CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/19-21/2011
Reading the preview of OpinYon issue # 207, I found an irresistible urge to engage my fellow columnists in a dialogue on issues that I have long been dedicated to.
As these involve consumer and people issues--topics that essentially require a great deal of counter-information against the misinformation of mainstream media -- I deemed it fit to zero in on the subject of the OpinYon piece, “Media ownership and control in the PH,” lifted from www.waccglobal.com, with the author identified simply as “Ms. Coronel,” who, it turns out, I correctly assumed to be Sheila Coronel.
Media Monopoly
All told, media ownership in the Western world and in its Asian copycat, the Philippines, has been narrowing over the past decades. From Ben H. Bagdikian’s The Media Monopoly (Beacon Press, 2000), we quote:
“In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal… In 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine… In 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three… In 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever… (In 2000) AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation (was) more than 1,000 times larger (than the biggest deal of 1983).”
And by the end of 2006, Mother Jones reported that only 8 giant media corporations dominated US media: Disney (market value: $72.8 billion); AOL-Time Warner ($90.7 billion); Viacom ($53.9 billion); General Electric (NBC, $390.6 billion); News Corp. ($56.7 billion); Yahoo! ($40.1 billion); Microsoft ($306.8 billion); Google ($154.6 billion).
Media Oligarchs
In the Philippines, the Lopezes, Prietos, Belmontes, Yaps, Cabangon-Chuas, Duavit-Gozon-Jimenez, and Pangilinan multi-media groups (or the Philippine media oligarchy) just about dictate the kind of information, infotainment, and entertainment content going around in media.
Then, of course, there’s the inutile state-run multi-media network consisting of the PNA wires, PTV 4 (is it still called that?), and its several AM/FM radio stations.
But at best, it merely represents a worst form of partisan political news that poses no competition to the uni-dimensional private and oligarchic mainstream media.
They’re uni-dimensional because they all present only one perspective to news and information, which is counter-educational, counter-informative, and counter-development; pro-oligarchy and pro-American; hedonist-consumerist; one that drowns people with misinformation, disinformation, and endless entertainment fare of absolutely no redeeming value; and one that dumbs down the nation (relative to our Asian neighbors).
When I was teaching mass communication and journalism at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), I would advise my students to “hold their horses” when boasting of Philippine media as “the freest in Asia,” which I often qualified only as “the freest that money can buy.”
Instead, I admonished them to be humble lest they imbibe the arrogance of the profession that claims to be the “powerful Fourth Estate.”
Peasant Freer than Newsman
I tell them: “The peasant who harvests his own rice and keeps it stored for the year is freer than any journalist who has to wait for his paycheck every 15th and 20th, or the next payola from the politico, corporate media officer, or jueteng lord.”
The 40 or so gruesomely murdered media practitioners in the Ampatuan massacre case were mostly there also for some pecuniary need for their families’ sustenance or their kids’ tuition.
I have long argued--and presented a bill in Congress--for a Media and Press Foundation (a la National Commission for Culture and the Arts) that should regularly get P100 million or so from the state in support of journalists’ basic social and security needs. But, it has languished there for 15 years!
Why, from 1999-2000 alone, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), with which Sheila Coronel was then involved, was able to get huge USAid funding for a series of anti-Erap investigative reports.
Now isn’t that a prime example of how so-called “independent” media can be so easily manipulated by funds?
Maverick Media
Ultimately, economic control is media control.
That is, except for mavericks who insist on going their own way whatever the odds, like I.F. Stone and his self-published anti-Vietnam weekly carrying his name, which proved pivotal in raising anti-war consciousness or, I’d like to believe, my Sulo ng Pilipino radio program.
As the world economy evolved into global oligarchism which, as a consequence, affected the national scene in many countries such as the Philippines, media concentration also accelerated.
If the proposed Cha-cha (Charter change) program--which has, as one of its aims, the opening up local media to foreign ownership--proceeds, we will see even worse media consolidation around a few global corporations, a situation as bad as, or even worse than, what we have today.
The only answer to this corporate consolidation of media is a populist state to support populist media--a dream waiting to happen once a genuine revolution gives it birth.
Lastly, as I had thought of eight colleagues to have my dialogue with, on subjects such as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA); finance; climate change; among other things, I would like to include one more: Health.
Urine Therapy
Let me say kudos to OpinYon columnist Dr. Marilen M. Cruz for writing about “Urine Therapy” without the snicker and frown typical of quite a number of diploma-ed doctors.
Although I am not diabetic, I tried it for no other reason and found that it didn’t taste appalling.
I could even say that it works.
Well, as my health regimen includes never taking pain killers and antibiotics, and relying on real food for my nutritional requirements and supplements, that’s saying a lot.
But then, I’ve never been healthier today at almost 60 years of age than even in my teens.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “The Agnotology of WTC Building 7”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
P-Noy's Passive Anarchy: The Reverse of Martial Law
YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/19-21/2011
A week ago, on Tuesday, the 13th of September, the Supreme Court en banc, issued a TRO against Republic Act 10153. This Law postponed the August 8 Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections and synchronized them with the May 2013 mid-elections for senators, congressmen, governors and mayors and their vice governors and vice mayors, and then down to their board members and councilors.
The law gave the President the power to appoint officers-in-charge (OICs) to the positions of Governor, Vice Governor and Member of the Regional Assembly.
These OICs would have served without benefit of an electoral mandate from October 1, 2011 until June 30, 2013.
While making a lot of noise about cleaning up the ARMM, P-Noy was very slowly, becoming a trapo himself.
From reform as the original objective, political accommodation and consolidation were creeping into and taking over the agenda.
Back to Square One
Twenty years ago, on September 16, 1991, the Senate voted not to have U S military bases on Philippine soil.
Case closed? Not yet.
For more than a decade, the US has been very interested in Mindanao, especially Muslim Mindanao.
Will they succeed in undoing that heroic act of 20 years ago by splitting the country in two. And the bases will come back literally through the back door of Mindanao.
The TRO may eventually become a permanent and final ruling that RA 10153 is unconstitutional. It will be to P-Noy’s Mindanao peace strategy what the striking down of the Truth Commission was to the P-Noy Administration’s anti-corruption strategy.
Even before the TRO, P-Noy’s Mindanao peace and development strategy were already about to get stuck. His Tokyo trip to meet with the MILF was back to square one.
This is it!
This major development and embarrassing setback for the fumbling, more than a year old, Aquino Administration was not played up in the mass media extensively.
It was knocked off the banner headline and the above the fold spaces of the front pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star by the interest generated by the Miss Universe beauty pageant held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Monday night there, Tuesday morning here.
“Baguio talaga si Shamcey Supsup. Nawalis niya ang pulitika.”
However, an important issue can resurface after a storm.
Observing the time, space and prominence, or lack of the above, given by both broadcast and print media to the topic, I tried to reflect, analyze and conclude on the: “Why?” and “How come?”.
“Manhid na ba ang tao sa kapalpakan ni P-Noy?”
That is it!
Let Him Be
During the first year of P-Noy in office, the people’s expectations of his performance and the trust in him based on his being the son of his parents, Ninoy and Cory, were so high that he had no way to go but down in the approval ratings in so far as performance and trust were concerned.
However, by the time period (August 20 – September 2) of the Pulse Asia (with a cousin of P-Noy, Rafa Sumulong Lopa involved as stockholder and/or officer) Survey, people had gotten so used to P-Noy’s Ka… ’s and kapalpakans that expectations were so low.
As far as the majority of people are concerned, that is it. Period.
He can’t do much. Let him be.
Let us just muddle through till 2016. We can’t help it and we can’t complain. We had no other choice.
Linggoy is ‘Sorry Yellow’
“Ooops! That’s not true.
The undersigned, Linggoy, knew that Noynoy was not up to it.
He believed in another choice. He believed not only that Noynoy should not run for President, he also believed that Noynoy should run only for Vice President as the common Opposition Candidate even if the Opposition could not agree on having just one Presidential Candidate.
He lobbied for that from August 1 to September 9 of 2009. After that, he joined the mob that supported P-Noy on a “Bahala Na” or “Barkadahan” basis.
And now, he is sorry, as in, sorry yellow.
Martial Law
This week, on Wednesday, we remember the official Declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972.
We use the word “official” as opposed to “actual.”
The actual implementation of PD 1081, as opposed to its alleged signing on the 21st, was on the night of either the 22nd or 23rd, but definitely a Friday night or the eve of a Saturday.
That night also, the Congress adjourned “sine die”.
That was the main reason why Martial Law was not implemented overtly on the 21st. They had to wait until Congress was no longer in session.
Martial Law or “Batas Militar” means centralized, rigid and total control. It means squelching democracy, dissent and opposition.
It means that the state uses the military to discharge civilian functions of government.
It means that the leader and/or leadership of the government have taken an extraordinary initiative to solve problems that can no longer be solved by ordinary means.
Whatever and however, then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos made a very serious decision then, and implemented it.
P-Noy not in Control
Today, 39 years later, we find ourselves and our leader in a very different situation, P-Noy is not in control of either the situation or even of his own administration.
It is divided into two major factions with the leader encouraging them rather than putting his foot down and getting rid of them.
Instead of an administration party with a vision, the Samar initiatives have forced the Liberal Partyto become myopic.
The LP is aligned with and part of Balay.
Instead of efficiency in government, we have some sort of passive anarchy.
P-Noy is still the bad old Noynoy. He has not gotten over the hangover of what could have been his last private sector job – a stint as a Manager at the Hacienda Luisita.
The Hacienda, as well as the Azucarera, was not the best training ground for a future President of the Philippines.
They may have contributed to his hard-headedness and passivity. They certainly served as the model for the Noynoy brand of management.
Short-changed Bosses
In recent weeks and months, we have seen the worst examples of the Noynoy work style.
We have known for a long time that quantity wise, he has been shortchanging us, his bosses.
He wakes up in the very late morning except when he has a military or police affair or activity.
He can hardly ever put in a full honest day’s work. “La Cuacha” and “La Mierda” are the rule rather than the exception when it comes to Noynoy's kabarkada in government.
It is very difficult to have some work done in between the fun and the games.
Did you notice that Noynoy does not look at the face of the person he is shaking hands with.
Not to be Trusted
A leader who cannot look his subordinates in the eye and fire them when need be cannot and should not be trusted.
Several so called resignations stand out: DOTC Sec. Jose Ping de Jesus, DOT Sec Albert “Bertie” Lim, Bureau of Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez.
The common denominator among them is the way they were messed up by their own President.
Instead of talking to them directly and asking for their resignations, he used the very indirect approach: innuendos, floats, mass media and rumors.
He keeps his people insecure, guessing and destabilized. He is too lazy to call and attend Cabinet meetings.
Therefore, there are none.
Therefore, his government and administration do not have a centerpoint.
They have not jelled. They cannot bond together.
In the face of a storm, they will disintegrate. “Kawawa Tayo!”
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/19-21/2011
A week ago, on Tuesday, the 13th of September, the Supreme Court en banc, issued a TRO against Republic Act 10153. This Law postponed the August 8 Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections and synchronized them with the May 2013 mid-elections for senators, congressmen, governors and mayors and their vice governors and vice mayors, and then down to their board members and councilors.
The law gave the President the power to appoint officers-in-charge (OICs) to the positions of Governor, Vice Governor and Member of the Regional Assembly.
These OICs would have served without benefit of an electoral mandate from October 1, 2011 until June 30, 2013.
While making a lot of noise about cleaning up the ARMM, P-Noy was very slowly, becoming a trapo himself.
From reform as the original objective, political accommodation and consolidation were creeping into and taking over the agenda.
Back to Square One
Twenty years ago, on September 16, 1991, the Senate voted not to have U S military bases on Philippine soil.
Case closed? Not yet.
For more than a decade, the US has been very interested in Mindanao, especially Muslim Mindanao.
Will they succeed in undoing that heroic act of 20 years ago by splitting the country in two. And the bases will come back literally through the back door of Mindanao.
The TRO may eventually become a permanent and final ruling that RA 10153 is unconstitutional. It will be to P-Noy’s Mindanao peace strategy what the striking down of the Truth Commission was to the P-Noy Administration’s anti-corruption strategy.
Even before the TRO, P-Noy’s Mindanao peace and development strategy were already about to get stuck. His Tokyo trip to meet with the MILF was back to square one.
This is it!
This major development and embarrassing setback for the fumbling, more than a year old, Aquino Administration was not played up in the mass media extensively.
It was knocked off the banner headline and the above the fold spaces of the front pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star by the interest generated by the Miss Universe beauty pageant held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Monday night there, Tuesday morning here.
“Baguio talaga si Shamcey Supsup. Nawalis niya ang pulitika.”
However, an important issue can resurface after a storm.
Observing the time, space and prominence, or lack of the above, given by both broadcast and print media to the topic, I tried to reflect, analyze and conclude on the: “Why?” and “How come?”.
“Manhid na ba ang tao sa kapalpakan ni P-Noy?”
That is it!
Let Him Be
During the first year of P-Noy in office, the people’s expectations of his performance and the trust in him based on his being the son of his parents, Ninoy and Cory, were so high that he had no way to go but down in the approval ratings in so far as performance and trust were concerned.
However, by the time period (August 20 – September 2) of the Pulse Asia (with a cousin of P-Noy, Rafa Sumulong Lopa involved as stockholder and/or officer) Survey, people had gotten so used to P-Noy’s Ka… ’s and kapalpakans that expectations were so low.
As far as the majority of people are concerned, that is it. Period.
He can’t do much. Let him be.
Let us just muddle through till 2016. We can’t help it and we can’t complain. We had no other choice.
Linggoy is ‘Sorry Yellow’
“Ooops! That’s not true.
The undersigned, Linggoy, knew that Noynoy was not up to it.
He believed in another choice. He believed not only that Noynoy should not run for President, he also believed that Noynoy should run only for Vice President as the common Opposition Candidate even if the Opposition could not agree on having just one Presidential Candidate.
He lobbied for that from August 1 to September 9 of 2009. After that, he joined the mob that supported P-Noy on a “Bahala Na” or “Barkadahan” basis.
And now, he is sorry, as in, sorry yellow.
Martial Law
This week, on Wednesday, we remember the official Declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972.
We use the word “official” as opposed to “actual.”
The actual implementation of PD 1081, as opposed to its alleged signing on the 21st, was on the night of either the 22nd or 23rd, but definitely a Friday night or the eve of a Saturday.
That night also, the Congress adjourned “sine die”.
That was the main reason why Martial Law was not implemented overtly on the 21st. They had to wait until Congress was no longer in session.
Martial Law or “Batas Militar” means centralized, rigid and total control. It means squelching democracy, dissent and opposition.
It means that the state uses the military to discharge civilian functions of government.
It means that the leader and/or leadership of the government have taken an extraordinary initiative to solve problems that can no longer be solved by ordinary means.
Whatever and however, then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos made a very serious decision then, and implemented it.
P-Noy not in Control
Today, 39 years later, we find ourselves and our leader in a very different situation, P-Noy is not in control of either the situation or even of his own administration.
It is divided into two major factions with the leader encouraging them rather than putting his foot down and getting rid of them.
Instead of an administration party with a vision, the Samar initiatives have forced the Liberal Partyto become myopic.
The LP is aligned with and part of Balay.
Instead of efficiency in government, we have some sort of passive anarchy.
P-Noy is still the bad old Noynoy. He has not gotten over the hangover of what could have been his last private sector job – a stint as a Manager at the Hacienda Luisita.
The Hacienda, as well as the Azucarera, was not the best training ground for a future President of the Philippines.
They may have contributed to his hard-headedness and passivity. They certainly served as the model for the Noynoy brand of management.
Short-changed Bosses
In recent weeks and months, we have seen the worst examples of the Noynoy work style.
We have known for a long time that quantity wise, he has been shortchanging us, his bosses.
He wakes up in the very late morning except when he has a military or police affair or activity.
He can hardly ever put in a full honest day’s work. “La Cuacha” and “La Mierda” are the rule rather than the exception when it comes to Noynoy's kabarkada in government.
It is very difficult to have some work done in between the fun and the games.
Did you notice that Noynoy does not look at the face of the person he is shaking hands with.
Not to be Trusted
A leader who cannot look his subordinates in the eye and fire them when need be cannot and should not be trusted.
Several so called resignations stand out: DOTC Sec. Jose Ping de Jesus, DOT Sec Albert “Bertie” Lim, Bureau of Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez.
The common denominator among them is the way they were messed up by their own President.
Instead of talking to them directly and asking for their resignations, he used the very indirect approach: innuendos, floats, mass media and rumors.
He keeps his people insecure, guessing and destabilized. He is too lazy to call and attend Cabinet meetings.
Therefore, there are none.
Therefore, his government and administration do not have a centerpoint.
They have not jelled. They cannot bond together.
In the face of a storm, they will disintegrate. “Kawawa Tayo!”
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