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Friday, March 29, 2024

BBM seeks media’s help

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“The President needs to rally the people behind his government…There is turmoil everywhere – inside decision-making board rooms, in currency markets, in stock markets, and on a number of strategic battlefronts”

The late strongman Ferdinand Edralin Marcos padlocked all radio, television and newspaper offices wholesale on the night of Sept. 22, 1972, a Friday.

The nation found out about martial law only on Sept. 23, 1972, a Saturday, when no radio, no television and no newspapers were available and Marcos made a television address in the evening announcing his proclamation of martial law, two days earlier, on Sept. 21, 1972.

Marcos Sr. became the only president to close down media outlets wholesale and with great success. The media closures reinforced Marcos’s image as a dictator, forever.

When Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr. was elected, many wondered what would be his media policy.

That became known during “The President’s Night” of the Manila Overseas Press Club, Oct. 5, 2022 with President Bongbong Marcos (PBBM).

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Marcos Jr. faced some 500 top media professionals and the business community for the resumption of Wednesday’s traditional gala event, “President’s Night.”

In his 11-minute speech, delivered in the cadence and baritone reminiscent of his father’s, PBBM spelled out the role of media in a democratic society and declared his administration’s guarantees on the exercise of press freedom during his six-year administration.

He also sought a partnership with the media to empower Filipinos and for a more robust Philippines. “This is a partnership that we must strengthen,” the President urged.

“The nation counts on the media in improving access to information and increasing awareness on issues that affect our country and the world,” Marcos stressed.

“Your proactive participation in keeping a well-informed citizenry forms part of our collective goal to empower Filipinos and establish a more robust Philippines,” the President pointed out.

“I could not share all our plans for the next six years but let us – I will – stand here and I will say that you may rest assured that we continue to articulate our plans with the members of the media, of course, especially the Manila Overseas Press Club.

“As I share your club’s conviction in the importance of upholding the universal right of free speech and press freedom as well as giving and receiving accurate information, I’m committed to remaining open with you, constantly communicating our progress as we move forward.

“I urge you to effectively communicate to the public the government’s efforts and initiatives towards our country’s development.

“This is the partnership that we must – another partnership that we must continue to strengthen. It is the job of our media practitioners to not only analyze, to not only make – give their opinion but to also inform and let our people know what the government is doing and how it will help their lives and how they can be part of that progress, that process of progress that we have started.

“Under my lead, we will support and protect the rights of the media as they efficiently perform their duty.”

He told the country’s top media professionals: “Whatever difficulties we may encounter from this point on, the government will always be ready to lend an ear and to listen to your concerns and to answer all that you may want to know.

“Because in the uncertain world that we are facing, these partnerships will stabilize our transformation into the post-pandemic new global economy.

“And it is an uncertain world that we are facing, it is an uncertain future, and that makes those partnerships all the more important. And again the concept of unity applies.

“Although it was during the campaign (when) you could say a concept, an idea that we brought forward as a message to the people, it still remains as a guiding light to us and saying that what we need to do is to strengthen the Filipinos — the lives — each Filipino’s capabilities.

“What we have to do is to strengthen the Philippine economy, what we have to do is to strengthen our position in the world. And we need everyone’s help with that.

“At the very first, as I assumed office, I asked for everyone’s help. No one person can do this. No one government can do this. No one entity, not one corporation, not one business.”

So there. Marcos Jr. faces many challenges—inflation spiral, rising interest rates, shortages of energy and food, war in Ukraine, war jitters in Taiwan, and threats of global stagflation.

The President needs to rally the people behind his government. To do that, he needs media to convey his message of unity to overcome problems no one man and no single government can possibly cope with, alone. There is turmoil everywhere—inside decision-making board rooms, in currency markets, in stock markets, and on a number of strategic battlefronts.

“I should meet the media more often,” President Marcos told me at the end of the “President’s Night, as I ushered him into his waiting limo.

Meanwhile, “the worst is yet to come for the global economy,” the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas declared Tuesday as he released the Fund’s economic outlook report.

One-third of the world will suffer an economic slowdown, global inflation will peak at 9.5 percent and remain high after that.

Citing the IMF report, analysts fear the world is in for one of the worst periods for economic growth in the last two decades, surpassed only by the 2008 global financial crisis and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global economic growth is forecast to sharply decelerate from 6 percent last year to almost half, at 3.2 percent this year, and again slow next year to just 2.7 percent.

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