left the polling precincts without having voted at all.
Former Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman admitted that the country’s automated election system obtained by the government from foreign company Smartmatic is “vulnerable to internal tampering.”
However widespread the election coverage was by mainstream media outfits, the reports mainly focused on numbers – like how many VCMs malfunctioned or which areas voting got delayed – and not so much on the implications and prospects of using an automated electoral system made and ran by foreign businesses from a country with great political, economic and military interests in one of the Philippines’ most manifest exercises of democracy.
7. Lumad issues
Except for the police dispersal at the U.S. Embassy in October last year (with its violent nature the stuff of sensationalized reporting), mainstream media failed to deliver in-depth reports on several issues plaguing the Lumad and Philippine indigenous peoples. If it were not also for the harrowing, blatant police harassment of protesters, it would not have been reported that the indigenous peoples have trooped to the country’s capital, were on their sixth day in the metro, and were seeking redress for their grievances.
On December 2016, Datu Gombil Mansimuy-at and 15 others from Davao del Norte died due to pneumonia and diarrhea. The local government of Davao and non-government organizations say that since their return in November 2016, the Lumad have been facing health, sanitation, and agricultural problems and are adjusting to new, unfamiliar conditions in their town in Talaingod after having been away for more than two years. Members of the Talaingod community fled after military harassment in April 2014. Even before that time and even up to now, the Lumad have been actively defending their right to their ancestral land and self-determination, and for that they endure harassment, torture, and death from the hands of those sworn to protect and serve the interests of the people .
8. Hunger and militarization hounding the peasant sector
That the Philippines is mainly an agricultural country must constantly (and purposely?) slip the minds of our executives and lawmakers, such that there is a lack of government policies and measures that uplift the peasant sector. Instead, we see an influx of mining enterprises, agribusiness ventures, and plantations primarily for export.
Because of sustained collective action from farmers and farmworkers, several violent incidents continuing to defeat genuine land reform have been recorded by the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, including the shooting of banana workers by security guards of Lapanday Foods Corporation in Tagum City; the forced eviction of Hacienda Luisita tillers from their collective bungkalan; and the police dispersal of farmers demanding rice that left two dead and many others wounded, an incident now remembered as the Kidapawan shooting.
In November, farmers and fisherfolk from the Visayas journeyed to Manila in what was dubbed the Lakbayan ng Visayas. Around a thousand delegates held dialogues, protests, and teach-ins at concerned government agencies and schools. Their call? Proper rehabilitation for typhoon-struck provinces that are experiencing hunger – including unfinished housing and financial projects for Yolanda survivors – government support for vast farmlands attacked by pests, and an end to militarization in almost all Visayas regions.
We didn’t hear any of these peasant-initiated demonstrations and educational undertakings. The Kidapawan shooting landed a few news spots for several days, but we got as many (or even more) slanted reports favoring the police, local officials and Liberal Party members (when Mar Roxas’ electoral campaign connection came into play) as those who were exposing the story and seeking justice for the farmers as media should be all about public trust and social justice. Déjà vu, Hacienda Luisita?
9. Never-ending endo and unfair labor practices
Working conditions in the Philippines loomed well during the early part of 2016 with presidential frontrunner Duterte promising an end to contractualization; however, with the release of the labor department’s win-win solution proposal and later the Department Order 30 (DO 30), it seems like the end for endo is still far from sight.
Comprehensive reporting is absent from the daily news, especially on laws and policies that allow the existence of unfair labor practices.
There is also immense misinformation about what is contractualization, workers themselves not knowing the rigmaroles of this and especially their labor and economic rights, especially at this juncture that the ‘win-win’ solution and the DO 30 aim only to wipe out contractualization in name.
The same conditions apply for workers in the television and film industry, in spite of the Department of Labor and Employment’s advisory setting an 8-12 hour working day. In a press briefing last month, DOLE secretary Silvestre Bello recognized that TV and film workers receive meager salaries, have no benefits, and lack security of tenure.
Some segments proudly relayed news of international wins by filmmaker Lav Diaz and actress Jaclyn Jose, but failed to give more time to report labor struggles waged (and won) by talents behind the camera.
10. Philippine independent foreign policy
For his numerous unprecedented statements throughout 2016, topping last year’s list of newsmakers is no less than President Duterte. He lashed out on the U.S. for criticizing his war on drugs, cried justice for the millions killed in the Filipino-American War, threatened to abrogate PH-US military pacts, ordered American troops out of Mindanao, and convinced us of the need to create our own independent foreign policy. Then after all this, he allowed the continuation of the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, and permitted 250 military exercises in the Philippines in 2017, including the annual Balikatan exercises between the US and Philippine military.
The media was abuzz with talk about independent foreign policy, but all this touched only the tip of the iceberg, without actually looking beneath the waters. Progressive groups have been constantly calling an end to imperialist incursions by the US in the Philippines, and it seems they have reason to do so – ties between America and our country have so far been limited to subjecting the latter to unfair economic, political, and military conditions. Still, there is still a lot to tell the public about true independence, territorial and economic sovereignty—cusps of nationhood—that we do not discuss in media and does not help inform the public so they may have their own opinion. Duterte’s patriotic rhetoric could have been the (long-awaited) jump off point.
