Today’s commemoration of World Press Freedom Day coincides with the final days of the campaign for the 2022 national and local elections. Each occasion builds upon and reinforces the other, with freedom as the underlying theme.
Many aspects of the life of the press have been expounded on in recent years. Safety on the job, the lack of decent working conditions, government censorship and an active campaign by people who discredit the profession and its practitioners—these are only some of the problems that have confronted journalists for many years.
In the context of the Philippine elections, it would be good to zero in on freedom beyond what we are allowed, and not allowed, to do.
The common notion is that freedom is absent when one cannot say, or write, what one wants. There are restrictions in movement and expression. The consequences for insisting on expressing oneself could be dangerous, even fatal.
This remains true for countries that still try to suppress the spread of information.
But increasingly, we are learning every day that freedom is also attacked when we are deprived of the capacity to engage in discourse and to make basic democratic decisions based on the truth.
There are so many distractions and posturing as disinformation is deliberately unleashed to sow confusion and hatred, undermine our critical thinking facility, and simply make us think and speak—and vote—a certain way.
The unimpeded spread of unchecked claims strikes at the core of democracy, because people should make decisions only on the basis of information that they have.
If we allow spin doctors and propagandists to mess with the integrity of the information that is meant to inform and guide us, what then happens to the quality of our decisions? If we go along with the systematic attacks on journalists’ credibility – saying we are biased just because we dare question and criticize – who else would bring the discipline of verification, and the practice of holding power to account, to the chaotic marketplace of ideas?
Filipinos will only be truly free if the decision that we will make on Monday—and eventually their outcome and repercussions for our nation—is a product of a careful consideration of verifiable facts produced by legitimate sources. Any other basis would fail us, and our nation.
We shudder to imagine a scenario where prevaricators—they who do not have the slightest regard for truth and honesty—lord over our land, insisting that the press is nothing but their propaganda arm.