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By Rowena Carranza-Paraan
Even without assassins’
bullets, journalists say press freedom in the Philippines is under
threat because of harsh working conditions.
Behind the bylines and cameras,
the over-glamorized reporters, deskmen and editors are no more than
workers subject to the decisions of their employers. Filipino
journalists also face the same, or even greater, economic woes
suffered by many of the sectors they cover.
Grace Bera Sansano joined the
Manila Broadcasting Co. as DZRH correspondent for Central Luzon in
May 2006. This writer talked to her in July and her eyes then
mirrored excitement at finally being able to receive a regular and
more decent wage. Before DZRH, she worked for a local station in
Baler, Aurora province, for a measly P2,000 a month.
Sansano, a mother of three,
started her broadcast career in 1994, at first spinning music and
later handling a public affairs show. She recounted how she used to
wake up at 4 a.m. so she would have time to listen to the news
before going to the station for her 5 to 8 a.m. broadcast.
Sansano seldom took leaves of
absence and worked till she gave birth—on a tricycle because she
was on her way to work.
Sansano’s former employer
deducted SSS contributions from her salary but did not remit them.
There was also no employment contract. When relationships with the
station manager’s wife soured, she was shocked to hear the station
announcing her termination.
Conflict of interest
Sansano’s predicament is
typical of provincial journalists.
Ansbert Joaquin, head of the
commission on welfare and economic rights of the National Union of
Journalists (NUJP), described another system that he said was
rampant in almost 90 percent of provincial radio stations.
Joaquin said it is common for
stations to give their radio reporters and broadcasters very small
salaries—or none at all.
Instead, they are made to solicit
ads from which they get commissions.
The journalists not only have to
cover and report news events; they also have to perform marketing
duties in order to bring food to the table.
“At times, it places them in
awkward and conflicting interest situations, such as when they have
to air critical reports about station supporters,” Joaquin notes.
Worse, in lands where feudal
lords hold power over life and death, ad solicitations are often
seen almost like applications for vassal status.
The cycle of patronage can turn
deadly when journalists start showing a critical bent. In feudal
fiefdoms, the price for disloyalty can be death.
There is no common rate among
broadcasters. Some get P50 an hour. If a broadcaster handles a
two-hour, five days a week radio program, which is the average
program length, he earns a pittance of P1,000 a month. He has to
scrounge for ads to augment this.
There are also those who get
P5,000 to P6,000 a month. But in instances where mayors own
broadcast stations, anchors and other staff sometimes get their
salaries from the city hall.
Media ‘sacadas’
For correspondents of national
dailies, the rate is P35 per column inch. Sometimes, newspapers pay
per story, ranging from P50 for an inside page article to P500 for
the frontpage headline.
Joaquin believes the pay a
correspondent receives cannot be considered a salary.
In many instances, he said, the
expenses of covering an event are greater than the amount paid by
the paper—if the story gets printed. If not, the correspondent
kisses his “investment” goodbye.
A correspondent for a national
daily admitted that he has to pay his editors to get a story
published. It’s an outrageous notion, but in this case the
correspondent practically doubles as a public relations hack.
Joaquin also noted that only
reporters and correspondents get blamed whenever media corruption is
discussed.
“When in fact,” he said,
“one important factor that leads to corruption in the media is the
low pay that almost all news outfits give their writers.”
Although at the beck and call of
their editors, correspondents do not receive any hazard pay,
insurance and other benefits that their counterparts in other
countries enjoy.
Even here in their own country,
they feel like second-class journalists. They have no employment
contract that ensures job security, with editors and publishers
carefully avoiding any form of communication that may be construed
as giving them regular status.
Major dailies boast of giving
their correspondents transportation and communications allowance.
But this, said Joaquin, is based on the stories that get printed.
The correspondent also has to buy his own equipment—tape recorder,
batteries, computer and others.
“Pero pwede ka nila ipadala sa
bundok para mag-interbyu ng Abu Sayyaf—and not use your story
afterward [They can send you to the mountains to interview the Abu
Sayyaf and not use your story],” a Mindanao-based correspondent
pointed out.
“You get nothing. On the other
hand, if you don’t follow the editor or bureau chief, you may be
replaced with another writer who would be willing to accept the
arrangement for lack of other employment opportunities,” lamented
the Mindanao journalist.
Slow change
The Philippine Daily Inquirer
gives a P5,000 retainer to two correspondents in each of its four
bureaus—but this is a trickle in its sea of more than 200
correspondents.
The Philippine Star is the only
daily that has promoted some correspondents to regular employee
status. But they are few; most still get paid by column/centimeter
inch.
(The defunct Today promoted some
of its star correspondents—who rued that it actually meant a
lowering of income but had the benefit of health and social security
benefits.)
Mindanao reporter Julie Alipala
said her colleagues in other newspapers have to clip their published
articles and send them to their papers before they could demand
payment.
For local papers, it is gratis
for most of the writers and columnists.
A report by the Philippine
Information Agency in Davao in 2004, said the average salary of
journalists in the area was pegged at P3,500. Reporters there say
there has been no significant change.
It is not only provincial
journalists who get raw deals. Their counterparts in Metro Manila
also suffer the same fate.
Aleta Nieva now works happily at
ABS-CBN News.com. While the salary is still not great, it is a big
improvement from the long months that she went wage-less when
writing for a Manila tabloid. Her former employer, in fact, still
owes her 11 months worth of stories.
Nieva said correspondents like
her get P100 per story; P350 if used as frontpage banner story and
P150 if it ends up as Metro section banner.
Although she submitted an average
of five to seven stories a day, only 15-20 stories a month would get
published. She said management promised them they would be
regularized but it never materialized. She got tired of waiting and
finally applied in another outfit.
A disservice
Joaquin believes the sneers that
corrupt journalists deserve to be killed are a disservice to those
who were killed because of their work.
There were in fact many, like
Dipolog broadcaster Klein Cantoneros, who was killed on May 4, 2005,
who did not even have enough savings for burial expenses.
It is also a disservice, he said,
to those who persist daily in their work without giving in to the
temptation of payola.
Joaquin believes that when
talking of media corruption, people should not stop at the
reporters.
“In the first place, the one
important factor that leads to corruption in media is the low pay
that almost all news outfits give their writers,” he said.
As an individual, a journalist
can only do so much. The answer, he said, lies in forming an
industry wide union.
“It has to be industry wide
because if journalists from only one outfit will wage the struggle
for higher pay, they can easily be terminated and replaced by their
publishers with reporters or correspondents from another outfit,”
he said.
(To be continued)
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