Agnotology in Philippine journalism

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
3/21-27/2011



While the earthquake and tsunami of Sendai continue to reshape the Japanese Islands as well as world views about tectonic shifts and nuclear energy, a term I came across the past few weeks could be of the same import in our understanding of media and information in society--“Agnotology.” It is indeed timely considering OpinYon’s last cover story (“Muzzling the Press”), where it highlighted the entry of Big Business into media.

San Miguel Corp. and the Manny Pangilinan juggernaut are into all forms of media acquisitions these days, breaking down whatever barriers there are against corporate monopolies of multimedia as a devastating tsunami would against any coastal town along its path.

Pangilinan has taken over ABC Channel 5 and has his sights on two dailies, increasingly co-opting media and controlling news interpretation. The same happened with the Lopez-controlled ABS-CBN and Meralco, which allowed the latter, in cahoots with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to buy the 2001 passage of the EPIRA law without the people realizing that it would cause the Philippines to suffer the highest power rates in Asia .

Agnotology is the term for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, where media shapes 70 percent of culture. It’s a neologism coined by Robert N. Proctor of Stanford University , rooted in the Greek agnosis or “not knowing.” Proctor also coined terms to describe new information conditions such as “structured apathy,” “victims of disinterest,” “the social construction of ignorance,” etc. In 2003, he described agnotology as the “study of ignorance.”

Agnotology differs from “propaganda” in that the latter can be prima facie false while the former uses other strategies than outright falsehood. An example is the American tobacco industry’s campaign of raising other health hazards to induce doubt that tobacco use causes cancer. Bush’s use of the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD) canard to start the Iraq War is another agnotological stratagem.

In the Philippines, a good example is Meralco and sister company ABS-CBN’s cover-up of the sordid details of the EPIRA law through a 2001 TV ad that featured a couple with a new electric fan saying EPIRA will bring power costs down.

Everyday in Philippine newspapers, agnotological journalism is at work. Over the past week, this vital information came up only in inside sections of newspapers: The P690-billion debt service of the country--almost equivalent to half of the national budget--on its $67-billion foreign debt, which is of “tsunamic” proportions.

Compare this to the estimated damage of the Sendai magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami at $100 billion and you can easily deduce that the Philippines has been living in a continuing tsunami all this time--one that is financial and economic, and in epic proportions. Yet such an issue almost never makes it to the front pages nor does it ever become a serious subject for debate among the 50 or so major columnists in this country.

It’s so bad that another “victim” to this “structured ignorance” has been the idle P1.2-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA) held by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. No one seems to care to bring up this interest-earning SDA even as the country scrounges for “foreign investors” who make us swallow onerous terms for BOT investments that make us even poorer.

Peter Wallace, whom the corporate powers with their advertising and PR clout compel local media to cite as an economic “authority,” pushes for foreigners to be allowed to own media in the country. He writes in Manila Standard Today: “In the 1986 discussions of the Constitutional Convention, it was decided that foreigners should not be allowed to influence the Filipino public so foreign media was banned from operating in the Philippines … But this is meaningless in 2011. I can tune in to CNN anytime… Today it’s in your living room at the flick of a switch (sorry “push of a programmed button”). CNN can dominate you without trying. So why not let them have an office here?”

Wallace leaves out one vital issue that the public is ignorant of: That, when allowed full rein, foreign media players will also be buying into local newspapers and similar media to take full control of editorial policy. So, it’s not as simple as allowing them an office here--which they in fact have, along with a number of correspondents. If anything, Wallace’s CNN argument shows that we do not need them to own local papers (to fortify their presence here) since we can get them on TV anyway.

Indeed, agnotological techniques are a most useful tool in political column writing. Bobi Tiglao in his “Outlook” on the “Frenzy against Merci,” in defense of the embattled and discredited Ombudsman in the “plea bargain” for Gen. Carlos Garcia, said: “…For starters, even if all Gutierrez did in the past five years was to win only this particular conviction, her performance would have been stellar. I am referring to the conviction of former President Joseph Estrada in 2007, which was during Gutierrez’s watch, the first time that a president was convicted of graft.”

Tiglao leaves out the fact that the court that tried Estrada was a political “kangaroo court;” that the decisions were clearly distorted; and that all the jurors were well-rewarded by the political authority then (Tiglao’s benefactor, Gloria Arroyo) with promotions to the Supreme Court or, like Merci, to the Ombudsman’s post. What this shows is that these Gloria Arroyo stooges, whether conscious or not, are foremost experts in agnotology, spreading themselves out as columnists in several newspapers sowing agnotological ignorance.

But then, they must have had ample time to practice since the anti-Marcos campaign that was initiated by the Yellows has long been another example of this agnotological “structured ignorance” done on a massive scale--in schools from the elementary to the university level; in church sermons; in Western media including the History Channel; as well as in local media--in a campaign that has lasted 25 years since 1986.

The nationalistic economic development program of Marcos, i.e. his successful car manufacturing, copper smelter, local fertilizer production achievements, etc., has been almost completely wiped out from all historical accounts of that period. Despite this, what the Yellow movement’s agnotological campaign has not been able to erase is the memory of the “rice exports” Marcos achieved, which goes to prove that historical facts and truth will still out so long as the faithful historical memory of ordinary citizens survive.

In this regard, we must point out that Imelda Marcos also continues to be a victim whenever her “3,000 pairs of shoes” are mentioned, since it is seldom explained that most of these were gifts from Marikina shoe makers who wanted Imelda to promote their products by wearing them--small comfort for an industry subsequently killed by the Yellows’ wholesale adoption of liberalization and globalization.

Thus, it is evident that the task of genuine journalism and its advocates, such as OpinYon’s writers, is to keep filling in the deliberate gaps that the mainstream agnotological media deliberately leave behind.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Philippine Energy Alternatives;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)