Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the National Press Club Gridiron Night

Delivered at the PICC, Roxas Boulevard, Manila, March 11, 1994]

A reply and tribute
to the press

WHOEVER invented this annual Gridiron Night had an odd sense of humor. All night, Mrs. Ramos, the Cabinet members and I have been sitting here while you made unflattering digs at us and the Administration. Now, by inviting me to make a response, you ask me to throw rocks at you in return!

Perhaps, this is the essence of democracy. Surely, this is freedom of the press—Philippine-style. Allow me now to exercise the freedom of the “Prez,” Ramos-style.

Columnists have criticized me for perceived faults in my personality. But I wish to tell them that I am not in office to be charismatic. I am not in power to be volcanic. I am not President to be Apollonic—I am here to be great!

Phantoms of the press

But I have a suspicion that A. J. Liebling was right after all when he said: “Freedom of the press belongs only to the man who owns one,” or can buy one. Ask those in the Manila Times—by the way, a happy forty-ninth anniversary to the Manila Times.

I am pleased that for once I can watch a presentation, a performance about which I do not have to be diplomatic. The National Press Club version of The Phantom of the Opera we saw tonight was out of this world.

In one of the draft speeches prepared by a media source who prefers to remain anonymous, I am supposed to tell you that the show was so unique that it should go into the Guinness Book of World Records. Because daw—believe it or not—there are so many of you in the suffering audience who paid so much to endure so many actors who cannot act, comedians who cannot get a laugh, singers who cannot sing and writers who cannot write.

But the truth of the matter is that the cast, the production staff, the scriptwriters and the directors did such a good job as phantoms that they deserve our highest kudos and applause. If there were some shortcomings, these should be excused, for after all, performance is not supposed to be the expertise of journalists.

Sometimes I wonder why I should bother to read you at all. Before I became President, I used to look forward to reading the newspapers. I read just a few papers and enjoyed myself. Now, I am reading more but enjoying it less.

Daily gurgitations

It takes already half a morning’s labor just reading the columns of the real pros of the Fourth Estate like Nestor Mata. But now I must read also the daily gurgitations of some politicians whom you, the publishers, have licensed to masquerade as journalists. This doubles my work as your President. I not only have to contend with their privileged speeches and press releases but also have to endure their attacks in their columns and on their broadcast shows.

Anyway, one redeeming value for which we should give credit to those who are trying hard is that they are always entertaining.

In his time, Shakespeare quickly disposed of such perorations with his famous one-liner: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I dare you to cite to me one President—living or dead, Filipino or foreign—who had to contend with more blah, blah, blah, than I do.

In the old days a clear line was drawn between journalism and politics. Politicians strutted on the public stage while journalists stood in the audience and threw rocks at them. Now this distinction has been blurred. These days it is both the politicians posing as journalists and the journalists themselves who occupy the stage and throw rocks at everybody.

But the real sensation is a new newspaper in town which is my favorite reading matter–The White Paper of Media Watch. I guess this paper is the media version of Some Are Smarter Than Others. After reading each issue of The White Paper, I feel glad because the document identifies a number of media people who should be targeted by the Bureau of Internal Revenue in its tax-collection drive.

And, by the way, if the National Press Club board under Marcelo Lagmay would make a formal request, I would be happy to have some newsmen’s lifestyles included in our research on who are the country’s 1,000 highest taxpayers.

A.C.-D.C.

Column writing must be a lucrative trade. I am told that a columnist gets paid for both saying something and saying nothing. A similar but slightly different modus operandi is that called “A.C.-D.C,” or “attack-collect; defend-collect.”

One of the pet illusions of the Philippine press is its sanctified belief that it speaks to and for the people. Do you really? With all due respect, our top two dailies are each bought at most by only one half of one percent of our population of 65 million.

The others have circulations so small that they only register as dots in the market surveys of opinion research firms. Yet, a certain law, much like Gresham’s Law, operates in our press: “The smaller its circulation, the noisier and more sensationalized the paper.”

I have organized a Philippine Centennial Commission wherein journalism is not represented. The reason for this is that we want to have an accurate account of events since 1898.

Indeed, journalism in our country has gone a long way since Aguinaldo’s time. In the old days newspapers and magazines carried fiction. Today dailies and weeklies carry modern fiction called columns.

There is a move these days in Congress to upgrade the standards in higher education. This came as a result of Vice-President Joseph Estrada’s revelation that his English professor in college was a well-known Ilocano writer.

Now I wonder if the people who advise me on economics were once students of Larry Henares.

But having said all of the foregoing and in keeping with the spirit of Gridiron Night, let me say that I do respect and honor the profession of journalism which gave my father his start in life as a teen-aged cub reporter. My old man believed as I do that as Henry Louis Mencken said, the main duty of a newspaper is “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

A great step to knowledge

I will not presume to tell you how to run your business, let alone how to discharge your profession. But is it possible that you would begin to have more readers if you in the press would grouse a little less and sympathize a little more, if you paid a little more attention to what is right about our country and a little less to nitpicking and faultfinding?

Meeting the challenge of development is like going to battle with an army. You cannot win the contest with one half of your forces confident and the other half terrified about the outcome. You can only lose.

So I ask you, cheer for our team sometimes, even as we in Government take the flak and the brickbats. The real competition is out there in the international arena, and the players are the Philippines and our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.

You certainly should not be passive in the exposure of error or wrongdoing in government. But when errors occur in your reportage and analysis—which happen just as often as the hits—please be ready to make corrections. As Disraeli says, “To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.”

At the height of the fight against the Marcos Government, the slogan of the alternative press, taken from Holy Writ, was: “The truth shall set us free.”

And so it did set us free. Today, with our democracy recovered, we, in both the media and the Government, should perhaps remind ourselves that the Gospel of St. John did not say: “The untruth or half-truth shall set us free.”

Decency is the watchword

In this light, let me make one wish to happen: that the press would heed these words:

I shall scrupulously report and interpret the news, taking care not to suppress essential facts nor to distort the truth by omission or improper emphasis. I recognize the duty to aid the other side and the duty to correct substantive errors promptly. . .

I shall refrain from writing reports which will adversely affect a private reputation unless the public interest justifies it. . .

I shall conduct myself in public or while performing my duties as a journalist in such a manner as to maintain the dignity of my profession. When I doubt, decency should be my watchword.

The words are not mine, they are yours. They are taken from the Philippine Journalist’s Code of Ethics. And they reflect the highest ideals and aspirations of your profession and your community.

The press and the State have their tasks to fulfill. But in the end, we all share our common goal—the enduring peace, progress and prosperity of our people and our beloved Philippines.