Home
> Authors > Media Coverage Of Filipino-American Issues Falls Short
Media Criticism: Media Coverage Of Filipino-American Issues Falls Short
By
Benedict Dimapindan
March 11, 2005
Last November, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
visited the Bay Area to receive an honorary doctorate from the
University of San Francisco. She drew an audience of about 1,500
inside St. Ignatius Church, where she delivered her speech, and
about 75 protesters outside, who were upset with her human rights
record.
Her appearance generated very little mainstream media coverage. “Where
were NBC and the other major TV stations? “ asks Jay L.
Gonzalez, an associate professor and director of the Maria Elena
Yuchengco Philippine Studies program at the University of San
Francisco. “There was nothing. The San Francisco Chronicle was
there, but it happened in its own backyard,” he added.
In the mainstream media, Filipino-American issues are often
overlooked or downplayed. And that has become alarming to those
inside or involved with the Filipino-American community — from
scholars to activists to newspaper editors and even some members
of Congress.
“The Philippines is a peripheral country now,” Gonzalez
said. “More pressing issues are on the forefront of U.S.
concern — the Middle East, the War in Iraq, relations with
China. The Philippines is on the backburner.
“Sure there’s terrorism and attacks and political
unrest, but the White House does not see it as a pressing issue,
and the press takes its cue from the White House.”
One such example of an underserved and on-going – in fact,
decades-old – news subject is the plight of Filipino World
War II veterans.
Nearly 120,000 Filipino men were commissioned to and duly fought
alongside American soldiers more than half a century ago, only
to be later denied those benefits that the U.S. troops received — benefits
they too had been promised by Washington for serving under the
American flag.
In February, two measures – the World War II Veterans
Equity Act and Filipino Veterans Fairness Act – were reintroduced
in the House of Representatives and, if passed, would grant them
those benefits. Also, a companion bill of the Equity Act was
proposed in the Senate in January.
But since those Congressional developments were almost exclusively
covered by non-mainstream, Filipino American-interest newspapers,
many veterans’ lobbyists feel that their struggle against
injustice is exacerbated by the paucity of reportage.
“It’s harder to get it out into the mainstream because
it’s seen as being a Filipino issue,” said Erin Dawn
Pasaporte, community service worker for the San Francisco Veterans
Equity Center. “But this is not just a Filipino issue – by
far, it’s an American issue.
“These veterans won their citizenship because they fought
for the U.S. and were promised that and all the things that go
along with U.S. veteran status.”
Pasaporte, though, said that she does recognize the importance
of conventional media outlets for spreading their message.
“We’re trying to reach out, we need mainstream media
to hit places where Filipinos live that aren’t just Filipino
communities,” she said. “With every press release,
we send it to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philippine
News and even college papers — every little article
helps.”
And Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-San Diego, who
co-sponsored the Equity Act, knows precisely how much the press
can help their cause.
“The more knowledgeable the public is on an issue, the
more attention is receives — so, yes, I do believe if the
mainstream media were to cover this issue more thoroughly, it
would increase the bill’s chances for passage,” Cunningham
said.
In addition, Pasaporte said that among all the local Bay Area
publications, the San Francisco Chronicle “is
the only newspaper I can think of that covers us regularly.”
Thus, the rest of the coverage of Filipino-American affairs
is left up to weekly Filipino-American newspapers.
Four of those major Filipino-American publications are: The Asian
Journal, based in Los Angeles; the Philippine News,
headquartered in South San Francisco; the Filipino Reporter,
located in New York City; and the Filipino Express,
based in Jersey City, N.J., but also has a national edition
that gets distributed in California and Virginia.
Anthony Advincula, managing editor of the Filipino Express,
which has an estimated circulation of 30,000, said that the Filipino-American
press offers a different kind of coverage — one that goes
beyond the ostensible.
“The breadth and depth of the stories in the mainstream
press — it is lacking certainly,” he said. “Their
focal point is on legislation and policies between the United
States and the Philippines; for example, the joint training exercises
between the U.S. and Philippine militaries and their attempt
to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf.
“But what about the civilians being affected by the exercises?
What about the civilian-led demonstrations against those exercises?
Those are not being covered by the mainstream newspapers. And
those people being affected in terms of the environment or have
to flee their homes because of danger from the war in Mindanao — the
mainstream newspapers never tackle anything like that.”
However, Advincula said he doesn’t “blame the mainstream
newspapers for the marginalization of these issues” because
he understands the constraints that publications face in a market-driven
system.
“For newspapers, especially the big ones, it’s business-oriented,” Advincula
said. “They have to stay committed to their readership.”
Recently, the major domestic papers, including the San Francisco
Chronicle, the New York Times and the San
Jose Mercury News, did set aside a significant amount
of space for the Feb. 14 terrorist bombings that ripped through
three Philippine cities.
But Gonzalez argues that limiting reportage to only sociopolitical
restiveness and violent bloodshed has “pluses and minuses
about it.”
“It portrays the Philippines as politically unstable,
not safe for travel, not safe for business,” he said. “Of
course it’s not fair. There are 7,000 islands in the archipelago
and the rest of the country is safe and stable — you can’t
lump it like that.
“Without mainstream media, people wouldn’t know
about these kinds of public issues, but when only the violence
and negative are highlighted, it’s bad.”
But both Gonzalez and Pasaporte agree that, among the mainstream
press, the San Francisco Chronicle probably best serves
the Filipino-American community in the Bay Area.
The Chronicle on March 6 published an 836-word obituary
commemorating the life of Bay Area resident Magdaleno Dueñas,
a Filipino World War II veteran who aided 10 American soldiers
in escaping from a Japanese prisoner of war camp and later became
an advocate for Filipino veterans’ equality.
“There’s no way around it — we’re here
in San Francisco,” Pasaporte said. “It’s important
that the veterans be covered, and I think they’ve really
picked up on that. The Chronicle has worked with us
on this issue for over a year now.”
Gonzalez added that the Chronicle has Asian American
and Filipino writers, like Cicero E. Estrella, and that the paper’s
Executive Vice President and Editor Phil Bronstein “used
to be the Philippines reporter during the Marcos era — so
I’m sure he has a special place in his heart for Philippine
issues.”
In fact, Bronstein has garnered awards for his reporting of
the Philippines from the Associated Press, Overseas Press Club,
the World Affairs Council and Media Alliance, and was a Pulitzer
Prize finalist in 1986 for his writing on the Philippines.
“Whenever you have a kinship linkage with the mainstream
media, then these things that do affect your community will be
given attention,” Gonzalez said.
Contact Benedict Dimapindan at bend1@stanford.edu
