Ex-news anchor: BBM better than Duterte, but ‘fear’ remains INSIDE THIS ISSUE column

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by NATHANIEL CARAMPATANA & SHAY DU

A FORMER news anchor of ABSCBN said that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is “more open,” “accomodating,” and “accesible,” to the media than his predecessor, former President Rodrigo Duterte.

However, Christian Esguerra, who spent six years as an ABS-CBN anchor, said that despite Marcos Jr.’s attitude, the situation inside newsrooms has not improved.

“The climate of fear remains. Many newsrooms still censor themselves. Many, if not all, media owners are still very much afraid. And they are themselves, censoring their journalists,” he said.

his message titled, “Democracy at Stake: How Media Battles the Disinformation Phenomenon” during the Marshall McLuhan Dumaguete Series held at the Audio-Visual Theater last Feb. 21.

Esguerra said that even when Marcos Jr. had not yet won the presidential elections, “the media was already scared.”

“If you ask around, there were efforts to actually kill certain stories, to change headlines, [and] to minimize certain angles—which [were] also happening before, pero ngayon mas lumala (but have now gotten worse),” he said.

“Everyone was afraid of President Rodrigo Duterte. When he came after Rappler, when he came after the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and then he came after ABS-CBN, what did the other news organizations do? They became even timider, and that is the worst form of censorship: self-censorship,” he said.

The alleged violations of the news organizations Duterte “came after” were also brought up during the open forum. Esguerra said that the government was selective in acting upon such violations.

Zarelle Glen Dorothy Villanzana