by Anna Sumicad
The Philippines ranks third on the World Risk Index, highlighting its vulnerability not just to natural hazards but also to social and infrastructural challenges (UNU-EHS, 2016). Within the last five years, the country has faced severe storms, floods, and heatwaves that have disrupted livelihoods. However, public understanding of these issues is shaped by media narratives, which tend to emphasize disaster spectacles rather than systemic causes or grassroots perspectives (Boykoff & Roberts, 2007).
Within the past 5 years, the country has had it difficult, facing several thunderstorms and flash floods, and the extremes of heat waves that affected the livelihood of the Filipinos. Yet the attitude of the Filipinos in understanding the issue is deeply anchored by the media narratives that frame the climate narrative within this country. Drawing concepts from Chomsky’s Propaganda Model and Hall’s Social Production of News, this paper examines how the Philippines’ major broadcasting news outlets construct the climate change narrative, highlighting disaster spectacles over contextualizing the events through systematic cause and grassroots voices. Unpacking the media process, this paper reveals how dominant climate narratives contribute to the fragmented public understanding of the climate crisis and also halt the potential for a just and proper collective action.
News as a Propaganda Machine
In Noam Chomsky’s argument, the mainstream media outlets operate as a propaganda machine that better serves the elite’s interests through carefully filtering news to get their message across to the public. Centralizing the themes of the 5 filters of news to the climate context:
- Ownership – Having the Philippines’ largest media outlets owned by the large business groups and elite families influences editorial voice and their news priorities. This duopoly together yields about 80% TV audience share (Media Ownership Monitor [MOM], 2023).
- Advertisements – The major source of revenue of traditional media outlets comes from advertisements, and major entities that allocate larger funding for these advertisements are corporations linked to industries like energy, production and manufacturing, and real estate. This tight link between the news ownership and partner advertisers puts pressure on avoiding reporting environmental contexts since the mentioned industries exacerbate the growing issue of the climate crisis.
- Sourcing – The dependence of media outlets on government agencies like Atmospheric, PAGASA (Philippine Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration), and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is strategic and necessary. The news industry needs a stable flow of raw stories that they can report, and experts are necessary on specific fields since news broadcasting outlets need to uphold the value of media being “objective” hence relying on sources with presumptive accuracy is a safety net. This reliance on official sources often results in underreporting, with coverage limited to forecasts and the immediate aftermath of climate events.
- Flack – Several incidents of human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples remain unreported by major news outlets, as covering these issues can pose risks to journalists. Media outlets may avoid certain reports to avoid backlash.
- Anti-ideology – This becomes evident when media narratives portray progressive protests as anti-development instead of highlighting the issues that those active movements are trying to protest.
GMA and ABS-CBN, like other mainstream outlets, are shaped by structural pressures that filter climate change coverage. Ownership and advertising discourage stories that threaten business interests. Official sourcing privileges government and corporate voices, while flack and anti-ideology marginalize activists and systemic critiques. The result is a narrative that emphasizes disaster response and individual responsibility, with little to no attention to the deeper causes of the climate crisis or the voices of those most affected.
News Constructing Realities
Filter is one thing, and developing news is another. The roster of stories to be broadcast is carefully curated, and contrary to the concept of news being objective, it is not a transparent reflection of reality but rather produced under institutional processes where journalists can transform events into news.
This construction of realities into perceivable news starts with the Primary Definers such as powerful institutions like the government and its agencies, which define and shape the dominant narrative by providing statements. The climate narratives in ABS-CBN and GMA News often cite agencies like the Climate Change Commission (CCC), the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR), and PAGASA, while setting aside the voices of grassroots environmental groups and Indigenous people who can widen the climate narrative and stretch it from the source to its implications.
In shaping public perception, terms like “Filipino resiliency” and “sustainable development” are used. Transcribing technical terms into everyday language simplifies the climate narrative and reduces its threats, which does not help in promoting urgency in acting towards mitigations for climate change. In fostering environmental discourse for Filipinos, ideological reproduction and limits of media frame climate change within the dominant ideology and repeatedly reproduce it while limiting marginalized and alternative views that may come from other sources like indigenous groups and progressive environmental activists. As a result, the media rarely connects environmental degradation and systematic issues, which limits public discourse and weakens the side of climate justice advocates.
From Concepts to Application
Closely looking into Stuart Hall’s social production of news, it echoes loudly in the way major media outlets in the Philippines deliver news about the climate. The focal point of this close analysis is the GMA News Weather Center. This weather segment is distributed in different airtimes: during mornings as a regular part of “Unang Balita,” and in the afternoon updates included in “Balitanghali.” To add depth and relevance, throughout the day GMA Integrated News Bulletin online, which can be streamed on their official YouTube channel, provides a different conversation because the central theme of this paper is televised news but can be a great opportunity to explore for future studies.
GMA Weather Center’s report predominantly relies on PAGASA along with government disaster agencies as their primary definers, aligning with Hall’s idea of media’s dependency on authoritative voices that only amplifies the dominant narrative about weather events and climate change. Reporters share scientific data explaining rainfall increase along with associated risks to inform the audience that they need to prepare for the sake of their safety. These warnings and advice shape public understanding around government-led preparedness, but there is no single understanding of why these natural calamities happen.
GMA also translates meteorological information into digestible language for the majority of Filipinos (rainfalls, flashfloods, etc.). While translating terms into understandable language is helpful, this translation also reduces climate phenomena into cases that can be immediately actionable, undermining the importance of real climate mitigation. Lastly, the selective framing evident in GMA’s Weather Center only highlights immediate threats and offers precautionary advice over contextualizing why such phenomena take place. This aligns with Hall’s observation that media frames often stray away from structural criticism and lean more toward reactive and event-driven news.
From Stations to Filipinos
The media’s construction of climate narratives, shaped by structural filters and ideological framing, plays a critical role in shaping Filipinos’ attitudes towards climate change and the crisis along with it. By prioritizing the dominant views of powerful institutions and neglecting the systematic causes of environmental degradation, such as mining, and putting focus on corporations while marginalizing the true voice of the environment, the structure of news production and propaganda filters are the primary reason why Filipinos hold a fragmented and event-driven understanding of climate change, limiting public discourse about climate justice.
This fragmented understanding of climate change boils down further to fatalism, or the belief that climate change impacts are inevitable. It only encourages individual responsibility and limits collective actions. Filipinos have already fallen into a cycle where they believe that climate change is an inevitable hazard rather than a socio-political crisis that demands transformation. Had the media become more inclusive, investigative, and brave enough to counter hegemonic ideologies, Filipinos might just stand their chance of being environmentally conscious and perhaps become more than just victims of climate change, but active agents of change.
Environmentalism without climate justice is just gardening.
References
Boykoff, M. T., & Roberts, J. T. (2007). Media coverage of climate change: Current trends, strengths, weaknesses (Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper 2007/3). United Nations Development Programme. https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/boykoffmaxwellandrobertsjtimmons.pdf
Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft, & United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS). (2016). World Risk Report 2016: Focus Logistics and Infrastructure PDF. Retrieved from https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:5763/WorldRiskReport2016_small_meta.pdf
VERA Files & Reporters Without Borders. (2024). Media Ownership Monitor Philippines: Television. Retrieved January 29, 2024, from https://philippines.mom-gmr.org/en/media/tv/
GMA Integrated News. (2025). GMA Integrated News Weather Center YouTube Channel. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqYw-CTd1dU2yGI71sEyqNw
Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines 