Press Freedom

December 08,2010 Malaya , Saturday

Perils of the press (1)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By JOSEPH ISRAEL M. LABAN

www.pcij.org


DILI, EAST TIMOR — What has been described as East Timor’s leading independent daily operates out of four small rooms and has a budget that threatens to disappear altogether every day.

The Timor Post also has staff members who have been in constant fear for their lives since last year, when two of them were attacked and left for dead right outside their rundown office. Then again, other journalists in this young nation have had similar experiences. Last August, another major newspaper had its office windows smashed while one of its employees was struck repeatedly with rocks and sticks and his motorcycle trashed after he acknowledged that he worked for the paper.

Ideally, this should not be happening in the world’s youngest democracy, which at one point had also been called by then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as "a child of the international community." But as the media in other Southeast Asian nations have found out, keeping the press free is a constant battle that is fought daily – even in a supposed democracy.

Just last week, for instance, about 50 journalists covering a coup attempt were handcuffed with plastic luggage fasteners and hauled off for questioning by Philippine authorities. As of June 2007, the Philippines has also seen some 90 media practitioners killed in the line of duty since democracy was restored in 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP). Fifty-three of the killings, adds the NUJP, took place under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, 58 cases of violence against journalists were recorded between August 2006 to August 2007 by the Alliance of Independent Journalists. According to the body, "government apparatus" has become the new enemy of press freedom, since it is believed to have perpetrated 10 of the recorded assaults.

Indonesia had occupied East Timor in 1975 and ruled it mainly through its armed forces. In August 1999, however, the Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia. That change was recognized by the international community in May 2002.

For sure the media here had expected press freedom to come with democracy. Instead, local journalists seem to have been under siege since East Timor – now also known as Timor Leste – broke free from Indonesia, with the most serious setbacks to press freedom taking place during last year’s tumult that nearly split the country in half.

Nobel Prize laureate and current Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta maintains, "Timor Leste still has the freest media in Southeast Asia." Indeed, East Timor has ratified the major international human rights conventions that guarantee freedoms of speech and the press, and has even incorporated these rights into East Timorese jurisprudence.

Yet Virgilio da Silva Guterres, chairperson of the Timor Lorosa’e Journalists Association (AJTL), says that although there is no comprehensive survey yet of attacks on members of East Timor’s media, unverified reports of journalists being harassed or assaulted trickle in all the time.

He cites the case of an attack on a journalist covering the campaign in the first round of presidential elections earlier this year, and notes, "He had to stay in the hospital for three days due the injuries he sustained."

AJTL estimates that there are about 200 media practitioners in Timor Leste today. There are three major dailies and two weeklies, along with two magazines, one of which caters mostly to the youth. About 80 percent of these publications are at least partially dependent on funding from international development agencies.

"The public is still not well-educated in the role of the media in the society, which is why support in the community remains weak," says Guterres. He adds that there is a need for "extensive civic education" for the public so that people would realize "that their basic human rights include the right to information and that it is the duty of the media to inform."

Guterres and the rest of the country’s media hope, though, that there would be no repeat of the events of 2006 that even led to the shutdown of the local papers for almost a month. In May last year, the home of Timor Post editor in chief Jose Ximenes was also burned to the ground, as were those of two Post reporters, Domingos Freitas and Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo. The incidents were among those that prompted the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to officially express its concern over how Timorese journalists were becoming internally displaced persons because their houses were being torched.

Freitas had the added misfortune of being one of the two Post employees who were beaten savagely right in front of the paper’s office a few weeks later. He had been on his way home to a refugee resettlement camp where he had taken his family after they lost their home.

De Araujo says the burning of their houses and the attacks on Post employees had something to do with articles they published that were critical to the government of then Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. The former premier’s party is also being blamed for more recent attacks on journalists.

Last May, a few days after he was sworn in as East Timor’s new president, Ramos-Horta was asked by this writer about the kind of guarantees and protection he would be extending to local journalists. He replied, "Timor Leste will honor all conventions and international treaties it has signed." He then went on to propose "government subsidies to privately owned newspapers," although he said that this would "not be attached to preconditions that could affect the independence of the media."

Ramos-Horta is widely respected in East Timor and in the international community. But his assurances about protecting the country’s media are apparently cold comfort to journalists here.

Freitas, for instance, has chosen not to file a court case against his attackers, believing that East Timor’s still frail judicial system will only let him down and expose him to more risks. "I do not think the Tribunal could resolve my problem," he says. "I think it will only aggravate the situation. Filing a case would only encourage even more retaliation."

Freitas may be thinking of his colleague who was attacked alongside him and later filed a case in court. Up to now, though, the case has not moved, even as Freitas’s co-worker receives anonymous threats against him and his family.

Freitas himself has opted to seek the help of a community elder to mediate between him and his attackers whom he says he can identify one by one. "I am not so sure about justice," he says. "I only want an apology."




December 10,2010 Malaya , Monday

Perils of the press (2)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By JOSEPH ISRAEL M. LABAN

www.pcij.org


A new anti-defamation law has become yet another worry for Timorese journalists, warns Virgilio da Silva Guterres, chairperson of the Timor Lorosa’e Journalists Association (AJTL).

Deliberate misapplication of the law is a concern. "The legal framework is one of our biggest problems at the moment," says Guterres. "The stipulations of the law make it vulnerable to abuse by corrupt politicians." He also says that some reporters are already beginning to hesitate about writing critical stories.

"When the law is finally implemented," predicts Guterres, "members of the media may become too afraid to disclose the truth."

Observers have noted that the law imposes unlimited fines for those convicted of criminal defamation. Penalties for defamation through the media are also greater, as are the penalties (three years in prison) if those defamed are performing "public, religious, or political duties." The truth of the statements would not necessarily serve as a defense, leading legal analysts to comment that the penal code would grant greater protection to public officials compared to everyone else.

Media groups had tried to block the law’s passage. In February 2006, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) also sent a letter to then President Xanana Gusmao to ask him to veto the criminal defamation provisions contained in the country’s new Penal Code. Argued the group: "One of the foundations of a democratic society is the ability of its people to speak truth to power. If Timor Leste’s government tries to suppress such speech, we fear for the future of your democracy and for the future stability of your nation."

The provisions were included in the Penal Code drafted by the Ministry of Justice despite the clear recommendation to East Timor’s Commission on Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) not to criminalize defamation.

At least, though, members of the Timor Post staff do not seem to be among those who have been intimidated by the new law. De Araujo, the paper’s coordinating reporter, does worry sometimes about the quality of their reports, but he says this is due more to other factors.

"Most difficulties are material," he says. "Like the equipment in our office, like computers. There are many journalists in the Timor Post but few computers so we have to wait for each other in writing articles. We have to wait a long time, sometimes five hours, just to be able to write our articles."

The paper currently employs 15 reporters who have to share four computers. Each reporter is required to file three articles for the newspaper. This causes a bottleneck in the writing process, and leads to significant delays in preparing the paper and sending it to the press.

The Post began operations in 2001, and relied heavily on funds from international donors for more than two years. These days, it is constantly trying to stay afloat through what it earns from selling copies of the paper (at 50 U.S. cents each, with a daily circulation of about 1,200) and advertising space. Chief editor Ximenes admits that their monthly revenues barely cover their overhead expenses.

Trouble with tongues

Language has also become a problem. From 2001 to 2005 the Timor Post published articles written in four languages: Tetum, Bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, and English. Today most Post stories are in Tetum, one of East Timor’s two official languages. The other is Portuguese (East Timor used to be a Portuguese colony), but it is Bahasa Indonesia that is used for the foreign news section.

De Araujo says the decision to use Tetum as the primary language and Bahasa Indonesia as the secondary language in the newspaper was based on "marketing considerations" that could directly affect the long-term viability of the newspaper. "When you look at the market," he says, "Portuguese and English do not have many readers…because in this country most of the people only understand Tetum."

But the language problem has other more direct manifestations that could seriously impede the basic practice of newsgathering for the Post. Tetum, for instance, does not have enough technical and scientific terms to describe very specific details that have to be conveyed by the media from time to time. De Araujo also says that he himself trips over his tongue and becomes perplexed when interviewing older Timorese bureaucrats who were educated in Portugal.

"As a journalist I have a difficult time understanding Portuguese words," he says. "So sometimes after an interview I have to ask a senior reporter who understands Portuguese what it means."

Portuguese is no longer spoken widely in East Timor. At the Post, there is only one person who can understand Portuguese and that’s chief editor Ximenes, who at 45 is at least two decades older than many of the paper’s reporters.

Lack of skilled journalists is yet another of the paper’s difficulties. None of its reporters – more than half of whom are teenagers – graduated from a journalism course. Only a few have previous media work experience. The only journalism training that most of the current staff received is the annual basic journalism course the Post itself conducts. The paper holds a three-month training session for journalists each year. From the 30 to 35 trainees, the Post chooses a handful to invite to join the daily.

Although they need more manpower, Ximenes says they cannot afford to hire more people. This is despite what de Araujo considers as "very low salary" being given to the paper’s reporters. New reporters at the Post receive from $90 to $100 a month. De Araujo receives the highest salary among the reporters at $160 per month. But in a country where a liter of bottled water costs $1, this is hardly enough to support himself and his family.

"Money is a very real problem for Timorese journalists," says de Araujo, pointing out that the low media salaries lead to other problems. While some journalists augment their income by working as stringers for foreign news agencies, he says, some resort to shady "quick fixes."

"There is already some corruption in the local media," says de Araujo, although he asserts that he "cannot blame" his colleagues when "the survival of their families is on the line."

For all its problems, however, it is business as usual at the Timor Post. As the evening approaches, the sound of motorbikes stopping in front of the newspaper’s office signals the arrival of reporters coming in from their respective beats.

"I never had second thoughts about working for the Timor Post," say Freitas, when asked whether he considered resigning from his job after the attack. "I know we are fair and we shouldn’t be afraid of possible reprisals."

He does say that he initially considered asking for a temporary reassignment to the Post’s district office in Baucau. But today he feels safe enough to head home on his own, back to the refugee tent he continues to shares with his family.

"No matter what happens we must go on," says de Araujo. "We must keep the people posted."


***


Joseph Israel M. Laban is a senior producer at GMA-7. He wrote this piece as a participant in the 2007 Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) Fellowship Program.





* * * * *





Maria Ressa’s position paper on media at the Pen
by Maria A. Ressa
Head, ABS-CBN News & Current Affairs Division

On November 29, 2007, more than 30 journalists were arrested, handcuffed and transported to Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan. 12 of the journalists were from ABS-CBN, detained as “witnesses and suspects,” according to the police. Others were told they would be released as soon as their identities were verified.

Head of Newsgathering, Charie Villa, went immediately to the Peninsula Hotel to identify our people; yet, she was told they would still have to be arrested and brought to Bicutan. We believe this move sets a dangerous precedence and erodes our nation’s democracy.

There are two points I’d like to make about the role of media in conflict situations like the Peninsula siege. First, our democracy rests on the principle that the people have a right to know. Section 7, Article III of the 1987 Philippine Constitution recognizes “the right of the people to information on matters of public concern.”

Law enforcement and government officials must be accountable to the public, and our history has shown there is no better means to do that during crisis situations than live television coverage. In a 2004 national survey by ABS-CBN, over 90% of adult Filipinos say that during any major event, they look for news, with 87% turning to TV to make sure they’re informed. After the 2007 elections, that increased, hitting 92% in the National Capital Region, according to Pulse Asia.

The clamor for information increases during times of uncertainty, highlighted during nearly a dozen coup attempts and withdrawals of support in the last two decades: in 1986 and 2001, military moves turned into successful people power revolts; while failed attempts were televised during Edsa Tres, the Oakwood Mutiny and the Peninsula siege. Since these three failed, it obviously doesn’t follow that television coverage automatically means success. During all these, 1986 excluded, ABS-CBN reported in a similar and consistent fashion, spurred on by the public’s right to know. In performing our duty, we accepted the risks, including overturned and burned vehicles and the mauling of reporters (not by the police but by a sector of the public we serve).

While the State has the right to protect itself, the public has the right to know – and as we have seen, the Filipino has always made a choice. Focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted by ABS-CBN between December 3-5 reflect that. They expressed an overwhelming sentiment that they want to be kept informed, saying live television coverage should continue. We believe this is critical because an uninformed public makes any democracy unstable; it is in this light that media should be considered partners in promoting democracy rather than the other way around.

It is important that the public has the information it needs to make an informed decision because that is the foundation of our democracy. Yet, by arresting our journalists, authorities effectively shut down ANC’s live coverage of the post-siege situation at the Peninsula Hotel. They tried to confiscate videotapes and equipment from reporters, photographers and cameramen. The police violated their own definition of the “crime scene” by approaching our transmission facilities outside the Peninsula to try to confiscate our videotapes and stop our coverage. This is effectively censorship – at a time when the conflict had all but been resolved. To date, they still have at least one videotape and two radios owned by ABS-CBN.

The second point which has clear ramifications for the future is the role journalists play in conflict situations like Edsa, Oakwood and the Peninsula. On December 5, DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno called the Peninsula a “crime scene” and said that journalists violated two laws at the Peninsula siege. He cited Article 151 of the Revised Penal Code which has to do with “resistance and disobedience of persons in authority” and PD 1821 for “obstruction of justice.”

These statements have far-reaching consequences because now every journalist reporting on a conflict situation has to worry that he/she may be arrested and charged. Beyond that, if the journalist can be charged so can news organizations. This is no longer a threat but a reality and creates a “chilling effect” for working journalists, who can now be charged like common criminals.

Yet, we believe that the law covering the presence of journalists in conflict situations is very clear and supercedes any legislation cited by the DILG Secretary. Section 4, Article III of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that “no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press.”

“Was there an arrest? Yes,” said Sec. Puno, “Were they charged? No. Why was there an apology? Because all of us feel bad about the way the incident materialized. We are unhappy that our friends in media had to suffer inconvenience.”

In one move, the government trivialized and dismissed a violation of the Constitution as an “inconvenience.”

While we understand the position of the Philippine National Police, by its own admission, it is using “SOPs” created in 2006. PNP Memorandum Circular No. 2006-09-01 tells the police what to do with perpetrators, hostages and witnesses. It has no provisions for journalists, who are part of the landscape in conflict situations. This may be the first time these rules were used. It is also the first time that the PNP has been the lead agency in a political conflict situation – which is how many journalists would characterize the event, not just a “crime scene” complete with overtones of bank robberies and murder. Every other coup attempt or passive withdrawals of support in the past twenty one years were handled by the Department of National Defense. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the rules were changed in the Peninsula siege.

We journalists are by no means perfect. Some of us can be arrogant at times and that is how we have been portrayed by the police in this instance. But the reason we need to hold the line is simply because if we give in, we would have contributed to weakening our democracy by depriving the public of the information it wants and needs.

Having reported from numerous combat zones in Southeast Asia and around the world, I am very aware of the risks we face as journalists. In Indonesia, I barely survived a cross-fire between government troops and protestors. In Aceh, my team and I were detained but that’s to be expected given the authoritarian regime then. In East Timor, Pakistan, India, China - despite the dangers and restrictions, you calculate the risks and always make sure the odds are high that you will survive to tell the story. What I have learned from experience is that every situation is different, and what you do depends on the system of government you’re operating under, i.e. you would not make the same decision under a democracy that you would under a dictatorship.

Every journalists’ and news organizations’ assessment of risk varies. That is why I find it slightly ludicrous for the PNP to quote the Ethics Manuals of the CBC, BBC and ABS-CBN to bolster its point that all journalists should have left when requested – that there is a one-size-fits-all response. All these codes do in these instances is give guidance - the philosophy of the organization - but in the end, the judgement call and the decision to stay or to go – as well as the risks that entails – falls with the journalist. We balance the fear for personal safety with the duty to report the truth.

The police claim we were being used because they said some Magdalo soldiers changed clothes and put on press passes. Everyone tries to use us, including the police and military intelligence agents who were pretending to be journalists. During the crisis, we did not report that because we did not want to compromise their work, but their presence increased the danger for us. Those agents could have easily told their superiors who were the real journalists and who were only masquerading.
We categorically state that at no instance did any journalist “obstruct justice” at the Peninsula. Mere presence and reporting the news is not obstruction of justice. Recordings made by the police of our live coverage are now being used by authorities as evidence against those it charged in court. The police even acknowledged that there was a failure of communication within their organization. They mobilized only after they were “informed” of the event through TV and radio coverage. It is clear the police benefited from us doing our job. We cannot be both obstructing and helping justice simultaneously.

Our fear is that the arrests of journalists may herald a new, more dangerous time ahead. In recent years, many developments have eroded press freedom in our country. In 2003, there were more journalists killed in the Philippines than in Iraq, and today – despite pressure from the international community - the extrajudicial killings of journalists and leftist leaders continue with virtual impunity. Intimidation tactics, indirect pressure and libel suits have been used to attempt to control journalists. In 2006, Proclamation 1017 severely curtailed press freedom after authorities threatened to shut down news organizations and stationed tanks outside tv networks.

Last year, Freedom House, an international group which conducts an annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, downgraded its rating of the Philippines from FREE to PARTLY FREE.

Given this context, the arrests of journalists is extremely alarming, especially since it has now been elevated as policy by Sec. Puno, who warns journalists that the police would do it again. To add insult to injury, after authorities apologized for the arrests, they began to publicly question the motives of our journalists. Officials maligned us by implying we were working with Trillanes’ group despite the absolute lack of evidence for these statements. Now they say they will look at the franchises of television networks. All this only points out that the attempts to intimidate and harass journalists continue.

While it is inconvenient for law enforcement officials to have to contend with media in conflict zones, it is a necessity guaranteed by the Constitution and a check and balance of a vibrant democracy.

On November 29, the journalists who chose to stay and report on the Peninsula siege displayed tremendous courage and risked their safety for the public they serve. A colleague from the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines captured the spirit of our thoughts: “if someone else can deliver the Truth better, we would give way. If we chose to leave at the request of the PNP, then we would have to swallow the PNP version of the Truth because we chose to give up the access we already had.”

That would be a disservice to the public we all serve.





* * * * * * * * * *


Malaya News
December 10,2010
Monday


Typhoon, poverty fail to stop Bicol lass from winning quiz bee


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




BY MANILYN UGALDE

LEGAZPI CITY — Her family was one of those affected by super typhoon Reming last year but this did not prevent 15-year-old Cherry Gil L. Araojo, a high school senior, from topping the national quiz bee contest last Dec. 1 in Manila.

Araojo’s father is a tricycle driver. Her mother is a laundrywoman.

Legazpi city Mayor Noel Rosal said the winner is a product of his pet project, the four-year-old Legazpi City High School.

"What struck me was the situation of the Araojo family which lives a simple life in a small house squatting on private land in Sitio Renelizan, Barangay Bonot," the mayor said.

Rosal said Araojo boasts of impressive scholastic records.

He said she has been adjudged best student in science and technology subject since her first year. She graduated from the Ibalong Public Elementary School.

Araojo said she took the regional quiz bee contest on Nov. 28 without expecting to come out on top.

When she did, she and her coach rushed to Manila the next day to take the national quiz bee test.

"I was just very relaxed and even concerned more about my family situation because of threats of bad weather," she said.

Araojo said she intends to take up chemical engineering or accounting.

Rosal said the city government will give cash incentives to Araojo aside from what she will get from the national government.

Araojo will represent the Philippines in the International Quiz Bee Tournament in China.