If “press freedom” were truly an issue relevant to ordinary Filipinos, then it would have been a cornerstone of many a politicians’ campaign platform today. But it isn’t, and the reason it isn’t doesn’t come across as much of a surprise.
Ordinary Filipinos wouldn’t have the time nor the brain space to critically evaluate “journalism” — because “press freedom” has nothing to do with where their next meal or next paycheck comes from. On the other hand, crime, drugs, and peace and order do. It so happens that the messaging and actions of Rodrigo Duterte the candidate then the President remained consistent to those things important to Filipinos throughout. This is why he won an important election and remains powerful, influential, and popular to this day.
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This is a basic lesson in democratic politics the once-mighty Liberal Party only belatedly learned and are only now applying in the campaign lead-up to this year’s elections.
All those high-fallutin’ concepts — “human rights”, “equality”, and, yes, “press freedom” are of no consequence to the ordinary Filipino voter. In fact, an inordinate amount of focus on those notions cost the LP an entire nation back in 2016. Thus it is easy to see now why many politicians are smart enough not to touch with a ten-foot pole this latest circus surrounding Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s arrest on charges of libel.
Whilst a lot of shrill noise is being kicked up by Ressa’s snowflake supporters on social media and by the odd handful that actually troop to the streets in 1980s-era style “rallies”, the data tells a different story. In the midst of the frenzy on that night Ressa was picked up from her office at Rappler by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) serving her arrest warrant, hashtags and terms associated with showbiz and Valentine’s Day continued to dominate social media’s top “trending” lists. Neither Ressa nor anything about “press freedom” made it to the Philippines’ top search terms on Google over that same period. The reality is, nobody gives a shit about Ressa nor her shrill “assault on press freedom” sloganeering.
If there is no evidence of a critical mass of interest in Ressa’s “plight” amongst Filipinos who have access to the Internet, how much more such interest could possibly be expected coming from the broader mass of Filipinos who aren’t as online?
Here we see in Ressa’s most recent crybaby drama just another one of those flypaper issues that the Opposition’s foremost “thought leaders” waste precious time and bandwidth buzzing around and getting stuck on. It is no wonder they lost touch of the pulse of their constituents. They focus too much on elitist ideological notions and less on the down-to-earth basic essentials that occupy the attention of most Filipinos.
Oh and there is also that small inconvenient fact of the matter — that “press freedom” is not and was never “under threat” to begin with. There’s simply no evidence nor any data to support this ululation that Ressa continues to dishonestly propagate.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Unless facebook is shutdown, now that will really pissed off the ordinary Pilipinos.
But who wants to shut it down?
A partisan hack like Miss Philippines Runner-up gets protection from her presstitute friends abroad that spread the same insanity that spawned the Middle Eastern crisis that spawned ISIS to the shores of the Philippines, while the multiple non-corporate and independent media men and women who report on things the so-called Mainstream Media refuses to, who die because they tick off the same leeches that’s been parasitic to the country are now ignored. Bravo, these brave warriors of “truth” are fighting their fellow journalistic parasite. It’s becoming a joke when you dig up to who owns and funds these people who are defending this idiot, it’s really sad and concerning that if it’s isn’t foreign Governments who make their propaganda air it’s political ideologues like these “International Liberals” and their useful idiots whose first idea is to act like a bunch of teenage thugs protesting because someone told them to.
“They focus too much on elitist ideological notions and less on the down-to-earth basic essentials that occupy the attention of most Filipinos.”
Maybe ordinary Pilipinos knows better, they know they can’t be a hero, they can’t be a saint, they can’t be a martyr, they know they are just (ordinary) human. That this elitist ideological notion is nothing more but a show of abnormality, or just being quixotic.
The so called, “Press Freedom” that is used by “Aquino era Journalists”, to shield themselves from defaming and badmouthing someone is not above the Law. “Journalists must Fact Check their news sources; twice think about what they write…because , we all have to abide by the Laws in our country.
You cannot just write anything, against anybody. Then, when somebody sue you for Libel; you shout: “Press Freedom”….
Journalists are not the “embodiment ” of Press Freedom. They are people like us; that can be susceptible to corruption. “Aquino era Journalists”, which Maria Reesa is one of the remnant; are just part of the political propaganda machine of the Aquino Cojuangco political axis…
Now, on the Duterte era, they are trying to ply their trade of ,”Prostituted Journalism”, and continue their old ways. If somebody attack them, they shout :”Press Freedom” . Maria Reesa should not politicize her Libel case; she has the right to defend herself in the court of law, not in the , “court of public opinion”…
The only people buying the bullshit that is #defendpressfreedom are SJW chumps with nothing better to do.
The problem is in using such concepts (equality, freedom, etc) as if operating in a vacuum, which is really a failure to delineate. And these elites get to rule over society?
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.