Sleeping pill anyone?

Is Senator Jinggoy Estrada aware that he resembles “Lady Macbeth” in Shakespeare’s play of 1607? Both cannot sleep.

Along with 38 other officials Jinggoy has been charged before the Ombudsman for funneling P286.6 million to bogus NGOS, Jinggoy says he tosses awake in bed, fretting about “false charges” that he scammed on seven different occasions. He’s had a tough time explaining the controversy to his 7-year old daughter.

He was tagged as “Jingle Bells”, then jailed in the Estrada impeachment case.  Charges were scuttled but his father, President Joseph Estrada, was nailed as guilty. Then President Gloria Macapagal -Arroyo pardoned Erap.

Lady Macbeth murdered Duncan and thereafter sleepwalked night after night. She’d rub her hands of imagined bloodstains. “Out, out dammed spot, I say”.  Modern psychiatrists dub that “pathological somnambulism”. Her husband pleaded with the doctors: "Canst thou not raze...troubles of the brain/ And with some sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse (that) which weighs upon the heart?"  

Will a sleeping pill help? And given all his troubles, will Jinggoy heed the battering that his Senate Bill 380 got during this month’s Cebu Press Freedom Week rites? 

SB380 bears a pretentious title: “An Act Providing a Magna Carta for Journalists.”  Estrada’s brainstorm would create a Philippine Council for Journalists that’d accredit thru civil-service type tests. This proposed licensing exam creates a two-tier structure: accredited and non-accredited journalists where both may practice. It provides no fund. Worse, it vests in government discretion on who can be a journalist.

This bill is “unconstitutional, impractical, and unnecessary,” the Cebu Citizens-Press Council and Cebu Media Legal Aid declared. “The bill doesn’t create rights; On the contrary, it tries to impinge on free press and free speech. “Media cannot be the watchdog of government if it is muzzled by government under the guise of improving its skills and increasing its benefits. Leave media alone,” Cemla President Elias Espinoza said.

Wages and benefits should be left to news organizations’ discretion, depending on the financial capability of each news outfit or skill of the journalist. It said the bill is “unnecessary” since media groups like the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, CCPC have programs and projects to address upgrading of skills. Dubious media flourish because government offices and officials recognize or support them,” said Cemla.

Associate Court of Appeals Justice Gabriel Ingles gave a carefully crafted analysis of SB380 from the perspective of long established jurisprudence here and abroad. Excerpts of Justice Ingles paper: “This proposal is anti-free press…. The PCJ is, in effect, a government agency tasked to regulate the press.

“Journalists should be independent from government. To uphold their obligation to be the “voice of the people” on how government is ran, they should do it freely without being or appearing to be dictated upon or influenced by government. For press freedom to be a reality, the least governmental interference is of the essence. 

“If it is to be a truly free and effective government watchdog, the press should be free from inappropriate connection with, and influence by, different branches of government. It must also appear to be free therefrom to a reasonable observer.

“Journalists should, as far as possible, refrain from any and all relations with government (that) may raise suspicion of the public they serve that such relations warp their judgment. This can prevent them from being ‘the instrument by which citizens keep their government informed of their needs, their aspirations and their grievances’. (It is) also ‘the sharpest weapon in the fight to keep government responsible and efficient’.”

A free press is an essential element to good governance. (But) it can only be most effective in its role if it is not part of government.  As proposed in SB380, PCJ will be part of the executive department, as it neither legislates nor adjudicates controversies. Moreover, its budget will most probably come from public funds. 

That will require legislative grace. Under our Constitution, no money from the national treasury can be released except by law. Thus, it will necessarily create an inappropriate connection. It will open the press to influence by government. Even the least such perception or appearance to the public will destroy the credibility of the press.

The proposal compels private associations and organizations to associate in PCJ. The freedom to form an association is constitutionally-protected That protection also includes or covers the right not to join an association. The bill, by mandating that private press associations or organizations form a council, appears to violate the freedom of association.

Nor can SB380 be justified as a valid exercise of police power over an essential profession. “There is no overriding public interest and public welfare requirement which can legally sustain legislated compulsion that members of the press associate and be part of government”. On the contrary, compelling press organizations to form the council, as proposed, would destroy the press' credibility. It would to lose its meaning for being “voice of the people” and government watchdog, and thus, will harm public welfare instead.