CCPC as a grievance body: a 2006 look at the council one year after its first meeting.
Cebu Citizen Press Council
CCPC as a grievance body: a 2006 look at the council one year after its first meeting.
JOEBERTH M. OCAO
[Originally published in The Freeman, Sept. 22, 2006, with the heading “Media heads, public meet to discuss press council,” one year after CCPC held its first en banc meeting since it started organizing in 2001.]
IN one of very rare occasions, media bigwigs in Cebu and public stakeholders gathered in a dialogue to discuss the Cebu Citizens-Press Council, a newly created body that would look into complaints against local media practitioners.
With media leaders assuring that CCPC will treat complaints objectively, the general sentiment was that the council has provided an avenue for the public and news sources to express their sentiments in instances when they feel a story is unfair or taken out of context.
A nun said that she knows of many who have concerns with the media but are not aware that they can actually complain, lest know of the venue to channel their complaints. A general sentiment is that those who feel affected by certain news stories are hesitant to complain directly to the media organization that made the story.
A college student said that while she has several complaints about how local news are presented, she is afraid to put her complaints on record because the media “is so powerful.” With the Cebu media leaders composing the council, she hopes that CCPC will treat complaints fairly.
Media leaders present, including The Freeman Editor-in-Chief Jerry Tundag, SunStar Editor-in-Chief Pachico Seares, Cebu Daily News Publisher Aileen Mangubat and radio personalities Leo Lastimosa and Bobby Nalzaro, assured that they welcome complaints from readers and listeners.
More to this, they assured that newsrooms treat stories with fairness and accuracy. “Call us up…we try to correct because it also shames us,” Seares said, with Tundag jokingly adding, “It’s not easy to get sued…it’s even harder to get shot.”
Senior Supt. Ronald Roderos, Deputy Regional Director for Administration of the Philippine National Police, described the rules governing the CCPC as a “frame of reference” in the police’s relationship with the media.
The CCPC was hatched in 2001 after Mangubat, Seares and then The Freeman Editor-in-Chief Noel Pangilinan talked with Marvin Tort, then executive director of the Philippine Press Council, about setting up a local press council. Veteran journalist Juan Mercado also joined in laying down the framework for the council.
Thereafter, a series of briefings and consultations with potential members as well as with Melinda Quintos-de Jesus of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), a group interested in helping set up press councils in Cebu, Palawan and Baguio.
But after the basic rules of CCPC were proposed, CCPC went into hibernation caused mainly by the papers’ individual concerns. It was only revived last year.
It is the council’s basic principle that a complaint shall be addressed first to the publication. Only when it is not satisfactorily clarified, corrected or apologized by a newspaper will the council entertain the complaint. 