By Reynard Magtoto | Baretang Bikolnon Legazpi City – Media groups called on the authorities to conduct a swift and in-depth investigation into the murder of radio broadcaster Noel Bellen Samar in Albay province. Samar, 54, was shot on the road in Guinobatan on October 20 and was declared...
The AlterMidya Network expresses deep concern over the unjust conviction of Malaysian human rights defender Lena Hendry, who faces possible imprisonment for screening a documentary about alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. The incident is a setback to the exercise of...
AS JOURNALISTS COMMITTED to providing our countrymen the information they need in these exciting but perilous times, do alternative media practitioners still have to abide by the ethical and professional standards to which the dominant media supposedly subscribe?...
CORPORATE MEDIA reporting of conflict has always been erratic, haphazard if not egregiously partisan, and as a consequence detrimental to the search for solutions including the making of peace agreements. The conflict in Mindanao had not received...
It was quite a shocker to have president-elect Rodrigo Duterte hit the media as hard as he did last week. The words “kill journalism” and “don’t f*ck with me”—no matter the context—were enough to send shivers down my spine. But after the initial shock, one realizes...
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte errs in declaring that most journalists are being killed for being corrupt and in implying that only corrupt journalists have been killed in the Philippines. While corruption is a continuing problem in the press and media, it is simply...
AlterMidya, a nationwide network of independent media organizations, denounces police intimidation and attempts to suppress information by preventing journalists from covering the aftermath of the April 1 Kidapawan massacre. The Cotabato police set up a checkpoint...
Kidapawan City is under virtual martial law as soldiers and police impose a food and medicine blockade on the farmers who sought sanctuary at the Spottswood United Methodist Center. Photo by King Catoy/Altermidya. Like any other Filipino citizen, I am aghast and...
ONE of the most common arguments for opening full media ownership to foreign interests is that it will facilitate technology transfer. Senator Grace Poe alluded to this supposed advantage when she declared during the Makati Business Club forum that she favored...
THE PRIMARY challenge to the alternative press and media has always been to provide the information and analysis that the people need so they may, by understanding the state of Philippine society, proceed on their own power to change it. For over a hundred years, the...
No doubt about it: Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential run is turning out to be one of the most hotly contested topics of the 2016 elections. His candidacy has opened up a Pandora’s Box of evils we have had to live with but have not been adequately brought...
THE LATE TEODORO LOCSIN, SR., for a long time editor of the pre-martial law Philippines Free Press, once described the Philippine press and media as cheap rather than free. He was then referring to how easy it was to corrupt practitioners—and its consequent impact on...
In 2010, candidate Benigno Aquino III pledged, among others, to prioritize a Freedom of Information Act among his legislative initiatives. In the ensuing months his administration practically made it a point not to include an FOI bill among those it submitted to...