Page 82 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

The Philippines media 71
avoiding taking the irrevocable step of confirming institutional links between the
MILF and terrorist organisations, which would have profound repercussions for
government relations with the MILF and the future of the peace process.
Whilst the media regularly offers the MILF the opportunity to publicise its
rebuttals of these reports, the problem is that official sources are still reported
more often than the MILF, putting Arroyo under pressure from hardliners, public
opinion, and the US, to take a more militaristic approach to the conflict. Despite
the imbalance in reporting, the media largely reflects government policy in high-
lighting issues of concern with the MILF but avoiding labelling the MILF as a
terrorist organisation whilst it seeks a political solution. The MILF itself has
sufficient access to the media to publicise its objectives, but it is still unable to
positively influence some of the other key media outputs which are having a
detrimental impact on its political standing.

Al Qaeda in the Philippines
In 2003 President Arroyo declared JI, which is commonly considered to be the
regional arm of al Qaeda, to be the top national security threat to the country.
Al Qaeda has been active in the Philippines since the early 1990s, when Osama bin
Laden sent Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who was later to become the operations
chief of al Qaeda, to the Philippines, to try to persuade the various Islamic factions
to unite under his banner. That initiative failed, but Khaled and his brother, Ramseh
Youssef, who would later be convicted of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing,
were responsible for three bombings in Manila and the bombing of a Philippines
Air passenger jet bound for Iran in 1994. These were precursors to the more ambi-
tious ‘Oplan Bojinka’, which included plans to kill the Pope and blow up twelve
US passenger jets over the Pacific. The plan was foiled in 1995 when police inves-
tigated a blaze at Youssef’s flat (Gunaratna 2003: 175). Hambali, the alleged
operations chief of JI, was also active in the Philippines, although most of the
bombings sponsored by his network were local in nature, in retaliation to the
government’s campaign against the MILF and the ASG (The Economist 2002).
The most surprising aspect of the Filipino media’s reporting of JI is the high
profile that it receives. This is primarily the result of reporting briefings from
official sources and reflects the tendency that was identified in 2000 for the
media to be one sided in favour of the government and to be over-reliant on
official sources. In common with other Southeast Asian media, the Filipino media
labels the group as terrorists or militants.
Unlike the CPP-NPA and the MILF, the JI does not have direct access to the
mainstream Media and does not have a media spokesman or issue media statements.
As a result, and despite figuring prominently on the media agenda, therefore, it has
limited influence over media outputs. This is particularly evident in its failing to use
the Filipino media to publicise its ideology. What little reporting there is of JI’s ide-
ology and goals, derives from statements issued by Osama bin Laden or JI leaders in
Indonesia. These statements are reported in the broadsheet media such as the Manila
Times; however they are not reported verbatim. As a result not much sense of the