WE are all prophets and naysayers today. Not the prophet that urges its followers to sell jams and candies in exchange for salvation from the impending Rupture, but the prophet that asks and rages.
A pandemic has covered the world. People are dying. Those who are expected to cure them die first. Then comes this: a closure of a huge media conglomerate, a dominant player in a field that demanded dominance not grace if one was to win the game. It is its own expert in the game of public relations, never mind if it bandies the embrace of the Family—the Kapamilya Network, as we love the hug of that label.
As if a disease that does not discriminate was not enough, that mass media communications network was closed on May 5, 2020. In a few minutes, ABS-CBN was gone and with it were the radio stations spread all over the archipelago.
The closure of a media facility reminded everyone of martial law years. The closure of ABS-CBN brought back memories of greater clampdown on media in 1972. It was never predicted by many when Marcos declared martial law. But it happened and we were in darkness for many years.
We know what happened in those dark years—bright boys and some bright girls were developed by the Dictator to set up their own media firms. Some of them are still around us, fighting under the banner of free speech when their career had a sterling start in the years when freedom was taken from the very machinery that fed on free, unbound action.
There is a small picture and a big picture in the closure of ABS-CBN
The small picture is true and real. The issues raised are disturbing: The TV network is not exactly praiseworthy when it comes to political correctness in its show. People have memories of the arrogance of its personnel and celebrities. Foremost among these comments is the observation that there are prominent newscasters in the network who have remained silent about the ineptness and corruption of the administration whose action is what they are confronting now. The opposite of this is in the fans, sad that they are not able to watch anymore their favorite dramas and root for their own idols.
I have no love lost with this network but it is precisely this point of aversion or neutrality that our protest makes sense. We are not getting any financial profit if ABS-CBN gets back on its feet or resumes its operation. For all their ideological claim, they will never make us part of their family. And yet we care that they be made to open again, to operate. We understand what this closure is all about: it is not about a network losing its corporate presence but the absence of choice presented. We are protesting the rights of a group whose opinion and artistry may even be opposed diametrically to us. We are protecting them whose thoughts about the arts and entertainment we may never be comfortable with.
This is the big picture. This is the essence of some groups gathering a million signatures—the essence of free speech.
The name that first comes to mind is, of course, ABS-CBN, because it is a fabulous entity. But outside the luster of entertainment, there are other oppressions happening. They are of the same kind, which is the trampling upon that very right of any individual or group to express their thoughts and ideas. Think of the workers out in the farms and think of the laborers not getting their wages. They are not able to speak because their position in the labor force has removed those facilities. They are outside us. Peripheralized, they are only seen with our peripheral vision. We cannot speak for them forever but we can protest and create a space for them to listen to their own thoughts, talk back, and act out those desires that have been there only in their imagination.
The free TV, however flawed and manipulative, is one dramatic indicator of the democratic space slowly being coveted for manipulation by the present dispensation. It is thus wise to ask: are we on the same page in this protest? The ordinary fans lament about the loss of their own favorite telenovela. The political activist is raging at the thought that someone is out there experimenting with control. The media practitioner may have one question: am I safe?
In a hall, or an office tucked somewhere in the Palace, or perhaps in a hidden room, some individuals plotted an attack. The threat, according to network insiders, had been there for days. Then one night it came: the order to cease and desist.
Language is important. Lawyers salivate at the sight of complex combinations of verbs that mean the same thing. Cease and Desist. Stop and Stop.
Oppressive gestures never look good. Oppression and control have to be managed by repeated assault of commands.
The Book of Repression has many chapters. It can begin with stopping a person from asking a question. It can grow with complexity by commanding that the question not be written. Repression can then rise to writing and writers being banished. Then when stopping and controlling are not enough, repression kills the words that give sound to the ideas, murders the source of freedom, which is the language of a man free to confront himself and the world.
To close this Book of Repression, let me say how the death of free speech did not begin with the closure of a network. It is the terminus of an experiment with a media empire and the commencement of a regime out to dictate what it wants.
The prophecy has been given. Let the divination begin.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Ed Davad