Sen. Ninoy Aquino, a top opponent of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was shot and killed at the Manila International Airport on his return home on August 21, 1983. INQUIRER FILE
I remember Sunday, August 21, 1983 well. It was the day Benigno Aquino, Jr., the man Filipinos called “Ninoy,” was gunned down at the Manila airport after flying home from exile in the U.S.I was a television reporter on the NBC station in San Francisco. With around 250,000 Filipinos in the Bay Area at the time, including Aquino’s sisters, it was treated as a local story. And on this story, the sisters were my reliable sources. I just remember going over and over that video of Aquino walking off the plane and the Tagalog phrase “Eto na,” or, “Here he is” as shots were fired.
It’s like a loop in my brain.
If you don’t remember Aquino, he was the main rival of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino was returning in the hope of leading the fight against Marcos’ autocratic rule under martial law. He never got past the tarmac.
Most still suspect Marcos ordered the assassination, although a group of military officials was tried, then acquitted, during Marcos’ tenure. A number of them were retried and convicted when the People Power government of Cory Aquino, Benigno’s widow, took over.
But there’s never really been a sense of justice or closure. So, imagine the open wound now, 39 years later, when irony of ironies, in the land that gave the world “People Power,” Marcos’ son Bongbong is the Philippines’ new president, after six years of human rights abuses by former president Rodrigo Duterte, the political rehabilitator of the Marcos clan.
Erosion of democracy
It’s not just a return to power of an autocratic family, but a real example of the pendulum swing of democracy all around the world since the 1980s. Democracy has weakened as strong men rise. Even here in the U.S., with the lingering presence of the disgraced FPOTUS (Former President of the United States), the erosion is evident in our democratic institutions from the courts to congress to journalism.
I thought about all that as I watched the final show of CNN’s Reliable Sources with host Brian Stelter. As a journalist, I’ve watched the show for the last 30 years, and I mourn its end. Need I say, a show about the media is necessary now more than ever.
From what I surmise, the show was seen as biased against Trump, which is a ridiculous notion if you look at all the cockamamie things Trump did while in office. From the vulgarity of “s-hole” nations to racist Muslim travel bans to an anti-immigrant drive that included an obsession over building a wall, to tearing away mothers from their babies. And this doesn’t even include the impeachable offenses.
On the last show, Stelter’s guests helped give a sense of where journalism is these days. Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame once again talked about how he’s always trying for the “best obtainable version of the truth,” meaning it’s subject to change. But he added, “Truth is not neutral.” It suggests that important information comes with some context and a perspective that journalism provides to help people understand the facts. Just the facts alone won’t lead to insight.
I tend to agree with Bernstein–truth isn’t neutral, but I think there are different perspectives on the same facts. And those perspectives must be presented and clearly labeled as news or commentary. Is there an Asian American or BIPOC view? Of course. Do you ever see it mentioned in the mainstream media? Very rarely. More on that in a sec.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Atlantic, chimed in that media was at first reluctant to be so honest about Trump. Journalists, for the most part, refused to call Trump a liar or even a racist in spite of evidence. Journalists pulled their punches until they understood that speaking as plainly and directly as Trump himself was the only way to communicate truth not just to power but to all the people.
But the most insightful guest on the last show was the NPR TV critic Eric Deggans, the only BIPOC person on the show, who pointed out the most obvious thing missing in the media.
It’s almost too exclusively all-white. Still.
As America gets browner and more colorful according to the Census, the news is no more diverse now than when I was on TV and radio. Thank goodness for Deggans’ input. There were no Asians, no Hispanics on this last show. As a mainstream journalist who has also worked in Asian, Filipino, and Black media, I know diversity remains the blind spot even for shows like “Reliable Sources.” There was a 30-second reference, a semi-shout out to Maria Ressa, the Filipino American journalist in Manila who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for intrepid reporting despite harassment from the Philippine government. But that was it.
The show ended with Stelter thanking CNN for letting him say goodbye, which wasn’t all that daring on the corporate’s part. The fact is, Stelter, a young thirty-something, is too inside to be as effective a media critic as he could be. He’s too beholden to say anything truly dangerous or insightful about any of the corporate media to make a real difference.
You can bite the hand that feeds you until they stop calling you a critic and start calling you a cannibal. Then they mumble something about ratings, and you’re gone.
On exit, Stelter’s victory lap was a hurrah for CNN. So, yes, in the age of social media, we are all journalists now, and it’s up to us to advocate for journalism, said Stelter as he wished CNN well. He’s rooting for it. Of course. He wants to work again. And he will. He has a following.
It would be different if he were like Liz Cheney, who exited her job last week because she refused to buckle to Trump. She’s on her crusade. Stelter’s nice finale assures he’ll fall up.
That’s what happens when you choose to play the game. Cheney doesn’t and that’s worth commenting about.
Liz Cheney needs you
Liz Cheney is on a crusade against seeing the second coming of Donald Trump. But the success of her “Pro-Democracy” movement will especially depend on her appeal to the Trumpiest among us.
We know from the national voter survey of Asian Americans that next to Vietnamese, Filipino Americans are the most Trumpy.
But is Cheney going to change the spelling of her name to CH-AA-NEY– just to lure us Asian Americans? The numbers suggest she’ll need us and other BIPOC communities if she really wants to save democracy.
You’ll recall Cheney is the one who lost big earlier this week in Wyoming when she saw first-hand just how her own Republican Party is under the spell of this guy known in Florida search warrants as FPOTUS.
That, of course, stands for the defeated “former president of the United States.”
But how can we assure he stays defeated? Perhaps if we answer Cheney’s call.
You can go over what I’ve said on my livestreams at www.amok.com, and in some columns about Cheney. You may detect I have a soft spot in my heart for her efforts as vice chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee.
She’s frumpy, but non-Trumpy. That’s the way I prefer my Republicans of either gender.
But she’s more like an ex-wife who has joint custody of your children.
You’re civil enough because you have some things in common.
In this case, it’s not children. It’s our @##@!! democracy.
And for that you have to give her a little credit.
In the Wyoming primary, she lost to her opponent by 37 points, 66% to 29%. That’s some rebuke. After all, the Cheneys for all their extremely bad qualities are Republican royalty. But they must have had a feeling of betrayal as if they showed up to the GOP rally and were treated as if they were…Democrats!
I go over her concession speech on E369 of my show [here](youtube: https://youtu.be/91LJ84ewBpY).
What you have to admire about Cheney was her willingness to pay the price–the loss of her job, her seat in Congress. And all because of her ultra-principled stand on democracy and her unwillingness to join in the zombie chorus of Republican election deniers who stand by their FPOTUS.
In my journalism/media career, I know what that’s like. As a talk radio show host, I was slightly left of center and I was on a radio station with the likes of Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the house in the mid-90s, I had a choice. I could be a Limbaugh clone and be a CPOC, a conservative person of color.
Or I could be me.
I know what it means to “pay a price.”
So I’m open to Cheney as she makes the case on election deniers.
If you haven’t noticed, election deniers have been proliferating like a plague on democracy, according to CNN data. Already 11 states have Republican nominees for Secretary of State–the office in charge of elections and ballot counting. Another 21 of 36 Republican gubernatorial nominees are also ED’rs, including the former local TV anchor turned Arizona politico, Kari Lake.
But there’s one thing about Cheney. Did she vote for the Inflation Reduction Act which includes more than $750 billion for climate change, Obamacare extensions, prescription cost limits in Medicare, plus a never before 15 percent automatic tax on wealthy corporations?
No. She did not.
In fact, during the FPOTUS administration, Cheney’s votes almost 100 percent favored rich, white, and corporate special interests.
No, she is of the ilk that calls people of color “Special Interests.” And her votes against the Voting Rights Act, LGBTQ issues, and all but the most obvious civil rights issues (she voted for the Juneteenth holiday) is as despicable as any election-denying Trumpian. In fact, she voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, according to Newsweek.
Liz Cheney has a 7 percent soul. Reason enough for a divorce.
But we do agree on one thing. The defeated FPOTUS must stay out of government. And as a single issue that may be enough to join her effort to jumpstart an American pro-democracy movement.
“Freedom must not, cannot, and will not die here,” Cheney said on a platform in Wyoming this week as she recommitted to defeating the ongoing threat of FPOTUS.
“This is a fight for all of us together,” she said. “I’m a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideals on which my party was found.”
Then comes her compromise.
“But I love my country more,” she said. “So I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together, Republicans, Democrats, and independents, against those who would destroy our Republic.”
Hard enough to get people to register to vote, period. Harder still when Republicans have done all they can to prevent people of color from voting.
However, here’s the upside: If we all fight for joint custody of democracy, us and Liz, she’s the kind of Republican who if she loses will politely conced and ensure an orderly transition of power. It would be great to revive that sense of civility in public life.
Still, I’m inclined to just wish Cheney well and support all the good folks I’m naturally aligned with in the first place. But perhaps Cheney speaks to you.
I will talk about this specifically on E. 370 of my livestreamed show on www.amok.com.
NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com..
Emil Guillermo writes a column for the Inquirer’s North American bureau.
