 Today, we are going to discuss killings of Filipino journalists, which is a much discussed and controversial topic in the Philippines, and which has put us in the headlines of international organizations of journalists. So today, we have with us Brian Gonzalez, a journalist major in the College of Mass Communication, who has a lot of questions about this phenomenon. We will be commemorating another year of impunity for the Atuan Massacre, which occurred November 2009. Many of us, during students would be asking this, how many Filipino journalists have been killed since the first people power revolution? According to estimates, about 150 community journalists have been killed since 1986, and other studies have said that since 1992, 77 journalists have been killed. What are the significant trends that can be noticed in the string of killings? Several. One is that many of these community journalists were killed, apparently for exposing corruption. Another trend is that these journalists were mostly in print and broadcast media, and only a few were in the television industry. And then another trend is that a lot of these journalists were commentators and columnists. And that is not hard to explain, because it is the columnists and commentators who expose corruption, are critical, and express the views of the people and the views that tend to be opposed to those in power. So it is not surprising that it is these journalists who become the target of media killings. Actually, most of us noticed that most of these killings happen in the countryside. Why do most media killings target the community press in the provinces outside of the capital? Well, in the provinces, the relationship between the media and the public officials or the military is more personal than it would be in the metropolitan areas. Of course, in the provinces, usually the politicians, the military, and other powers that be would know who are the writers who are the anchor persons or the commentators in the radio. So it is easy for them to identify them. And since they are far from the metropolitan areas, they can more easily harass them, arrest them, or even kill them. They're bolder because they have more control of the power in the countryside. In the metropolitan areas, there would be a more impersonal relationship between the media and the politicians. And also in the metropolitan areas, the journalists usually belong to media organizations that can support them and that can give them some protection from these abusive politicians. Last May, we saw the assumption of a new president, of a new administration, and this president, President Rodrigo Duterte, seems to have a lot of hate relationship with the media, the mainstream media and the public media. But what is your assessment on recent efforts to address these cases of media killings? Well, President Duterte did make a lot of comments on the media. He was very critical of media and I think he made many generalizations about the media that are problematic in a democracy because any president has to be covered by the media. And the role of the media is to report what the president says and not to interpret what he says. So, you know, I mean, I think it's problematic because the president should allow the media to do its work and if he does not allow them to attend press conferences because he does not like what they say, then everyone loses. The president loses because it's his opportunity to explain his policies and his pronouncements to the people and the media has to cover the president. So they have to be given access to the president. He should not just rely on the government media to do the job because there are so many other media that have to do the reporting. And usually when a president uses the government media, the public tend to not find that media credible because I think the Philippine media has not developed a stage as in, let's say, in U.K. where you have the BBC and the BBC can report on what the government is saying and it is a very credible, you know, medium, very credible station. But here, because our government media are struggling, so they're not independent and therefore they would just tend to be used by the government or to be a mouthpiece of government and we can see that, you know, it relies on sports or other activities, other beats just to be able to be viable. So, you know, the president should not just rely on government media but be open to all media and I think it is wrong to blame the media for supposedly causing confusion by its reporting or for undermining the president. It is because the media is just reporting what the president has said. The media should not interpret. So it is, I mean, it is almost ridiculous for the government spokesperson or the president spokesperson to say that the media should use their creative imagination when they report what the president said. You should not interpret what the president has said. You should state what he says and not embroider it, not embellish it. If journalists are expected to exercise creative imagination, then what we would have is fiction, not facts. So I totally disagree with that, you know. And of course I am disturbed by reports that the president harasses female journalists because, I mean, a president should be someone, he is the leader of the country. So he should emulate the qualities of a president and I expect one of them to be to show respect for every individual, male or female. So that disturbs me. But to his credit, President Duterte has said that he will, you know, he has already approved aid and FOI, you know, and everyone was very happy about it, but I hate to dampen their enthusiasm because it is an executive order which has 166 exemptions. So if there are 166 exemptions based on already existing laws, can you imagine how many more laws there can be to exempt the freedom of information? So that is disturbing. It's not really a cause for rejoicing, but I was, you know, trying to say that to his credit, the president has said that he will create a task force to investigate the killings of journalists. And that is something that everyone should welcome and I hope that something comes out of it because when we talk about killings of journalists, we talk about impunity. We have a culture of impunity here in the Philippines, which means that, you know, those are responsible for the killings of journalists are not punished. Somehow there is an inability to punish them either because it's so difficult to prosecute anyone. It's hard to pin down the persons who are guilty. It's difficult to find evidence and it takes a long time, you know, for all of these trials. Sometimes you have, I mean, and you can imagine in the province, how this might be even more difficult to identify who the persons who are guilty are for the trials to take place and then for the guilty persons to be, you know, not just tried but actually convicted, you know, it takes a long time. In the case of the journalist, in the Ampatuan massacre, you know, there were 58 persons killed, 32 of whom were working journalists. And it is said that there are 200 witnesses. So can you imagine how long the trial would take? It's, that was, that happened 2009. It's now 2016 and very little progress has been made if at all in the investigation and the trial of the Ampatuan massacre. The Ampatuan massacre actually among students, we recognized that event as an awakening for the media industry and at the same time it made the public aware of the role of the community press in reporting on local politics. But in light of these media killings, how do we illustrate the impact and significance of today's community press? You know, because of the Ampatuan massacre, many of the journalists who were there, and by the way, a lot of them are women, many of these journalists were the journalists for community papers in Mindanao. So because they were killed, there were some newspapers that were left without community journalists. So I mean, the impact was very huge. But what is said about it is that, you know, not everyone is supportive of community journalists who are killed. Because some people think that, you know, some of these were on the take, you know, they were in the payroll of the Ampatuan, so they deserve to be, or on the Mangudadatu, the one who was going to file his COC, no, he was going to file a certificate of candidacy. So they said, you know, they were there because they were going to be paid. So you know, some do not feel sympathetic toward journalists who are killed. But I think, you know, that they were there to do their job. And for that, we should support them. So that is what I find sad, that, you know, support for community journalists is not that much. There are also those who misunderstand journalists. Well, I mean, not all journalists are perfect. And another thing I would like to mention is that in the provinces, you know, community journalists are not paid, some of them, or they paid very, very little, very small salaries. Some of them are given commissions when they solicit advertisements to enable their newspapers to survive. So right away, what do you have? One is that you have a conflict of interest. Because if they solicit advertisements, how can they be independent reporters? But they have to do that because they don't get salaries or they get very minor salaries. And then these journalists are also multitaskers, aside from, you know, being reporters. They also have to do all the other tasks that are associated or that are involved in preparing newspapers. So their columnist and then they probably have to, their PR, they do PR work for their newspaper, you know. So they have to do all kinds of things. They probably edit and this and that. So because of that, you know, they really are struggling journalists and another thing that has to be noted is that many of them do not have formal training in journalism. So they don't always understand ethical problems, like conflict of interest. They wouldn't think that, you know, well, if I get, if I receive gifts or if I get a commission for soliciting advertisements, maybe they don't understand that, you know, that's unethical and that it contradicts what they're trying to do. So I think this is something you have to understand. There are many workshops, seminars, efforts of media organizations like the Philippine Press Institute, the U.P. College of Mass Communication, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the Center for Media Freedom Responsibility. And you have so many organizations that try to upgrade the level of competence, of skills and ethical awareness of political, of provincial community journalists, but I'm trying to describe their situation, which is why you have to understand them and be more sympathetic toward them. At the U.P. College of Mass Communication, we have this course on community journalism. I think it's the college's attempt to promote community journalism to ignite interest in the field. We tackled a lot of definitions for community journalism and just the word community alone, we had a number of definitions. But for you, what is community journalism? Well, if you look at the history of the press, maybe up to the 1980s, the term that was used for newspapers outside the metropolitan areas was provincial journalism. To mean the rural journalism, but the term is derogatory. When you say, I, provincial, you tend to label it as being inferior to other kinds of presses. So the term that is now used and that is more favored is the community press. One, because the community press focuses on journalism in the community, and when you say community, it refers more to the demographics of the area and the people having common beliefs, common history and culture, and probably common aspirations. And the community press is also local in its coverage. So this is emphasized more by the term community. And also, of course, when you say community, it means that the people can identify with the media. But again, this is problematic because the community press right now is faced with serious problems of survival, economic survival, and then because maintaining and operating a newspaper costs a lot of money. And advertisements are mostly concentrated, of course, in the metropolis, you know. But there are some exceptions, like Cebu has a very strong community press because it's almost urban in its orientation. But for most of the newspapers, a lot of them are struggling. And it's very difficult for them to maintain the publication. A lot of them rely on legal notices rather than on commercial advertisements. And they try to show that they are able to continue publishing, let's say, for a year, just so they can qualify to have legal notices. So it's really a struggle for them. Number two, you have internet. People don't buy newspapers anymore. So the readership of the community newspapers has declined as has the circulation of so many national newspapers. So those are our problems. And then third is, you know, community newspapers are also owned by political elite or by those who can afford to run a newspaper. So again, it's not able to really be critical, investigative, as community newspapers should be. Given that these community papers have existed since the Spanish colonial period and given that across time the concept of community has been changing, how did the term community journalism develop through the centuries? Well, as I said, you know, up to about the 1980s, the term used was the provincial press. And what I'd like to do is to make people realize that, you know, the killings of journalists occur in the provinces because our press has a very colorful, very vibrant history of the community press. Usually when we talk about our press, we talk about the revolutionary press and we always think of la solidaridad, la independencia, calayan, you know, and all those national newspapers. But we don't realize that we have a very strong and sustained tradition, revolutionary tradition in our community newspapers like the Gario Tagalog, which existed in 1882, long before, a few years before La Opinion, which according to Retana, the historian of the Spanish colonial times, was the first political newspaper. Actually, we already had political newspapers even before then. Gario Tagalog, which was edited by Marcelo del Pilar, and which was very feisty, very nationalistic, and very militant, you know. Marcelo del Pilar was a lawyer, he was a poet, okay, and he was also a propagandist. So he used that newspaper as a mouthpiece for creating outrage in the people, in the local areas, you know, and for denouncing the friars and satirizing their prayers, the prayers of the Catholic Church, Amenamin, and all of those. And he had a lot of commentaries and columns, some of which he even wrote what's the most writer for, you know. He would use names like Dolores Manapa, things like those. So he used all kinds of strategies to expose the abuses of the Spanish colonial masters, and also poems, literary devices to create outrage in the Filipinos. So that was 1882, and you know, before you can have a revolution, you have to have media. A revolution doesn't occur just like that. So you have to rouse the people, you have to inform them, you have to organize them, and you have to make them angry enough to join, you know, whatever movement it is you're trying to raise support for. So Jarion Tagalog was just one of many newspapers that were very nationalistic and very militant. There were other newspapers like Capatid ng Bayan, Alitap Tap, Columnas Boluntas. Many newspapers all over the archipelago that expressed this revolutionary spirit. And I think we should think of that, we should trace that tradition. So it occurred in the revolutionary times, and then even during the American colonial period, there were newspapers, so many like Nebodia, La Oportunita. We had in Bohol, in Iluilo all over, and you had a lot of newspapers. And then during the World War II, we had guerrilla newspapers. So again, you had many newspapers like Matanglawin, for example, Liberation. Again, these were the newspapers of the guerrilla units all over the Philippines. There were in Bagel, in Pampanga, Iluilo, in Cebu, Leyte, there were many newspapers, about at least 50 guerrilla newspapers. And then of course, in the martial law years, we had what was called the alternative press and the mosquito press. It was called the mosquito press because these were small newspapers that were critical of Marcos. And then Information Secretary Gregorio Sandanya called them mosquitos, because even if you tried to kill some, there would be other small newspapers. So those were the newspapers especially when Nino Iaquino was assassinated. So you had many newspapers like Guardian, Veritas, all kinds of newspapers also. So you mentioned earlier that there's this process, there's this history or tradition, or better, so better term, tradition of the community press. And it seems to me that it came from the colonial revolutionary press. Then we have the guerrilla press and then the mosquito press and so on and so forth. But these papers existed with mainstream media. So what is the most important characteristic of the community journalism that distinguishes it from the mainstream media across the years? Well, the local coverage because the community press, by definition, is usually based in the community and its coverage should be of that community. While the mainstream press tends to have a wider coverage, and the issues that it would tackle would be those that are national or international. So the community press should focus on what a group of people or the members of the community think is important. Or it should make them think, you know, it should make them focus on what is important and what they can do, the initiatives they can undertake to solve their own problems. As mentioned earlier, you mentioned that there is this revolutionary tradition among many community papers we have in the past, and even until today. But the term revolutionary can have several connotations. Sometimes the mainstream media would call it militant. For some officials, government, they would call it seditious or, in another sense, terroristic. But how does one consider a community press in the context of the Philippines revolutionary? Well, it would be revolutionary, or the way I use the term, it is revolutionary if it opposes the ruling ideology and it raises questions. And it also offers the people an alternative way of interpreting events. So I think that is what would make a newspaper revolutionary. But I have to qualify that because I don't think the community press now is revolutionary. It has that revolutionary tradition, but this revolutionary tradition was evident in our past. But I am not sure that the community press now is revolutionary because so much of it is now owned and controlled by, as I said, the political elite or by the commercial interests. So how can it be revolutionary? How can it oppose that ruling ideology? And speaking of ideology, given that we link, most of the time we link the concept of revolutionary ideology, what role does ideology play in the community press? Well, ideology is very important and somehow it is always there because when you talk of ideology, you are talking of power relations, especially relations between the ruling class and those who are ruled. So it is very important, but I think a community press should inform the people and explain issues to them so well that they can participate intelligently in whatever is going on and they don't just accept things as they are, but that they have an idea of how they can organize themselves, how they can improve their life, how they can make contributions in their own way to uplift the lives of people, to address poverty, to address corruption, to undertake initiatives that could help them solve the problems at their level so that they don't have to be forever dependent on the powers of peace. Actually, ma'am, when the jury student enters the district mass communication, we are taught that objectivity is a myth. But in the context of the revolutionary community press, what are some noteworthy, ethical dilemmas that most community papers encounter and how did they resolve these issues? Objectivity is a myth. There's no such thing, I think, as 100% objectivity. But we talk about it, we teach it because we want our students to be disciplined in the way they report so that they don't allow their bias, whatever it is, or their own beliefs, their own ideology to get in the way of their reporting. So they have to have, you know, at least to report the facts and to try to present things, you know, in a fair way. But I think that, you know, journalists must also help people make sense of what is going on. And that is more important to contextualize what is going on, you know, to help them understand what the problems are, and to encourage them to articulate their own ways of coming to terms with those. For example, we have, you know, all of these disasters. I think people should be urged to speak their own views on this and how this can be addressed, or poverty, corruption. I mean, all of those are such massive problems that we cannot just expect our leaders to address. I mean, for everything that our leaders do, we need the people's cooperation because, you know, if we're talking about disasters and then people continue to throw garbage or, you know, to buy plastic, et cetera. So how can we do anything? Or, you know, if we talk about people not wanting to, let's say, help themselves by leaving when they are told to evacuate. You know, we need to explain things to them. So those complex things we somehow have to try to make the people understand. I think the role of community journalism has been this way, of giving meaning to local issues, connecting them together and helping the people create solutions for themselves. But the history of the community press, when we talk about it, it has always been a different case. It always focuses on the political economy, always focuses on ownership. Not much on the revolutionary tradition of these papers. So how did this tradition start? How did it develop over the years? The revolutionary tradition? Well, I suppose there were, you know, people like Marcelo del Pilar, José Rizal, Isabelo del Estreyes, who were organic intellectuals. I mean, they came from the people and they experienced what the people also experienced. So because they were more articulate and they could write, they used their skills to try to educate the people and browse them, you know, so that they would be nationalistic. It's very difficult because I think, you know, there are so many other factors that you have to talk of like now, you know, you talk of cultural imperialism, talk of globalization, and of course it's very difficult to train people, to teach people how to be nationalistic. But we must do that. And, you know, I feel that journalism majors don't have to go into the national media. All of them belong to communities. Why don't they do something? Use their skills as journalists, you know, and make it multimedia. You know, why don't they run the radio stations in the provinces so that, you know, instead of being subjected to, being forced to listen to all kinds of inanities, they could use the radio as a means of educating people about the weather, about agriculture, health and wellness, you know, women's issues, human rights. There's so many things they can do and because they're communication majors, they would know how to do that. So I challenge graduates of the college not to go into the mainstream media. Why don't they do something in their own communities using their skills? Actually, a lot of us journal majors are afraid of joining the community press given the stream of media killings that have been happening lately. Critical reportage is met with bullets. Community journalists are harassed and sometimes even killed. But for you, in your assessment, how does the establishment and those in power respond to critical reportage of the community press? Well, right now, I don't think they're very open to, you know, criticism and I think that's not healthy for a democracy. I think you should encourage people to express their views and, you know, we are in a democracy so that means that we allow people to express themselves and we respect human rights. So people have to keep on struggling and protecting what they think should be the case or what are necessary for a democracy. So I would say that, you know, journalism is a dangerous, maybe, right now, but a necessary profession. If we don't have a democracy, if we don't have a democratic press, then we don't have a democracy. We've talked a lot about this, about how the public has been lacking in appreciation for the community press and actually we've mentioned it earlier. In your opinion, what are the manifestations of this lack of appreciation on the part of the public when it comes to the community press? Well, for example, you know, our short memory. We don't remember the Ampatuan massacre. We don't remember martial law and all the victims of martial law and, you know, some people wonder why there are a lot of people who are outraged by the prospect that the former dictator would be buried in the Libigan of Bayani. You know, and sometimes I look at the Facebook and I see comments like, move on, forgive and forget, you know, and the law allows it. What is legal is not always moral. And, you know, for this to happen would be so insensitive to all the victims of martial law and it would be a mockery of our democracy because the best minds, so many young people, students, artists, journalists were killed during the martial law years. So what would be the message of burying a dictator there that it's all right for you to do that because you can be forgiven? You know, for me it would send a very bad message. I'm learning that since we have already established that a manifestation of this lack of appreciation is the public forgetting about some of the darkest periods of our history. But for you, what can be done to reinvigorate the public's appreciation for the community press and as well as interest, still interest among us youth, young journalists, young journalism students to participate to join the community press. There's no excuse for the youth not to know about martial law because even if they were not born at that time, there are victims of martial law who are still alive. So they should talk to them, they should watch videos, you know, they should try to ask their parents what it was like during the martial law years. Maybe there's also a failing on the part of education, of the parents, of those who lived during those times to impart to the youth what it was all about because the youth have so many misconceptions. They think during the martial law years there was order, there was discipline, that if there was anything happening here in other parts of the world, there was also chaos, things like those or even that there were so many buildings built at that time, etc. So it shows a lack of understanding of what the martial law years is all about. So what is by answer well? Journalism majors especially should read. You know, you have internet, you have no excuse not to get information. So I think you should exert every effort to understand the past because how can you be journalists if you don't know what martial law was all about? Or if you think it was a good time for the Philippines, then how can you really be a good journalist? But what is the role of the community press in this effort to recollect our collective memory of the past? Well, the community press should improve its reportage. Because one problem with the community press is that, you know, there's not, as I said, some news, some community papers just resort to cup and paste because the journalists don't have enough training or maybe they don't read enough, maybe they're always on the run. If they're soliciting advertisements, what time do they have to read, to reflect, to interview so that whatever they write has context and so that they can do a good job of reporting. So that means we have to have better community journalists and keep on upgrading their skills and giving them opportunities to be exposed to, let's say, conferences here or abroad. I think there are many competitions now for journalists and several community journalists have won awards in the Jaime Oompin investigative awards. They have been sent abroad. So, you know, there are examples of journalists who are successful, but we have to increase their tribe. And of course, people have to read newspapers because reading is not a favorite activity anymore, I think, among the youth. Too much social media. Yeah, that's true. Actually, ma'am, I think that burden falls on us to do some research to improve, especially among us journalists' majors, to improve our reportage and to consider joining the community press. Actually, this talk actually helped me a lot in understanding the traditional tradition of the community press. And I was actually inspired by this talk. I've been planning to join the community press and this gave me that extra push to pursue that. So thank you, ma'am, for this discussion and thank you for the idea.