Press freedom

If we know what is good for us, everyone including the President should be defending press freedom. It is the cornerstone of our democracy, the only means by which we can keep our officials as transparently honest and efficient as possible.

As Sen. Ralph Recto puts it, “better to have a pesky, cantankerous, annoying press than one that is silenced. A noisy press is the soundtrack of democracy.”

Of course, there are abuses of press freedom. And there is that cynical observation that the freedom of the press belongs to those who own the printing press. That seems to be true in capitalist countries like ours, and more so in authoritarian countries like China and Russia.

What happened to Rappler is to be expected. Governments, even in democracies, will always try to have some amount of control over mass media. Presidents will always try to charm the press, buy the owners of the press with special favors or as in the case of President Trump, vigorously demean the press so as to reduce its hold on public opinion.

 In our case, ownership of mass media had been historically problematic. Owners have other business interests that are vulnerable to government pressure. Manolo Lopez used to complain that every time Gloria Arroyo sees something she doesn’t like on ANC and TV Patrol, Meralco suffers.

John Gokongwei had to give up Manila Times after a headline so infuriated former president Joseph Estrada. And we all saw how the Rufino-Prieto family eventually had to give up their control of some government properties after President Duterte got very annoyed with Inquirer.

What happened to the Prieto-Rufino family, and now to Rappler, is expected. If you dare confront the political powers that be, make sure you don’t have skeletons in your closet and your legal status is impeccably fool proof.

Mass media ownership in our country has made journalism vulnerable because of related interests. The closest we have had of a major newspaper owned by the journalists and earned the reputation of good and fearless journalism was Raul Locsin’s Business Day and Business World.

It was Raul’s sheer will power to live up to his principle of seeing media ownership as a public trust that kept him going. But even if he catered to a small segment of the market, he was able to create an impact bigger than his circulation justified.

Perhaps that’s our problem. We don’t have a market for good journalism to enable a well-intentioned publisher to fight it out the way The New York Times and The Washington Post are now confronting Donald Trump. And that is essential specially in this era of fake news.

This is why as a journalist, my inclination is to go all out and defend press freedom with regard to the Rappler case. Suspicion is easily raised by the speed by which the case was decided by the SEC and the absence of an opportunity for Rappler to cure the problem the SEC decision cited. Now the DOJ is probing Rappler for violation of the anti-Dummy Act.

The fact that the President had repeatedly expressed his annoyance with Rappler may have led the Solicitor General to seek the SEC review of Rappler’s ownership structure.

Who is next?

Having experienced martial law under Marcos and his crony press is reason enough for our generation to see press freedom as a top concern. Rappler may have its faults, but at least they are doing the tough investigative reporting that many in traditional media are unable, or have long forgotten to do. The navy procurement case is a good example.

But as the story unfolded and the actual SEC decision was disseminated, I started to wonder if by flying the press freedom banner, Rappler may be trying to get a free pass just because it is media.

Maria Ressa spoke before the Foundation for Economic Freedom many years ago about Rappler and how they are using technology to report unfolding developments. I remember asking her who Rappler’s funders are and I got a roundabout answer unworthy of Rappler’s demands for transparency for everyone else.

Now we know who invested. I don’t think their investors are interested in interfering with our domestic politics. They just saw a good concept from a group of tough professionals whose track record provides confidence.

But that still doesn’t exempt Rappler from following our laws the way our courts and regulatory agencies see it. Indeed, they could have incorporated abroad and just opened an office here and not have to worry about that antiquated constitutional media ownership provision.

Rappler was either ill-advised by their lawyers or they decided to take the risk because they thought they have enough media power to make them somewhat invincible… big mistake!

The crux of the issue is focused on the PDRs they issued to a foundation owned by the founder of E-Bay. As one law firm explained it on social media: “There is nothing wrong with issuance of PDRs. And the SEC found nothing wrong with the PDRs issued to North Base Media. The problem lies with the PDRs issued to the Omidyar Network, or what Rappler called the ‘ON PDRs.’

“The ON PDRs had provisions that granted a measure of control over BOTH Rappler Holdings and Rappler Inc…   Philippine foreign equity restrictions require that Filipino control should be 100 percent... With the provisions on the ON PDR’s, there was definitely more than zero percent control of foreigners. This is a violation of Philippine law on media companies.”

So Rappler has a violation. SEC normally provides a cure period, but not in this case. Ressa claims Omidyar agreed to drop the offending provision in its PDR, but SEC ignored it.

If it were any other agency, I would agree there is strong reason to suspect political vendetta. But four of the five SEC commissioners were appointees of the previous administration and enjoy fixed terms of office. The SEC chair’s reputation is impeccable and she is as fearless as Rappler’s Maria Ressa.

This is a complicated case. It is not a cut and dried press freedom issue. But it has enough elements of it that should make us extra vigilant.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco