Media’s role in shaping international perception

The perception that ours is a shrinking world is demonstrated by the way technology is bridging geographical distance. Nowadays, one can see what’s going on in any country even simultaneously while the events unfold through satellite television feeds. The advent of modern communications technology like the Internet and the proliferation of search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Netscape and the like now makes it so easy for the international community to access the latest news about countries like the Philippines. It was certainly a great surprise to find out that so many people read the Philippine STAR through its online edition, philstar.com. Philstar Global Corp. President and CEO Kevin Belmonte must be very happy with the number of hits philstar.com has been getting, with the online version being very accessible and user-friendly.

The downside to such accessibility however is that news regarding the Philippines can be spread quickly all over the world with just the click of a mouse. That goes without saying that whatever Philippine media decides to write can heavily influence the perception of people all over the world about this country, their opinions shaped by what they read in the news. Unfortunately, the Philippines has been getting a lot of negative publicity in the two weeks that I was away. The oil spill off Guimaras Island has caught the attention of environmentalists and green advocates all over the world because of the sheer magnitude of the disaster.

Two million liters of bunker fuel put a monkey wrench on plans to take Guimaras off the list as one of the country’s 20 poorest provinces. People all over the world now know Guimaras, not as the home of the sweetest mangoes, but as a place of tragedy and disaster. Some 10,000 people dependent on fishing just lost their livelihood, and 40,000 more have been adversely affected. Photos of sea creatures pathetically covered in black muck were transmitted through the world wide web, conveying the magnitude of the tragedy without words. While experts from Japan, the US and other countries are helping, the oil spill, already dubbed as the worst in the country’s history, would take a long time to completely clean up, and nobody can really tell for sure just how far-reaching the consequences are to our ecology.

Unfortunately also, the continued killings of journalists and suspected leftists continues to give us a black eye especially with Amnesty International’s report claiming that government has failed to protect these people and uphold their human rights. We continue to be portrayed as a country that kills journalists with impunity, and this issue was at the center of discussions at the recent World Congress of the International Press Institute at Edinburgh, Scotland, which I attended as a panelist. The continued, unsolved killings continue to give the impression that the country is unsafe especially for journalists.

Another continuing source of embarrassment is the mothballed NAIA 3. This facility remains a symbol of corruption, with even the Supreme Court saying the contract is void because the facility was built under suspicious terms and tainted by allegations of bribery. Piatco lawyers facilitated the opening of two bank accounts in Hong Kong by suspected bagman Alfredo Liongson, where payoffs were reportedly made. The trail of corruption has reached Hong Kong, prompting elements of the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) to raid the RMBSA Corporate Services Ltd., a firm affiliated with the Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc de los Angeles or RMBA, the Piatco law firm in Manila. And now government is being made to pay P3 billion for a facility so badly built that a portion of its roof has already collapsed even before it becomes operational.

The televised impeachment proceedings are not helping any in improving our image abroad. People all over the world are looking at these proceedings as a big joke, with the main players looking like clowns.

Sadly, news about the leakage in the nursing exams has also reverberated around the world, tainting the nursing profession and greatly jeopardizing the chances of those hoping to get employed abroad. That the leakage is being traced to members of the Board of Nursing, some of whom are owners of nursing colleges and review centers, has damaged this country’s reputation as a source of competent nurses, to say the least. With this controversy, we might as well kiss our hopes of establishing a testing center here for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) goodbye for now. Already there are reports that some countries are reluctant to hire nurses from the Philippines because of lingering suspicions that even previous licensure exams may have been tainted by irregularities and therefore, this country’s nursing graduates may be unqualified to practice the profession. As our publisher Max Soliven pointed out, even the International Herald Tribune has seen fit to put the controversy in one of its headlines, aptly stating that "Exam fraud taints Philippine nurses."

A pleasant surprise is that in Washington DC and many cities around the United States, a lot of Americans read the column of Max Soliven regularly. They see him as a reliable source of information about what’s really going on in the Philippines. His opinions certainly shape American perception about this country and his succinct comments are weighed even by most ambassadors as an accurate gauge about what’s happening in the country and perhaps even use it to determine policy regarding issues.

Whatever Philippine media writes about this country is now read around the world and they help shape the opinion of people about us. And in a global arena, perceptions matter a lot because they can dictate relationships between countries. There’s no question that media must do its job by reporting the news, but I believe it’s equally important to practice responsible journalism by giving a fair and balanced take of what’s happening in the country today. Needless to say, there is a need to report the news under its proper context. While there’s nothing much we can do about the way international media outfits like CNN present the news, at times quite unfairly about this country, Philippine media should temper its reporting with balance and objectivity, and not resort to sensationalism as a means to create attention. With the advent of modern technology, media should realize the big role it plays in helping shape perceptions about the Philippines. Good or bad, media must accurately report the news. We must be fair to our own country. It’s the only one we’ve got!

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