Muscled and Muzzled

By John Anthony Estolloso

When one talks about a well-muscled figure, the image of a bodybuilder or an athlete comes to mind, someone perhaps who spent hours honing the sinews and strength of an arm or a leg. In a figurative sense, to speak of a muscled thing, being, or idea is to conjure images of force, power, influence, or a formidable combination of these that may be used for good or otherwise.

On the other hand, a muzzle is a curious nomenclature for a variety of things. The business end of a gun is called a muzzle. Likewise, it can also refer to a restraining mouthpiece that is meant to silence the wearer – or at least prevent it from biting. However, both evoke metaphorical connotations of stopping something or someone. Pointing the muzzle of a gun at a man is a lethal signal for him to halt; muzzling a dog prevents it from chomping a piece of your arm or leg.

The recent non-renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise brings to mind a combination of these images. Take your pick. For one, there is the picture of a capricious government flexing its judicial muscles as it takes on a media company whose muscle relies mainly on its power to project the daily grind of the commons, and to entertain and capture the national sentiment with its programs and news beats. You might prefer a more political mise-en-scène where a government uses its judicial muzzle to impose a muzzle on a press that has become far too loud and noisy for its leisure and comfort. Either way, one sees it or interprets it, last week’s verdict translates to one more national step further into swastikas and goose-stepping.

Amid the allegations that the media giant was playing fast and loose with the laws of the land surface the embarrassing ‘receipts’ of past statements revealing that negligence seem to rest not on ABS-CBN itself but on the people tasked to carry out the renewal of its franchise. Time and again, it was deferred for reasons that reason cannot fathom.

Aggravating this absurd state of affairs is the shadow of an incomprehensible (though well-recorded) personal grudge that looms ominously from the palace by the Pasig. Despite the vehement denials of spokespersons of the powers that be, past (well-recorded) indiscretions on the public podium seem to substantiate this resentment. As such, the motion of non-renewal was still carried. What chance did pen, paper, camera, and the voice of information have against such maneuverings and invectives?

Perhaps it is in this journalistic nadir that we remind ourselves of the purpose and mission of a free press. I quote Justice Hugo Black’s statement when he declared that ‘the press was to serve the governed, not the governors… [for] only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government’ (1971). To keep an eye on the machinations and doings of government and to report these truthfully and accurately, by whichever media is accessible to the people, would be the standing mandate of the press. Conversely, it is not its job to pander to power and patronage, let alone clothe public personas with glowing adulations or praise politicians for doing what their job descriptions require them to do. The press is only beholden to the people, not to its public servants.

Expectedly, that would draw the ire of the avaricious and the vain-glorious. Hence, it is left to the writer and reporter to note down who and what exactly those are for the enlightenment and perusal of the state (i.e. the People, in case you forgot). Likewise, it is left to those who wield the pen, paper, and camera to set these down into formal, retrievable memorials, ensuring that these ideas are forever enshrined and made bulletproof against despots and their regimes.

Days after the closure, we hear and read defensive harangues and perorations from people with honorifics attached, exhorting the people to respect the law (to whose benefit?) or to move on (to national perdition?). Adding stale icing on top of the cake would be the numerous fallacies from their lower cohorts that appeal to the sentimentality of the majority reared in teary telenovelas and sappy human-interest stories. Sadly, that narrative is getting stale – ad nauseam: at the end of the day, they all amount to a pathetic apology for muscled words pitched at a muzzled press.

Readers, it’s 2020. Who are they kidding?

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Mr. John Anthony Estolloso is Arts and Ethics teacher of Ateneo de Iloilo-SMCS Senior High School.