Why the Media Love
‘Digong’
He is comfortable around journalists, who are, in turn,
easily fascinated by him.
By Germelina Lacorte
Davaotoday.com
Posted by Bulatlat
DAVAO
CITY
-- Just by looking at how media people swarm City Hall every time he is
around, he is probably the city’s most covered mayor.
He attracts journalists without even trying, says Jon Joaquin,
editor of the local paper Mindanao Daily Mirror, referring to Mayor
Rodrigo Duterte, the city’s mayor for four terms now, going on five. “He’s
someone who knows his way with people,” Joaquin says. “He uses harsh words
on camera, using expletives in the presence of media, but his tone of
voice changes when he talks to the poor.”
Duterte’s actions and his stance on issues -- from his indignation
over the hanging of Filipina maid Flor Contemplacion in the 1990s which
led to his burning of the
Singapore flag, to his penchant to give quick-fix solutions to problems of
the poor -- have a way of attracting attention. He is comfortable around
journalists, who are, in turn, easily fascinated by him.
Recently, for instance, amid the national government’s raging
battle with the Catholic Church over issues on birth control, Duterte gave
out 5,000 pesos in cash to women and men who went through tubal ligation
and vasectomy. As a result, people flocked to City Hall. The press lapped
up the story but hardly mentioned the fact that most of those who lined up
for surgery were largely poor and were more interested in the money than
in family planning.
Last year, regardless of the national government’s austerity
program because of the fiscal crisis, Duterte offered a month-long free
Christmas dinner to the poor. The dinners cost the city government
millions. More recently, he gave out truckloads of foodstuff to the city’s
Muslims, who were celebrating the month of Ramadhan.
But are the
Davao media too cozy with Duterte that they often fail to check the image
he projects against reality? More to the point, do the people of Davao
benefit from the love affair between Duterte and members of the press?
“There’s a perception that he’s more in touch with the people than
the media, so that reporters take his words seriously,” Joaquin says.
Through the years, Duterte has cultivated an image as someone who
is tough against criminals. He has manhandled crime suspects right in
front of the cameras. Once, he read aloud in his TV program the names of
suspected drug pushers, warning them to leave his city or risk death. The
city has earned a reputation for the summary executions of suspected
criminals, many of them children.
“I like him for the sound bite,” says Joey Dalumpines, a reporter
for the local daily Mindanao Times, “But oftentimes, I had to check what
he said against what really happened.”
After an SWS survey revealed the extent of corruption under his
administration, for instance, Duterte called for a revamp at City Hall.
“But the revamp,” Dalumpines says, “only covered casuals and ordinary
employees. How about the top officials -- do we hear anything about them?”
Dalumpines also points out that most of the alleged criminals who
had been summarily killed were poor Davaoenos. “So, what happened to the
big ones?” he asks.
Questions like these from journalists, however, are few and the
stories that come out about Duterte rarely reflect such skepticism.
Although Duterte’s worst critic, the late Juan “Jun” Pala, was a
mediaman,
Davao
journalists are generally fond of the mayor. “As long as you’re fair and
square, and professional in writing about him, there’s no problem with
Digong,” says photojournalist Rene Lumawag, using the nickname that
journalists fondly call the mayor behind his back. Lumawag had known
Duterte way back in the ‘80s, when Duterte was still a city fiscal and
Lumawag was still a broadcaster.
“He’s a very kind person,” says newspaperman Roger Balanza, whose
friendship with Duterte went on and off since 1988, when Duterte first ran
for mayor. “He’s a person who knows how to look back where he came from, a
person who does not easily forget.”
“I owe him so many things it’s no longer possible to repay him,”
says Chito Herbolingo, a Bombo Radyo broadcaster. “Many times in the past,
when my child got sick, he’d come to help,” Herbolingo says. “Once, he
shouldered medical bills worth more than P40,000. He was always there to
help.”
“He is generous,” says Elmer Kintanar, an anchorman at DXRA radio.
“Unlike other politicians who can be very difficult, he hands out 5,000 to
10,000 pesos from his own pocket and give it to you without batting an
eyelash.”
Photojournalist Edgar Arro of Mindanao Times compared Duterte with
former mayor Benjamin de Guzman. “He understands and sympathizes with the
media,” he says of Duterte. De Guzman, on the other hand, was often
offensive against members of the press, Arro said.
“If you have problems, you can tell him,” says Bobby Agadulo, a
former Bombo Radyo reporter who fondly remembers accompanying Duterte in a
1997 field visit to Matina and Bangkal. “It was raining and he ended up
buying jackets for the media,” he says. “When I was short of money, I
would tell him. He used to give me 300 pesos, 400 pesos, sometimes 1,000
pesos right out of his own pocket.”
Duterte is “fair and he does not curtail the media. As long as you
attack him on the level of issues,” Agadulo adds.
But there had been times when Duterte had nothing but contempt
toward some journalists. One of them was Roger Flaviano, then the
publisher and editor of the weekly newspaper Weekly Forum, one of the
earliest newspapers to earn Duterte’s ire during his early days as mayor.
Once, in the late ‘80s, Duterte slammed a gun on the table where
Flaviano was having coffee with friends. The mayor challenged the
journalist to a duel, but Flaviano ignored him. Flaviano had written a
column critical of the mayor.
There was, of course, Pala, the worst of Duterte’s critics who used
his radio program to attack the mayor practically non-stop. Pala was one
of the very few that challenged Duterte’s policies and actions. Before his
assassination in 2003, Pala had criticized Duterte for failing to capture
big drug lords. (Pala’s death remains unsolved.)
Still, it has been a continuing love affair between Duterte and the
press. Armed with cameras and tape recorders, reporters and broadcasters
elbow their way to the mayors’ office, which is often jampacked with
people who ask for help. Duterte would drone on and on about the issues of
the day. Every now and then, a reporter butts in with a question that
won’t irk the mayor most journalists love. Davaotoday.com/Posted
by Bulatlat
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