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Uriel Quilinguing | Views from the South | MT
Mindanaotoday.com | Information clearing house
By: Uriel Quilinguing
FORTY years ago, I wrote the first and last memorandum from a government agency to myself.
A week after that, I was designated information officer on top of my official functions.
Together with other information officers, we organized the Regional Association of Government Communicators in Region 10 (Ragcom 10) which is still active until today.
Years later, I left government service to be in the mainstream media as newspaper editor and writer and a TV public affairs host.
At one time, I chaired the Regional Information Council, a multi-sectoral group that regularly discussed current issues and challenges with then Philippine Information Agency-10 head Jesus “Jess” Apepe and the late Misamis Oriental Information Center Manager Gabino “Tatay Ben” Labial as advisers.
The RIC was instrumental in the establishment of an information “clearing house” at Camp Edilberto Evangelista, upon my suggestion to Tatay Ben.
It was that time when news with conflicting and inconsistent information were in national and local media, all supposed to have sourced from the 4th Infantry “Diamond” Division of the Philippine Army.
That was the result when media practitioners report news direct from field commanders, sometimes even from the “enemies of the state” with facts and statements taken hook-line-and-sinker, without vetting.
Aside from the information “clearing house” at the 4th ID PA HQ, the Defense Press Corps – composed mostly correspondents to Manila-based dailies – was formed and benefitted from the clearing house.
Everything went smoothly after that, and I believe the system of disseminating information to the media and the general public has been in place at the 4th ID until today.
Today, information clearing houses are no longer mentioned, but the practice of sanitizing pieces of information before these go to the public is being done by the national government and its agencies, yet it is called crisis communication.
With this, communication should be in real time, information should be accessible anywhere, and messages should be relevant to the individual.
The concept of crisis communication surfaced due to the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) that began two years ago.
But information has been fluid, or shall we say volatile, for months that even infectious disease experts were liked the Five Blind Men of Hindustan.
Those engaged in crisis communication had to confront the challenges of “infodemic” that includes disinformation and misinformation, aside from the high vaccine hesitancy at the start of the pandemic due to Dengvaxia (dengue vaccine) controversy.
We are a witness to how crisis communication – with daily noontime virtual briefers and live on TV – succeeded to a certain extent in Cagayan de Oro with more than 90% vaccination coverage, but that meant a litany of cases daily, including the list of who died.
But misinformation and disinformation in many areas in Northern Mindanao persist, in places where 70% of the eligible population for vaccination has yet to be attained.
Virtual pressers on Covid-19 at the national and regional levels worked, but these have stopped, including those at local government levels at the start of the year.
Other than the so-called pandemic fatigue, the entire government bureaucracy has been in transition with the changing of the guards.
Besides, Covid-19 cases tapered since January this year.
Reopening of the economic is foremost in the minds of our local and national leaders.
Now that the number of Covid-19 cases are on an uptrend again, reviving the virtual pressers would largely depend on who calls the shots.
For the DOH-10, it needs the go-signal from the new health secretary, and at local levels, the chief executive must be on the driver’s seat.
From that memorandum I wrote for myself, the phrase “negative repercussion” has been a constant reminder that a published news article can be create such and would have an impact on the agency of government, even if the information is substantiated and verified.
At this time, we cannot blame the public to speculate, unless there is an information clearing house for all they hear from broadcasts, read from newspapers and scrolled from social media posts.
(Uriel Quilinguing has been a journalist in print and broadcast media in the past four decades in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. He is a former president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club, and was head of the Media Health Advocates in Northern Mindanao, and the local chapter of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines.)