The Philippines’ elites

(Last of 2 parts)

IV. The Media

Philippine media came into its own as a major social and political force in this country only after the end of the Second World War in 1945. Like the press of Europe and the United States before and shortly after WWII, our media was also referred to locally as the Fourth Estate following the historic model of the Estates-General in France in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789.

Media for many generations was actually called the press.

Television had yet to make its appearance in the Philippines. But when it did in the 60s and the 70s TV plus radio of course eventually raced ahead of print media in audience and circulation figures. TV’s clout in the Philippines today is towering, even intimidating. And yet till this instant, the major newspapers and publications remain the favorite fare of the nation’s so-called decision makers, the professionals, middle class, civil society.

This is presumably because the broadsheets and some magazines treat and handle the news with more seriousness, depth and maturity. Newspaper columnists and commentators today enjoy an unprecedented prominence and prestige. Differently from TV and radio, they spool out and analyze events, take time to ponder their weight and significance. The lingua franca is largely English which is not surprising. English remains alongside Pilipino or Tagalog, the nation’s national language, as it still is the language of education, and often that of government and big business.

Philippine media has often been depicted as the liveliest and freest in Asia. Newspaper columnists and commentators have long modeled themselves after their American prototypes, a lusty, free-swinging, walloping bunch, the most adventurous of whom were called the muckrackers. For sometime, during the 50s and 60s Filipino journalists,many of whom ventured into international journalism, were considered among the best in the Asia-Pacific region.

Carlos P. Romulo, publisher of the pre-war Philippines Herald, was awarded America’s prestigious Pulitzer prize for political reporting when he covered China during the turbulent events having to do with the Chinese revolution and the Japanese invasion just before and including the outbreak of World War II. No other Filipino has received this award.

Today, Philippine media has grown so powerful it is actually feared by many. And yet, there is corruption in the ranks.

TV talk show hosts and broadcasters are a close second to the newspaper columnists and commentators in lording it over the profession. One major reason former president Ferdinand Marcos declared martial rule in September 1972 was because media was merciless and relentless in lambasting his administration. Mr.Marcos blamed media, particularly the foreign press, for the "bad image" abroad of the Philippines. It didn’t take long before he cracked down on the press, imprisoned many of them, and set up his own media network.

But the dictator never really crushed or silenced the press.

During the martial law years, the so-called "alternative press" or "mosquito press" – largely tabloids with limited circulation – kept hammering at him, the dictatorship and his wife Imelda. It was then in May 1974 that a cluster of foreign correspondents in Manila organized the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), which is alive and kicking until today. Many members of FOCAP are Filipinos.

The outbreak of EDSA February 22-25, 1986, was also seen as a success of media. This was largely the work of Radio Veritas, radio network of the Roman Catholic Church, which roused the citizenry in Metro Manila against the Marcos dictatorship particularly after the assassination August 21, 1983, of Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino.

It was the voice of Jaime Cardinal Sin on Radio Veritas February 21 1986 calling on the Filipiinos to rally round a group of Palace mutineers led by Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and Col. Gregorio Honasan who had fled to Camp Aguinaldo that broke the dam.

Hundreds of thousands lost no time pouring into an eight-lane avenue called EDSA abutting Camp Aguinaldo. This human flood so scared the dictator he and his family had to flee to Honolulu aboard US 7th Fleet helicopters. It was media that called this event "People Power", meaning a successful revolt of the people in the streets against a tyrant without resorting to violence.

The redoubtable elite that is now media is not coasting at all.

Conscious of its power and prominence, the media has spread out on the social and political barricades, probably the best and most effective argument that democracy continues to function in the Philippines.

V. The Clergy

The clergy, particularly the Roman Cathjolic Church, remains one of the most powerful institutions in the Philippines. In his prime, Jaime Cardinal Sin, only next to the president, enjoyed a resonance almost identical to that of Malacanang Palace. In the first and second EDSA, the portly cardinal, with a booming voice, summoned the vast throngs that toppled Ferdinand Mafrcos and, after him, Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

Many observers said the Cardinal was the "second most powerful politician" in the Philippines and they were probably right.

Before the advent of Cardinal Sin, however, the Roman Catholic Church was a highly conservative church, more often identified with the interests of the rich and powerful. This was a carry-over from more than three centuries of Spanish rule where the Christian cross, more than the sword, pierced the Filipino psyche, his tribal ethos, and largely structured the passive, non-dynamic culture of the present-day Pinoy. Spanish colonization also left its physical legacy, hundreds if not thousands of churches, chapels and shrines all over the Philippines.

The concept of heaven and hell lies like a lodestone in the Filipino soul. It probably explains the patience, the submission, the capacity for suffering of the Christian Filipino as it also presumably does his resisance to change, to economic development, to the swirl of modern ideas, to modernization itself.

VI. The intellectuals, the Left

It’s somewhat ideologically awkward to include Filipino intellectuals and the moderate left as members of the elite that rule our nation today. But the current reawakening of nationalism, though still devoid of solid bone and muscle, now looms as a force that could mould or shape the nation’s future. Nationalism, or the lack of it, was the main ingredient that launched BANGON! last November. It was perceived as a Third Force that could rise above the boisterous hurly-burly of politics.

Non-partisan, BANGON! aims to resurrect and vastly strengthen nationalism, which is actually love of country, and thereby rouse the youth, ignite the studentry, stir the middle forces. The objective would be to hack a way out of an entangling political forest that has virtually strangled the institutions of democracy. If the present system should collapse, better still self-destruct, BANGON’s guidance and presence could probably help avoid recourse to violence, the worst manifestations of which would be revolution or civil war.

For the Philippines, among other Third World nations in agony, the symbol of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary idol, is dead and buried.

The collapse of the communist ideology with the end of the Cold War in 1989-91, also snuffed out what was left of the dreams of the CPP-NPA to keep alive the communist revolution they launched in 1968-69. This probably explains why some layers of that revolution have joined the "democratic space" provided by the constitution. The party-list system has succeeded beyond expectatons. Today, many moderate members of the Left are running for Congress under the party-list system. The forecast is that they will win more seats and therefore expand their influence.

If the premise that the communist ideology is dead is correct, , and the present political party system, led by corrupt politicians, could be in its death throes, then nationalism remains as the only emotional, gut-wrenching force that could rally the Filipino citizenry.

What is to be bemoaned is that our schools, universities and colleges have failed to produce highly motivated Filipinos, steeped in ethics, morality and values. The studentry, the youth have turned their back on street demonstrations. Still and all, the nation’s intellectuals are coming alive. More than anybody else, they have their faces pinned to the ground and hear the ominous rumbling underneath.