Journalists
Show Anti-Muslim, Anti-Gay Biases
Journalists
in Cagayan de Oro grilled and insulted a young man arrested on suspicion that he
robbed a taxi driver. But the insults had more to do with two unrelated facts:
that the suspect was a Muslim and a homosexual.
By
HERBIE S. GOMEZ
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- What was supposed to be
a simple case of robbery in this highly urbanized and relatively peaceful
southern city turned out to be a showcase of media’s insensitivity and bias
toward Muslims and homosexuals.
Last
week, broadcasters here grilled and insulted on the air a young man arrested on
suspicion that he and his companion robbed last Wednesday taxi driver Jerry Estañol.
The suspects, 20-year-old Ahmad (not his real
name) and his 18-year-old self-confessed lover were arrested by the local police
shortly after the robbery.
During the interrogation, Ahmad identified
himself as “Richard Castañeda.” He also used the same alias when reporters
and radio commentators interviewed him.
Later, police found out that Ahmad is a native
of the predominantly Muslim town of Bayabao, Lanao del Sur. He is not from
Marikina, Metro Manila, as he had claimed.
Journalist Jun Quiamco said Ahmad tried to
give the impression that he was from Manila by pretending he did not understand
the local dialect. Ahmad spoke in Tagalog during interviews with reporters. He
also claimed to be a graduate of the “International Harvard University”
which he said was based in Bangladesh.
But the suspect’s diction gave him away; it
was obvious that his accent was that of a tribe of Muslims in Mindanao called
Maranao. Worse, a resident phoned a local radio station to say that he was the
real Richard Castañeda.
Upon realizing that Ahmad took them for a
ride, reporters harangued the robbery suspect, calling him a liar.
Ahmad was also a homosexual, according to his
companion, who admitted during a live radio interview that he and Ahmad had been
lovers for five years.
That Ahmad sounded Maranao did not necessarily
mean he was a Muslim, and whether or not his religion was Islam was beside the
point just as his sexual preference did not have any bearing on the robbery
case.
But local journalists, with their usual
“nose for news,” found a potential “human interest” story in the Ahmad
case.
“Are you a Muslim?” asked a DXIF-Bombo
Radyo commentator. “Just answer me, are you a Muslim?”
“No,” Ahamd replied.
When a radio commentator told him “Assalamo
alaikum”, a universally accepted greeting common to Muslims that simply
means “peace be with you,” Ahmad replied in Tagalog: “What? I can’t
understand a word you’re saying.”
Irked by Ahmad’s responses, the broadcaster
snapped: “I’m going to send you lechon (roasted pig). Will you eat
it?”
When Ahmad complained about the
commentator’s rude attitude toward him on air, the angry radioman replied:
“Do you think robbing a taxi driver was a right thing to do?
You bisexual!”
Filipino Muslims have long been complaining
about the way they are being treated by the news media.
“We’re sick and tired of all these. It’s
as if Muslims are the only ones capable of committing crime,” said a Maranao
who resides in neighboring Opol, a town in Misamis Oriental.
“When a man commits a mistake and he turns
out to be a Muslim, expect everyone to gang up on him and say, ‘It’s because
he’s a Muslim’,” said the Maranao who asked to be identified only by his
nickname Randy.
Randy continued: “But if he’s a Christian
or a Buddhist, no one would care about his religion. We don’t hear people
saying ‘Christian rebels’ or ‘Christian
thieves’.”
Randy is right. Newspapers in the Philippines
and abroad carry screaming and insensitive headlines with the words “rebels”
or “guerrillas” attached to the word “Muslim.”
This bias and downright insensitivity toward
Filipino Muslims are also reflected in radio and television news broadcasts. The
words “Muslim bandits” are still being freely uttered in radio and
television broadcasts.
The stereotyping of Muslims in the Philippines
take many forms, according to Muslim scholar Soliman Santos Jr.
“We pride ourselves with the ‘bloodless
People Power’ but do not make the connection with the Moro blood sacrificed
(during then President Joseph Estrada’s) ‘all-out war.’ We forgot to
include this in the Articles of Impeachment, perhaps because, for some of the
anti-Erap complainants, it (was) ‘immaterial and irrelevant.’”
Santos said even President Arroyo, during her
inaugural, made historical references to the contributions of Dr. Jose Rizal,
Andres Bonifacio and the late senator Benigno Aquino, but “forgot” to
mention about the Muslim martyrs who fought and died for the country.
He said he noted how commentators and speakers
in the media, political opposition and activist groups invariably refer to the
aborted Estrada impeachment trial as a “moro-moro.”
The
use of the word, said Santos, “unconsciously and subliminally reinforced the
centuries-old prejudice of Christian Filipinos against Muslim Filipinos who are
also called Moros.”
Santos said the word “moro-moro” was
coined during the Spanish period in the Philippines when plays about
Christian-Muslim feuds always showed Christians
emerging as the victors against their Muslim enemies. The plays, later
called “moro-moro,” were shown to foster biases against Muslims. #
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