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Our radio program Usapang Media (DWAD 1098 khz, 3:30 to 4:00 p.m.) had a short but productive discussion today (November 12) on the controversial mural commissioned from the Neo-Angono Artists Collective (NAAC) by the National Press Club (NPC). We interviewed via phone patch Richard Gappi, president of NAAC. Much as we tried our very best to get the side of the NPC, its representatives refused to be interviewed.

Since much has been written about the controversy (you can read, for example, NUJP’s press release on the matter), I will not belabor you with all the facts and arguments of both sides.

Suffice it to say that I share the sentiments of journalists and artists alike in denouncing the move of the NPC. It is plain censorship, arrogance and lack of appreciation for artistic work. One may also add ignorance, judging from the statement of an NPC official who claimed that he did not know press freedom icons like Eugenia Duran-Apostol, among others, who were depicted in the mural. Would you also believe that some of them even claimed to not know the alibata “K” (symbol of the revolutionary KKK) which the NPC replaced with a red heart pierced with an arrow? A source even claimed that the character identified as journalist and Martial Law detainee Juan Mercado was mistaken to be the late rejectionist leader Popoy Lagman, hence the decision to add a beard and mustache and change the hair color from white to black.

Judging from the original version of the mural (see image above), it clearly depicts the history and state of press freedom. Contrary to the claims of the NPC, the mural captures pressing issues like libel and the killing of journalists. The artists even went to the extent of giving adequate representation to both mainstream and alternative media. If there is one thing that the artists cannot do, it is to adhere to the requirement of the NPC that the depiction of press freedom be “apolitical.” How can that happen when the struggle for it is political in nature?

I do not blame our friends at NAAC if they decide not to honor the contractual requirement of retouching the mural every six months. How can they retouch something that has been altered to suit the NPC’s political agenda of kowtowing to the powers-that-be?