Philippine Media Under the Duterte Administration: Extralegal Constructs Manifested in the ABS-CBN Closure

Abstract

This paper aimed to theorize through critical analysis and layered autoethnography how a large communication network, the oldest in the country, was utterly silenced through the use of extralegal means that defines the current state of Philippine democracy.

The two-fold purpose of this study is: to process the author’s personal experiences and professional knowledge of the ABS-CBN case using Philippine Media Under Duterte Administration 17 narratives drawn from a layered autoethnographic account of the events leading to the network’s shutdown, and to contextualize the phenomenon according to traditional Habermasian critical analysis.

Using a layered account of autoethnography, the researcher systematically analyzed personal experiences alongside data, abstract analyses, and relevant literature, to develop a holistic and in-depth understanding of the ABS-CBN case, the state of contemporary media, and the sociopolitical phenomenon.

The phenomenon observed through this academic exercise is what we can call extralegal or the political subjugation of legal processes and instruments. The phenomenon goes beyond legalities and the exercise of legitimate political power, yet it was the means so effectively used to overturn the truth in the name of organized political revenge and the politics of hate, which leads to division.

For now, it seems, in the Philippines, press freedom or democracy are not free, and, as this study found out, ABS-CBN paid the price, an unfortunate casualty