Torture: Is it Happening Again?
A Media Forum

This media forum is a partnership activity by BALAY Rehabilitation Center and the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines. A timely activity coinciding with the commemoration of the June 26 International Day in Support of Victims of Torture and the commemoration of the 60th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

     The activity is part of BALAY’s contribution to the global movement’s effort to re-establish international respect for the absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment embedded in international law. Said activity is a clear recognition by human rights defenders and freedom-from-torture advocates of the significant role of media in helping to shape public opinion, toward influencing the minds and actions of the people through providing relevant, adequate and accurate information.

     Journalists often accused of sensationalizing problems of the country have a reply to those who complain about their work. They say that they can’t think of solving a problem without first acknowledging its existence. They cannot clean house, or claim to do that, if all they do is sweep the dirt under the rug.

     Certainly in the current fight against terrorism, a valid fight, they have heard so many times of accusations that witnesses and suspects have been tortured. The important question to ask is that, is torture permissible under certain circumstances?

     Across newsrooms in the Philippines, most journalists probably have that mindset about their subjects. Just a story. Early on, we were taught by our superiors in the business that we merely report, we do not advocate anything. Don’t get too close with the subject or it will compromise your objectivity.

     Unfortunately, it would seem that, in the Philippines, reporting on human rights and torture can be easily equated with advocacy. Which is to say that, often, journalists who dare to write about human rights in ways different from what the mainstream press often does – that is, provide context and identify accountability and culpability -- is easily pigeonholed as a leftist or a leftist sympathizer. We’ve heard of tales by our colleagues being ostracized in their beats and being ignored by their sources for their reportage on human rights. Sad but true.

     This is probably the reason why most stories on torture are published mainly by the alternative press, mainly the online publications like Bulatlat, Davao Today, Mindanews and other such online publications, many of them based in the regions. Go to those websites and you will find that they are chockful of stories on human rights abuses.

     What these media outlets have in common is that reporting on human rights is part of their advocacy. Perhaps more importantly, they don’t operate in the same environment as the mainstream press.

     In any case, there seems to be an agreement that there is a dearth of stories on torture in the Philippine press. (Although, to be fair, the Philippine press has done a remarkable job lately in bringing to the world’s attention the terrible human rights violations we have.)

      I have said it before and I say it again: the Philippine media’s beat system, which has created an over-reliance on the military and police – the same guys that commit most of the torturing -- prevents journalists from reporting on human rights and torture much more deeply and much more aggressively.

     A torture story can be a very specific story. It necessitates that a reporter identifies who did what to whom. And because most torture cases are perpetrated by the police or military, a reporter on these beats who should be familiar with the story would be hard put to write about it. She can but she risks backlash, which can come in the form of being ostracized by her press corps, being thrown out of the loop, and being denied access to sources and information.

     In other words, human rights and torture are subjects that can emasculate the journalist. Often, the usual consequence is to either “under-report” the torture story or simply ignore it and move on to the next story.

     To be sure, many journalists in the police and military beats have done their jobs in reporting torture, but they’ve paid the price. I know of one case where a general actually called up a reporter who had written about an abuse committed by his soldiers and subjected the reporter to a dressing down. The reporter was called a leftist and was told never to set foot on the military camp ever again.

     Still, torture is often reported in the Philippine press but not in the way human rights activists want it to be reported. We see crime suspects being paraded to the media, their faces bruised, obviously bearing the signs of torture but hardly anybody asks what happened. We also see the police openly allowing suspects to be beaten up.

     I suspect that many journalists now tend to regard torture as SOP, much like in the police and the military. Apparently, the Filipino people view torture the same way.

      In a BBC survey in 2006 on people's views on torturing prisoners, the Philippines -- like most of the respondents in the 24 other countries in which the poll was taken -- scored high (56 percent) when asked if they were "against all torture." But on the proposition that torture is permissible to “some degree,” we were in the top four, tying at 40 percent with Indonesia and a little lower than Iraq (42 percent) and Israel (43 percent).

     This tendency to use torture -- and its acceptance by the public -- to coerce confession and identify suspects (often wrongly), of course, can be traced back to the long history of human-rights abuses by law enforcers in the Philippines.

     The press is one entity that can shake the public out of this ignorance or state of denial. Sadly, it hasn’t done much to do that, for a variety of reasons. Among us journalists, there remains the mindset that stories on human rights and torture belong in the fringes. We treat torture no differently than other stories – write about it today, then move on to the next subject tomorrow.

     Indeed, the last time I wrote something about torture was five years ago, about that Muslim teenager.

     I’ve just been too busy with other things. There were more important stories to write about.
This, I think, is the greatest barrier.

Torture reporting in the context of anti-terrorism
Basil Fernando, Executive Director, Asian Human Rights Commission

     Torture is not some marginal subject. It is a very central problem relating to the development of institutions. The problem of torture is a problem about institutions. Very often, resistance to reporting torture comes from very deep conservatism. Those who feel that a better law enforcement system will disturb the social balances often try to prevent the discussion about torture from emerging.

     Torture reporting begins with the willingness of victims to talk. If victims talk, newspapers and activists will eventually take notice. Creating the climate for people to tell their story, whether to be reported or not, is the first step. Today any story about torture in the case of Sri Lanka, is that you can go to the press, and the press publishes the story.

     This is a psychologically difficult problem to start talking. They fear repercussions. But the system does not really have that type of power. If you report what happened, many people will be drawn to do many things. In torture you cannot be neutral. You cannot listen to a human being and say this is just one more story. Confrontation with a victim is difficult. It’s not because you don’t want to write about it but because you have to cope with it.
But reports do not do miracles. It just begins another series of things where so much has to be done.

     This has nothing to do with the anti-terrorism debate. It is a degeneration of the whole state structure, the police system and the concept of judicial intervention. It is the task of the judiciary to see that law enforcement agencies act within the framework of law. Only when there is questioning on this, when there is mass-scale reporting of what is taking place, will the real discussion start.

     So is media capable of reporting the reality within a certain country? I know there is no easy answer. With the stark reality of torture, so widespread in almost every police station in the country, and happening every day, should there not be at least some proportionate reflection of this in the media?

REACTORS

John Nery, lead editorial writer and senior editor, opinion page editor, and column writer, Philippine Daily Inquirer

     Much of the torture is done as an instrument of official policy, but the state has no monopoly on torture. Torture knows no ideology. Torture is an expression of the paranoia of power, a paranoia fed by many sources, sometimes simply because of bureaucratic requirement, sometimes idealistic. The end result is the same.

     I want to pose three areas of concern.

     What can we do to stop the use of torture as instrument of official policy? The practice of presenting suspects in media is an abomination. In fact when the Abadilla 5 were presented, it was clear they had suffered torture. And yet the news about that did not travel well, so to speak. We should also review the police meaning of case resolution. For the police, a case is solved once a case is filed in court, that is, bureaucratic objectives have been met. Sometimes the cases are meant to fail. Lastly, the dependence of the entire criminal justice on witness testimony renders the administration of justice vulnerable to the expression of the paranoia of power. Testimonies are easily falsifiable and recantable. Most of our criminal cases are based on eyewitness testimony. In the Abadilla case, the judge based his ruling on one testimony that was actually contradicted by another testimony.

      I want to commend Caloy’s candid admission of our shortcomings as journalists. Unfortunately, media is an always hungry beast, always after the next meal. On Basil’s discussion, I like the idea that it is our role to help create the climate where stories on torture can be told in comfort and some safety, without questions of credibility, or the use of extravagant details.

Carol Arguillas, MindaNews

     What is worse is when torture stories are not considered stories at all. That is how quite a large number of torture cases end up – as non-stories, or as crime stories.

      Reporting torture is not merely a reportorial problem. Under martial law, we managed to report about human rights violations because there were groups devoting their time and effort specifically in monitoring them. The Task Force Detainees had a good network in Mindanao, along with social action centers of the Catholic Church. There were human rights lawyers who risked their lives to help people who were arrested, detained and tortured.

     Torture could be prevented by immediate reporting. What seemed impossible then became possible because of all efforts by all the groups during that time. The network today is not as wide as before. But I am optimistic we can reach that level of cooperation.

Ed Lingao, Head of News Operations, ABC5

     I think we could do with a lot more responsibility and accountability by editors and producers and media owners. It’s how you choose your reporters and how you choose their stories. Reporters tend to give editors and producers the stories they think the producers want. Reporters kiss up to them. So if you only demand a story better than the other network, then you get only that.

SYNTHESIS
Inday Espina Varona

     It was a long, fruitful, and very candid forum with everyone eager to participate and contribute their ideas.
First, we made it clear from first speaker to the last that there’s no ifs and buts about it, in the Philippines, purportedly one of Asia’s most democratic nations, torture not only exists, it is pervasive. Law enforcement and security agencies view it as SOP, standard operating procedure, as one speaker pointed out.

      The pattern is clear: victims are at their most vulnerable between arrest, often without warrant, and the time they are brought to the custodial centers. In the aftermath of the arrest of the journalists at the Manila Peninsula, no less than Ronnie Puno said (to the dismay of police officials), that the rights of the arrested don’t have to be read to them until they are at the custodial center, which surprised everyone there.

     It is a sad state of affairs made more tragic by the fact that the Philippines is a signatory to international documents on the prohibition of torture and our Constitution enshrines our right to be free of this particular outrage.

     Torture is not a new phenomenon. Western societies were debating the issue as far back as in the 18th century. Certainly in the Philippines, colonizing regimes and two decades of martial law have been replete with incidents of torture. And two decades since the supposed restoration of democracy in 1986, torture still stalks the land.

      Lately with 9-11 and other horrific terrorist attacks worldwide including in this country, torture has become even more widespread, as has the justification for it. Torture, as one reactor said, is an expression of the paranoia of power. And while it is mostly traced to state agents, it is an equal-opportunity crime, and communists and secessionist rebels have been known to engage in it.

      As Carol said, it is not just happening again, it has never stopped in this country. Bureaucrats, judges, lawyers and even doctors obliged to stanch harm or hurt are involved in its perpetration or cover-up.

     Unfortunately so is media, the fourth estate that often takes pride in its supposed role of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We heard enough horror stories today about our profession. We are one, either complicit in the actual mistreatment of suspects, or two, we help in the creation of an atmosphere that makes torture par for the course, an atmosphere that only encourages torturers.

      We heard various reasons for this state of problem. And none of those reasons seek to excuse us the media for sins of commission or omission. It is not glamorous to report on torture these days. As Ed Lingao says, we reported much better on this issue 30 or 20 years ago. It is hard now to have proper reporting of it in a media climate characterized by a dog-eat-dog chase for ratings and circulation, and a profession with grave work conditions that often encourage journalists to be dependent -- and not only for stories -- from their news sources.

     But it is also equally true that media reflects the society it serves. It is not just media that has become insensitive or less perceptive about torture. Those served by slogans that convey the bogeyman of terrorism have repeated their justifications for legal shortcuts enough times – and have not been challenged enough – to transform the public atmosphere into one of apathy or, however reluctant, approval of the use of torture on the bad guys.

      So it is in this context that many journalists are afraid to report on torture as it has become seemingly a marginal issue, the turf of leftists or terrorists, and today is definitely not a good time to be branded as one of these. Media education will help, yes, but media alone is not the answer, and media alone will not stop the problem of torture.

      It is society in general that needs to confront itself and answer why torture happens. People’s organizations and civil society groups should pursue a public debate and find gripping ways of presenting these and not stop in convincing journalists and the public that it is worth closely examining the phenomenon of torture, because the society that tolerates and abets this heinous act is certain to encourage violations on all other human rights.

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