Freedom, she wrote

Positively Filipino/Book Review/by Patricio N. Abinales

 

Book Review: Press Freedom under Siege: Reportage that Challenged the Marcos Dictatorship. Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, editor
Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press
2019. 405 pp

 

What first fascinated me about this anthology is that the women journalists and opinion-writers far outnumbered the men. This discrepancy immediately suggested to me two things. First, despite only having broken ground in the late 1960s, women’s activism had already made its mark. Martial may have imprisoned many of these women activists, but it could not stop their march. Many of the authors were activists or sympathizers of the radical movement. In 1972, many of them were jailed or went underground. Upon surfacing, however, they immediately went back to what they were extremely good at -- writing. Then, a set of younger colleagues, inspired by what their predecessors were doing, earned their spurs and joined their elders.

And the productivity is quite amazing: 44 articles in Press Freedom under Siege were written by women, only 29 by men.

Second, these were pieces written under conditions that were not encouraging for women. Publishers consigned them to the “margins” and many of the pieces here were, as Sheila Coronel put it, “not for the front pages of the newspapers, but their opinion pages, lifestyle sections, and Sunday magazines.” Repression also forced them to be creative, using “allegory, metaphor, narrative techniques, and indirect language in order to evade censorship.” But as Mao said, one “can turn a bad thing into a good thing.” These women used their “weakness” (being ignored by men), becoming de facto ethnographers, delving into local and provincial lives, and turning these encounters into understated critiques of the dictatorship.

As expected, they were “first not taken seriously” (Coronel), but once stories about the Kalingas and dictatorship’s development dams came out of their pens, the dictatorship took notice, and went after them. The anthology includes stories of women writers being threatened, imprisoned, interrogated, sued for libel. There are also tales of publishers and editors being forced to resign by their publishers (The well-respected editors Letty Magsanoc and Ceres Doyo had to seek the help of human rights lawyers when the regime turned up the volume).

Yet, all this did not deter them from their vocation. In the 1980s and all throughout the 1990s, these women wrote about the trauma Filipinos had experienced under the dictatorship, the frailties of the post-Marcos political system, Catholic communists, “red” nuns, and people’s doctors, militarism and provincial and national corruption. They inspired a new generation of journalists, including the all-women editorial staff of Rodrigo Duterte’s media bête noir, Rappler.

Today, when someone asks me about the best works on Philippine politics, my instant advise is for them to ignore the country’s academic writings. I then point them to books and blogs of Filipina journalists, which I describe as path-breaking and carry more analytical and empirical weight than what the professoriate produces.

This is not to say that the 29 men’s contributions are not as notable as their female colleagues’ input. Rene Villanueva’s three-part series on Macliing Dulag, the Kalinga leader whose resistance to the regime’s planned dam led to his assassination, and Roberto Coloma’s pieces on the massacre of a village in northern Samar by a paramilitary “Lost Command” are moving and sharp. 

But, for me, this is mainly a book about women journalists.

Ma. Ceres P. Doyo at the book launch at
Bantayog ng mga  Bayani  on March 13, 2019.

Their writings set them up for careers in the industry where they shape public discourse to this very day.  Yet, all is not peachy keen. Their works had limited circulation. The “mosquito press’” readership was mainly in cosmopolitan cities, thinning out the farther one got from the capital.

This may partly explain why democracy, as envisioned by Filipino democrats, never sank its teeth in the probinsyas the way it did in Metropolitan Manila or Cebu. In the rural regions, Filipinos also might have heard of the fall of the dictator, but they have remained beholden to or oppressed by the local political clans. Investigative media recognized this problem, and some of the best works of institutions like the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism were directed at exposing the avarice and abuse of local satraps. Their effectiveness also seems limited. Even today, Filipinos in many towns and even small cities have never heard of Magsanoc, Doyo, Mayuga, et. al.

In short, the masses have remained for grabs even after 1986. The authors of the series are well aware of this, going by editor Ceres Doyo’s apprehensive note in closing her introduction. Doyo et al. republished these essays because the current president’s despotism reminded them of Marcos. It is also perhaps a subliminal admission that their works have yet to reach many Filipinos. The onus is now on UP Press to make sure those in Tawi-Tawi and the Batanes Islands get their copies of this fine book. #

Patricio N. Abinales teaches Philippine political history at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai`i-Manoa.

Read More

A portrait of the Filiino as a courageous journalist

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Lifestyle/by Ruel de Vera

 

How brightly can words burn? They can burn brightly enough to break a dictatorship. That is the truth at the heart of “Press Freedom Under Siege: Reportage that Challenged the Marcos Dictatorship,” edited by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo (University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, 2019, 405 pages).

 

This ambitious, important book is a compendium of articles—including banned ones— written during the 1980s, when the Philippine press broke away from the control of the machinery of President Ferdinand E. Marcos—but not without cost—and the stories behind those stories.

 

The book’s editor knows all about this. The award-winning  Inquirer columnist Doyo wrote about the death of Macli-ing Dulag and the Chico Dam controversy in 1980, only to be interrogated for it. She kept writing.

 

Doyo is but one of the many writers whose impressive work is gathered here. The others are Ruben G. Alabastro, Inquirer  founding publisher Eugenia D. Apostol, Joker P. Arroyo, Mila Garcia Astorga, Mauro R. Avena, Arlene Babst, Chelo R. Banal, Teodoro C. Benigno, Leonor Aureus Briscoe, Isidro S. Chanmag, Roberto Z. Coloma, Sheila S. Coronel, Alex Dacanay, Melinda Quintos de Jesus, Jose W. Diokno, Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, Lourdes M. Fernandez, Bill Formoso, Bonifacio Gillego, National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, Salvador P. Lopez, Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon, Alex R. Magno, Letty Jimenez Magsanoc, Aida Santos Maranan, Sylvia Mayuga, Al S. Mendoza, Ricky Mendoza, Antonio Ma. Nieva, Ninez Cacho Olivares, Tente U. Quintero, Joaquin “Chino” Roces, Domini Torrevillas Suarez, Lorna Kalaw Tirol, Recah Trinidad and Rene O. Villanueva. The articles are sourced from the Philippine Panorama to Mr.&Ms. (predecessor of the Inquirer), from WE Forum and WHO Magazine to Bulletin Today and Tempo, among others.

 

Doyo (fifth from right,with fuchsia scarf), the authors and their representatives with copies of the book. –LITO OCAMPO

Undercover

“Press Freedom Under Siege” started as two volumes titled “The Philippine Press Under Siege” published in 1984 and 1985 with the help of of the National Press Club and its president, Nieva. “The two earlier volumes were done almost undercover, almost forgotten, printed on newsprint with limited circulation more than 30 years ago, but the articles were very important, breakthrough pieces that challenged the Marcos dictatorship,” Doyo said. “Thanks to Noree Briscoe who put them together as editor at that time, with several of us women writers assisting and working in the dead of night.”

 

Those two out-of-print volumes became a new one.  “So I thought the collection should be resurrected for today’s readers, especially now that freedom of the press is endangered—or worse—not only in our country but the world over,” she said.

 

It took four years to put “Press Freedom Under Siege” together. “The more challenging part was merging the two previous volumes together, rearranging the sequence according to themes,” she explained. The book landed at the University of the Philippines Press. There were changes with three new articles to add context.

 

There is a new Foreword from Coronel, who wrote: “In the 1980s, writers ventured farther away and found places that had been hammered by the regime’s iron fist. They gave voice to people whose lives and hopes had been shattered by the cruelties—big and small—that came with absolute, unaccountable power. Much like those they wrote about, journalists were themselves victims of that power. They were more fortunate than other victims, but it was not surprising that they felt some solidarity with them.”

 

“Press Freedom Under Siege” begins with the articles that got them into trouble, including the aforementioned Macli-ing Dulag coverage, the death of Fr. Zacarias Agatep and problems with the Agrava fact-finding board, among others.

 

Then the book turns its focus, true to its title, to the writers who dared to report the truth despite all the danger. “Press Freedom Under Siege” exhaustively details the consequences of critical reportage with detentions (among them Nieva), interrogations and libel suits. “Press Freedom Under Siege” provides a legal survey of press freedom in the country.

 

Harassment

The book makes a most compelling case with the harassment that came the way of Magsanoc, who was then editor in chief at the Philippine Panorama and had written a sharply observed—too sharply observed—piece about the presidential inauguration in 1981 (that article is included in the book), that led to her forced resignation. “Press Freedom Under Siege” covers this event in microscopic detail, including interviews with Magsanoc and even Marcos himself.

 

As with many articles, there are detailed endnotes to place the articles in context and tell the reader what happened next. And Magsanoc was not the only journalist to feel the Marcos regime’s displeasure.

 

It’s all here. Doyo has compiled everything from transcripts of interrogations and interviews to reproductions of summons, republic acts and editorial cartoons, all with the intent of providing the most complete record of these events. There is even a list of acronyms (AP to WOMEN) and a sizable appendix.

 

“There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the past, especially now,” Doyo said. Of all the things readers may take with them after reading “Press Freedom Under Siege,” Doyo said, the most important was this: “That all that they read about actually happened. No to revising history! Some stories read like whodunits except that they were real—the victims, the villains, the writers who bore the brunt of the backlash from the dictatorship.”

 

It was then only proper that “Press Freedom Under Siege” was launched March 23 at that place where sacrifice for the people is remembered, the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City. Many of the surviving writers attended. Here were the real people whose courageous words and actions were recorded in the book. Among the names etched on the Wall of Remembrance were three writers from the book: Diokno, Gillego and Magsanoc.

 

The very existence of “Press Freedom Under Siege” stands for the importance of its mission; its size and scope a testament to the tireless efforts behind it. It is a poignant and powerful portrait of the Filipino as journalist in the direst of times.

 

“This book is for both journalists and nonjournalists, also for lovers and practitioners of law, especially where freedom of the press is concerned,” Doyo wrote in her Preface. “This book is written for the present and the future generations, for them to appreciate the power of the written word and the importance of keeping watch in the night with their lamps trimmed while the battle rages between darkness and the light.”

 

Available in paperback at  UP Press Bookstore, UP campus and UPper Shelf Bookstore at  UP Town Center Mall on Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City; tel. 0917-5435671; e-mail press@up.edu.ph, press.up.edu.ph/store. #

Read More