The no-debate debate

 

 

If anything, the last U.S. presidential debate last Wednesday is a clear sign that the next debates between President Barack Obama and challenger, former Governor Mitt Romney, will end up just the same.

 

No surprises, no clear winner, and the public not any more informed to make their intelligent choice upon Election Day.
 

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will face off three times in person ahead of the 2012
U.S. presidential election on Nov. 6. Click link to view "Presidential Debate 2012: Obama
Warns Against Voucher Programs,"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THry-9wN1_Q  



As one political observer noted, “America doesn’t really have presidential debates.” The candidates are just making joint appearances, as if agreed on beforehand, for them to regurgitate tired talking points and lies. Instead of the debates being enlightening or even transformational, they are “staged-managed to satisfy the demands of power brokers with money and connections rather than the needs of democracy.”

 

The ultimate result of these presidential debates has long been fixed by the so-called bipartisan Commission on Presidential elections. For over a quarter of a century, this commission which relies on big corporations for funding will ensure that the debates work best for the interest of the major parties and also for the networks to boost their ratings.

 

Since Ralph Nader started to run for U.S. President, he had fought hard to have a place in the debates as the Green Party candidate but the organizers never backed down in preserving the status quo. No third-party candidates had ever won a spot in the debates, a sign that the organizers are more concerned with the partisan interests of the two major candidates rather than with the democratic interests of the voting public.

 

The current U.S. presidential debates are under pressure from reformers who want to open the presidential debates to make them more interesting and relevant.

 

For example, there are suggestions to let activists ask questions based on their knowledge and experience. Or allow moderators to challenge the candidates by asking follow-up questions and to encourage candidates to go at each other.

 

But the format of the debates limits the questions to the same ones that have been asked and answered a million times. Naturally, the candidates are expected to respond as coached and prepped by their handlers. With most of the moderators belonging to the same old club of white-media stalwarts, they are not expected to rock the boat or stray outside of what is usually agreed as the sphere of legitimate controversy.

 

A New York Times editorial summed up last Wednesday’s debate as follows:

 

“The Mitt Romney who appeared on the stage at the University of Denver seemed to be fleeing from the one who won the Republican nomination on a hard-right platform of tax cuts, budget slashing and indifference to the suffering of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. And Mr. Obama’s competitive edge from 2008 clearly dulled, as he missed repeated opportunities to challenge Mr. Romney on his falsehoods and turnabouts."

 

“Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.”

 

Viewers of the debate were bombarded with the hollowness of Mitt Romney’s arguments and left baffled by Obama’s unwillingness to expose it when he has the facts on his side. This unfortunate scenario is made worse with the timidity of the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, to jump in and challenge either candidate on the facts.

 

Do presidential debates really enrich the democratic process?

 

Hardly, says Scott Horton who calls this ritual of presidential debates “The Zero-Calorie Debate” in his article in Harper’s Magazine. He doesn’t see the candidates or the campaigns as the problem, but “the quality of questioning that came from the carefully-selected media questioners. The questions actually asked are remarkably predictable. By and large, the questioning operated to lower, not to raise, the caliber of the political debate.”

 

Last Wednesday’s debate shows how much disinterested Jim Lehrer was with his questioning. Instead of helping the viewers and the voters understand the candidates or their policies, Lehrer simply sat on helplessly while the candidates slugged it out with their recitation of tired talking points. No wonder many must have switched their television channel to a sports broadcast that was being aired at the same time following Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera in his quest for the triple crown in baseball.

 

There are many questions which should lie in the heart of political debates but have never been asked. An environment has been engendered in which scrutiny of presidential candidates has become superficial, and in which candidates can get away with so much lying and distortion of the facts. False or bogus claims are often made without shame or correction. Little actual debating is done on substantive issues that matter because the debates are packaged to resemble a television game show.

 

Poverty and pressing questions on energy and the environment aren’t the only subject candidates would likely gloss over in the debates.

 

Questions that are likely not to be asked during the debates are: “What will the candidates do to address the growing problem of more than 20 million people in America who have incomes below half the poverty line—less than about $9,000 for a family of three?” or “What will the candidate do as president about the growing hunger crisis in America—especially for young children?

 

As Scott Horton has observed: “Our political culture continues to avoid vital issues. Instead, we are treated to political tragicomedy.” These debates are impoverishing the entire political process, Horton adds.

 

In the Philippines, we have also held televised debates between presidential candidates in our attempt to copy almost everything American. But do these debates make Filipinos more informed about their choices? If the American experience is found to be distracting, how much more can seven or more candidates obfuscate the entire process by telling the viewers their version of lies and bogus claims?

 

Just to win, the biggest liar of them all usually takes the crown especially if the candidate is connected to powerful political clans and business corporations, or if he could bank on the political legacy of his parents, even if he has the reputation for doing nothing.

A pestering relic

 

 

There was a Vicente Sotto in the Philippine Senate long before his namesake incumbent Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III rose to fame. Actually, they are related by blood. The former movie personality and now a staunch opponent of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill pending in Congress is the grandson of the older Senator Vicente Sotto.

 

The older Senator Sotto was the main author of the Press Freedom Law (now known as the Sotto Law, Republic Act No. 53) which protects journalists from being compelled to name their news sources. Earlier in life, the older Sotto was a spirited and unwavering advocate of national independence from American rule and published the first newspaper in Cebu by a Philippine citizen. When the newspaper was suspended by the American military governor, it did not stop Senator Sotto from publishing another one for which he was later put to prison. Upon his release, he would publish another newspaper, and this time, he was found guilty of treason by the American colonial government. Even during his exile, the undaunted older Sotto would continue his fight for independence by publishing the Philippine Republic, an English-Spanish fortnightly based in Hong Kong, and later a weekly journal called The Independent.

 

One would think the grandson would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor. But Tito Sotto, the younger, took a different path. Admitting to CBS News that he was one of the two senators who inserted the online libel provision in the newly-passed Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, Senator Sotto believed it was necessary and it would not cause any additional harm.

Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto III, outspoken opponent of the Reproductive Health Bill in
Congress and alleged to have inserted the online libel provisions in the newly enacted
Cybercrime Prevention Act. Click link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_GWz3jcDBI
to view "Sotto: Plagiarism Not Crime in the Philippines."

His critics, however, say this wasn’t so. Sotto is suspected of having an axe to grind against bloggers and those who use Facebook or Twitter accounts to post critical comments against public officials. Before the much-ballyhooed anti-cybercrime law was passed, Sotto, who is also the Senate Majority Leader, made a privileged speech attacking the proposed RH Bill. In speaking against the bill, Sotto shared his intimate and personal experience with the dangers and side effects of birth control devices.

 

Sotto’s critics on the Internet pounced on him with accusations of plagiarism, that he copied portions of his speech from a U.S. blogger and from the speeches of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. Senator Sotto thought he was a victim of cyber-bullying by bloggers and Facebook and Twitter users who were taking advantage of the unregulated Internet in insulting and defaming his character. He claims that the libel clause in Cybercrime Prevention Act was not intended to abridge free speech, but only to protect ordinary people who are “victims of online attacks, character assassination and the like from people who do not observe the standards of journalism.”

 

Other than blood, the two Sottos of the Philippine Senate obviously have no kinship to each other. The older Sotto took a bolder and more principled position in favour of free speech while the younger opted restraint instead.

 

The younger Sotto did not realize the full implications of plagiarism, particularly to copyright infringements in cyberspace, such as copying the works of bloggers without their consent. Perhaps, Senator Sotto and the rest of the lawmakers who drafted the Cybercrime Prevention Act need to refresh themselves of the Budapest Convention, which the Council of Europe adopted in 2001. This Convention became the only binding international instrument designed specifically to combat cybercrime. It serves as the guideline for developing comprehensive national legislation against cybercrime and deals with crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, such as hacking, phishing, spamming, and more particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security.

 

Recognizing the growing menace of cybercrimes, the Budapest Convention is also being used in fostering international cooperation among its members in the apprehension of computer crimes. It has been supplemented by an Additional Protocol in 2003 which makes any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda through computer networks a criminal offence. One of the reasons in adopting the Additional Protocol was to recognize freedom of expression as a basic condition for the development of every human being and as a foundation of democratic society. It wasn’t meant to criminalize online or Internet libel. After all, its members and other non-member countries (like Canada, Japan, the United States and the Republic of South Africa) that have signed up to the convention are all liberal democracies where libel is no longer a criminal offence. In these states, libel or defamation is a civil wrong that can be remedied by damages, not by imprisonment.



In a related event, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also called on the Philippine government to decriminalize libel in the case of a Davao City radio journalist who was convicted of libel in 2007 under the country’s Revised Penal Code and was imprisoned for two years. According to the UN committee decision, the Philippines violated article 19 on the right to freedom of expression and opinion of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The existing Philippine libel law as contained in the Revised Penal Code has its roots from the Sedition Act of 1901 that punished those who would advocate Philippine independence and free speech during the American colonial period.

 

Instead of decriminalizing libel and following the practice in advanced democratic states of treating defamatory libel as a civil matter, the online libel criminal provisions in the Cybercrime Prevention Act have even strengthened libel law.

 

It is worse now because a person can be prosecuted for libel under the Revised Penal Code and libel under the Cybercrime Prevention Act, which is contrary to the 1987 Constitution that assures protection against double jeopardy. According to College of Law Professor Harry Roque of the University of the Philippines, the new anti-cyber crime law even increases the penalty of cyber-libel one degree higher than ordinary libel.

 

Professor Roque, who is also a blogger, wrote in Rappler.com:

 

“This means that electronic libel is now punished with imprisonment from 6 years and one day to up to 12 years, while those convicted for ordinary libel under the RPC are subject to imprisonment only from 6 months and one day to four years and two months. And because parole, a means by which a convict may be spared from actual imprisonment may be granted only to those sentenced to serve a prison term for no more than 6 months and one day, anyone convicted for cyber libel will inevitably serve a prison term.”

 

The inclusion of online libel in the new anti-cybercrime law has diminished the objectives of the Budapest Convention, the template for anti-cybercrime legislation, and made a mockery of the Philippines’ accession to international instruments that recognize the fundamental right of individuals to freedom of expression.

 

Various individuals and groups are now challenging the constitutionality of the new Cybercrime Prevention Act. In addition to the “chilling effect” of the new law on free speech, opposition to the anti-cybercrime law also raises violation of the sanctions against double jeopardy and the right against unreasonable searches and seizure insofar as it gives unwarranted authority to the police and the National Bureau of Investigation to engage in wholesale surveillance of all cellular, data, mobile, internet and computer communications.

 

Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human rights Watch said: “Anybody using popular social networks or who publishes online is now at risk of a long prison term should a reader – including government officials – bring a libel charge. Allegedly libelous speech, online or offline, should be handled as a private civil matter, not a crime.”

 

In fact, the civil court is the best recourse for Senator Tito Sotto if he felt aggrieved or unnecessarily harassed by the deluge of criticisms against him in the blogosphere. There are appropriate and adequate civil remedies available against defamatory libel, including monetary damages. Perhaps, it is also about high time for the Philippine government to decriminalize libel as part of its maturation as a democratic society that allows its members to fully exercise their right of free speech without the threat of criminal prosecution. The time is now to get rid of this worthless relic from the past.