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José Burgos’ newspapers survived Ferdinand Marcos’ regime in the mid-1980s. He printed the truth about Marcos and his murder of Benigno Aquino, an opposition leader, and gave a voice for the People Power movement.
Born on Jan. 4, 1941, Burgos started his journalism career as a police reporter with the Manila Times. He launched the English-language weekly We Forum and the vernacular Malaya (Free) and Masa (Masses) from a small office in suburban Manila in May 1977, during the height of martial law. For many years We Forum remained the lone effective opposition paper, although newspaper sellers never publicly displayed it. “When people started buying We Forum, they had to whisper its name, like buying pornography,” Burgos recalled. “The vendor would reach under the counter and fold it so small you could put it in your pocket.”
Soldiers raided the newspaper’s offices on Dec. 7, 1982, arrested Burgos and nine of his staff and sealed off the entire operation, including the printing presses. “I was accused of being a subversive,” Burgos said. “I was a super-subversive because the military accused me of having been an officer of all the illegal organizations in the Philippines and even the U.S.”
Burgos was soon released after an international outcry, but the trial against him dragged on for almost two years. It had the desired effect of silencing We Forum. With that publication temporarily out of action, Burgos began to publish an English edition of what had been until then his vernacular weekly, Malaya. The new paper soon attracted even more readers than its predecessor, and Burgos quickly turned it into a daily.
Malaya was the only paper to publish the full story of opposition leader Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino’s murder in August 1983. Aquino was at Manila International Airport returning from three years of exile in the United States. “The crony papers didn’t say anything about it,” Burgos said. “Malaya was the only one. When Ninoy was laid to rest, there were millions of people at his funeral. There was no coverage, yet it was the biggest news of the year.”
Malaya and the increasing number of small but independent papers were constantly harassed and threatened. “I am the best-dressed man in the Philippines because I have so many suits,” Burgos said, commenting on the many libel suits filed against him. Malaya’s telephones were tapped, and its distributors were asked not to sell the paper. Even the newsboys, who plied their trade weaving in and out of Manila’s heavy traffic, were threatened. Many journalists who dared to speak out during this period paid the ultimate price as victims of brutal murders known locally as “savagings.”
Aquino’s assassination, however, proved to be the turning point. Toward the end of 1985, as the February presidential election approached, the People Power opposition movement of Aquino’s widow, Corazon, was gaining momentum. Other independent media outlets, including Mr. & Ms., the Daily Inquirer, the Manila Times and the Catholic radio station Radio Veritas, joined Malaya in rallying the previously disorganized opposition and generating an authentic people’s revolution. Despite strong evidence of massive electoral fraud, Marcos claimed victory in the presidential election. But after his own defense minister, Juan Enrile, and the acting chief of staff of the armed forces, Fidel Ramos, rallied round Corazon, he fled to the United States. She then was sworn in as president.
Burgos now publishes and edits We Forum as a weekly magazine. He won the 1986 International Journalism Award of the Inter Press Service for his contribution to the defense of press freedom during the blackest years of the Marcos regime. In his acceptance speech, he said: “If I had my way, I would rather that this award should go to each and every one of the Filipino media men who were killed or who vanished during those years of unspeakable oppression. They were — and are — real heroes to the cause of press freedom in my country.”
Go to the List of IPI Press Freedom Heroes
Go to the IPI Publication "IPI 50 World Press Freedom Heroes", 2000