Biased, dangerous reporting on the 40-year Philippine communist rebellion

I highly recommend reading Teo Marasigan’s blog entry Mahirap Lang Sila, Hindi Tanga* on the mainstream media’s attempt to forever tie down the supposed insignificance of the communist rebellion in the Philippines, the CPP having celebrated its 40th year last December 26, with character assassination of its founding chairman, Jose Ma. Sison. Teo matter-of-factly, and then quite ardently, exposes how this line of thought based on shaky, almost non-existent logic actually betrays a disdain for the masses and their capacity to think and act for their own interests and utter ignorance.

May I add that the two-part article that came out on the Philippine Daily Inquirer in time for the CPP’s 40th, Sison now croons to keep cause alive and Campuses source of CPP ‘quality cadres’, are appalling as journalistic pieces. It was shamelessly slanted towards military propaganda, with AFP officials quoted 80% of the time. In fact, the military’s assumptions–that the CPP is “grasping at straws”, that Sison does nothing except to sing on YouTube and to party, that the New People’s Army resorts to criminality, that universities are communist recruitment centers–form the backbone of these two articles, with Rightist commentary on how the Left has fared in world politics thrown along the way.

It was shocking that the article treated so cavalierly AFP vice chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna’s statement that rebellion should be regarded as a common crime. I would be tempted to say that that discredited militarist fantasy looks so ancient and funny on print, if only the repercussions were not so serious and all too real, with six Southern Tagalog activists, including labor leader Atty. Remigio Saladero Jr., still in jail because of trumped-up rebellion charges.

The repeated use of the words “his revolution” or “his cause,” pertaining to Sison, is inaccurate and malicious (Sison is technically National Democratic Front of the Philippines chief political consultant and chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggles, attempts to link him to the current CPP leadership prove to be threatening to his life and liberty), annoying and ridiculous (I mean, come on, would a revolution “waged halfway around the world” survive for this long? Have you ever heard an NPA anywhere ever say that they were willing to die for “Joma’s cause” or “Joma’s revolution”?).

In the second part, the article also cannot make up its mind whether to portray idealist youths as mindless Sison followers or as intelligent but misguided activists–I guess the falsity of its claims couldn’t help but end in confusing contradictions. This paragraph was an entirely unattributed assertion: “The increasing cases ranging from malicious mischief, robbery, grave threats and assault filed against activists in the PUP are also evidence of NPA activities in the school.” Probably because it was non-sequitur. So campus kleptos are now armed insurgents? And aren’t cases of malicious mischief and grave threats and assault filed against activists more often than not evidence of repression of their right to free speech, assembly, and expression? (Such as drawing a moustache on Arroyo, the article thankfully points out)

AFP Civil and Military Operation’s chief Col. Buenaventura Pascual, also speculated that Diana Publico, a missing PUP student, went underground–and the reporter didn’t even bother to corroborate or counteract this allegation with possibly an interview with the student’s family. For all we know the girl could’ve run away with her lover, there was totally nothing by way of background information.

The article gave full play to the military chorus that the NPA uses banned landmines and acted deaf to the CPP’s clarification that NPA’s only use contact landmines whose targets are precise military ones and are permissible under war conventions. As “background information,” the article said: “The planting of land mines has maimed millions of civilians, including women and children, caught in recent conflicts from Cambodia to Mozambique.” And weren’t these non-contact (anti-personnel) landmines in contrast? And what are the incidents of civilians maimed HERE because of the NPA’s landmine use?

The article also had this penchant of citing commentary of unnamed political analysts, such as: “One political science professor says those attracted to the OFW phenomenon fit the persona of the adventurous, if romantic, potential recruits of the CPP revolutionaries, except that now they’d rather go abroad.” I’m sure that there are no lack of anti-Left political professors who would readily mouth such an opinion, but couldn’t the PDI just name his/her? Only “common knowledge” bears lack of citation; the above is merely subjective observation.

Lastly, presumably to get the side of the Left, the reporter interviewed Bayan Muna Reps. Teddy Casino and Satur Ocampo. The two offered, quite gracefully, their opinions on why the rebellion persists and the attraction this holds for idealist youths of today. But really, if the sources were to be objectively viewed, an NDFP representative–or maybe even Sison himself (he should’ve been readily available through the Internet, his “main vehicle for propaganda”, right?) –should’ve been interviewed on the CPP instead.Why these party-list representatives, much as their respect and admiration for the revolutionary Left must be, whom the government imputes to be communist cadres in order to persecute?

There are articles that are infuriating because of what the sources say (it is common for me to utter invectives while reading the newspaper). But there are articles that are infuriating because of what the sources say and the way it was written. The PDI’s “Red Revolution at 40″ series is of the latter. Being a practitioner of alternative journalism I know that bias is a given. But careless Rightist bias that seeps into a front page article on the country’s biggest broadsheet is not only bad reporting, it is also dangerous reporting.

Let us remember that under the Arroyo regime, ordinary civilians and activists continue to be killed, abducted, tortured, jailed, harassed, and persecuted on mere suspicion of being communist rebels. This is the “90%” action that the AFP boasts of in the article. If the mainstream media will allow itself to become part of its 10% propaganda–which mainly consists of vilifying the CPP and linking to it legal Left organizations and leaders–it will have blood on its hands as well.