As August 30 is Press Freedom Day, as declared by then President Rodrigo Duterte, journalists and media practitioners in Eastern Visayas gather to celebrate the occasion through the recent creation of the Media Accountability and Press Council.
While the current administration is not as restricting as the past, it is a risk on the part of media practitioners in the region to make known to people and reveal what actually happens "behind closed doors".
Timing is essential and time is of the essence. It is the journalists' role to let the public know what needs to be revealed and uncovered and to move those in power who refuse to act on what has to be changed.
In a place where people are known as "mag isog," they seem to forget that journalists are merely messengers and not the enemy. There were several incidents of media harassment in an effort to gag, restraint and suppress them.
A recent is the incident in Pastrana, Leyte where three journalists were attacked by a policewoman for covering a land dispute case. They were even threatened by gunfires from nowhere.
Leyteños and Samarnons often forget that not everything is done through "inisugay."
Eastern Visayas journalists are the mouthpiece and voice of the ordinary people. But, also, they serve as trumpets for those in power to communicate and disseminate to the public what they want conveyed. It's their role to be bearers of good or bad news, based on facts.
With this, do journalists deserve to be insulted and reviled for doing their job?
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