‘Commit anew to truth,’ Palma urges journalists

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma yesterday exhorted Cebu’s media practitioners to exert “renewed efforts at the discipline of verification” amid the ease with which true or false information can be spread in the era of the Internet.

“As new technology enables more people to speak up, we move towards a ‘journalism of assertion,’” Palma said, assailing the proliferation in the mass media of “conflicting views with scant regard for truth.”

“Our first obligation is to the truth that sets us free. The cyberspace revolution, however, has made that task complex,” the prelate said.

Palma for the first time  officiated Mass at the Capitol Social Hall to inaugurate the 17th Cebu Press Freedom Week.

He urged media practitioners to speak for “thousands of those we consider last, least and lost.”

He was referring to people in Cebu’s slums, who pay 13 times more for water from vendors than the well to do  and children who die of diarrhea and respiratory deaths before they reach the age of two.

He was also referring to 30 percent of  schoolchildren who start to drop out of school at grade 3.

He said media practitioners would face divine judgment if they fail to promote the welfare of the disadvantaged.

“Because you failed to do these to the least of my brothers, you failed to do it to me,” Palma said, quoting Jesus Christ.

“That is the only exam that matters in the end-time, whether one is a journalist, like you, or a bishop, like me.”

At least 600 workers from Cebu’s print, broadcast and new media firms converged at the Capitol Social Hall for the Mass that followed the Freedom Walk.

The parade started at 6  a.m. under fair skies at the Cebu City Hall and passed through D. Jakosalem Street and Osmeña Boulevard.

Parade participants wore specially designed  Press Freedom Week shirts.

Cebu Daily News workers, nicknamed Siloy (Black Shama) after the company’s bird mascot, wore decorated straw hats and  a shirt with the company logo and images of flying white doves. The doves symbolize freedom of the press.

After the Mass, various goods and cash prizes were raffled off and dance troupes from CDN, Sun.Star Cebu and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) jousted in a dance tilt.

The Siloys were third runners up. Second runners up were dancers from The Freeman. The KBP bagged the first runner up position while Sun.Star Cebu won the grand prize.

The program was hosted by Malou Inocando-Tabar and Ryan Mark Borinaga, both of The Freeman and radio station dyRC.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama made an appearance during the program, while former Cebu City north district congressman Raul del Mar attended the Mass.

Palma congratulated the Cebu media industry and called the Press Freedom Week “a unique endeavor that even competitive papers and stations collaborate in.”