Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the role of mass me­dia in pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens can nev­er be overem­pha­sised. Dur­ing his Re­pub­lic Day ad­dress yes­ter­day, Row­ley said: "Es­pe­cial­ly at a time like this the na­tion owes a deep debt of grat­i­tude to those vig­i­lant pro­fes­sion­als who work in the mass me­dia. These are the men and women who le­git­imise the doc­trine that the price of free­dom is eter­nal vig­i­lance.

"The role of the mass me­dia in pro­tect­ing us cit­i­zens from the ex­cess­es and in­dis­cre­tions of un­wor­thy lead­ers is not to be un­der­val­ued...We ex­press deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion to our jour­nal­ists for their stick-to-itive­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the dogged pro­tec­tion of our democ­ra­cy."

Row­ley said in sup­port of their ef­forts, cit­i­zens must not fail to come to terms with the fact that the key to eter­nal vig­i­lance is a well- in­formed, en­light­ened and ed­u­cat­ed so­ci­ety and it was there­fore in­cum­bent up­on all of us to main­tain an open mind and a watch­ful eye in be­ing so en­dowed.

"On this, the oc­ca­sion of the 36th an­niver­sary of the at­tain­ment of Re­pub­lic sta­tus of our beloved na­tion, I will be less than hon­est if I at­tempt to con­ceal the fact that it is with a spir­it of deep con­cern on the one hand but with abun­dant faith on the oth­er, that I wel­come this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress a few re­marks to all my fel­low cit­i­zens, at home and abroad," he said.

Row­ley said in crit­i­cal times like these ba­sic prin­ci­ples were be­ing swept aside, trea­sured val­ues are be­ing erod­ed and lead­ers lose re­spect and re­gard for the no­blest tra­di­tions of civilised so­ci­ety. Row­ley said the un­der­ly­ing stan­dards for the func­tion­ing of vi­tal in­sti­tu­tions of State, in­clud­ing our Par­lia­ment, were bring con­ve­nient­ly and unashamed­ly com­pro­mised.

"To add to the im­po­si­tion, our lead­ers, rather than hum­ble them­selves and mag­nan­i­mous­ly ho­n­our their sa­cred oath to pro­mote and de­fend the pub­lic in­ter­est, has­ten un­car­ing­ly to ex­er­cise the pref­er­ence of cham­pi­oning the evils of mis­be­hav­ior in and out of pub­lic of­fice to a de­gree which de­fies wis­dom, deco­rum, de­cen­cy and un­der­stand­ing," he said. Row­ley said it was time to take stock and con­tem­plate the well-be­ing of our coun­try.

"While there­fore I de­light in wish­ing all my fel­low cit­i­zens a hap­py and rest­ful Re­pub­lic Day, I call up­on you to join with me in us­ing the oc­ca­sion to take stock of the de­vel­op­ments which are en­gulf­ing and em­bat­tling us and seek to con­tem­plate and clar­i­fy in our own minds the des­tiny which we all so fer­vent­ly wish to set for the wel­fare and well- be­ing of our beloved home­land," he said.