Manila Times (A Paper of Record) : 2 Part Series - The day the presses stopped ; The press in a straitjacket

Wednesday, September 21, 2005


A PAPER OF RECORD



The day the presses stopped

By Anita Feleo And David Sheniak



First of two parts



(This article is an excerpt from the book, A Paper of Record: A History of the Manila Times, 1898-2002, due for publication in October.)


SEPTEMBER 22, 1972, rolled in as a typical evening at The Manila Times. It was a Friday, the boys’ night out. With the next day’s issue put to bed, the deskmen repaired to their favorite dives on Roxas Boulevard. Relates the front-page editor Crispulo Icban Jr.: “We went nightclubbing till the early hours, then I returned to the office to give the paper a final check. That’s when I learned that [Juan Ponce] Enrile had been ambushed

There was no need to remat, because the night editor had taken care of that, so I headed home.”

Only the next morning, when Icban received the first of many phone calls telling him martial law had been declared and The Times had been closed down, did it dawn on him that the incident involving Enrile “was the trigger.”


Padlocked

Senate reporter Isagani Yambot, still hung over from a night at the casino, woke up to a similar morning phone call. He was out in the streets like a shot to get to the office to confirm the news. “The streets were empty. No jeepneys, no buses. I walked from my apartment in Makati to Florentino Torres.” When he arrived, The Times was already padlocked and armed soldiers were guarding the building. “Only Joe Luna Castro was allowed in. He told me the editorial offices had been ransacked, his personal things strewn on the floor. He was missing one book, Biological Revolution, or some such title. The soldiers must have taken it, he said, because of that forbidden word on the cover.” They shared a nervous laugh over the military’s zealousness. When he got home, Yambot, who was part of the first official group of Filipinos to visit China, hid all his books written by Chairman Mao.

The morning shift was milling about outside The Times building, muttering to each other in shock and disbelief. “Nobody expected such a thing could happen to a solid newspaper like The Times,” says Icban. The employees’ first concern was for their families. “Many of us had some money put away with our savings and loan association,” continues Yambot. “But when we tried to withdraw it we were told the association had been put in receivership by the Central Bank because the officers had absconded with the funds.” Management, however, eventually paid all the employees their full salary up to the end of December, including their Christmas bonus. The company also helped the rank and file find new employment. Armed with their credentials and recommendations, several printers were hired by The New York Times.


The writing on the wall

THE TIMESMEN—as did informed Filipinos—knew something dreadful was bound to happen since the turn of the seventies. As journalists for an adversarial paper they saw the writing on the wall and the message became more legible with the march of events: the “First-Quarter Storm” in 1970 and in 1971, the rewriting of the 1935 Constitution to allow President Ferdinand E. Marcos a third term, the Plaza Miranda bombing, and the subsequent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus all told the same tale. But when martial law was in fact declared, it caught the Timesmen unprepared. Most Filipinos were similarly stunned. It was the nation’s first experience of military rule in recent memory. No one could predict what would happen next.

Proclamation 1081, which imposed martial law, was dated September 21, 1972. But contrary to popular knowledge, it was actually signed on September 17. It was postdated to suit a presidential quirk. For Marcos, an apostle of numerology, the 21st was an auspicious date, being the sum of his favorite number, 7+7+7. The proclamation was formally announced September 23 at 7:30 p.m., some 22 hours after Marcos had ordered the arrest of his political opponents and the shuttering of all the media establishments.

Among the periodicals deemed anti-Marcos and closed were the Roces family’s Manila Times, Daily Mirror and Taliba, the Lopezes’ Manila Chronicle, Teodoro Locsin Sr.’s Philippines Free Press, Antonio Araneta’s Graphic and the Jacintos’ Asia-Philippines Leader.

Newspapermen who were arrested and detained included publishers Joaquín “Chino” Roces, Eugenio Lopez Jr., Locsin and Araneta; editors Amando Doronila (Chronicle) and Luis Mauricio (Graphic); columnists Maximo V. Soliven (Manila Times) and Ernesto Granada (Chronicle); and reporters Roz Galang (Manila Times) and Napoleon Rama (Free Press).

“My father [Chino] gave himself up voluntarily,” says Joaquín “Joaquinito” Roces Jr., who had worked with the Manila Times Publishing Co. since he was 13. “On the evening of September 22 I was at Where Else? Suddenly the music stopped and the lights came on. Somebody announced over the sound system that martial law had been declared, and confusion erupted. Everybody ran out. The disco was emptied in a split second. I was afraid for my father, so I drove home as fast as I could.” The Roceses lived near Timog Avenue, Quezon City; Joaquinito took the Wack Wack shortcut to get home as quickly as possible. He didn’t know then he was passing the spot where Enrile was allegedly ambushed. The news came to him as a surprise because there was no hint of trouble when he drove by. On the other hand, six Metrocom cars surrounded the Roces house. “‘Is Dad home?’ I asked my mother. She said ‘no.’ I got in my car again to look for him. After a couple of hours, around 3 a.m., I found my father at the ‘White House,’ the Roxas mansion in Cubao. He was with Senator Gerry Roxas [president of the Opposition], and they were talking about going to the hills. Finally, they agreed to face the music and turn themselves in to the military at Camp Aguinaldo.”


Strange bedfellows

Roces and Locsin shared a cell. The two were known not to be on speaking terms, but propinquity changed that. A friend asked Roces how he and Locsin were getting along. Replied he: “Wonderful, if it gets any better one of us will wind up pregnant.”

Three days before martial law was enforced, columnist Maximo V. Soliven received a phone call from Lupita Concio, the director of his talk show, Impact, and the sister of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino. Recalls Soliven: “‘You have to go back to the studio tonight for a live telecast,’ she said. ‘Ninoy just called, he has an important announcement to make and he wants to make it on your program.’ I had settled down at home for the night because we had already taped that evening’s show. Outside it was pouring and the streets were flooded. Now I would have to junk the tape and leave the house, neither one a thrilling prospect. I practically swam to Channel 2 and then waited for Ninoy to show up. Ten minutes before air time, I was muttering invectives at the still absent Ninoy. He finally turned up, just in the nick of time.”

Soliven’s Impact was the first to break the major story. Aquino exposed “Oplan Sagittarius,” the Marcos plan to place Metro Manila under military control. His last words before Impact went off the air were: “Mr. Marcos, if we will be oppressed by martial law as a people and some of us die, our blood will be on your hands.”

Soliven was also at home on the fateful night of September 22. “At around 2 a.m. our gardener, a former army sergeant, knocked on our bedroom door and told me in Ilocano that there were Metrocom soldiers outside and that they were fully armed. I called up General [Fidel] Ramos, who was in charge of the dreaded police unit and asked him frankly if this was a liquidation. He reassured me, saying, ‘You’re going to be arrested, but nothing will happen to you.’ The ISAFP [Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines] officer who actually arrested me was strangely apologetic. ‘Sir, this is a painful duty,’ he said, ‘you’re my favorite columnist.’”


Cellmates

Soliven was taken to Fort Bonifacio, where the 10 men Marcos hated and feared most would also be detained. The men would be placed two to a cell. Soliven’s cellmate was none other than Ninoy Aquino. Says he: “We were treated well and allowed visitors. However, we also knew that we might be executed at anytime. Ninoy was fearless yet quiet while I volubly cursed Marcos. ‘You’re taking it personally,’ Ninoy would say. ‘Marcos is playing his last card. He knows Gerry [Roxas] or I will be the next President.’”

Soliven might have been released sooner had he controlled his temper. “One morning my visitor was Ilocos Norte Governor Elizabeth Marcos-Keon, the President’s sister. She was an old friend and told me she wanted to help secure my freedom. ‘But how can I,’ she said, ‘when just last night you called Marcos an SOB?’ Can you believe it? The SOB had bugged our cell.”

After three and a half months, without being charged, Soliven was released. But not without strings attached. He was placed under military supervision for three years, not permitted to write or leave the country for seven years.


Stuff of fiction

What happened to The Times reporters Satur Ocampo and Carolina “Bobbie” Malay, both members of the Communist Party of the Philippines, is the stuff of fiction.

Ocampo was already working at The Times when he co-founded the Kabataang Maka-bayan, a militant student organization, in 1964. Malay, his fellow activist and future wife, had been with The Times for four years. Her activism began later on a trip to Europe. While enrolled at the French Press Institute she began to realize that the Philippine press was in the hands of the elite and generally catered to an elitist audience. “I made a promise to myself,” she says. “When I return to the Philippines, I would do two things—write in Tagalog and join the revolution.” She did both.

For two years Malay wrote political editorials for the Taliba. Then she became a full-time revolutionary.

On August 21, 1971, grenades lobbed at the rally of the opposition Liberal Party in Plaza Miranda killed nine people and wounded more than a hundred others. Marcos blamed the communists and launched a witch-hunt against “Red rebels.” Recalls Ocampo: “I was the only high-ranking KM member on the loose. I was a sitting duck. So I went underground, surfacing only occasionally. By the time martial law was declared, I had completely taken myself out of the loop.” Malay joined Ocampo in hiding. She resigned from the Taliba on the pretext that she was going back to Paris, even staging an elaborate ruse by sending her colleagues postcards mailed from the French city.

In the underground, Ocampo and Malay, along with other ideologues like Antonio Zumel and Jose Maria Sison, formed the National Democratic Front, an alliance of revolutionary groups in the Philippines. They were also married in the movement’s rites.

Ocampo was arrested in January 1976. Branded “militantly vicious,” he was jailed for 10 years in a military camp, earning the grim distinction of being the second longest-held political prisoner during Marcos’s 20-year rule.

On May 5, 1985, the National Press Club managed to get Ocampo a 12-hour pass to enable him to vote in the Club’s annual election. He didn’t return to his cell. Aided by his journalist friends, Ocampo escaped and rejoined Bobbie in the underground.

The couple resurfaced for the peace talks initiated by President Corazon Aquino in July 1986. But when the talks collapsed after the massacre of peasants who marched on Malacañang to demand land reform, Ocampo and Malay again went underground.

In July 1989, as they were leaving their safe house in Makati, the two were captured and detained in Fort Bonifacio. Malay was released in 1991 and taught journalism at the University of the Philippines. Ocampo was freed in 1992 and later named Bayan party-list representative, a post he holds at this writing.


Under ‘new management’

Before martial law was declared, rumors flew that Marcos wanted to buy The Times and turn it into a newspaper friendly to his administration. Chino Roces adamantly refused. After martial law was declared, another rumor was floated about a plan to put the Times under “new management,” but the “deal fell through.”

Frustrated a second time, Marcos simply wrested the paper from Roces. Roces was forced to sell its Goss Headliner to Hans Menzi, the Bulletin’s publisher and Marcos’s personal aide, for P6.3 million. The massive printing press, which took the publishing company three years to fully assemble, was worth P75 million. With his staff and equipment gone, Roces sold The Times buildings to Fairmart, a merchandising chain. The money from both sales went to employee compensation.

The two buildings of the Manila Times Publishing Co. are still standing, a ghost of their former selves. Fairmart occupies the newer building. The older building, looking like a haunted castle, is the most articulate metaphor for Chino Roces’ lost Camelot. Two stores—one for communications hardware, the other for commercial paint—are on the ground floor, but the upper floors are sealed off. The building’s crumbling façade recalls the bombed-out tenements in the South Bronx. The only bright note in this depressing setting is a unit of the Santa Cruz Volunteer Fire Brigade, a matchbox of a station painted a dazzling yellow and squeezed in between the two buildings beneath a maze of rotting fire escapes.



Continued




Thursday, September 22, 2005




A PAPER OF RECORD



The press in a straitjacket

By Anita Feleo And David Sheniak



Last of two parts


(This article is an excerpt from the book, A Paper of Record: A History of The Manila Times, 1898-2002, due for publication in October.)


UNDER martial law, only publications controlled by persons close to or identified with the Marcos administration were allowed to operate. Among the so-called crony broadsheets were Roberto Benedicto’s Philippines Daily Express, Benjamin Romualdez’s Times Journal, Hans Menzi’s Bulletin Today and the Tuveras’ Evening Post.

The first directive issued by the Department of Public Information pretty much covered the ground rules governing the print media: all publications were to be cleared first by the department. See PRESS Marcos took draconian measures against the press, putting it in a straitjacket

Its fine print discouraged, among other things, “editorial comment” and “materials that are seditious or that tend toward disorder, lawlessness and violence.”

That “Big Brother” was as clueless as his flock about how this tall order would be enforced could be gleaned from the creation and dissolution of a series of policing bodies. In November the Mass Media Council (MMC) was formed through Presidential Decree 36. It was made up of the Secretary of Public Information as chairman; the Secretary of National Defense as co-chairman; one representative from the mass media to be appointed by the President as member; and the Chairman of the Radio Control Board as head of the secretariat. The MMC’s principal task was to process “applications of the mass media for permission to operate” and to issue the “certificate of authority to operate duly signed by the President.” Military tribunals handled the cases of violators.


‘Self-regulation and internal discipline’

Six months later, on May 11, 1973, Presidential Decree 191 abolished the MMC. The decree noted the mass media had “already shown full appreciation of the fact that their failure to institute self-regulatory measures resulted in government intervention.” And having learned their lesson, they had “demonstrated a willingness to institute a system of self-regulation and internal discipline within their ranks.”

The MMC was replaced by the Media Advisory Council (MAC), consisting of the president of the National Press Club (NPC) as chairman; a civic leader appointed by the president as co-chairman; one representative from the Manila Overseas Press Club, the print sector, the radio sector and the television sector and persons appointed by the President, as members.

Like the MMC, the MAC issued certificates of authority to operate the mass media subject to the approval of the President. But unlike the MMC, it was less rigid, being self-regulatory. Its basic principles included “freedom of the press, guided by a sense of responsibility and discipline, without any control, supervision or censorship from any government body; and recognition of limitations to press freedom, including the laws on libel, invasion of privacy, obscenity and good taste, and on national security.”

But although the MAC gave the mass media more elbow room, it brooked no dissent. In her book, The Manipulated Press, Rosalinda P. Ofrenio cites instances when the council flexed its muscles. It ordered the mass media to ignore or at least play down stories that undermined development or disturbed peace and order. Examples of those stories included an armed rebellion in Mindanao and “alarmist” reports of a cholera outbreak in Pangasinan.

The council also had disciplinary powers. For comparing the cost of maintaining the Old Congress and the martial-law government and therefore “making an issue of the latter’s desirability,” a Bulletin columnist was chastised by leaving the space allotted to him blank for a day. Even those writing for publications close to the Marcos government didn’t escape the long arm of the council. The Daily Express business editor was sacked for printing an Associated Press file about the “widening support for martial law,” a positive story. Unfortunately, he failed to kill the last paragraph saying that “the armed forces are divided on the issue.” The Associated Press was also suspended for a few days.

The Media Advisory Council was dissolved in November 1974 because “the improved capability of the mass media to regulate and discipline their ranks and the favorable peace and order situation in the country” had no more need for such a body. But there were also talks about the council’s abuse of authority and mismanagement. Its records, it was said, were dumped at the National Press Club and in the garage of a MAC employee. Primitivo Mijares, the council’s chairman, after failing to account for the NPC funds, fled to the United States. He joined Raul Manglapus’ Movement for a Free Philippines and wrote a sensational book on the Marcos couple’s conjugal dictatorship.


Print and broadcast

Authorities divided the mass media into two groups: print and broadcast. Both were given the power to form their organizations and draw their own policies and guidelines. Notably missing in that directive was the presence of a person or persons appointed by the President, the clincher in the MMC and MAC organizational structures.

The print media was governed by the Philippine Council for Print Media (PCMP). Its officials were Hans Menzi of Bulletin Today, as chairman; Raul Locsin of Business Day, as vice-chairman; Kerima Polotan Tuvera of Focus Philippines, Juan Perez of the Philippine Daily Express and Rosario Olivares of Times Journal as members. All were at the same time officers of the Publishers’ Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAPI). Press freedom, according to the group, was bounded by the laws of libel and defamation, subjudice litigation, obscenity and bad taste, invasion of privacy and national security.

Although better than its predecessors, the PCPM had many flaws. For one, it excluded print media’s line personnel—the members of the working press—from the organization. For another, the structure of the PCPM interlocked with PAPI’s; the same people governed both bodies. Therefore, despite the evolution of the so-called media regulating bodies, things remained the same or got worse.

One draconian measure, popularly known as the “rumormongering decree,” put intense pressure on the media. It said: “. . . [P]ersons who shall offer, publish, distribute, circulate and spread rumors, false news, information and gossip . . . which cause panic, divisive effects upon the people, discredit of or distrust for the duly constituted authorities, undermine the stability of government and the objectives of the New Society . . . shall, upon conviction, be punished by prisión correccional.”

Many publications owned by religious organizations opposed to martial law were ordered closed. In various instances, foreign magazines containing unflattering articles were banned. A 1978 issue of Life that sneered at the extravagant celebration of the Marcoses’ 25th wedding anniversary was never circulated in the Philippines.


Harassing the press

“Erring” members of the press, be they foreigners or Filipinos, were harassed. The Associated Press bureau chief, Arnold Zeitlin, was denied reentry to the Philippines for reporting the Muslim rebellion in the South and “the regime’s lavish spending for the 1973 World Bank Conference” in Manila. Bernard Wideman, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, Washington and ABC News, was accused of “libel, fabrication and association with subversives,” and denied an extension of his visa until the charges against him were cleared. Marilyn Odchimar of the Kyodo News Agency, Nelly Sindayen of Yomiuri Shimbun and Rey Palarca of United Press International were arrested while covering an anti-Marcos demonstration. Similarly, The New York Times’ Fox Butterfield was apprehended when “he unexpectedly walked into” members of the Commission on Elections as they were tampering with the votes.

Demy Dingcong, a Bulletin correspondent, was gunned down in his Iligan City home in 1980 for exposing the shenanigans of local officials. The Daily Express reporter Monica Feria was arrested “on suspicion of subversion.” Even the editors of the Philippine Collegian, the University of the Philippines’ student newspaper, were jailed for publishing anti-Marcos articles. Among them was Maria Lourdes Mangahas, who would serve as editor in chief of the postmartial-law Manila Times.

MARTIAL law was lifted on January 17, 1981. The print and broadcast media councils were dissolved and publishers no longer needed the approval of government to operate. The press, though, held the confetti. It wasn’t time to celebrate yet. Not only were repressive decrees still in force, former “secret” punitive decrees were made public. The Public Order Act and the National Security Act continued to empower the President to reprove “individuals or entities” for deeds “prejudicial” to the state. Although the two decrees were eventually repealed, there remained Presidential Decrees 1834 and 1835 imposing the “penalty of reclusión perpetua to death” for crimes related to national security. Originally dated January 16, 1981, these decrees were kept in the drawer for more than a year and were declared operational only in July 1983.


‘Quiet revolt of the press’

Two cases in mid-1981 provoked the National Press Club (NPC) into staging what a writer described as “the quiet revolt of the press.”

In July Letty Jimenez-Mag­sanoc, editor of Panorama, the largest-circulation Sunday magazine published by the Bulletin, was forced to resign for writing a cutting editorial on the inauguration of the New Republic. “The problem is a Marcos who with all his powers is powerless before corruption and corruptors,” the controversial piece stated. “It is a Marcos astride the same tired tiger [the discarded and discredited New Society] carrying a different name, the New Republic.”

The other case concerned Salvador Reyes, a Radio Veritas stringer, who was beaten up by the mayor of Pasig and his bodyguards in full view of GMA-7 cameras. According to NPC findings, Reyes was pressured into making an affidavit of desistance.

Before the two cases occurred, the NPC had formed the Press Freedom Committee in May 1981. Headed by Jose Burgos, We Forum publisher and editor, it tried to work for the temporary release of Satur Ocampo in the custody of the Club. However, bureaucracy washed up its resolve. With the Magsanoc case, the Committee took a bolder route starting with a march on the Ministry of Justice. The organizations that took part in the march later banded to form the Concerned Filipinos for Press Freedom.


Under fire

Next to come under fire was Burgos himself. On December 7, 1982, he was arrested and detained, along with We Forum columnists and staff. His six-year-old tabloid, popular for its oppositionist viewpoints, was shut down for alleged involvement “in the conspiracy to overthrow the government through black propaganda, agitation and advocacy of violence.” Not true, its defenders chorused. The culprit behind the progressive tabloid’s closure, they claimed, was a series of articles by Bonifacio Gillego questioning the authenticity of the Marcos war medals and by inference his reputation as a war hero.

Three of the President’s World War II comrades slapped a P40-million libel suit on the tabloid. But they were easily overrun by a slew of media and human rights activists who came out to denounce “government repression” and “military atrocities.” The NPC wrote a statement of protest, as did the International Press Institute. On December 14 Marcos put the detained We Forum group under house arrest “to enable them to prepare for trial and in the spirit of the holiday season.” Un­bowed, the same group went on to revive Malaya, We Forum’s sister publication.

The government’s assaults on the media didn’t end with the We Forum case either. In the midst of protests in defense of the tabloid, eight women journalists known for their fearless pens were “invited” to Fort Bonifacio for interrogation. Among them were the Bulletin columnist Arlene Babst-Vokey and the freelance writer Lorna Kalaw-Tirol. The two would become part of the 1986 revival of The Manila Times.


More arrests and removals

There would be more arrests and removals. Antonio Nieva, a Bulletin columnist and president of the paper’s employees’ union, was launching the Brotherhood of Unions in Media in the Philippines when he was picked up. Recah Trinidad, editor of Tempo, another Bulletin publication, was forced to resign after he published the picture of the National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquín participating in an anti-Marcos demonstration. Even Ben Rodriguez, the moderate editor of the Bulletin, “had chosen the less humiliating option of retirement as opposed to out-and-out firing,” as a consequence of highlighting the counterinsurgency operations of the military in Abra.

Although in December 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that the closure of We Forum two years before was unlawful, the decision was no assurance that repressive action against the press would stop. And it didn’t. The scoreboard on slain journalists both in the print and in the broadcast media revealed chilling numbers. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported a total of 12 killed since January 1984. The National Press Club’s tally was 19 and one missing since 1986.