Shocked, but not awed

“I AM a fervent believer in press freedom and the rule of law.”
Thus assured Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo even as she rued “that police procedures became a problem for media, even for a few hours” in the denouement of the farce Trillanes idiotically staged at the Manila Pen last Thursday.
The presidential statement reminded me of another president: No, not Marcos, dummy, but of the greatest intellectual among the American presidents – Thomas Jefferson.
“Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.”
Jefferson paid that supreme tribute to the press strong in his conviction that “To the press alone, checquered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
My biased interpretation of Jefferson leads to the conclusion that the press is supreme over government in the service of truth, liberty and humanity itself. Consequently, the press holds a moral ascendancy over government.
Considered from this high moral ground, the assault on media during the arrest of Trillanes and his coup pals is a direct affront to liberty, a mockery to democracy and a disservice to humanity.
A columnist was right: It was not for “identification” that the mediapersons were taken to Camp Bagong Diwa but for “intimidation.” Given the handcuffs, verbal abuses and the holding area.
So the President is a “firm believer in press freedom and the rule of law.”
She is my president and I believe her. Only, there’s much too much action at the opposite end of her pronouncement.
Or have you forgotten of Proclamation 1017 in February last year that put the country into a de facto martial law? Of then PNP top centurion Arturo Lomibao reading the virtual riot act that was General Order No. 5?
For all the sensitive care with which Malacañang factotums handled any discussion of the state of emergency as a “no-martial-law” clone, still the martial slip showed in Lomibao’s take of GO No. 5. Did he not warn media to hew to “standards set by the government” in the practice of journalism, or face dire consequences ranging from police take-over of media establishments to outright closure?
Standard martial law practice is the closure of media facilities – ABS-CBN and The Manila Times got it flushed on the chin in 1972, and last year, it was the Daily Tribune.
Standard martial law practice too is the government setting standards for media to follow, as instanced by the Marcosian Bureau of Standards for Mass Media under a Department of Public Information that set as the highest norm of journalism practice the panegyric to Apo Ferdie and the idolatry of Imelda the Beautiful.
No, we do not hear of a re-issue of Proclamation 1017 and GO No. 5. Not as yet. But the video footages of our fellow mediapersons handcuffed and herded to a police camp do send chills up and down our spines.
This is yet another “shock and awe” to all media unleash by this administration that steadfastly remains a ”firm believer in press freedom and the rule of law.”
Shocked, truly am I. Angered though, not awed. Just like any mediaperson worth his byline.