Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
During the presentation of Journalism Awards sponsored by the Rotary Club of Manila

[Delivered at the Manila Peninsula, Makati City, June 26, 1995]

The press and the
Government

IN OUR COUNTRY the press—both print and electronic—has no greater role than that of watchdog of Government, and since the press does not watch an abstraction called Government but officials running it, I am the most watched Government official around.

So why am I, of all people, presenting these awards to journalists who presumably have been the nosiest and most mischievous watchers of Government during the past 12 months?

A symbiotic relationship

I thought about these questions before coming here today, and it struck me that this paradox is precisely why I had to attend this occasion and join you in honoring our journalists and their work. We have to dispel the impression that the press and the Government do not get along with each other.

Yet the truth of this relationship is that we—the press and the Government—need each other. Or, if you prefer, we cannot live without each other—at least not in our democratic society.

In my three years in the Presidency, for example, there is one weekly appointment I have not missed, and that is my weekly news conference in Malacañang.

Ours, of course, is a far-from-cozy relationship. If our two institutions got too comfortable with each other, the public interest would not be served.

While many speak of an “adversarial” relationship between the press and the Government, I am not sure that that is really the word to describe it.

I think the word “symbiotic” comes closer to describing the relationship.

Our two institutions do not owe their existence to each other, yet they support each other in their service to society—the press by disclosure and analysis of what the Government is doing and is trying to do, and the Government by ensuring that the channels of communication are open and by respecting the right of the public to know.

I agree with James Reston that “the men who make and the men who report the news” do not see the news in quite the same way. He suggests that since the time of Adam and Eve, the newsmakers and the news gatherers have been providing different accounts of what happened.

But I think that is precisely the point about press freedom. If there were perfect coincidence, we would be another society altogether.

Print and electronic media

When the constitutional right of press freedom was first framed, there was no such thing as “the electronic media” we know today. There was only the print press.

Today, it is clear, however, that our organs of public opinion and communications include both the print and electronic media. And I agree with those who say that when we speak of constitutional protection of press freedom, that includes our journalists and organizations in broadcasting.

Lately, the Philippines has been cited in the international community for its economic turnaround and the democratic route to development that it has taken.

Of proof that the economy is growing, we have the familiar indicators: growth of gross domestic product, investments, foreign-exchange ratios, Philippine peso stability, export performance, inflation and interest rates, foreign-exchange reserves, job generation, and the like.

Of proof that we are really a democracy, we could say that we have regular elections and a Government of three separate coequal branches that works by consensus. Yet if we ask the foreign observer for the most salient proof that democracy lives in the Philippines, he would probably point first and foremost to our free press—whose exuberance and lack of inhibition perhaps have no parallels in Asia and the world.

A great source of strength

Freedom of the press, it has been well said, is close to the central meaning of democracy. Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other freedom is secure and democracy would be just a sham. The more I look at our people and our country, the more convinced I am that one of our greatest sources of strengths as a nation is our free press. When authoritarianism was regarded as the only way to development in Asia, we Filipinos stood apart for our unswerving belief in press freedom and democracy.

Today, when many worry whether the law and the most basic rights will survive in some of our neighboring countries, a free press is one of the few certainties about this country.

There was a time when foreign observers saw our democracy as a liability, and our free press as a luxury we could ill afford. But today when publications are being haled to court or closed down in other parts of the region, we do not at all hear that lament anymore. Indeed, I sometimes get the feeling that we are the object of envy, perhaps even of admiration.

Our free press is a beneficiary of our democracy and vice versa. But equally, it is also one of the architects of our democracy. This, in my view, is part of the meaning of these Rotary awards for journalism.

Power and responsibility

In all these awards given tonight, we have seen the press wield its power with responsibility and dedication. Yet the picture would not be complete if we do not also point out—even here in these award ceremonies—how sometimes some segments of our press fail to live up to its lofty role in our society.

Just as our press has approximated unbridled press freedom in the West, so it has also been vulnerable to the excesses often bewailed there. When Alexander Solzhenitsyn declared that “hastiness and superficiality” are the psychic diseases of the twentieth-century press, he was describing a phenomenon that we have also seen in our country.

In our own way, key sections of our press have fallen prey to the practices of unnamed sources, kuryentes, trial by allegation, shallow analysis, cynical press coverage that in no way advance the goal of getting at the truth of events and issues. We have even invented some new forms of press abuse.

Yet to the credit of our press and our society, we are not passive before our shortcomings. Indeed, the idea of press freedom exercised with responsibility flourishes among us.

For us, press freedom is not the concern alone of the press and its immediate audience. There is always a third party to the press story—and that is the community or, if you like, the nation as a whole.

An element of duty is involved in the right to press freedom. With the public power of the press goes public responsibility. This you of Rotary who follow the four-way test know as well as I do.

The press and public policy

I mention this now because the Filipino press has an unparalleled opportunity today to contribute genuinely to the sustainable development of our country.

At this time when our people are finally stirring to the challenge of development, the press can help enormously by contributing to the formation of public policies and the monitoring of programs and projects.

By this, I am not restructuring the idea of “developmental communications” which was employed by authoritarian states—including our own during martial law—to plead the cause of controls over the press in poor societies.

I am only suggesting that the press cannot sit out the struggle for national development which we are now so close to winning.

Freedom of the press, let us remember, is not just freedom from all kinds of compulsions and constraints. It is also freedom for the achievement of mighty goals.

What the press can do

It surely is not enough for the press to merely complain about how we still lag behind our neighbors and the ills in our society. The press can help find solutions, support those who are earnestly working to fill needs, and build up our people’s morale and self-confidence in this struggle.

The press, I submit, can do all this if it takes the time to cover public issues more thoroughly and understand them; if it covers our national and local governments more deeply; and if it looks beyond the personalities, the daily press events and false issues created for grandstanding.

My one prayer is that we can discuss and debate national issues thoughtfully and earnestly, with a problem-solving approach, without sacrificing our hard-won civility and unity as a people.

The most remarkable thing about the press in this country is that we do not ask for standards to be adjusted to our circumstances. We want international rules and standards to fully apply, because we believe this is the only way for our press to mature and truly develop.

In closing then, let me quote to you the words of Mario Cuomo, former New York State governor, who perhaps expresses for all free peoples what is at stake in the freedom of a nation’s press:

The great gift [of freedom of the press] comes with great responsibility.

The press—print and electronic—has the power to inform, but that implies the power to distort.

You have the power to instruct, but that implies the power to mislead.

You have the power to uplift, but that implies the power to demean.

You can lead our society toward a more mature and discriminating understanding of the process by which we choose our leaders, make our rules, and construct our values.

Or you can encourage people to despise our systems and avoid participating in them.

You can teach our children a taste for violence, encourage a fascination with perversity and inflicted pain.

Or you can show them a beauty they have not known.

You can work wonders—on a page, on a screen.

You can make us all wiser, fuller, surer, sweeter than we are, or you can do less. And worse.

The meaning of these Rotary Journalism Awards lies in the positive things it says about our press. They remind us that our press can encourage us to be better officials, better governors, better mayors, better citizens, and a better country than we are now.