Category: media

Freedom of the editor

Should a paper present, in the national interest, only the shining aspects of the nation? Why concentrate on the ugly as the Philippine press seems to be doing? What sort of an image does the Philippines have abroad? Personally, I do not care how we look abroad; what is important is how we look to ourselves. Let us publish what’s wrong with us—perhaps, enough indignation may be aroused to right it. Expose the evils—to stop them. What do they thing? [sic, think?] We know what’s wrong with them. Never mind what they think. We must make democracy work here—or lose it. That’s what is vital. The freedom of an editor rests, ultimately, on the success of freedom.

~ Teodoro M. Locsin 10 April 1965

mediocre media

and when the poll count stalled, the tv coverage stopped.  anywhere else in the world, a stalled automated election count would have been grist for the mill, something that would have excited, perked up, broadcast media, given them something to pounce on and monitor non-stop, its extent and implications for 2016 elections to discuss and debate, in the service of the filipino electorate.  instead, coverage petered out, pang newscast and regular programming na lang.  soooo in the service of their bosses?  bosses with vested interests in non-transparent automated elections?

o baka naman napakiusapan lang sila ni brillantes, as in, let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill, let’s not give gus lagman and the IT community a venue for venting, let’s not get the people agitated, let’s relax, take it easy.  argh.

c’mon, media.  level up naman. 

didn’t vote

i had always voted, since the late 1960s when i came of age.

never voted for marcos, but he kept winning.  voted for cory in 86 but she was cheated and had to mount the huge protest that led to EDSA.  voted for salonga in 92 but fvr won.  voted for erap (how stupid of me) in 98 and he won but was edsa-ed.  voted for bro. eddie (he was talking alternative economics) in 2004 but arroyo won.  voted for jamby and her nationalist platform in 2010 but noynoy won.

kahit midterm elections, pinapatulan ko noon.  in may 2007, some months before i started blogging, i wrote Tipo kong iboto and sent it to everyone in my mailing list, including the inquirer.  all about voting on issues for a change.  economic issues, like the debt policy, e-vat, charter change, pork barrel.  wala rin.  once they won they forgot their promises, puro pangakong napako.

seeing no signs that it would be different this time, and praning over pcos, i didn’t vote na lang.  so yes wala akong kinalaman sa pagkakatalo ni jack enrile.  at wala akong kinalaman sa pagkakapanalo ni grace poe.  may kinalaman lang ako sa low turnout, well, lower than 2o10, na inaamin naman ni brillantes.

The refusal to give up today

GIVE UP TOMORROW exposes a Kafkaesque extravaganza populated by flamboyantly corrupt public officials, cops on the take, and a frenzied legal and media circus. It is also an intimate family drama focused on the near mythic struggle of two angry and sorrowful mothers who have dedicated more than a decade to executing or saving one young man, Paco Larrañaga.

THE REFUSAL TO GIVE UP TODAY
by Katrina Stuart Santiago

On the evening of July 16 1997, Paco Larrañaga was having drinks with his classmates from culinary school after a full day of exams. He went home at 2AM and was back in school at 8AM on July 17, for more exams. The teacher who proctors the tests swears that Paco was present in that classroom, his classmates are witness to his attendance – in school and for drinks the night before, official school records prove his presence, too. Paco was in Manila, and nowhere else, on July 16 and July 17, 1997.  Read on