LIKE the proverbial bad weed, this hoary question won’t wither. In newsrooms and kapihans, it is repeatedly asked: “Are radio blocktimers journalists?

“No, they’re not,” snaps former Graphic editor Manuel Almario. Blocktimers often flaunt oversized and self-issued press credentials. But “they’ve always been a problem, including the National Press Club.”

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This veteran Philippine News Service staffer read Inquirer’s report on “Spin for Sale”. Sun.Star managing editor Isolde Amante wrote this draft postgraduate Ateneo paper. “Spin” builds on findings by the 2005 Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility report: “The Danger of Impunity”.

CMFR tallied 54 newsmen killed “in the line of duty” between 1986 and 2005. Broadcasters in the provinces accounted for 21 of the 25 victims. Slayings continue to date, since convictions of gunmen, let alone masterminds, are few.

Block-timers rarely indicate who picks up the tab for their programs. But you can tell who pays the piper from the tune. Listen to who blocktimers praise -– or shellack.

“Without their knowledge or consent, taxpayers pay for some of these commentaries,” Amante notes. Block time also enable incumbents to campaign months ahead of the elections’.

Blocktimer are “walk in customers”, Sun.Star notes... “Institutions or individuals buy airtime at stations overseen shakily by the National Telecommunications Commission No questions are asked. They broadcast news and comment, blocktimers claim. Character assassination or praise for a price, scoff critics.

Radio reaches nine out of 10 Filipinos. Despite surges in TV and Internet, AM radio stations bolted from 350 in 1998 to 382 in 2007. The reach of radio attracts blocktimers -- and killers.

Cash has spurred growth of blocktime programs with patchy accountability. Thus, “Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas faces an emerging problem,” CMFR’s Melinda de Jesus notes. This country has rewritten the “Golden Rule”: “He who has the gold, rules.”

Most blocktimers are freelancers. “17 or more than 80 percent of murdered broadcasters didn’t have KBP accreditation” This year, five incumbent elective officials and four ex-officials are spread-eagled, as blocktimers, in eight of Cebu’s 13 AM radio stations. Political commentaries chew up more than half (55.5 percent) of all blocktime hours.

Cebu provincial government is one of the heftiest. Institutional blocktimer. Contracts for 2009 reveal airtime fees alone, this year, may top P4.86 million. “That’s enough to enough to run the Province’s largest district hospital for nearly four months,” Amante says.

Pocketbook power can purchase airtime blocks. But does that make one a journalist?

“Only regular editorial staff members of newspapers and electronic media, regular correspondents and columnists, can be considered journalists: Almario insists. His view is shared is shared by major papers. Amante notes unease over blocktimer status among managers.

Until imposition of martial law, only regular editorial staff members could join National Press Club but the Marcos dictatorship opened NPC to press touts, PR flacks, blocktimers and tabloid staffers.

“Our membership lists remain porous,” the 2005 Cebu Press Freedom Week pooled editorial complained. “We’ve still to flush out hao-shaios who flaunt press cards or walk-in block time microphones.”

The Sotto Press Freedom Law (Republic Act 53) “protects publisher, editor, columnist or duly accredited reporter of any newspaper, magazine or periodical of general circulation from being compelled to reveal their sources of information. Congress has before it a bill to expand this 63-year-old shield to broadcast. Would “blocktimers” be covered?

The Philippines has no monopoly on blocktime extortion, Amante wrote. Colombia has “two-way blackmail”: officials scupper advertising contracts for critical media and the unscrupulous threaten reprisal,

Airtime on China’s newscasts, in China, is peddled to officials who’d boost profiles in the Communist Party. State ownership restricts news and political comment in Thailand.

Many blocktimers equate “hard-hitting commentary” with name-calling and often foul language. Few do investigative reporting. Lack of professional and ethical grounding is patent, CMFR found. Only one out of four finished high school. And 13 percent “had no record of educational attainment.” Not one of the victims…could be considered “trained” for their dangerous job.”

“Electronic gun slinging, in the absence of transparency and accountability, results in abuse. “Power without responsibility has been the prerogative of the harlot through the ages,” Irish statesman Stanley Baldwin said.

KBP tries to instill professional standards through self-regulation. Its Radio Code prohibits open-ended contracts for “blocktimers.” The body runs training seminars and an accreditation system.

Implementation of even existing measures remains spotty. One slain blocktimer stayed on the air for 14 months before assassins caught up. No station license has ever been revoked.

And unresolved gray-area questions persist. “Are blocktimers journalists?” And if people who have, at best, a hazy claim to being newsmen court murder, what are the implications for “a craft so essential for liberty at the edges”?

(E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com)