I did this article for Rogue Magazine (June 2013 issue). I’m re-printing it here as additional material in the discussion of the recently Supreme Court upheld provision on online libel in the 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act and President Aquino’s defense of it.
In all his speaking engagements before media organizations, he has consistently grumbled about what he insists is the Philippine press’ penchant for negative stories, especially those about his government.
“It seems they have become accustomed to criticizing. It seems some are allergic to good news. When they can’t avoid such news, they look for the bad angle,” he told the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, an association of radio and TV networks, point blank in November 2012.
A few months earlier, at the national conference of the Philippine Press Institute made up of newspaper publishers, Aquino was even harsher: He likened journalists to “crabs” who,he said, would pull down those going up.
The President’s main beef was what he deemed as media’s failure to highlight the accomplishments of his then almost two-year administration. Foreign media cared more about Philippine national interest, he took pains to stress, offering as proof a Newsweek report of the Philippines standing up to China on the conflicting territorial claims and a Time Magazine article that praised “the laggard of Asia (as) recovering the dynamism it had in the 1960s.”
Geography doesn’t matter to Aquino when he feels like bashing media.