60. Pushing back against red-tagging
Will this be the ripple that will turn into a raging river? Does that even make sense as an image?
Welcome back to Slow News Days, a hopefully weekly newsletter on journalism and journalism-adjacent topics in the Philippines.
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Some hope for the red-tagged: BAYAN chair emerita Carol Araullo this week sued Lorraine Badoy-Partosa and her co-host Jeffrey Celiz for P2.15 million over their “vilification spree to demonize me and my good name and that of my organization” by accusing her of affiliation with and support for the communist party, which ther government has designated a terrorist organization.
True to form, Badoy-Partosa challenged Araullo to file a criminal case against her instead — because apparently the avenues we seek for accountability and justice are subject to the approval of those we week it against.
No doubt, the accusations that Badoy-Partosa and Celiz made on their show on the SMNI station fall within the definition of libel.
Araullo, though, filed a civil suit for the principled but arguably impractical reason that she is for the decriminalization of libel — a position that has forced activists and journalists to seek other legal actions to take.
In my own consultations with lawyers, we have had to weigh what kind of message filing a libel complaint — even a civil one, for damages — would send and how it would look for the decades-long campaign to decriminalize libel.
Interestingly, social media users have been able to get more done in recent weeks than we have in our years of wringing our hands about disinformation and red-tagging.
YouTube has banned accounts linked to controversial pastor and SMNI owner Apollo Quiboloy — including that of red-tagging show “Laban Kasama ang Bayan” — over sanctions in the US related to allegations of sex abuse and “serious human rights abuse” after users reported them to the platform.
They have framed the takedowns, as they did when Quiboloy’s own account was banned in June, as equal parts communist conspiracy and foreign meddling.
It isn’t, but we cannot set aside how these channels have been used to spread unfounded accusations that certain people or organizations are part of the underground movement and the communist insurgency, a practice that has been labeled as a form of disinformation and of hate speech.
In a statement after the filing, Araullo said that she was suing “in behalf of those who do not have the means, the opportunity and support system to do so but who are experiencing red-tagging [or] terrorist labelling and the harassment, if not actual terror, this brings” and in the hope of also prompting them to file their own complaints.
With the sheer number of people who have been unfairly accused on SMNI of having communist links, that is probably just a matter of time.
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Colleagues from San Juanico TV who were harassed by police while on coverage earlier this month have filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman, a move that has unfortunately now been framed as an attempte to embarrass the Philippine National Police. Our SJTV colleagues have also reported being tailed and having unknown men show up at their homes in the run-up to the filing.
As Filipinos continue to leave the country for better opportunities abroad, a reality that many have to contend with: going into debt just to get out.
Meanwhile, the International League of People’s Struggle has launched a podcast. Their first episode is on militaristic and imperialist narratives in movies and TV and it’s pretty good.
The controversial Maharlika Investment Fund has been signed into law, with supporters saying that the finance secretary will only be chair of the state firm that will handle it in an “ex officio” capacity. Does that even make sense as a defense?
Artificial Intelligence has raised concerns of impending job losses, especially in the Philippine Business Process Outsourcing industry, but industry leaders say there is still time to help workers adjust to how chatbots like ChatGPT might change work processes.
Also, something from The Daily Tribune and, ultimately, from the LiveJournal school of snarky writing: “Carlos Agassi (remember him?) apparently released a transphobic rap song, and no one heard about it until Mela Habijan, beauty queen and trans activist, called him out on it.”