Shoot Not the Messenger

We in the Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) find extremely objectionable President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent call to media to focus on “winners” and not “losers.” “The coverage of kangaroo courts, lynch mobs and witch-hunts assails the peace of mind and the hope of our people,” President Arroyo said Nov. 10 in a speech before the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP). She was apparently referring to the media’s coverage of the Citizens’ Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) which has been gathering and scrutinizing evidence that was supposed to have been used in the aborted impeachment complaint against her. President Arroyo may boast all she wants about her credentials – as she is wont to do every chance she gets – but her recent speech reveals that she knows nothing of the workings of the journalistic profession and has no right whatsoever to pretend to be an arbiter on how the media should do its job, in much the same way that the censors of the Marcos dictatorship had absolutely no qualification to act as judges on which artistic works should and should not be censored. The job of a journalist is to report, or comment on and analyze the news, as it makes itself through a certain time frame – be it a day, a week, or a fortnight – inasmuch as artists play their parts by expressing uncommon perceptions of the world and the human condition through combinations of symbols, images, and other devices that appeal at once to the intellect, the emotions and the senses. President Arroyo has no reason to blame journalists if at present the press has nothing to publish or broadcast except bad news. It is certainly not the media’s fault that massive corruption under her administration has contributed greatly to a fiscal crisis which the government seeks to remedy by imposing financial burdens on a people already deep in penury. It is certainly not the media’s fault that her alleged victory in the 2004 election is under question because of inexplicably discrepant election documents and tapes of conversations in which she is heard instructing an election official to rig the polls. It is certainly not the media’s fault that she has not lifted a finger to stop state forces from violating civil liberties and other human rights. It is definitely not the media’s fault that her minions in the House of Representatives bent the law and legal processes to kill the impeachment complaint which sought to take up these issues raised against her in a legal venue. By this, her camp left the people no choice but to air their grievances before the CCTA – which, by the way, is not illegal as Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez claims but rather meta-legal, meaning not specifically provided for by law but not against the law either. President Arroyo’s call to media to focus on “winners” and not “losers” reminds us artists of how former First Lady Imelda Marcos, during the martial law period, repeatedly pressured our colleagues to highlight “The True, The Good, The Beautiful” while the economy was on a downward trajectory because of pro-foreign and elitist policies, as well as corruption, and the rights of people seeking a better life for all were being trampled upon on a grand scale. We remember how fellow artists who chose to depict things as they really were – the likes of Pete and Eman Lacaba, Lorena Barros, Bien Lumbera, Ricky Lee, Valerio Nofuente, Wilfredo Gacosta, Lino Brocka, Behn Cervantes, and Bonifacio Ilagan among others – were punished by the Marcos regime. There is reason to suspect that with President Arroyo’s growing antagonism toward journalists, a regime of press censorship is impending. More so because the Anti-Terrorism Bill that she is pushing for contains sanctions against journalists who interview anyone the government chooses or has chosen to brand as a “terrorist” – including those who lead legal and legitimate protest actions. We artists hold sacred the freedom of expression. Freedom of the press is the freedom of expression as exercised by members of the media. Without freedom of the press, journalists cease to be journalists. Without artistic freedom, artists cease to be artists. To tell journalists to focus on “winners” and not “losers,” to tell artists to highlight “The True, The Good, The Beautiful,” is to order them to kill themselves. We refuse to kill ourselves. We enjoin our brothers and sisters in the media to do the same, and stand in full solidarity with all journalists who refuse to be silenced. Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) November 13, 2005 Southern Tagalog Exposure KASIBULAN Women Visual Artists’ Collective KUMASA (Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog Katagalugan) ARTIST, Inc. (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog) Kilometer 64 Poetry Group Tambisan sa Sining APLAYA (Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan) UPLB Umalohokan Paolo Martinez Andrea Muñoz Gian Paolo Mayuga Jeffrey Ferrer Onin Tagaro Bobby Balingit Winnie Balingit Lourd de Veyra Dong Abay Ninj Abay Con Cabrera Roselle Pineda Heidi Takama Boom Dizon