Category: media

ashamed ! #aug23

WHY WHY WHY is president aquino snubbing the survivors and families of the victims of the august 23 hostage-taking massacre who are back in town, no matter how they fear and hate manila?  why has he denied them an audience with his excellent self as they commemorate the painful deaths of their loved ones exactly a year ago today?

WHAT WHAT WHAT is it about this president that he cannot find the time or the face or the grace to properly meet with these aggrieved hongkong chinese who deserve at the very least to be welcomed with shared sorrow and sympathy, at the very best to be heard, by cleaner ears, as they express their continuing, and very very valid, grievances re the botched hostage-taking?

the way i read lacierda’s explanation, it is because the bereaved chinese are accompanied by a democratic party legislator (james to kun-sun), therefore such a meeting would have “political color”, meaning i suppose that it would win points for the legislator but maybe not for the president who has a forthcoming state visit to the communist/socialist mainland?

Days before the first anniversary of the hostage tragedy, Lacierda expressed reservations over the group’s request to meet Aquino.

Lacierda said the request could have a “political color” since the group had been accompanied by a lawmaker with the elections in Hong Kong forthcoming.

But the victim’s brother stressed that they were never interested in politics.

“We are just normal citizens in Hong Kong. We do not know politics. What I can only see in this event is that my brother got killed without any reason. The rescue team in the Philippines could not save my brother. They could not save lives,” Tse Chi-hang said.

…Legislator To also urged the Chinese government to represent the group’s interest in the forthcoming state visit of President Aquino in Beijing.

“We want the Central People’s Government to take advantage of the meeting with the Philippine president in the coming several days to represent the interest of the families to negotiate for the settlement and apology for the Hong Kong families, Hong Kong people and Chinese citizens,” To said.

here’s more on the china visit by manila bulletin’s roy mabasa:

Aquino will be accompanied by senior foreign and defense officials, underscoring the importance the Philippine government has placed on the trip.

The visit was arranged as early as March amid the outrage in the country over Beijing’s execution of three Filipino drug convicts.

President Hu formally invited Aquino during last year’s Leaders’ Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Aquino himself confirmed earlier that an invitation from the Chinese government had been sent to him.

In an earlier interview, Chinese Ambassador to Manila Liu Jianchao said Chinese officials were open to discussing with President Aquino the Spratlys issue during his visit.

“Everything can be talked about, but we can talk about issues in a very good faith and goodwill, in a spirit of seeking well-measured settlement of these issues. More than this we can work ways to maintain peace and stability in the region where we have disputes,” Liu told the Manila Bulletin.

“I’m sure we have the wisdom to keep peace and stability in this region and at the same time both of us could benefit from such a stable and peaceful region,” he added. “In particular, we can cooperate in this region in exploring and developing the resources. This is going to be a wonderful arrangement and at the same time we can reduce the possibility for a possible conflict. So, this is going to be a wonderful one.”

Liu also welcomed the visit, pointing out that this will further promote “the wonderful relations between the two countries in many realms: in political confidence and trust, economic cooperation, trade, and people to people exchanges.”

wonderful daw, lol.  of course we have no idea what the quid pro quos are, ‘no?  given our trade and investment needs, lalo na our spratlys claim, it may be that the prez is walking on eggs, scared of ruffling mainland feathers.  for all we know a formal apology to the chinese government and to the hongkong chinese may be in the offing finally, but in the mainland and addressed to the highest officials first?  better safe than sorry?

unfortunately the snub here and now, when we are confronted with memories of that awful awful day that filipinos would rather forget but cannot, so shameful and disgraceful and horrible was it, boggles minds and hearts.  according to what values and ethics is it all right for the aquino government to behave like it owes the bereaved hongkong chinese nothing: no formal apology, no compensation from the government, and no heads of top guns rolling?

it doesn’t help that history channel‘s docu The Manila Hostage Massacre had as its star resource person no less than mediaman erwin tulfo who had the gall to pontificate re the authorities’ shortcomings.  tulfo, with mike rogas, in my book, deserves worse than the 10,000 peso fine imposed by the KBP for his ill-timed ill-advised intervention in a police matter involving endangered lives, and with international repercussions.

here’s the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility:

The KBP Standards Authority December 2010 decision declared that:

“The Authority finds cause to hold the following respondents liable for first offenses (against) certain provisions of the Broadcast Code, as follows:

“On respondents Radio Mindanao Network (Radyo Mo Nationwide, RMN), Michael Rogas, and Erwin Tulfo, for having violated Sec. 1, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code (Coverage of crimes in progress), the following penalties are hereby imposed: The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure on respondent Radio Mindanao Network; the sum of Fifteen Thousand Pesos (P15,000.00) and reprimand on respondent Michael Rogas; and the sum of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) and reprimand on respondent Erwin Tulfo, all in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.1, Part III of the Broadcast Code.

“We, however, find no cause to hold Jesus J. Maderazo of RMN liable under the Broadcast Code.

“On respondent ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation, for having violated Sec. 4, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code (Schedule of Penalties for Grave Offenses) , the following penalties are hereby imposed The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure, in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.2, Part III of the Broadcast Code.

“On respondent Associated Broadcasting Company (TV5), for having violated Sec. 4, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code, the following penalties are hereby imposed: The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure, in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.2, Part III of the Broadcast Code.”

The penalties do not seem to be commensurate to the wrongdoing. Among its options, the KBP chose not to suspend Rogas and Tulfo for the major ethical offense of interviewing Mendoza during the most crucial stages of the crisis.

In the first place, however, the KBP decision, comparable to a mountain’s laboring to produce a mouse, had been almost a year in the making. In all that time, its Standards Authority simply decided not to include GMA Network Inc. (GMA-7) in its investigation because the network is not a KBP member.

lest president aquino and the kbp have forgotten: it was a shameful shameful shameful day and the survivors and families of the victims deserve an apology, compensation, and justice.

OMGWTF!!!
command responsibility
command responsibility 2
command responsibility 3
holding back
what if
brief narratives
ressa, media, flunk test
media & national interest
Truth and consequence
vilifying media
no laws broken, no heads rolling

CCP folds to terrorism :(

on teleradyo, karen davila and vic what’shisname are ignorance & arrogance personified.  speaking for an angry people daw, and telling us how to think and what to think.  hey you two, you’re back in the dark ages, along with the prez and some senators and congressmen, why am i not surprised, the bishops must oh so love you.  at the very least, please read this : rody alampay’s Democracy as Religion, and level up the thinking and talking naman!

Let us take it from the experience of Muslims. (Let us be honest to start, in other words: If there is any religion that truly reels from shallow and irresponsible discourse in the Western-media dominated modern world, it is Islam.) Just before 9/11, and even before some Danish cartoonist with balls started drawing Mohammed, Islamic nations led by Pakistan had begun calling annually for a non-binding UN resolution condemning “defamation of religion”. Every year from 2001 to 2010 the proposition received a majority vote from the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

But every year, too, that majority vote had grown smaller and smaller, with previously fence-sitting members of the UNHRC one-by-one siding with the resolution’s steadfast critics: they who had warned that the broadly-worded resolution would likely be used by repressive governments to stifle any expression that can even remotely be tied to religious sensibilities. (The Catholic Church in the Philippines, for example, ties faith and decency to everything from the Reproductive Health debates to jueteng.)

The “religious defamation” lobby, in a strategic retreat, abandoned the annual campaign for a UN resolution against defamation of religion this year. Instead, it sought common ground with advocates for free expression, who were coming to every annual vote with an ever-growing list of reports and governments that had been proving their fears well-founded. The result: the UNHRC this year voted unanimously, no longer passing a resolution “combating defamation of religions”, but in its stead, one (with a deep breath) “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief.”

Two crucial shifts in the thinking. First, the focus goes from requiring governments to protect religion, to demanding that states protect individuals. Second, the emphasis is no longer on religion, but on tolerance.

The consensus no longer calls for restrictions on legitimate expression. Instead, it takes a more constructive and positive approach, emphasizing education, not prison and not violence, to weed out intolerance and bigotry (which, in any culture, is always seen as a symptom of maleducation, bad breeding, and an immature society.)

Tolerance will ultimately benefit all, the heretics as well as the faithful.

and to filipino artists out there.  i am dismayed that we are not united in protesting CCP’s surrender to CBCP’s censorship.  this is not about how worthy or unworthy mideo cruz’s art is.  this is about being forced to abide by values that blind and terrorize.  tinitimbang tayo nguni’t kulang :(

Let the artists be weird. They can only try to push the boundaries of thought and expression. That is why they are called the avant-garde. They are soldiers further in advance of the army itself, slashing and burning and clearing the path for whatever may follow. The boundaries must be expanded, but the artists themselves have no power to dictate where the rest of society will go.

For governments, on the other hand, as even the Organization of Islamic Conference effectively conceded, the reflex to empower itself, and to restrict rather than expand democratic space, is automatic. The notion that states can and should define and execute what is criminally insulting is an invitation to destroy all that a nation such as ours supposedly upholds: democracy as well as, ironically, faith itself.

Imelda Marcos, coming down on the side of the Inquirer, spoke of the Cultural Center of the Philippines as sanctuary for the Filipino soul. For all, she said more specifically, that is true, and good, and beautiful about this nation. She throws in the proposition that as a state institution, there is no place in the CCP for any thought that could insult any religion.

Actually, it is the other way around. As a state institution consecrated to the arts, the CCP should be agnostic to the notion of insult, and dogmatic to the possibility of expression, to the chance of happening upon art.

Art as Terrorism? Try Democracy as Religion. Where democracy is dogma, every expression is prayer, freedom is shared and miraculously multiplied to nourish the multitude – the idiots and even abusive among them. Abuse, of course, as in all religions, is a sin; but abuse of thought is also always indefinable, and so in the democratic theology, tolerance is the highest virtue. Democracy provides the only true environment where you can defend your faith, if you really have it, while also protecting the rights of others, if you really believe we all deserve it.

too much ado over phnoy photo

yes it’s an awful photo, but all the crap about the tacky wallpaper, the huge ashtray and pack of cigarettes, susmaryosep, are neither here nor there in the context of the larger picture, the larger question, of where his daang matuwidis headed.

if anything, it’s the blank look of phnoy* a la george bush post 9/11, that i mind having seen at all.  talaga naman, nakakapagpatanong, what was the three-headed hydra thinking, approving for release such a photo in the first place.  ano yon, in the spirit of transparency?  LOL!  such rookies!

*phnoy: di ko ma-take ever ang “pnoy” just because napaka-contrived to seem maka-pinoy.  but phnoy, as in jologspeak/spell (and phinoy/z for pinoy/s) which my cousin karen b.c. started on fb, i love it!  ph as in philippines too, why not.

media complicit in division over RH bill

after ANC’s harapan RH debate last night, i’m really hoping that GMA news and public affairs will rethink its promised “definitive debate” on may 22.  is a debate really the way to go?  we’ve heard them all before, especially the antis like golez and lina, and those priests and their blind believers.  in fact any debate is lopsided in favor of the anti-RH, considering that every sunday for many months now priests and bishops have been ranting against the RH bill from the pulpits.  i wonder what ANC thought they accomplished by even holding an online poll a la american idol that had more than 60 percent voting to “ibasura” the RH bill.  so is that supposed to have reversed SWS survey findings that have 7 out of 10 filipinos in favor of the RH bill?

priests and bishops and their faithful as well as the media should read the latest column of john j. caroll, sj (via flor lacanilao) who dares disagree with the church on the RH bill:

With all due respect for the position of the Philippine bishops, I do not see that total opposition to the bill necessary. First of all, the bill does not legalize contraceptives; they are already legal and may be purchased in any drugstore.

Neither does the bill legalize abortion; on the contrary it reaffirms the constitutional prohibition. It is highly probable in fact that if contraceptives become more available to the poor, the scandalous number of illegal abortions performed annually will be dramatically reduced.

On whether the IUD and some contraceptive pills may prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum and so destroy a human life, the current draft of the bill passes the responsibility to the Food and Drug Administration, which should ban any such “contraceptives” from drugstores throughout the country.

The charge is made that the RH bill will destroy the Filipino family. On the basis of more than 25 years of pastoral and social work in Payatas, and some seven years sponsoring natural family planning programs, I can say that the family is already at great risk—and not because of contraceptives.

These are often one-parent families abandoned by the fathers who have gone on to father second and even third families. Or no-parent families abandoned by both father and mother and being raised by grandparents.

If only the effort and resources being now invested in opposition to the RH bill were being used for serious family-life education and family support services, there might be little reason to oppose the bill.

this is a prime opportunity for GMA news tv do ANC better by scrapping the debate format to level the talking field that is dominated by the anti-RH.  let mel tiangco be the devil’s advocate, raise the arguments of the anti-RH for the pro-RH to respond to without imposed time limits that do not help the discourse any.  this is one of those issues (like the u.s. bases issue in the late 1980s) when the media networks should not stand by as neutral observers but should take a stand, if not expressly pro-RH, at least expressly for a fairer hearing of the pro-RH side.  allow the majority sentiment full expression, for a change.