A MAGNA Carta for media workers is being planned by the Presidential Task Force for Media Security (PTFMS) to uplift the living conditions of journalists in the country.
PTFMS Undersecretary Joel Egco said the measure seeks to professionalize journalism through qualifying and classifying exams.
“If you want to become a media personality, you will have to take an exam every six months to assess your qualification which would set either a managerial position or a corresponding salary level or grade equivalent to that of government,” Egco said.
Break down into levels, journalists will have the competency level of either managerial level or administrative level down with the corresponding salary grade.
“Question is would this be automatic once passed? This would still depend on private media owners but with the qualifying exam, journalist can now be qualified as a level 1, 2 or 3 journalist and depending on the vacant position to be applied, the journalist can now for example apply for a reportorial position which is level 2 while obtaining a level 1 qualification,” Egco stated.
The task force is set to communicate with various legitimate media partners in the country to craft the Magna Carta for media workers.
“The Magna Carta for media workers can now be defined through classification which is now a professionalized field of work. Once being a qualified professional, then you’re rated as a qualified journalist,” Egco said.
Once the Magna Carta is crafted and passed, a commission on press freedom and media security will be created while the level exams will be created by legitimate practicing journalists in the country.
“We are now looking on how this can be done by looking for the possibility of a concession with advertisers by paying a lower rate or taxes if they avail of advertising to smaller media entities instead of advertising with big media conglomerates,” Egco added.