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Commentary:
Chilling Effects of Asserting the People’s Right to Press Freedom

In the two-day Unesco forum held last week in Manila, the international delegates heard reports of violations of press freedom taking place all over the world including the United States in the aftermath of the “war on terrorism.” So what the delegates heard from President Arroyo was not only “out of tune,” as two Filipino journalists described it – it was an attack on press freedom itself.

By EDMUNDO SANTUARIO III
Bulatlat.com

In the Philippines, truth and press freedom are antithesis to political rule. Government authorities, because of the vast powers they wield, are supposed to be the first to protect press freedom. Yet time and again they are always the first to violate it.

Never is this point more powerfully portrayed than in three major events last week. The first is Labor Day. At first, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tried to bury this historic day by ordering that it be celebrated instead on the weekend before May First. The lame excuse was because of “holiday economics.” But the workers of course knew that Arroyo hated seeing another day of nationwide big protests sparked by her own refusal to heed repeated calls of a pay increase and other legitimate demands.

On Labor Day itself, tens of thousands of police, Army forces and civilian-clad armed infiltrators were fielded by Arroyo in Metro Manila including its entry points. A long convoy of Bayan activists from Southern Tagalog was blocked on its way to the metropolis. Meanwhile, government employees were also barred from joining the street marches through a memorandum directing them to attend a pro-government rally inside the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City.

But this was not the first time such wanton display of police and military force was evident to prevent multitudes of marchers from taking to the streets. It happened before in July last year when Arroyo delivered her first state-of-the-nation address, and again on January 20 this year when thousands of militants were barred from marching toward the Edsa Shrine.

Arroyo’s police officials claimed success in maintaining “peace and order” that day, attributing it to the show of police force. But the police “overkill” smacks not only of a paranoiac reaction to reports of coup plots which Arroyo’s own officials had concocted to justify a policy of repression against labor and other militant sectors. It also shows government’s own refusal to confront the issues squarely – if need be on the streets, which is the only vehicle where the workers are able to express their indignation.

It is just apt that Labor Day is celebrated on the streets – not inside a coliseum which is fit only for sport and entertainment - because historically it is on the streets and in factories where labor power all started. All the landmark victories that have been achieved thus far in more than a century of proletarian struggle throughout the world – such as a decent daily minimum wage, an 8-hour work, social benefits, the right to unionize and other democratic rights – were all won here. In the country, struggles led by the most advanced and organized labor groups have also won similar democratic rights albeit at the cost of the lives of so many martyrs and the gains are all enshrined in the constitution and codified in labor laws today. Of course, labor laws are followed in breach.

This is the truth that Arroyo and her underlings wanted to suppress. That's why the struggle goes on.

Columnist

An Inquirer columnist, Winnie Monsod, tried to ridicule the workers’ rallies noting that the activities lost their meaning by embellishing these with inflammatory political statements (such as “Down with Arroyo slogans” and “Out with US forces now) instead of confining to labor issues. In her “Labor Day dismay” column, she attacked the Left, segments of whom had endorsed her senatorial candidacy in last year’s elections, for its “lust” for publicity and anticipation of “drama and violence.”

Monsod, who chatters faster than her mind would, is of course unaware of the political nuances of the labor movement. Unlike her, the organized workers are far more intelligent to discern through their own economic miseries, political education and militant organizing that labor cannot be divorced from issues of sovereignty and state repression. Precisely they came on May 1 not only for the cause of labor – they were fighting for the nation’s future. Does she ever wonder why, despite all the statistics and incantations that she blurts out her newspaper column and weekly TV hit pull less punch compared to the workers’ placards, streamers and megaphones?

Now, for the second event. Fresh from a “victory” on May 1, Arroyo next took a dig at some groups in the political opposition and the Left by denouncing calls for her removal from office. She called on her critics to stop with their “turbulence and threats” and start engaging in “reasoned political debates…driven by good faith and guided by the best intentions for the nation.”

In the same national political summit where she made the statement, Arroyo’s traditional allies led by House Speaker Jose de Venecia launched the plot – the third in 10 years – for a charter change. The new move for a constitutional change aimed at eliminating remaining protectionist provisions and a shift from presidential to parliamentary form of government, also reiterated the president’s condemnation of coups and mass demonstrations to change a government other than by elections.

In effect, the political summit declaration pushed for charter change – which had been resoundingly opposed in previous attempts by former presidents Fidel V. Ramos and Joseph Estrada – with a warning that those against it this time through another round of protests will have to account for their action. It is ironical that peaceful mass mobilizations that resulted in the ascendancy to the presidency of Corazon Aquino and, last year, of Arroyo –which even the Supreme Court upheld as an expression of the people’s sovereign will – will now have to be buried by the very same beneficiaries of these collective actions.

But the most supreme insult of all came from Arroyo herself. On the same day the summit opened, she spoke at the Unesco-sponsored forum of the international media observing World Press Freedom Day. The delegates were almost knocked out of their seats upon hearing the Philippine president tell them to “get involved” in her anti-terrorism campaign which, impliedly, was also a call for support of Bush’s “war on terrorism.” In the two-day forum, the international delegates heard reports of violations of press freedom being committed all over the world including the United States in the aftermath of the “war on terrorism.” What the delegates heard was not only “out of tune,” as two Filipino journalists described it – it was an attack on press freedom itself.

Right in the Philippines, press freedom continues to be a victim of state terrorism. Beng Hernandez, a vice president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, was brutally executed along with two farmers by suspected Army and paramilitary men in Mindanao some two weeks ago. Fernandez, who was also a human rights worker, joined scores of other Filipinos – including 19 activists of the Party-list Bayan Muna – who have been silenced by suspected police, military and paramilitary men during the past few months, and all because they were trying to assert their right to dissent and to free expression. Bulatlat.com

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