Category: media

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.

protecting a plagiarist

when mainstream media can and do ignore the scandalous plagiarism of a krip yuson, when he continues to write a column for the arts and culture section of philippine star, if he continues to write for rogue magazine, when he continues to shepherd aspiring writers in the dumaguete writing workshop, if he continues to teach creative writing in the ateneo, if he continues to be a presence in the palanca awards night, what does it say of our mainstream media, our academic institutions, and our literary culture?

at least in social media he has been exposed and excoriated, as he deserves to be, and gmanews online has fired him as editor-at-large.   i am sure it helped that no less than the center for media freedom and responsibility — executive director, melinda quintos de jesus; deputy director, luis teodoro; directors jose abueva, fr. joaquin bernas, fulgencio factoran, maribel ongpin, paulynn paredes-sicam, and vergel santos — jeered at yuson from its website for attempting to legitimize plagiarism.

so again i ask, what does it say of our mainstream media, our academic institutions, and our literary culture when a krip yuson is allowed to go on as if nothing happened?   as if plagiarism by a much-admired writer is forgivable.   microcosm of the macrocosm?   if danding cojuangco can get away with the coconut levy funds, if the marcoses can get away with plunder and human rights violations, if jocjoc bolante can get away with a fertilizer scam, if gma can get away with hello-garci and extrajudicial killings, if the aquinos can get away with hacienda luisita, if the supreme court can get away with partisanship and plagiarism, if the bishops can get away with lying about sex and reproduction, if angelo reyes can get away with suicide, why not krip yuson with plagiarism?

mainstream media and academics and the righteous showbiz burgis were so quick to jump on willie revillame for the janjan episode.   this renders their silence on krip yuson’s plagiarism and arrogance both deafening and shocking.   more so when one asks why kaya the silence, and the only answer seems to be that they are protecting their own kind, condoning their own sins, tell me if i’m wrong.   wonder no more what’s happening to our country.   they are all complicit in this damaged culture.

in the spirit of disclosure: krip and i were friends until we had a falling out over a personal matter many years ago.   i’ve since kept out of his way as he has kept out of mine.   so, if we were still friends, would i be saying all these in public?   given the way he has handled it, YES, and i would not have hesitated to scream at him to his face, or over the phone, for being so stupid as to think he was big enough to get away with it.   not in my book.   friend or no friend.

social media as mosquito press

biyaheng EDSA: saan ba papunta? —  this was the question posed by ateneo’s politicial science organization’s politalk last january 31 that katrina and i attended.   my answer (via a powerpoint presentation by ina) was to point out that in both EDSA and edsa dos when we ousted marcos and erap, what empowered the people was the access to information.

pre-EDSA the mosquito press dared defy censorship and tell the nation about the hidden wealth, the fake medals, the human rights violations atbp.   pre-edsados, the live tv broadcasts, with replays, of erap’s impeachment trial in the senate informed the nation about jueteng connections, secret bank accounts, stock market scams atbp.

a next EDSA, one that would aspire for deepseated change, would call for no less than a politicized media and an adequately informed and politicized citizenry uniting behind common goals.

in 1986 with the liberation of media, television was awash with public affairs talk shows.   the people were hungry for information after 14 years of censorship.   25 years later, there is not a single public affairs talk show on free tv.   where did they all go?   why does free tv offer nothing but inane entertainment, mostly soap operas and showbiz gossip?   it’s called the dumbing down of the filipino, and we have television to thank for it.   people are so inadequately informed about national affairs, it’s impossible to come to a consensus on anything, or even intelligently participate in discourse.

read william esposo‘s When the media become the bad news and a national problem:

Philippine media, especially television, will have to account for the big Information Gap in our country. Media are the principal means for acquiring information and a look at those top rating television shows will show that more emphasis is placed on what the Filipinos want rather than on what they need to know.

…Notice the programming profile of the top three TV networks, ABS-CBN, GMA Network and ABC, and how entertainment shows dominate the daily program schedules. In a country like ours with a serious Information Gap, that could be considered irrelevant programming. Marketing considerations were allowed to overrule the dictates of public service – unacceptable when you consider that these TV networks were awarded their respective franchises by the government to operate on the condition that they will provide public service.

… In a country like ours where a lot of things are not done right, media cannot pretend that everything is hunky-dory and just praise the government. We once had a media situation where fantasia and fiction became the main staple. This was during the period of martial law from September 22, 1972 to February 24, 1986 when the government television station was liberated. We should not allow that to happen again.

… A gnawing issue that also hounds Philippine media is the ownership structures of most media companies here – specifically those media companies that are linked to political interests. Television and radio should have been isolated from such compromised situations. However, instead of protecting public interest, the system of broadcast franchising also became a tool for political patronage. Try applying for a broadcast franchise if you’re not well connected.

… Media should be protecting the public from the long arm of the oligarchy that dominates political and economic power here. However, that will not happen when a media company is also owned by oligarchs or businessmen who are aligned with them. Under such a situation public service will certainly give way to self service.

clearly what we need are conscienticized oligarchs and businessmen who truly want to make things right, pay back, pay forward, whatever, by sponsoring public affairs tv programs that would create a demand for politicized conscienticized media practitioners who will go beyond echoing press releases re “growth” and “good economic fundamentals” and who will know that it’s not good news when there are lots of buyers of philippine retail treasury bonds (worth P100 B issued last february) because all it means is that the aquino government is going the way of presidents past and getting us deeper and deeper into debt.  among other things.

i have a dream that one day, the big businessmen who invest multimillions in  mindless entertainment day in day out would take their corporate social responsibility to heart, truly put their money where their mouth is, by investing too, or investing instead, in public discourse and nation-building.

until then, don’t knock social media — blogs, facebook, twitter — because these are today’s mosquito press.