ABSTRACT
The political stability and territorial integrity of the Philippines are threatened by a number of sub-national conflicts, including the worlds longest standing Communist insurgency, a separatist rebellion centred around the Muslim Moro community on the island of Mindanao, as well as terrorist groups with links to al Qaeda, pursuing a mixture of national and regional objectives. Some of these conflicts were drawn into the US ‘war on terror’ when the US State Department placed the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing the New Peoples Army (NPA), as well as the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Pentagon Gang (a criminal gang specialising in kidnap for ransom), on its list of ‘foreign terrorist organisations’after 11 September 2001. All of the groups and communities that are currently engaged in conflict with the Philippine government are able to exert considerable influence over the media agenda through violence but have struggled to influence media outputs to their advantage. This chapter assesses how the media has reported these conflicts since 2000, the extent to which the various groups and communities engaged in conflict with the government have been able to influence media outputs and the impacts that the media has had on these conflicts.
