Pat Ray M. Dagapioso December 4, 2009Contemporary Issues in Philippine Politics Prof. Elaine M. Baulete

NEWSMAKERS: A Film Critic

If there is one instrument in the society that can be described as powerful, influential and dynamic, then it could never be anything less than the media. The mass media is such a powerful institution in the society even for the foremost purpose of transmitting news and information. Its influence centers on how it affects the people’s perception towards important events and personalities. Thus media’s colorful portrayal of a public figure is a prime consideration of how the public responds to that certain public figure’s actions.

Newsmakers: The GMA News and Public Affairs Special (2008), details the lives and times of the past four presidents and one incumbent president of the republic. Further, Newsmakers documents how each president is portrayed in the media and conversely how the media sees the president during his/her term. Furthermore, the documentary feature offers an inside look of the highlights and lowlights of each president’s career.

First of the presidents featured is the former strongman, Ferdinand Marcos. At the onset, Marcos was portrayed as a man full of ambition and talent, and the greatest of his ambitions is to become the president of the Republic of the Philippines. Media portrayed Marcos as intelligent, consciously aware of the law, and as a visionary of real and tangible development. Indeed the media was right, not only was Marcos a visionary, he did make his visions of the country stand and erected as massive infrastructures were implemented.

The pace of the documentary then shifted to the excesses, and the abuse of power on the part of Marcos and his family. It is of common knowledge that Marcos was implicated as the cause of the huge foreign debt the country is dreadfully facing. ‘Newsmakers’ then connected the abuses of the Marcoses with the lavish and Imeldific lifestyle of Imelda Marcos, whose sole philosophy is living in a world of beauty, a far cry in world full of despair and agony. The inappropriateness of Imelda’s lifestyle is highlighted and contrasted with the starving and pitiful living conditions of the many poorest of the poor.

Newsmakers then showed the effects of Martial Law as declared by Marcos in 1972. The media was censored and thus the freedom of speech was impeded and the transmission of the news was censored as to regulate the possibility of the media to spread the abuses and lapses of Martial Law.

Second, Newsmakers then shifted its reels into the presidency of the well-adored Corazon Aquino. Aquino is the first woman president of the republic. She was seen as an ordinary, kind, and incorruptible individual, the antithesis of everything Marcos. The public received Ms. Aquino very well, having just known her as the widow of the staunch Marcos opposition, Benigno Aquino Sr. The public welcomes the idea of a new president who has qualities directly opposite of the incumbent. Soon after Ms. Aquino had become the bandwagon of democracy and ran for the presidency in 1986 competing against the strongman himself. Marcos won the elections amidst electoral controversies and irregularities. The people and the military on her side, Aquino rallied the cause of justice and democracy and was successful in ousting Marcos form Malacanang in what has now known as the People Power Revolution. She became an international bearer of democracy, became the Time Woman of the Year and had given a speech before the United States Congress.

Aquino’s presidency is marred by political violence on the part of the many coup d’etat attempts on her administration and the repeated power outtages that had severly crippled her credibility to rule and govern the republic. The coup attempts led by the former military man, and now senator Gringo Honasan, had been the most in the Philippine history. The media ridiculed the supposed cowardice of the president by further insinuating that she hid in her bed during the heated moments of the rebellion. Ms. Aquino, maddened by the incident challenged Louie Beltran to prove his insinuations, and Ms. Aquino triumphed in the end. In summary, the media had painted Arroyo more in the positive side than most presidents. This can be attributed in the fact that Ms. Aquino had made herself the symbol of democracy that had brought back the freedom of the media to do its job without the grave interference of the govenrment and the media has to repay in a way that is favorbale to Ms. Aquino and her administration.

Fidel Valdez Ramos, a former Marcos general, a hero of the EDSA revolution, became the president in most of the years in the ‘90s. Ramos brought up the image of a witty, calculating and disciplined individual, just enough qualities to be fitting to be an outstanding president of the republic. A non-traditional politican with no political clans, Ramos exudes a man with a vison to his country. The media supported overwhelmingly the projects of Ramos, most notably the Philippines 2000 vision. The media and Ramos’s partnership extend to the favorable reactions of the public in the successful negotiation of the government and Nur Misuari of the MNLF.

Ramos could boast peace and order, robust development as highlights of his administration, yet with all the positives President Ramos has his own share of corrpution charges and other delibrating issues. The Clark Centennial Expo Scandal rocked the administration with corruption charges, yet Ramos steadfast in his principles and his integrity challenged his critics to prove their allegations. In the end, Ramos prevailed, and he still holds considerable influence in the current political structure of the republic.

Ramos was succeeded by his vice-president, Joseph Estrada. Erap, as he is popularly known, rose from fame as a movie actor garnering more than a dozen acting trophies. As successful as he is in the show business, Erap started form the grassroots of the political ladder. He had become a mayor, then a senator, then a vice president and had reached the pinnacle as the most powerful man in the centenary of the republic.

Erap and the media is characterized by Erap’s inclination of favorable treatment towards the media. Little did he know that it will also be the powers of the media that will topple his down from his position. Mediamen notes that Erap was most charming towards them, this can be attributed to Estrada’s experience as a product of the entertainment industry.

The highlight of Estrada’s administration is his preponderance of his pro-poor programs. Erap successfully manipualted his image as a champion of the masses. In return the masses also showered Estrada’s presidency with popular support. Yet, the closing events of Estrada’s 2 ½ years in the executive nearly describes the whole of Estrada’s administration. The latter parts of his presidency is marred by corrpution charges that led him to be impeached at the House of Representatives and be tried at the Senate. Media outlets feasted on the spectacle day in and day out in the Senate. Estrada’s mistresses, countless mansions and his gambling affairs ahd been exposed in the national television that had severely tarnished his image amongst the public. The public’s outcry resulted in what has been dubbed as the EDSA 2. Estrada ‘left’ Malacanang with his family, and for his absence then vice-president Glora Arroyo peacefully took over the presidency with a benchmark declaration of no corruption and transparency in her government.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the former presidential daughter, an economist by trade, became the second longest serving president after Marcos in the history of Philippine politics. Her reign would become a decade after May 2010. She is seen as charismatic in all her political endeavors, she topped her senatorial and vice-presdeintial elections by a wide margin. The media saw her as an intelligent, and incorruptible same as his father, former Presdient D. Macapagal. The media portrayed her personality as likeable as Nora Aunor’s, for Ms. Aunor and Ms. Arroyo share the same mole in the same region in their faces, many contend that that’s one factor for Ms. Arroyo’s success at the polls.

Ms. Arroyo, focused on the economy and of sending OFWs abroad. Prominent political analysts criticize her for her focus on sending worker’s abroad rather than build a reliable economic base in the country itself. Yet, that has not been the hallmark of her administration, indeed the hallmark of her administration are the scandals that behest her presidency. Ms. Arroyo was implicated in Swine scandal, Fertilizer Scam, Election rigging scandals, ZTE scandals and for extra judicial killings that had taken the United Nations to send a special rapporteur to survey the reality of mass murder and disappearance of activitsts and journalists in the Philippines.

Ms. Arroyo is reluctant in facing the media. She vehemently accused the media of portraying her in the negatives, and not even giving her airtime in news programs to explain her side. This indifference towards the media results in her giving rare personal interviews with media personalities. She only accesses the state run broadcasts with limited coverage for the average public, this factor may become one of the causes of her having a favorably negative satisfaction rating in the public and the reported indifference of the people towards her.

Many in the press and the media as a whole holds fairly negative light over Ms. Arroyo, and her administration. Among these are Conrado de Quiros of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Ted Failon of ABS-CBN and Ramon Tulfo formerly of RPN 9. Conrado de Quiros bravely writes in his semi daily columns in PDI that ‘that small woman in Malacanang’ did not actually win the elections in 2004. This accusation is a reference to Ms. Arroyo and her reportedly illegal calls to then the COMELEC commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. In the heat of the evidences presented before the media and the Senate, the president in the national television announced, ‘I am sorry.’ This prompted many speculations from different peoples in the republic. Many speculated that Arroyo admitted to wrongdoings, but Arroyo did not explicitly said anything.

For almost half a century, the Philippine Republic has had 6 president, 2 would have serve for more or less a decade. This gives us a different president with his or her own personality and policies. Their personalities would be viewed and transmitted by the media to the public, this would eventually incinerate differing views about the presidency and this would also entail support or indifference towards the policy and to the administration as a whole. Ferdinand Marcos on one hand, exemplifies intelligence and as a man of vision. As a budding political analyst, I see Marcos as man of excellence, and if any politician running for public office would emulate what he’d done, setting promises and fulfilling those promises. Yet that is half-true in the his first term in office, it soured and degenerated in his second term in office, one factor that may have strayed Marcos away from being a man of honor and dignity is that Marcos had been consumed by the utter amount of power that he has. For Corazon Aquino, what I admired about her is her strong personality even when she was still a housewife and even moreso when she became the president. For any wife in place of Cory, having a husband fighting an all powerful corrupt leader, that would seem living in a perfectly dangerous world. Yet Cory, ahndled the pressure and threat with honor, dignity and pride, she did not cry amidst the difficult circumstance, she defied the laws of fear and frailty, she withstood them all, and in the process became stronger for herself, her family and for her husband. Cory when she became president, having no direct experience in law or in governmental process, she was practically inexperienced. Yet, the presidency seems destined more for her than her husband, she was rocked with difficult tasks of maintaining peace and order in the country, and all she did was to face the problems and she never backed down of even one step. Cory attributed her strength, to God, her family and to her countrymen of whom she treated as her children. Fidel Ramos, on one hand deserves praise for being a man more

opposite of what the public expects of him. When the public expects Fidel to be more war and violent oriented, fidel proved them wrong and had secured an all important peace pact with the most dangerous armed group in Mindanao. When the public expected that Fidel be corrupt because of family lineage and connection to Marcos, Fidel proved them entirely wrong. Instead Fidel offered them economic progress and gifted the Philippines with a distinction as one of ‘Asian Tiger’s.’ Joseph Estrada on the other hand had the optimism to alleviate the poor from suffering, and is brave to challenge the conventional structure of the society that instills the primacy of the elite’s welfare over the poor. No sane person or politician would challenge political dynasties here in the Philippines, but Estrada was brave and bold in challenging the elites by focusing more on pro-poor programs. His bravery and boldness indeed paid dividends, it is said that most of the EDSA participants are of the middle class and of the upper class, mostly headed by the Aranetas and Ayalas in Makati, afraid of the new social upliftment Estrada promised to bring about. Gloria Arroyo, what to admire about her? She had ravaged the morals and dignity of the country by perpetuating extra-judicial killings, massive electoral cheating and she single handidly allowed the flourinshing of mass govenrment corruption by setting as an example of a public offcial who had committed corruption (ZTE Scandal & Hello Garci Tapes) and got away with it. But on a positive note, Arroyo did brought positives into the country, she made the economy afloat amidst the global recession, and investors still wanted to invest in the country even when the possibility of putting up a business and profiting with it in the neighboring cournties is bleak. She must have done something good, and her expertise with economics may have helped it, but still the atrocities and injustices committed during her temr leaves me befuddled whether to admire her or not. And I say, strongly, I have never felt any admiration with her or her administration before, now or in the future.

Newsmakers indeed had become transparent in presenting the different views of each of the five presidents as seen by the media. They didn’t actually judged the administrations of each president haphazardly, they let the viewers decide whether to admire the administration or not by presenting both sides of the story. A kudos for the GMA News and Public Affairs for presenting a wonderful craft that is sure to be informative for the people to see in the coming elections. A downside to the documentary would be the inability of interviewees to be neutral in their conduct of interviews, note in reference, the interview of Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino. Overall the doucmentary had been informative and a sure watch for students of politics.