A View from the Inside
Neo-Angono Artists’ Collective concept of the National Press Club Mural Project on the History of Press Freedom

The mural is a man-on-the-street scene depicting the daily routine of the people. This suggests that the freedom of the press – and the struggle to fight for it – should be everybody’s concern since this is the right of the people in a democratic society and an integral part of the freedom of expression which the Constitution guarantees.

Sadly though, a lot of people remain apathetic about this freedom, as evidenced by a few people voicing their rage against Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s version of (op)press(ed) freedom. This is what the mural is trying to address painfully to the public: that press freedom is not only the concern of journalists and writers but of the common people as well.

The central image shows a man reading a newspaper with an editorial referring to the latest killing of journalists.

On his left is a street scene culled from an idyllic community while on the right side is the busy street of Manila. At the center is a “rotunda” – the image culled from the building of the National Press Club with a Galo Ocampo mosaic as centerpiece – suggesting the intersection and meeting point of the past and present. Within these events and historical juncture are the journalists, the tale-keepers of our history who put their lives and limbs in danger just to write and report the truth behind the events meaningful and relevant to our existence as individuals and citizens of our country.

A unique feature of the mural is the fact that the faces of the people in this man-on-the-street scene are media figures, press freedom icons and presidents of the National Press Club seen mingling with common and unnamed people. They are depicted or cast, not in their usual fighting stance, or projected stereotypically, but in a light and casual manner to suggest that journalists are like everybody else in the streets; that despite the threats to their lives for telling and reporting the truth, the journalists’ passion redounds to the same dream of ordinary citizens who want nothing more than to reap the benefits of transparency, public accountability and good governance, a society free from the clutch of poverty and corruption, and advancing press freedom – ideals which journalists fight for.

A similar distinct feature of the mural is that writers and journalists in various moments of historical juncture are (re)contextualized and reconfigured.

For this reason, it might initially escape belief and comprehension – and even solicit fun – that Joaquin “Chino” Roces is preventing a child (symbol for an emerging imperialist America) from shooting a bird resting on the street signage titled “Kalayaan”;Marcelo del Pilar rummaging through a garbage can for a cigarette stub and being furtively handed a letter by Mariano Ponce under a street sign labeled “La Solidaridad”; Eugenia Apostol smirking on the declaration of Martial Law; Epifanio de los Santos and Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc debating on the hot issues of the day; Antonio Luna, also an NPC hall of famer, being interviewed by journalists covering a rally of protesting journalists; or Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino listening pensively to Dr. Jose Rizal’s point on the issue of abduction and the “desaparecidos.”

Through this man-on-the-street-scene technique, we are also able to give a new way of presenting a mural in which press and media icons are given flesh and blood. That is why the “established, honored, and prize-winning” journalists are depicted not in their heroic and stylized manner – a fact and trend which everybody knows has pervaded the creative process of mural-making in the Philippines .

For this reason, it becomes axiomatic that an attack on journalists – through laws contrary to the exercise of press freedom, libel suits, or shooting them with bullets just to threaten and silence them – is also an attack on the people’s right to free access to information and freedom of expression.

This is also the message of the mural: to keep the flame of press freedom burning everyday and forever despite the threats and hazards surrounding this advocacy called journalism.



Protest Letter of Neo-Angono on the NPC Press Freedom Mural

Download Power Point Presentation and Video (Windows Media Player) from Forum on NPC Press Freedom Mural at UP Faculty Center, Diliman last November 9.

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