By Raymund Villanueva Journalism in the Philippines (and in much of the world) is often criticized for being the voice of the status quo—deservedly so for the most part. A review of today’s commercial television and radio’s primetime news show that programs allocate more time on advertisement...
When asked their views on media and press freedom as well as free expression, politicians of the Philippine variety will swear to high heaven their respect for both. But the most clueless among them about what both freedoms mean and what they consist of will do their...
Para sa akin, si Luis ang pinaka-beterano, sa yaman ng naisulat, sa journalism sa kasalukuyan na ang kanyang panulat at opinyon ay nananatiling pinakamatalas at makabuluhan dahil may yaman ng insights na nakaangkla sa kanyang yaman ng karanasan at kaalaman.
The Philippine experience with elections should have taught everyone by now that voter education is crucial to the present and future of this country.
The Filipino people just celebrated Independence Day, and one is reminded of the popular saying “The truth shall set us free!” These words are frequently uttered by oppressed peoples fighting for liberation; as well as by those whose freedom has been curtailed by acts...
AMID great fanfare in 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte signed an administrative order – his first – creating the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS). Mandated to look into and reduce the number if not completely stop the killing of journalists, the task...
MUCH of public and corporate media attention has been focused on the cancellation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the registration of online news site Rappler. But hardly any has been paid to several other cases indicative of the ongoing Duterte...
The Dengvaxia fiasco is just a symptom of a deeper malady of the US-modeled health care system which is driven by market forces rather than by people’s actual health needs. This illustrates starkly the danger of putting health in the hands of profit makers rather than...
THE ONE-YEAR extension of martial law in Mindanao was a foregone conclusion. Even the political opposition predicted approval of it because of the overwhelming dominance in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the allies and party mates of President...
THE phrase "alternative press" gained currency in the last years of the Marcos terror regime, when Jose Burgos' Malaya, We Forum, and other newspapers, magazines and news agencies were published to provide Filipinos and the rest of the world the information about...
THE dominant press and media are often constrained by the political and economic interests of their owners and even some practitioners. On the alternative tradition therefore falls much of the responsibility to defend press freedom and to provide the citizenry the...
WHILE any change in the ownership of media organizations should be a continuing public concern, it has become specially relevant at the present time, when the media need to sharpen their capacity to accurately chronicle and make sense of events and issues during the...
HOW does the appointment of blogger and die-hard Duterte partisan Margaux "Mocha" Uson as an assistant secretary in the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) mesh with President Rodrigo Duterte's declaration last March 10, during the launch of...