For this issue of the Media Times, CMFR checked and reviewed PNP social cards, PNP statistics reported by the media as well as independent media death counts in the government’s war on drugs.

If there is anything that the Marawi siege proved, it is that the government can control the flow of information, and mainstream media can do little about it.

The media did not succeed in gaining more access to areas, as the military restricted their movement. They never gave the media access to frontline movements or “embed,” referring to the practice of allowing media to move with the troops.

Media reporting can do a lot by calling attention to the lapses in disaster response and from new issues that need study.