LIKE the proverbial bad weed, this hoary question keeps turning up: “Are radio block-timers journalists? “No, they’re not,” snaps former Graphic editor Manuel Almario. “They’ve always been a problem.”

This veteran journalist’s remark followed publication “Spin for Sale.” Sun.Star managing editor Isolde Amante wrote this “Spin.” It builds on findings by the 2005 Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility report: “The Danger of Impunity.”

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Between 1986 and 2005, CMFR tallied 54 newsmen killed “in the line of duty.” Broadcasters in the provinces accounted for 35 percent. Slayings continue to date because convictions of gunmen are few.

Block-timers 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, block-timers 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 block-timers--–and killers.

Cash spurred growth of block-time programs with patchy accountability. Thus, the “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 block-timers are freelancers. They shy from identifying their backers. But one can tell who pays the piper by the tunes: who is praised or clobbered. In contrast, one Cebuano block-timer brags: “Duna man ko’y political patrons. Naa man ko’y mga kauban sa politika.”

This year, five incumbent elective officials and four ex-officials are spread-eagled, as block-timers, in eight of Cebu’s 13 AM radio stations. Political commentaries chew up more than half (55.5 percent) of all block-time hours.

The Cebu Provincial Government is one of the heftiest institutional block-timer. Contracts for 2009 reveal airtime fees alone, this year, may top P4.86 million--enough to run the Province’s largest district hospital for nearly four months.

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

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.

The Sotto Press Freedom Law (RA 53) shields journalists against revealing information sources. If updated to include broadcast, block-timers couldn't avail of that defense. Almario's view is shared is shared by editors of major papers and station managers.

Lack of professional and ethical grounding is patent. Not one of the victims could be considered “trained” for their dangerous job. KBP tries to instill professional standards through self-regulation. But implementation of existing measures remains spotty.

“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.

And unresolved gray-area questions persist. “Are block-timers 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”?