By NUJP
Thirty-seven years ago, Ferdinand Marcos issued Proclamation 1081 placing the country under martial law and beginning a reign of darkness and terror that would last 14 years until the people took matters into their own hands and threw off the shackles of tyranny.
It was not by accident that among the first things the dictator ordered his armed minions to do was to shut down the, until then, fiercely vibrant and independent Philippine press. Publishers, editors, reporters, along with opposition politicians and dissenters, were arrested en masse. The "lucky" ones found themselves herded into dingy stockades. Others were murdered, or simply never heard of again.
Indeed, tyranny, by whatever name it chooses to go by, can only thrive in the vacuum of ignorance and darkness created by the absence of a free and vibrant press.
With no one to inform the people of the truth of events, with no one serving as the arena in which free discourse on matters of public interest takes place, despots are free to plunder and wreak havoc on those who would dare oppose them.
But, as events bore out, not even the terror the dictatorship unleashed on the land could long stem the desire for freedom and democracy.
As the discontent of the downtrodden grew, slowly transforming into action, so too did journalists dust off their silent pens and, starting with the “mosquito press” and the valiant Jose Burgos of
This was how the Filipino people came to know of the throng who flocked to bury Ninoy Aquino even as Marcos' mouthpieces vainly tried to mask the historic event with the screaming headline, “Lightning Kills 1.”
Alas, that the lessons of that glorious struggle were lost all too soon.
In the years since the dictatorship was ousted and democracy supposedly restored, we have seen increasing efforts to narrow the bounds of freedom of expression and of the press.
Most glaring, of course, is the list of journalists upon whom the ultimate censorship – death – has been visited in an atmosphere of impunity fostered by official inaction and, not just apathy but, many times, outright hostility.
And no other administration since the dictatorship has shown this hostility and contempt for freedom of the press and of expression than the current one. Under its watch, the most journalists have been killed, in numbers almost double those who died during the dictatorship or of all three preceding governments combined.
More than this, this is the only administration since the dictatorship to attempt the wholesale muzzling of the media when, under the pretext of a “Left-Right” conspiracy, it placed the nation under a state of national emergency. The real target, according to recent revelations, was an “intransigent media.”
Under this administration only have we seen a presidential spouse embark on a spree of libel cases against more than 40 journalists, media workers hauled off en masse by police for doing what they are supposed to do – cover the news – and lawmakers, in clear contempt of the provisions of the Constitution, preparing to pass a measure that would effectively mean their control of media content.
Indeed, under no administration since the unlamented dictatorship has there been more reason to vow, “Never Again.”
PHILIP JAMES MONGAYA TREMEDAL
CALL OR TEXT ME : 0929-589-6390
OR E-MAIL ME : pjtremedal@gmail.com
visit my website: www.pag-enews.tk
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