PRIOR restraint in journalism is tantamount to censorship because it requires that a journalistic work be approved outside of the workflow before it gets published.
It is not prior restraint in that sense, however, when a government person or office is being checked by a government person or office to prevent damage and the sending of wrong information. A message check is crucial especially when the issue deals with a change in the country’s form of government and when the people’s money for the information campaign runs to P90 million.
Sen. Nancy Binay wants to impose a rule similar to prior restraint when she proposed last week that Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson present to the Senate the contents of her federalism lectures before Uson embarks on an information drive. The Consultative Committee studying the federalism draft charter has decided to tap Uson in an information campaign to raise public awareness on the issue. Once the law is passed, the move to change the Constitution will be voted upon by the electorate, so it is important that the issue is threshed out and understood.
Had Binay’s proposal been approved, there wouldn’t have been this criticism on Uson for a video showing her and a co-blogger taking federalism lightly and to a sexual level. Even government officials found the video vulgar. The jingle video uses the words “pepe” and “dede,” colloquial for vagina and breasts, in a dance to push for “pepedederalismo.”
Uson, in responding to the backlash, said she was never spokesman for the federalism campaign and the dance was meant only to entice people to talk about federalism.
But what kind of talk or reaction did she expect from the people? That federalism was somehow connected with the female sexual anatomy?
In Binay’s proposal, Uson, as the designated messenger for federalism, should be able to explain the benefits of changing the form of government. Binay wanted to hear how Uson would articulate and interpret salient points of the proposed constitutional amendments.
“How the messenger relays the message is important. Clarity and knowledge about the subject are equally important elements. It is also a matter of providing the people of options, or an informed choice for them to genuinely know what’s good and bad about changing the form of government,” Binay added.
Uson was criticized in the past for spreading inaccurate information to support President Rodrigo Duterte and the war against illegal drugs. Uson denied she was “fake news” and said she was merely expressing her right to free speech when she posted misleading information on social media.
The need to check Uson and her work is important because she is talking not only about the drug war but, this time, about a constitutional change that, survey results said, the majority do not understand or approve.
Restraining Mocha by forcing her to take a leave or requiring her to submit her information campaign mechanics to the Senate for approval is a must.