The Sulu Abduction: Finally, A Worthy Comment From The ‘Mainstream’

There’s The Rub : Waiting

By Conrado de Quiros
Columnist
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: June 16, 2008

I don’t know that a horrendous thing like this really offers any lesson or drives home any point, but if it does, it can only be a couple of things:

One is to put to rest once and for all what the authorities were saying last year during the Pen incident. As we know, Ces and several other journalists were arrested there and detained briefly presumably for being where they did not belong. Specifically, for insisting on covering government’s effort to put down the mutiny despite being told not to by the authorities on the ground of national security. They were released later, but not before Maria Ressa and other media representatives took issue with the patent trespass on press freedom.

You will not hear any government official saying now that Ces had no right to be in Mindanao on whatever ground. If her situation today says anything, it is that she had as much right to be in Pen then as she has to be in Sulu today. That is what journalists do—or at least journalists worth their salt: They cover events, wherever they find them, whenever they find them, however they find them.

Covering events knows no boundaries, no limitations, no restrictions. In a democratic country at least, or one pretending to be so, journalists may not be prevented from covering the news for any reason. They may be persuaded only to exercise discretion in covering events that pose a danger to themselves and their subjects. Or they may be urged to treat sensitive and complex cases sensitively and discriminatingly. But they may not be prevented from covering them—least of all on grounds of national security. National security, and not patriotism, is the last refuge of scoundrels.

The other thing that Ces’ abduction drives home is that when something like this happens, it is not just the media community that is oppressed, it is the national community itself. It is every one of us.

Journalists, for all that has been said of them, good and bad, provide a useful public service. They are a different species altogether in one respect, defying normal behavior as they do. Which is that danger does not turn them away, it beckons to them. Whenever there’s gunfire or a volcanic explosion, everyone rushes away from it, the journalist rushes toward it. The world flees from it, the journalist flies to it.

Does this mean the journalist is braver than the ordinary mortal? Or, indeed, does this mean that he is nuttier than the ordinary mortal? Not at all, though there’s no lack of journalists to argue for either case. But for the most part, no, journalists are no braver or nuttier than you and me. They get scared too, they get horrified too, they get frightened out of their wits too. Reporters dive for cover too when things are exploding around them, cameramen’s hands shake violently too when bullets are zipping by them. Yet they plod on, or soldier on, despite this. What madness drives them to do so?

It is no madness at all, or if it is, it is an inspired one. He does it because he must. That is his job, that is his obligation. It is his job and duty to give the people to know.

He is compelled, willingly or grudgingly, enthusiastically or fearfully, to cover stories, however sensitive, however dangerous. He finds at his back the devil in the form of that fundamental tenet of democracy, which says the public has a right to know, and contrary to rumor, what you don’t know can hurt you. That is the service he provides, risking life and limb so that the public may know. That is the obligation he fulfills, demanding to know so that the people may know.

When journalists are harassed, or kidnapped, or killed, it is not just the journalism community that is impoverished, it is every one of us.

I will wait to unburden myself of my feelings toward Ces’ captors until the matter is successfully resolved. But I will not wait to unburden myself of my rage at something that has been going on for some time but which, unlike Ces’ abduction, has not met with intense and scrupulous concern in this country. That is the wholesale murder of journalists in the countryside. Scores have been killed in Mindanao alone, and only the international organizations have seen fit to shout their heads off over it. A “culture of impunity,” they call it, suggesting the ease and frequency with which the crime is wrought.

If we can feel violently oppressed by a journalist being abducted by bandits, we ought to feel more violently oppressed by journalists being routinely dispatched to the next life by drug lords and thugs in barong Tagalog. That crime is not just against them, it is against us. It’s time we rose to put a stop to it.

Just some thoughts to mull over while—waiting.