IJAPS, Vol. 17, No.

1, 29–55, 2021

DOES PUBLIC APPROVAL SHAPE NEWS? COMPETING

LEGITIMACIES AND NEWS HEADLINES IN THE
PHILIPPINES FROM RAMOS TO AQUINO III

Gabrielle Ann S. Mendoza*

Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy,
Bulwagang Silangang Palma, University of the Philippines Diliman,
Quezon City, 1001 Philippines
E-mail: [email protected]

Rogelio Alicor L. Panao**

Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy,
Bulwagang Silangang Palma, University of the Philippines Diliman,
Quezon City, 1001 Philippines
E-mail: [email protected]

Published online: 15 January 2021

To cite this article: Mendoza, G. A. S. and Panao, R. A. L. 2021. Does public approval
shape news? Competing legitimacies and news headlines in the Philippines from
Ramos to Aquino III. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 17 (1): 29–55.
https://doi.org/10.21315/ijaps2021.17.1.2

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.21315/ijaps2021.17.1.2

ABSTRACT

Can a president’s high public approval, vis-à-vis competing coordinate institutions,

shape press coverage of political events? Testing theories of executive scandals, this
paper argues that in the context of Philippine presidential democracy, presidential
satisfaction shapes the production of political events more than the presence of
other policy issues competing for broadsheet space. Using logistic regression
models to analyse the news headlines appearing in two major broadsheets in the
Philippines from 1992 to 2016, the study finds that presidents whose approval
ratings are low compared to Congress are an easy target for the opposition and a
much more attractive topic for sensational news by the press. With a much smaller
circle of supporters for the president, there is also less risk for the opposition and

© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2021. This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution (CC BY)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
IJAPS, Vol. 17, No. 1, 29–55, 2021 Does Public Approval Shape News?

the press collaborating or colluding in the production of political events. The press,
in contrast, tends to be conservative in reporting political events when the public
mood is generally supportive of the Philippine chief executive.

Keywords: Executive-legislative relations, Philippines, president, press, scandals

INTRODUCTION

Can a president’s high public approval, vis-à-vis competing coordinate

institutions, shape press coverage of political events?
Executive-legislative relations in presidential democracies are
transactional by nature (Shugart 2006). With both branches of government
elected independently with fixed terms, the executive and the legislature can
pursue different policy objectives while still claiming the mandate of the
people. The president, dealing with high and contradicting expectations, would
have to resort to bargaining with the Congress in order to maintain power and
facilitate cooperation in policymaking (Neustadt 1990). Philippine scholars
have studied this in the form of pork-barrel distributions and the president’s
use of constitutional powers (Kasuya 2005; Kawanaka 2010; Panao 2014).
Beyond this, Neustadt (1990) points out that presidential popularity is a key
source of bargaining power for the president. Because politicians anticipate
the sentiment of voters, their relative power in negotiating with the president
is mediated by the president’s reputation.
Public allegations of misconduct and congressional investigations
are then significant avenues for political competition due to their ability to
challenge the public image of incumbents. In emerging democracies such
as the Philippines, politics is not driven by performance alone but also by
reputation and personality (Thompson 2000). Political events, such as
scandals and crises, can be weaponised by the opposition to delegitimise
incumbents (Simon and Ostrom 1989; Green et al. 2018; De Neve et al. 2018)
and mobilise citizens towards change (Claudio 2014; Dixon 2018). In the
Philippines, an independent and critical press is recognised not only for its
role in restoring democracy but for putting government mishaps into public
scrutiny (Ables 2003; Coronel 2010). By infusing events with symbolic
meanings, newspapers can weave stories into people’s collective narratives
(Edelman 1988; Boomgaarden et al. 2011). But Philippine newspapers have
also been criticised for privileging the interests of the elites. Moreover, despite
being regarded as the freest in Southeast Asia, the practice of journalism

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in the Philippines is also considered the most dangerous due to media

killings, harassment and the constant threat of libel hurled against journalists
(Coronel 2010; Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility [CMFR]
2005). These occupational hazards, along with the concentration of media
ownership to a small circle of conglomerates, make journalists vulnerable
to bribery and corruption (Coronel, 2001). With newspapers as conduits by
which elites skew public opinion in post-People Power Revolution (EDSA)
Philippines, newspapers are no longer just harbingers of information but
instruments of political power (Coronel 2001; Pertierra 2012).
Testing theories of executive scandals (Nyhan 2014), this paper
argues that in the context of Philippine presidential democracy, presidential
satisfaction shapes the production of political events more than the presence of
other issues competing for broadsheet space. Presidents with high presidential
approval ratings resort to rhetorical persuasion to insulate their reputation
from the delegitimising effects of scandals and crises (Cohen and Hamman
2003). Because of this, the opposition is inclined to be more careful about
speaking out against popular presidents in the press to avert criticism and
backlash from the president’s most ardent supporters. The press, for their
part, tends to be conservative in reporting political events when the public
mood is generally supportive of the Philippine chief executive.
To test our conjecture, we study how headlines are framed by the
Manila Bulletin and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, two of the most widely
read broadsheets in the Philippines (The Nielsen Company 2015), from 1992
to 2016. The period covers all presidential administrations after Corazon
Aquino: Fidel V. Ramos (1992–1998), Joseph Ejercito Estrada (1998–2001),
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001–2010) and Benigno Aquino III (2010–
2016). The study’s empirical coverage begins with 1992 as this marks the
first national elections under the 1987 Constitution.
We choose the press as the focus of our introspection because even
though other forms of mass media receive greater advertisements and
exposure, broadsheets still stand as relevant and influential sources of political
information in the country. Despite the rise of social media and online news,
Filipinos subscribe to traditional media when making political choices and
politicians still rely on them for campaigns (Mirandilla 2009). Newspapers
have a high diffusion rate of one printed copy for every two persons in Metro
Manila, making them as influential as television (Guiogona 2015). It has also
been pointed out that television and radio are primarily used for entertainment
while newspapers are treated as bases of information (Pertierra 2012).

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Our empirical analysis suggests that the production of media political

events is driven by presidential approval ratings, and to some extent, the
presence of national elections and the journalistic tradition of the reporting
broadsheet. When the president’s approval ratings are lower compared to
Congress, the president becomes an easier target for the opposition and a
much more attractive topic for sensational news by the press. With a smaller
circle of supporters of the president, there is also greater likelihood for the
opposition and the press to collaborate or collude in the production of political
events. In contrast, with little support from the opposition, the press tends to
be conservative in the framing and reporting of political events.
This paper proceeds by first examining extant theoretical assumptions on
how the press frames political scandals and their relevance to the Philippines.
It then expounds on its theoretical contention, drawing from Linz’s theory
of competing legitimacies in presidential democracies, and explains how
political events are created, shared and pirated through mediated forms
of communication. This is followed by a discussion of other political and
socioeconomic variables which are known to be important in the production
of political events by the Philippine press. Afterwards, the paper discusses the
motivation behind the case selection, the process that facilitated the collection
of data, and the statistical approach for analysis. The paper concludes with a
discussion of the findings and their implications for future research.

THE ROLE OF THE PRESS IN THE PRODUCTION OF

POLITICAL EVENTS

Contemporary studies on political scandals digress from the traditional view

where media has exclusive monopoly of the framing and production of what is
newsworthy. Nyhan (2014; 2017), for instance, construes a press collaborating
with opposition elites whose assessment whether or not an event is critical
determines its subsequent publication as news. This view echoes Entman
(2012) who argues that the successful framing of a political event depends
on the willingness of the opposition to sponsor the development of the frame,
and on the press that relays the message to the public. Early observers such
as Ginsberg and Shefter (2002) refer to the strategy by which the opposition
expands their network of supporters by tarnishing the image of the incumbent
party as “politics by other means.” The collaborating press, meanwhile, is
rewarded with consumer reach (Thompson 2000) and exclusive beat (Allern
and Pollack 2012), driving the press to compete to being the first to come out
with the hottest story.

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However, reporting events as political crises is never forthright. Because

the press is regarded as the Fourth Estate in most democracies, newspapers
must maintain a semblance of independence and objectivity, and hence, be
cautious in reporting high profile stories without the concurrence of political
elites (Entman 2012). Hearsay can easily ruin a paper’s reputation. Without
a willing press, however, the political opposition has no venue to expose
political crises to the public.
But what makes an event political? Edelman (1964) says events
that are politically relevant have both practical and symbolic meanings.
Whereas the practical meaning represents what has actually happened,
the symbolic facet represents the public’s opinion of the event. Political
events have practical relevance for inviting attention to a violation of due
process (Markovits and Silverstein 1988; Claudio 2014; Rottinghaus 2015),
or immoral transgressions of social norms (Nyhan 2014). Distinct from
economic crises which are usually characterised by a sudden collapse of
markets or the national economy (Henning 2011), political crises involve
either a threat to a country’s regime (Gonzales 2008), or efforts to weaken
government capacity through mobilisation or political violence (Solimano
2005). Nevertheless, the extent of threat or effort is based on normative
structures (Solimano 2005) that may vary across countries or time (Entman
2012). What is similar, however, is the reliance on mass media coverage in
order to heighten emotions and emphasise the salience that citizens attach to
these events (Waisbord 2004; Boomgaarden et al. 2011; Rottinghaus 2015).
Interestingly, most of the aforementioned studies assume a hard-news
paradigm typical in the United States (Mindich 1998). In many developing
countries, such as the Philippines, journalists are categorised into either
those who collaborate with the government or those who see themselves
as the people’s dissenting voice (Castro 1967; Coronel 2001). The manner
by which political elites manipulate the press can also differ from advanced
democracies with well-developed party systems. Newspapers in the United
States, for instance, can be as partisan as voters and the candidates they
support (Alterman 2003; Della Vigna and Kaplan 2007). News coverage,
not surprisingly, can be driven by the party orientation of a media outfit’s
controlling ownership. In the Philippines, however, no partisan ties bind
politicians and journalists (Chua and Datinguinoo 1998; Maslog et al.
2015). This implies that coercion and corruption can be used to manipulate
information. But this also suggests that Philippine newspapers can produce
political events without the support of the opposition.

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PRESIDENT-DRIVEN THEORY OF NEWS FRAMING

We now expound on this paper’s theoretical conjecture, which builds from

established assumptions on media-produced political events. We follow Nyhan
(2014) and construe media produced political events broadly as encompassing
any widespread elite perception of official wrongdoing, impending economic
collapse, or political instability, jointly created by the opposition and the press.
Under this definition, a news story must fulfil two criteria before it can
be considered a media political event. First, it must be linked to the incumbent
president or government. Second, it must be labelled as a “scandal” or a “crisis”
in the front-page headlines of mainstream broadsheets. These restrictions are
important since, in practice, citizens’ reaction to either a scandal or crises arise
from mediated information rather than actual experience or observation. While
the nation finds itself meeting unfortunate circumstances and mishaps on a
daily basis, citizens are rarely capable of coming to terms with these realities
until served with elite cues by the mass media (Bennett 1999; Sniderman
1993). In periods of crises, the information gap between the elites and the
public widens such that the average citizen is unable to understand complex
jargon and processes on their own, and would turn to the interpretation and
advice of perceived experts such as economic and political advisers (Carmines
and Stimson 1980; Gilens and Murakawa 2002). Crises, therefore, induce
information-seeking behaviour among citizens and make them susceptible to
the narratives presented by media (Marinova et al. 2018). This is particularly
apparent in the Philippines where citizens are at risk because of the lack of
social protection (Gonzalez and Manasan 2002), and are already apprehensive
of the government (Abinales and Amoroso 2017).
What would mediate media’s framing of events into crises?
In a presidential system, both the executive and the legislature can claim
to speak on behalf of the people (Linz 1990). This dual legitimacy makes
the government susceptible to stalemate and conflict, especially in times of
crises. Instead of cooperating with each other, the two branches compete over
citizen support and use this as leverage against each other’s initiatives.
In the public sphere, however, the president has an inherent advantage.
Presidents are not only chief executives but heads of state and their symbolic
prerogatives can expectedly dominate day-to-day news coverage and are at the
centre of public spotlight (Gilbert 1989; Eshbaugh-Soha 2013; Marshall 2008).
This can endow the presidency with immediate advantages in any political
confrontation. Yet this also exposes the office to media sensationalism and
degrades the president into a caricature instead of a political leader (Gilbert

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1989; O’Donnell 1994). Without a strong support base, the president is easily
blamed for every scandal or crisis.
However, politicians with high approval ratings receive preferential
treatment from their colleagues and attract positive coverage by the press
(Chua 2004; Hedman 2010). Consistent with the popularity-context
hypothesis, popular presidents are able to effectively insulate themselves
from the delegitimising effect of political events through rhetoric (Cohen
and Hamman 2003). Presidents who enjoy wide public satisfaction can
also claim high political legitimacy. When they speak, they are regarded
as representing the interest of citizens. They are also construed as credible
sources of information. This public legitimacy creates a dissuading effect
on the political opposition and a persuasive effect on the press. Conversely,
when the presidency suffers from low legitimacy amidst coordinate and co-
equal institutions, the persuasive power of the president dwindles. Being a
more credible source of information than the president, the opposition could
easily turn policy mishaps into allegations of incompetence or corruption
against the president. The press, in turn, is more likely to frame unfortunate
circumstances into political events and attribute them to government.
The process of framing stories into political events also has a reinforcing
effect on the already asymmetric informational relationship between citizens
and elites. For instance, citizens are known to develop counterarguments
against news that challenge their beliefs (disconfirmation bias) (Taber and
Lodge 2006), seek only information that serves to confirm their preconceived
beliefs (confirmation bias) (Iyengar and Hanh 2009; Jerit and Barabas 2012),
or filter only those that strengthen what they already know (prior-attitude
effect). If citizens strongly support the president, they are likely to dismiss
how news reports portray political events. At the same time, ardent supporters
of the president can criticise the sources of these news reports as resorting to
cheap political tactics. The press and the opposition would then be dissuaded
from reporting negatively about the president. On the other hand, citizens
who doubt the president’s political legitimacy are more likely to blame the
president for every scandal or crisis that unfolds.

This now brings us to our main hypothesis:

H1: The press is likely to generate a media political event if the

president’s public approval is lower relative to other institutions,
particularly, Congress.

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OTHER POLITICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS

OF POLITICAL EVENTS

We also account for other variables which are known in the literature to induce
the production of political events by media. These variables include:

News Congestion

Short-term economic interests can easily trump a news network’s long-term

and subjective ideological orientations (Kellner 1981). In the Philippines, for
instance, media networks face immense pressure to popularise content and end
up sensationalising news reports (Coronel 2010). Even in otherwise technical
topics such as agricultural biotechnology, the ability of Philippine newspapers
to garner sufficient interest depends on their ability to infuse emotion and
controversy into the narratives (Navarro et al. 2011; International Service
for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications [ISAAA] 2017; Nidoy and
Manalo 2018). Since news articles are influenced by the pressure to appeal
to audience, journalists prioritise news stories that have immediate and high
audience demand (Hamilton 2004). Extant studies using qualitative data
(Eisensee and Stromberg 2007; Robinson 2007) demonstrate that important
news stories compete with media events in shifting public attention and
generating demand for news coverage.
In this study, however, for news to be considered as inducing
congestion, it must satisfy two conditions. First, it must be exogenous to
presidential approval and political events. As such, news congestion does not
include stories about the government and the national economy. Second, they
must be salient enough to generate audience demand on their own. Following
Newman and Forcehimes’ (2010) criteria, a news is salient if it appears in the
front page of mainstream newspapers at least three times in a month. When
a story dominates public discussions, journalists are compelled to follow the
trend and give the audience what they want. Meanwhile, members of the
opposition would likely save their allegations for another day when the heat
of the competing news dissipates. Thus, we hypothesise that:

H2: News congestion decreases the likelihood of production of a

media political event.

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Elections

Elections in delegative democracies are highly emotional events (Gonzales

2014). Elections are treated as a zero-sum game for political power among
the elites. Elections give those who win them the prerogative to run the
country according to their preference (O’Donnell 1994). It is well known that
a scandal or crisis can affect the outcome of elections (Hernandez and Kriesi
2016; Pereira and Waterbury 2018). However, their relevance in the public
eye faces a “cascade” wherein interest in the media political event decreases
over time (Entman 2012). Thus, members of the opposition are incentivised
to produce more political events that challenge the authority of incumbents
and compromise their standing in the public eye during election periods.
Members of the press, on the other hand, capitalise on the heightened interest
in political information during election periods by producing sensational
political events. Thus, we expect:

H3: The likelihood of producing a media political event increases

during election periods.

Broadsheet Type

The study also accounts for the two dominant cultures that define journalism
in the Philippines. The Manila Bulletin and the Philippine Daily Inquirer
proceed from two divergent journalistic traditions. While the Manila Bulletin
is known to be conservative on its views against the government (Seraca
2018), the Philippine Daily Inquirer takes pride in its being part of the
dissenting press, and has no qualms about sourcing information from civil
society groups and opposition elites (CMFR 2005). Hence, we expect:

H4: Members of the dissenting press, such as the Philippine Daily

Inquirer, are more likely to report a political event.

Presidential Party in Congress

Finally, we control for the president’s dominance in the Philippine

Congress. If the majority of the members of the Senate and the House of
Representatives is made up of members of the same party as the president,
allegations of scandals and crises are expected to be less frequent. Unlike
the two-party system in the United States, Philippine political parties are
clientelist networks formed for elections and patronage (Lande 1965).

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Despite the weakness of political parties in the country, the president’s

party members may still be incentivised to preserve the president’s position
to secure their source of patronage and political machinery. When they
dominate Congress, the president’s party members suppress investigations on
misconduct. Conversely, probes about the president are much more intense in
times of divided government (Parker and Dull 2009). When the president’s
party has no control over the legislature, the opposition can easily launch
investigations on scandals and generate more information on the event for the
press. Thus:

H5: The press is less likely to report a media political event when the
president enjoys a majority in Congress.

We also include fixed effects for presidential administrations in all models to

account for latent characteristics that may have influenced their relationship
with the press. Studies suggest, for instance, that female politicians are
judged much more harshly during corruption allegations (Reyes-Housholder
2019) and sexual scandals (Żemojtel-Piotrowska et al. 2016) than their male
counterparts. The personality and leadership style of presidents have also
been shown to affect their ability to manage crisis periods and maintain public
confidence (Hart et al. 2009; Boin et al. 2010).

DATA AND METHOD

News data for this study were sourced primarily from the Manila Bulletin
and the Philippine Daily Inquirer since these are two of the most widely read
broadsheets in the Philippines (The Nielsen Company 2015) and are known
to index elite opinion as part of the mainstream press. The two broadsheets
can also be construed to represent the dominant journalistic traditions in the
Philippines. While admittedly other forms of mass media receive greater
advertisements and exposure, the study is limited to newspapers as they remain
to be among the most influential political media in the country. Television and
radio may enjoy greater subscription yet the role they serve the Filipino public
is still largely confined to entertainment. On the other hand, print newspapers
have become established sources of political information (Pertierra 2012).
Despite the rise of social networking sites and online news in the country,
both citizens and politicians still resort to traditional media to guide political
choices (Mirandilla 2009).

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This study also limits its coverage to the period from 1992 to 2016.
This period spans the administrations of Fidel V. Ramos (1992–1998), Joseph
Ejercito Estrada (1998–2001), Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001–2010) and
Benigno Aquino III (2010–2016). The coverage begins with Ramos’ victory
in the 1992 elections since this event marks the first national elections in
the country under the 1987 Constitution. Elections create political legitimacy
in precarious democracies. Such legitimacy is important for Philippine
presidents who are regarded as custodians of the national interest (O’Donnell
1994). The study does not include news coverage of events during the current
administration (Duterte).
Constructed week sampling was employed in the selection of newspaper
data in order to maximise efficiency and to control for cyclical biases in
weekly news patterns. This type of stratified random sampling is known to
produce a sample that is able to represent the characteristics of newspapers
in all days of the week (Luke and Caburnay 2011). In our constructed week
sampling approach, all Mondays were identified. A Monday is randomly
selected from this set of days. This process is then repeated for all days of
the week. Although one constructed week can already represent a six-month
period, this could miss important short-term events (Riffe et al. 1993; 2006;
Hester and Dougall 2007). To account for the short-term events, we rely on
two constructed weeks as representing a quarter (three months) worth of news
headlines.
For a news story to be considered a salient political event, it must have
been labelled as crisis or scandal by the broadsheet. Specifically, we used the
words “scandal,” “crisis,” “controversy” and “scam” as keywords and counted
them in the sampled headlines. Our coding follows Perez-Linan (2007) and
treats as scandal “news events disclosing episodes of corruption, immorality,
or abuse of power” (Perez-Linan 2007: p. 93). These include reports of abuse
of power, corruption allegations and attacks on the character of the president.
Crisis, on the other hand, can be economic or political. An economic crisis
includes reports on the state of the Philippine economy, while a political crisis
encompasses those who discuss the state of the Philippine government or the
quality of the country’s democracy. From the categorised headlines, those
that do not concern the incumbent president or administration were removed.
Based on the data, the two newspapers report as much as five media political
events in a month.
We then estimated logistic regression models in which the variable of
interest is the probability of having at least one news report pertaining to a
crisis or scandal in a given month.

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For the main independent variable, we follow Panao (2019) and construe
presidential approval as the proportion of the net satisfaction of the president
to that of Congress. This is done by dividing the net satisfaction rating of the
president by the net satisfaction rating of the legislature. Because we treat
the Senate and the House of Representatives as one institution, we took the
average of their net satisfaction ratings as a measure of the legislature’s. Net
approval ratings are all based on the quarterly surveys of the Social Weather
Stations (SWS). The net approval rating ranges from –100 to +100. The
figures are interpolated to get monthly observations, then lagged by a month
to reduce the possibility of endogeneity between the media political event and
presidential approval.
News congestion, on the other hand, is the discrete number of events
that compete with media political events for audience attention and demand.
These are events that are salient for the majority of citizens but exogenous
to politics. We follow Newman and Forcehimes (2010) and consider a topic
as important in public discourse if it has appeared in the front pages of a
newspaper at least three times in a given month, but has nothing to do with
politics, the economy, or the social issues of the country. The number of
events is then aggregated to produce monthly observations.
Presidential administration is operationalised as a dichotomous
categorical variable coded “1” for the period covering the presidency of Fidel
V. Ramos, “2” for Joseph Estrada, “3” for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and “4”
for Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
Election is a dichotomous categorical variable coded 1 if a news
appeared during an election year and 0 if otherwise.
Broadsheet is a categorical variable coded 1 if the headline was taken
from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and 2 if it was from the Manila Bulletin.
Finally, presidential party in Congress is a continuous variable
corresponding to the percentage share of members of the Senate and the House
of Representatives who belong to the incumbent president’s political party.
This is obtained by dividing the number of members who belong to the party
of the incumbent president by the total number of members of the Senate or
the House of Representatives.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 gives a descriptive summary of the main variables of interest.

Constructed week sampling yielded 24,483 headlines, of which 5,277
were classified as media political events and 4,520 are categorised as news

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congestion. News congestion events range from natural calamities (Mt.

Pinatubo eruption in 1992 and typhoon Yolanda in 2014) and accidents
(Ozone fire incident in 1996 and the Wowowee stampede in 2006) to celebrity
deaths (Pope John Paul II in 2005 and Whitney Houston in 2012). Among
post-EDSA presidents, Arroyo had the lowest and the highest President-
Congress approval ratio. Ramos had the fewest party allies in the Senate
and the House of Representatives with just 10.28 percent. Meanwhile, with
44.64 percent, Estrada had the most party allies. While not exactly a majority,
Estrada’s political party, Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino (LAMMP),
had majority leverage in Congress due to its coalition with the Liberal Party.
This coalition is widely believed to have blocked the initial impeachment
complaints against Estrada (Kasuya 2005).

Table 1: Descriptive summary of variables.

Variable Obs Mean Std. dev. Min Max
Dependent variables
Media political event 584 0.267 0.595 0 1
Independent variables
Presidential approval 584 29.167 11.711 –53 69
Presidential approval ratio 583 1.013 2.429 –19.167 31.618
Control variables
News congestion 584 0.2671233 0.5949023 0 5
Administration 584 3.584 1.159 1 4
Election year 584 0.164 0.371 0 1
Type of broadsheet 584 1.5 0.500 1 2
Presidential party in Senate 584 29.17337 11.74319 10.28 44.64
Sources: The Manila Bulletin, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Social Weather Stations

To illustrate the variety of media political events observed, we follow Perez-

Linan’s (2007) typology of scandals in Latin American democracies, and
defined them as “news events disclosing episodes of corruption, immorality,
or abuse of power” (p. 93). Figure 1 shows that corruption allegations
comprise the majority of media political events in the country. As politicians
battle for public trust in the Philippines, their rhetoric of good governance
and democracy is often accompanied by accusations of corruption against
their opponents (Case 2003; Jaca 2016). While the production of character
assassination is relatively similar between both broadsheets, the Philippine
Daily Inquirer is much more critical of the abuse of power by the president.

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This is in line with the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s perceived role as a critic
of the government. In conjunction, news reports of perceived threats to
democracy, calls for constitutional reform, episodes of economic collapse,
and the unstable power supply in the country, have also been observed.

40

30
Occurrence

20

10

0
Manila Bulletin Philippine Daily Inquirer

Abuse of power Corruption allegations

Character issues

Figure 1: Bar graph of scandals.

Even though scholars suggest that the type of event can influence how the
public reacts (Basinger 2013), all political events depend on the media for
coverage and are all equally delegitimising to the president. In this study,
we treat all types as falling under our conceptualisation of media political
event. Each presidential administration faced six media political events per
year on average. However, media political events seemed to have increased
distinctively during Arroyo’s term. Some scholars attribute this to the
developments in communication technology and investigative journalism
(Garrard and Newell 2006). There are as well those who construe this as
evidence of the public’s declining trust on the integrity of political competition
(Bennett 1999; Davis 2006).
Table 2 shows four models that test the hypotheses of the study. The
first model tests for the effect of presidential approval on the production
of media political events while the second model tests for the effect of the
President-Congress approval ratio.

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Table 2: Determinants of the production of media political events.

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Media political Media political Media political Media political
event event event event
Presidential approval –0.00135
(0.00326)
Lagged presidential –0.0971* –0.240**
approval ratio (0.0477) (0.0863)
News congestion –0.0227 –0.022
(0.05) (0.0497)
Ramos administration 1.045 –0.143
(1.122) (1.206)
Estrada administration 1.811 0.601
(1.117) (1.198)
Arroyo administration 1.179 –0.609
(1.107) (1.278)
Aquino III administration 1.629 0.297
(1.126) (1.220)
Election year 0.704** 0.812**
(0.273) (0.278)
Philippine Daily Inquirer 0.863*** 0.852***
(0.217) (0.219)
Presidential party in Congress 0.0173 0.0215
(0.0105) (0.0108)
Constant –1.313*** –1.256*** –3.777*** –2.272
(0.122) (0.109) (1.104) (1.223)
N 584 583 584 583
Note: Standard errors in parentheses; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

The estimates in Table 2 confirm our hypothesis that presidential popularity

amidst competing institutions drives news production of media political
events. Model 1 suggests that presidential approval ratings per se do not
seem to have an impact on the production of scandals and crises. Yet when
presidential approval is construed in relation to the approval ratings of another
institution, particularly Congress, it becomes very significant in shaping the
attention of the press towards political events (Model 2). This implies that the
executive and the legislature’s competing claims to legitimacy affect not only
the vulnerability of the president to political attacks but also how citizens
react to media political events. Figure 2 illustrates this through a predicted
margins plot showing the probability of a media political event to occur based
on presidential approval. The figure indicates that the probability of a scandal

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or a crisis to be reported in a given month starts to exponentially increase as

the presidential approval ratio decreases. When presidential approval ratio
is at –10, media political events is predicted to increase to 74 percent. This
coverage increases to 97 percent as presidential approval ratio drops to –20
critical of the president.

Adjusted predictions with 95% CIs

Predicted probability of media political event

0.5

−20 −10 0 10 20 30 40
Presidential approval ratio

Figure 2: Predictive margins plot for presidential approval ratio.

These estimates suggest that scandals and crises are more attractive to
produce when the president is less popular than Congress. Presidential
approval, on its own, is not enough. We must also take into consideration the
competition between the executive and the legislature over public prestige.
In this case, public approval becomes an important resource for politicians.
The institution that is more favoured by the public has greater credibility and
can be absolved of government failures. When the president is less popular
than the Congress, citizens disregard the president as a source of information
and as a representation of their interests, and turn to the opposition as a reliable
and authoritative reference. This emboldens the opposition to be more critical
of the incumbent administration and to publicise their allegations against it.
Moreover, citizens are more receptive to these media political events. Thus,
the publishing press is encouraged to frame reports as scandals or crises to
ride on public sentiment and enhance their reputation.

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Model 3 tests for the effects of control variables: presidential

administration, national elections, the type of broadsheet and the presidential
party’s dominance in Congress. Model 4 is a fully specified model with
presidential approval ratio and the aforementioned control variables known
in the literature to explain press coverage. All models have been estimated
using logistic regression.
The results suggest that presidential parties and news congestion have
no significant bearing on the production of media political events. This only
adds support to what seems to be already established about political parties
in the Philippines. Parties in the Philippines are known to exist with only
elections in mind and conspicuously lack the ideological foundations to bind
politicians programmatically once in power (Lande 1965). Party membership
does not appear as significant in the production of media political events
because of the inherent weakness of the Philippine party system. Instead,
presidents in office often rely on patronage and their public image to influence
legislators (Kasuya 2003; Thompson 2014).
News congestion likewise does not seem to predict the production of
media political events. This contradicts the slow news hypothesis espoused
in previous studies which states that the profit-driven nature of journalists
would drive the press to prioritise news reports that sell easily (Nyhan 2014).
In countries such as the United States, studies imply that high audience
demand could crowd out potential media political events. In the Philippines,
however, there appears to be no evidence supporting this. It must be mentioned,
however, that unlike their counterparts in the United States, Philippine
journalists are underpaid, are exposed to a lot of risks, and are much more
susceptible to bribery and corruption (Chua and Datinguinoo 1998). However,
Philippine journalists also stand out for their risk-taking nature and their
coverage of monumental political events, such as the so-called “Juetenggate”
scandal which forced Estrada to resign (Coronel 2001; Ables 2003). As such,
it can be implied that journalists in the country do not just take into account
the marketability of news but also the political and economic implications of
the story.
National elections and the type of broadsheet are also found to
significantly affect the production of media political events. Figures 3 and 4
illustrate the relationship through predictive margins plots. Holding all
other variables constant at their means, the production of media political
events is 129 percent more likely to occur during election years. This
suggests that timing also matters. When the ratio of presidential approval
to Congress approval drops to –10, there is an 84 percent probability of

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media political events to be produced during election years, whereas there

is only a probability of 72 percent when there are no elections. Because
of the high stakes associated with winning national elections (O’Donnell
1994), the opposition is perhaps stockpiling scandal or crisis allegations and
strategically spill them out or revive them when elections draw near. Unlike
the president, members of Congress are incentivised by the prospects of re-
elections. Because of high competition for publicity during elections, they
could draw attention to the shortcomings of the incumbent administration
to gain public attention. For example, news reports on new information
regarding the Hello Garci scandal on June 2005, and the National Broadband
Network-ZTE (NBN-ZTE) scam on October 2007, both of which took place
during Arroyo’s presidency, surfaced during the 2010 elections even though
these scandals took place years earlier. Election periods also bring with
them a heightened interest in political information among citizens which can
incentivise the press to publish more political events.

Adjusted predictions of election years with 95% CIs

Predicted probability of media political events

0.5

−20 −10 0 10 20 30 40
Presidential approval ratio

No Elections Election Year

Figure 3: Predictive margins plot for election year.

The editorial tenets of broadsheets also appear to matter in the production of

media political events. Holding all other variables at their means, the Philippine
Daily Inquirer seems 134 percent more likely to produce media political events
than the Manila Bulletin. When the ratio of presidential approval to Congress
approval falls to –10, there is an 81 percent probability for the Philippine

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Daily Inquirer to cover a media political event. For the Manila Bulletin
however, the probability is just 66 percent, which is conspicuously lower. The
Philippine Daily Inquirer which identifies itself as part of the dissenting press
has a higher rate of publishing media political events compared to the Manila
Bulletin which is regarded as more accommodating of the government. The
sources newspapers rely on in reporting media political events possibly also
shape news coverage. The Manila Bulletin, for instance, is known to privilege
the view of government officials and incumbent politicians who tend to be
more optimistic and conservative in their treatment of media political events.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, on the other hand, is known to widen its
discourse to include civil society groups and alternative sources of public
opinion (Nidoy and Manalo 2018; ISAAA 2017). Both traditions play a role
in stabilising and strengthening democratic institutions.

Adjusted predictions of broadsheet with 95% CIs

Predicted probability of media political events

0.5

−20 −10 0 10 20 30 40
Presidential approval ratio

Manila Bulletin Philippine Daily Inquirer

Figure 4: Predictive margins plot for broadsheet.

CONCLUSION

Do the president’s public approval ratings, amidst competing coordinate

institutions, shape how political events are reported by the press? Framed as
the centre of national power, the president is an easy target for blame by the
press when political mishaps take place. Ideally, this should foster democratic

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accountability by keeping citizens informed and keeping the president

disciplined. In contrast, this study argues that media coverage of political
events is not as consistent as it is assumed to be. Because the opposition and
the press have their own interests in mind, news reports regarding government
misconduct are strategically released for their benefit.
In this study, we examine how competing claims to legitimacy in the
Philippines influence the propensity of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and
the Manila Bulletin to report on political scandals or crises from 1992 to
2016. Drawing from Nyhan (2014; 2017), we posit that scandals and crises
are created and publicised through cooperation between the press and the
opposition. We argue that media political events are produced when the
president is less popular than competing institutions. When presidents are
less popular than Congress, in particular, they become an easy target for the
opposition and a much more attractive topic for sensational news. With a
much smaller circle of supporters for the president, there is also a smaller risk
involved in reporting political scandals and crises. Using logistic regression
models, we find that the ratio of presidential approval to that of Congress, the
presence of national elections, and the journalistic tradition of the broadsheet
can influence the production of media political events.
Needless to say, the political context of the country plays an important
role in how journalists choose to frame their news reports. Our empirical
introspection of newspaper headlines suggests that the Philippine press,
despite being recognised as a watchdog of the government, remains susceptible
to the mood of the general public. Because of this, popular presidents are
insulated from delegitimising news while unpopular ones are vulnerable to
negative reports. Public approval ratings then do not just aid politicians in
bargaining for policy concessions but also facilitates the exercise of politics
by other means. As the investigation of political events becomes a new arena
of political competition, high approval ratings give politicians the credibility
to both undermine allegations against them and reveal the misconduct of
their opponents. Because of this, the opposition’s willingness to challenge
incumbents is contingent on their popularity. Moreover, citizens are much
more receptive of criticism towards an already unpopular president. This,
along with the availability of support and information from the opposition,
incentivises the press to publish political scandals against unpopular presidents.
In the end, unpopular presidents are under constant scrutiny from the press
and the opposition while popular ones, regardless of their transgressions, are
rarely held accountable for their actions.

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Be that as it may, we acknowledge this study’s limitations. The reliance

on headlines instead of the entire text of news reports limits the scope of the
analysis to a very small part of the journalist’s voice. To improve the validity
of the study, future research may want to account for the journalist’s use
of controversial language, among other things, which can be accomplished
through textual analysis. This study can also be extended to include an
examination of the success of political events in generating audience demand
over time. An interesting phenomenon in the study of political events is
the so-called “cascade,” which indicates how long an event has relevantly
preoccupied public discourse (Entman 2012). After all, the success of the
production of a media political event is measured not just by its tendency
to appear in the front pages but also in its tenacity to stay in the spotlight
for a considerable amount of time. Finally, further introspection into the
separate roles of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the politics
by other means should be studied further. By treating the chambers as one
institution, this study was unable to acknowledge the relative independence
of the Senate compared to the House of Representatives. Members of the
House of Representatives are mainly concerned about consolidating power
in their local bailiwicks and may be more amenable to support the president
in exchange for pork-barrel distributions, while Senators have re-election
incentives in pushing for investigations into mishaps (Kawanaka 2010).
As an implication, our findings call for a re-examination of the media’s
role as a watchdog in Philippine democracy. Because of commercial and
political pressures, media may not necessarily be leading in the formation
of public opinion, as previous studies suggest, but merely reinforcing and
institutionalising the prevailing mood of the citizenry. To become true
pillars of democracy, the press in the Philippines should exercise vigilance
regardless of how the public views the president. It must also strive to improve
investigative journalism instead of relying solely on the opposition for political
information. Finally, there must be economic and political safeguards to
motivate independent and truthful reporting in the country.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No financial grant was received in the preparation of this manuscript. The

authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

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NOTES
*
Gabrielle Ann S. Mendoza is a student of the Bachelor of Arts Master of Arts (BAMA)
Political Science Honours programme at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Her current research looks at how presidential popularity influences the magnitude and
sentiment of news stories on presidents in the post-EDSA Philippines. A very early
version of this paper, and the dataset from which estimates were based, were submitted
as part of course requirements in the Social Sciences 203 (Advanced Statistics for the
Social Sciences) class supervised by Dr. Rogelio Alicor L. Panao.
**
Rogelio Alicor L. Panao, PhD, is Associate Professor of Political Science at the
Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman. The data and
operational measure for competing legitimacy were adapted from the paper, Competing
Legitimacy, Legitimated Control: Public Approval and Presidential Ordinance Power in
the Philippines, 1987 to 2016, presented at the 2019 Wenzao International Conference
on Southeast Asian Studies in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

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