Critical role of media in governance and elections

DATELINE MANILA
by: BINGO P. DEJARESCO

Various tri-media organizations from Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor rediscovered the “game-changing” role of a critical media in agitating for good governance and pushing for clean, liberating elections in May.

This came at the end of a fourday intensive seminar at the Metrocenter in this city - organized by the multi-awarded Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) headed by its Executive Director Malou Mangahas.

The media today is faced with the challenge to put to task most public officials who are virtually clueless on the Millenium Development Goals, a bundle of objectives that would have put rhyme and reason to good governance. No wonder the government today seems like a headless chicken bereft of direction.

It is akin to a corporation whose stewards are unaware of the Corporate Plan.

Secondly, it is confronting a wave of rising expectations of the voting populace (of 49 million registered voters) seeking a sea of change in the efforts to junk the Jurassic “manualized election system” - about a century old - in favor of the “automated system” and a radical change from a scandalrocked kind of government.

The downside of an expectant populace is a frustrated people out to bring extra-constitutional means to government change as a symbol of its despair for either a failure of election or to frustrate the true mandate of a free electorate in the exercise of its right of suffrage. Media confessed “mea maxima culpa” to the crime of a teacher who is currently failing short to become a trainor of the voting populace to become participative election watchers in an “automated” atmosphere.

educate voters on their candidates for public office in a deep investigative way that uncovers their personal character, properties, performance, patrons and platforms. No more sing and dance routine and entertainment hooplah in exchange for an unforgiving personality profile analysis of candidates.

PCIJ asked for an end to “candidates without platforms fielded by parties without principles and manipulated by consultants without conviction” which is as worst as elections without voters.

The electoral arena of media channels now includes a bigger loop of internet users (about 15 to 20% of the populace), the text messengers army of 25 million mobile phone owners and an unbridled, often licentious bloggers. The marketplace is no longer what it used to be. It has become a fight for relevance for mainstream media.

The challenge extends to the fact that while “automated elections” may have partially solved the postprecinct- election manipulation. The evil that precedes that with the presence of the three G’s - guns, goons and gold - remains like a threeheaded hydra monster that can frustrate any well-meaning electoral reformer.

The PCIJ-engineered seminar provided Media with stark reminders about the usual poll suspects: flying voters, “not to vote” threats, ballot switching, command votes herding, physical invalidation of votes and dagdag bawas, among others.

Meantime, the political season is one where money flows from the barrel and threatens the most - the struggle for integrity among Media practitioners. Seductions and threats flow in gay abandon and call for the greatest intestinal fortitude in order for journalists to remain true to their credo.

Also, surveys ranging from those coming from the internationally- recognized SWS and Pulse Asia to the wayward “Quiapo origins” will chorus simultaneously - crying for attention.

Critical questioning of the surveys origins: patrons who paid for them, the scientific basis for the sampling, the questions framed and their sequencing, the rate of response and its being time-series tested, should be in every Media man’s menu to help the electorate place a value on them.

The slogans against poverty and for championing the poor are now a dime a dozen and Media should play a role in exposing if the “spin” of candidates - whether they can be defended in Plaza Miranda, so to speak.

Finally, PCIJ challenged the Media participants to look inwards and discover if there exist actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest between personal interests and that of the practice of the journalistic profession.

PCIJ has been credited - through sheer grit, guts and persistence - in helping document -laser-like - on the excesses of former president Joseph Estrada that led to his ouster via EDSA II. Concurrently, it has documented the growth of GMA’s net worth over a painstaking analysis of documents and financial statements covering 17 years.

This effort has not come unrewarded with recognition from prestigious national and global institutions - making PCIJ one of its kind in the field of critical investigative journalism. It has opened itself up to “stories to be told” from the regions and provinces that smack of threats to freedom of speech, bad governance and electoral fraud. They can become a corroborative work.

Media has been a known dragon slayer over the years. And no other organization deserves the crown to be its leader in seeking community reforms than PCIJ through dedicated investigative journalism. Media can only follow its illuminated path and be proud to call PCIJ its own.