5

Distinction between democratic governance and 'participatory democracy'

Citizenry as Sovereign Body Politic; and Government's role and accountability as servant, facilitator and leader in a working democracy

People,s collective self-empowerment through 'building-blocks' synergies

Human development and social harmony

Governing to serve the legitimate social, economic, political and cultural rights of the people

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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Media Freedom and Responsiblity

Three Philippine Documents for Unity

Collected and annotated by Ed Aurelio C. Reyes

Prof. Reyes is one of the foremost champions in the Philippines of the serious study and conscious application of the synergism principle on various fields of human concern. He taught synergism-oriented subjects of Applied Cosmic Anthropology, the doctoral program of Asian Social Institute (ASI) in Manila.  Before his involvement in the academe he was an active print and broadcast journalist and was a leader in the advocacies of the mass media community.

FIRST, there was this Code of Ethics, and some say this has existed for decades. It had a lot of earlier versions, but it was only in 1988 that the Philippine Press Institute put it up for review and popularization.

It was discussed and finalized in a multilateral workshop conference held during the National Press Week of May 1988. The conference. The conference was attended by representatives from the PPI, National Press Club, Philippine Movement for Press Freedom, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (provisional committee preparing for formal founding), Kapisanan ng mga Manggagawa ng Media sa Pilipinas, Press Foundation of Asia, and the Photojournalists Guild of the Philippines.

It was adopted by these and three other media organizations, and translated into Filipino by the Bukluran ng mga Mamamahayag sa Sariling Wika.

(The Philippine Journalist’s) Code of Ethics

I. 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 air the other side and to correct substantive errors promptly.

II. I shall not violate confidential information on material given me in in the exercise of my calling.

III. I shall resort only to fair and honest methods in my effort to obtain news, photographs and/or documents, and shall properly identify myself as a representative of the press when obtaining any personal interview intended for publication.

IV. I shall refrain from writing reports which will adversely affect a private reputation unlesas the public interest justifies it. At the same time, I shall fight vigorously for public access to information, as provided for in the Constitution.

V. I shall not let personal motives or interests influence me in the performance of my duties; nor shall I accept or offer any present, gift or other consideration of a nature which may cast doubt on my personal integrity.

VI. I shall not commit any act of plagiarism.

VII. I shall not in any manner ridicule, cast aspersions on, or degrade any person by reason of sex, religious belief, political conviction, cultural and ethnic origin.

VIII. I shall presume persons accused of crime of being innocent until proven otherwise. I shall exercise caution in publishing names of minorsa and women involved in criminal cases so they may not unjustly lose their standing in society.

IX. I shall not take unfair advantage of a fellow journalist.

X. I shall accept only as tasks as are compatible with the integrity and dignity of my profession, invoking the “conscience clause” when duties imposed upon me conflict with the voice of my conscience.

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

As we can see, the Code governs the prescribed relationship of individual journalists with individual citizens. This had to be placed in broader social, that is, democratic, perspective.  In 1987, the organizing committee of the People’s (later Philippine) Movement for Press Freedom came out with this declaration, which the PMPF Founding Congress of September that year enshrined as the very preamble of its constitution:

Philippine Declaration for Press Freedom

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM is an inalienable birthright of the people which no one can take away without violating a basic human right, and we hold that while facts are inviolable, expression of opinions should be free.

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM is the foundation and guardian of a strong and enlightened public opinion without which democracy cannot be possible, and that the guarantee of this freedom is among the best deterrents to authoritarian governments.

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM is more than the right to express approval ofprevailing political structures and dominant political beliefs, for the right belongs as well, if not more, to those who question, who differ, who oppose.

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM is the right of the people to inform and be informed, the people’s right to unhampered reportage and to access to channels of information and opinion, and that this guarantees the people’s right to utilize government-operated media facilities.

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM necessarily encompasses the right oif professionals and workers in the mass media to job security, fair compensation, just and humane working conditions and self-organization, as well as the right of media establishments to be protected against undue sanctions from sources of revenue.

WE BELIEVE THAT PRESS FREEDOM and the broader right to greedom of expression concern noty only professionals, businessmen and workers in mass media but the people as a whole, and that vigilance for the defense of these freedoms should therefore be a recognized responsibility of the entire body politic.

WE BELIEVE IN PRESS FREEDOM, and we declare our conviction to uphold it. We therefore unite to establish and continue to strengthen a movement for press freedom as an active and effective channel for solidarity and coordination among media people and other citizens in promoting, asserting and defensding this basic and inalienable right.

So this is no longer between journalists as individuals and citizens as individuals. This is asserting broader truisms pertinent to the entire media profession,  showing why there is “dignity of our profession” every journalist must uphold.  Still, these are details that cannot be appreciated if both documents are to be studied in isolation, especially since there is a public perception that freedom and responsibility are opposed to each other, one being a countercheck to the other.

The need for a “preamble” to show the one single spirit flowing through both documents was perceived in 1991, and this third document came out as the result:

Principles and Premises on the Press

By the Philippine Movement for Press Freedom

[Originally titled “Proposed Integrated View on Media Freedom, Ethics and Unity,” this was first presented by Ed Aurelio Reyes, then PMPF Secretary-General, to participants of the “Conference on the Role of the Media in Democratization and People’s Participation” at the Development Academy of the Philippines, Tagaytay City, in 1991, and subsequently adopted by the PMPF-convened Fifth National Convention for Press Freedom in August that year after being adopted and endoresed by the Second National Congressof the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).  Boldface underscoring in the original; italic underscoring supplied.]

RESPONDING TO A PERCEIVED NEED for explicit unities on the most basic of points concerning the mass media in the Philippines, the following are basic points proposed as an integrated premise for views, discussions and resolutions on the media’s fundamental role in democratic society, and its corollaries in terms of media accountability; ethics, freedom, economics, external and internal interrelationships, professionalism and skills development.

1) Sovereignty resides in the people, and all public authority emanates from them; public service is a public trust, and public accountability should be upheld at all times.

2) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (1966), as well as the Constitution of the Philippines, guarantee to every citizen the right to be informed accurately and adequately about all matters of public consequence and the right to freedom of speech, of expression and of the press; these rights should be enjoyed by all citizens, regardless of social standing, gender, ethnic stock, religious and philosophical beliefs, culture, political affiliation and geographical location within the Philippine archipelago, and inequities on this should be opposed, diminished and eliminated. These rights of individual citizens should be enjoyed collectively by the citizenry, they being the sovereign body politic.

3) Processes entailed in social, political, economic, spiritual and cultural development of the Philippines require the full approval by, and active mobilization of, the citizenry to whose collective benefit such processes should primarily redound.

4) Adequate communication should flow between the people and their government, among groups of people and among individual citizens, in order to forge and certify the people’s sovereign and democratic will on general and specific policy matters, and in order to make possible their mobilization and synergy.

5) The mass media should primarily be a public service institution existing to serve fully these basic rights of the citizenry. The mass media can and does also exist as an industry, with both the owners and their personnel seeking to derive income from their operations, but quality and magnitude of public service should be the paramount standard of performance of media establishments and media persons to deserve any form of support from the public. Entertainment is a legitimate component of media content but this should not be allowed to overshadow, much less to contradict, the media’s public affairs functions.

6) In democratic society, facilities of mass communications are generally accessible for use by individual citizens, groups of citizens and the public, in order to guarantee and realize the full enjoyment of the people’s right to know and their right to be heard. Owners and personnel of these mass communication facilities should always be imbued with the spirit of giving paramount priority to public service, pushing them to upgrade capabilities and exert maximum efforts to seek out the information the people have the right to know and the views the people have the right to express and disseminate these to the broad citizenry.

7) Basic editorial standards for public relevance valuation, plausibility and source reliability should be the only criteria guiding decision making in the pursuit and treatment of news and information, including opinions, thus differentiating legitimate editorial judgments from censorship and self-censorship.

8) Whenever any media establishment is externally coerced and prevented from serving fully the people’s right to be informed and their right to be heard and heeded, there is press freedom repression; whenever any media establishment upon its own volition shortchanges the public for any reason on these basic rights or refuses to assert these rights, there is unethical media practice. This applies also to the freedom and ethics of individual journalists. The decisive element is the quality of output, although the matter of increasing or maintaining remuneration, like payola envelopes and advertising contracts, from vested interests, including news sources, is acknowledged as a major contributory factor for unethical media practices. Also responsible for unethical practices are media owners who do not adequately uphold the right of their personnel to job security, fair compensation, humane working conditions, self-organization and collective action, and opportunities for skills upgrading and career development.

9) Problems involving press freedom and media ethics can be effectively addressed by media persons only through a concerted, multilateral effort that encourages the broadest base of varying forms and levels of participation, coupled with developing and enlisting the active participation of the broad citizenry.

10) Maximum efforts should be exerted by the media community and the citizenry to optimize the role of the mass media in making the force of logic prevail over the logic of force. Justifications for the latter, like impediments to freedom of information and expression, and obstacles to justice, and violations of public trust and accountability, should be denounced, opposed and eliminated by media persons shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the citizenry. In this context, the non-combatant status of journalists, like all other civilians, should be safeguarded and recognized by all, and its guarantee should be recognized and asserted as part of the functions of basic governance.

UPON A STRONG UNITY on these points, agreements on more specific points may be forged, and various specific projects and activities maybe encouraged, launched, coordinated, publicized, evaluated and carried forward.

These three documents work best in a trinitarian synergy, a tripod that works well only if they are all present and healthy in the performance of their roles.

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