Balanced reporting? (and more…)
Saturday, March 25th, 2006
3/19/06
01:21:53 >edit
3/3/06 21:
04:24
Balanced reporting? (and more…)
[... a crappily organized political discourse(?!)]
"Balanced reporting" isn’t so balanced after all. That was what I realized when I watched a documentary on Sen. Gringo Honasan. I didn’t catch the whole thing. I only caught the part where they were presenting the issue on Magdalo (you know, the Army officers who seized part of
Makati
sometime in 2004, I believe). I’ve seen all the images before (by actual visual perception or just by imagination). Then I saw "Honasan" actually mentioned as that nefarious political man (who I looked up to before). I was surprised. I’ve never seen such pronouncements about actual big men and power hungry people being divulged by the popular networks of ABS-CBN and GMA channel 7. I’ve never seen how "dangerous", wily men be revealed in such a very insinuating way. I thought that was quite courageous of that program. But, then that station was government owned (I just learned this yester-night from Ma), so it’s not so risky of an act after all. So does that mean that if you’re not government owned, then you have to be brave? That if you’re not like them, then you can’t be that brave? Well, you tell me — who’s been that brave among the networks as they have been? I don’t recall at this time (since PGMArroyo’s presidency) of having seen ABS and GMA be so daring.
Actually I first realized this when I tuned in to RPN channel 9 while I was working with my computer (name’s <Gelenny>) — I think I was working on a project or organizing files. On an RPN news and public affairs program, I listened to a woman who lived in the Payatas area (Barangay?) about the projects that PGMArroyo has pushed through for these people and which helped them largely in order to lead better lives. She even mentioned that if they were urged to walk the streets against Arroyo, they wouldn’t do it, because they feel that they are really achieving the higher state of living that they never once had. Scripted? Well, so what if it is? The truth is that there really are projects that help alleviate poverty in several areas in the
Philippines
and I’ve never seen something like this in the likes of ABS or GMA. If you listen to the questions that these big network reporters ask in their news programs, maybe (just maybe) you’d notice that they are more for insinuating than information-seeking — try to listen to the questions from time to time. (Actually, reporters not only ask questions to get answers but also in order to make their own statements. See, they cannot say what they want to say (without a disclaimer that "this is my opinion"), but they can make others say it for themselves. It’s a very efficient trick. I was a journalist — not one of the best, but I was a journalist.)
Here’s a suggestion: why don’t these brave men and women of the "leftist" movement take on the NPA (New People’s Army). Who’s benefitting from them anyway? And who are the "new people" they’re referring to, and who are these "elite army force" "protecting" the new people from?
We’ve seen at least two cellphone towers (See: Globe comm. towers in
Masbate
and in Lucban, Quezon — just about 30 mins. away from here) bombed by the NPA. –>What was that for? Maybe to disable an important communication hub. Maybe to make a statement against the "corrupt capitalists". That’s a good thing for our economy.
I’ve heard stories of fastfood outlets "na ginagatasan ng mga may kapangyarihan" ("may kapangyarihan" being the NPA). Yes, let’s continue to support this sort of movement! Afterall, college students would have benefitted more from these food outlets had it not been for the communist looting. With all these plundering, the NPA will continue to thrive and the military will still spend millions of Pesos every year just to keep these communists at bay instead of using the tax money for community service. That’s good to our economy, right? Of course.
And I remember a bus was burned here in
Quezon
Province
(in Sariaya) because of the owner’s refusal to pay revolutionary taxes. There are several others (e.g. Capiz, Camarines Sur). –>Why would you burn a bus? Maybe to cripple transportation somehow. Maybe to make a statement about mass transportation. Maybe the bus company didn’t give its "gatas" to this communist army. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s good for our economy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if PGMArroyo gets assassinated. After all, as far as I know historically, only the great leaders* get to be assassinated. Lincoln, Kennedy, Guevarra… I’m sure you know more. [There was a large human rights offender, Fidel Castro, whose assassination was attempted several times by the CIA. Failed.]
(*Do I think she’s a good leader? Well, honestly, yeah. I’ve been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and I learned more about good governance and leadership in there than when I listened to all the rantings of those rally-rally ra-ra-ra boys and girls. I wanna see them with pom-poms next time and go make a pyramid. But even then, I’d be repulsed.)
So I realized that in order to experience real balanced reporting, I had to switch channels and watch several news on different channels. I suppose that the majority of people don’t do that, and to not do that doesn’t make sense if you want to make real sense of what is happening around you.
I know I didn’t write this little narrative very well. It’s my first time to write something this political. You’d see it in my writing style. I’m a layman, though I hope that I just passed myself up as a better-than-average layman (ironic). But, I hope that it would not deter you from seeing the salient points that I’ve presented here. What I hope is that you take what I’ve discussed here as starting points for you to think better and have better discussions about the political matters at hand.
—————
All these rebels use "freedom" as the keyword, but there isn’t only one sort of freedom. Absolute freedom should not exist. <
3/19/06
01:13:35
-edit>There is also the concept of "responsible freedom". It can exist, and it does exist. It’s just that it’s unpopular because it involves personal sacrifice<>. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights** recognizes this and declares in Article 29 that, "Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations", and in the last article, "Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any state, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."
"But isn’t Proclamation 1017 a violation of Article 30?" Well, maybe not entirely. Because the proclamation is not aimed at "destroying any of the rights". It was aimed at protecting the well-being of the state within which all other rights of the Filipinos are entwined.
Imagine losing PGMArroyo and putting someone such as FPJ or Erap in that place. Where would our "human rights" take us? Which is another point that I would like you to see: What is there beyond unseating Arroyo? Is there an actual plan that would benefit us after all the changing of the guard has occured? Okay, let’s suppose that she’s this splinter in your finger — you pull out the splinter, there’s the wound and what do you do with it? Put an ointment of some sort, the formulation of which is alien to all of us (Or put in some dog saliva). Would the wound heal? Would it get worse? What if it gets infected? If you leave it to itself, all those macrophages and its various cohorts would take care of that — that wound’s actually quite small anyway. But in the real world, where are our white blood cells in all this revolutionary movement? Where is that supreme power that would orchestrate any likeness to the phagocytic*** movement towards national healing? (***a bit of human physiology there. Ü)
(**I’d be surprised if you can enumerate at least 10 of the articles it contains — it has 30 articles on our human rights as human beings, and I consider only 28 as the actual rights. That’s besides children’s rights and women’s rights and all the other rights that you could think of)
-Remember: destruction is easier than construction. I admit that to organize and to execute any rally at any place and at any time is difficult. But so is organizing and executing any sort of constructive endeavor. So when it comes down to it, what sort of difficulty would you want to take — those steps that go towards destruction or towards construction?
I was a punk, but I never had the real punk attitude. Because I could never hold on to the idea of complaining and screaming strong disgust when that’s the only thing that we are making happen. I’m not against punks. In fact I like punks more than hip-hoppers. Or rather, I like punks and I don’t like "hip-hoppers". I can stand hip-hop people, but not the hip-hop "attitude". Or atti-tood. However you wanna spell it in "da hood". (In fact two of my "punk" friends, our vocalist (Rex) and our rhythm guitarist (Ian), have turned to the hip-hop side, though not entirely.) Maybe I don’t understand them yet, but I know and understand it when I say that punks offer something helpful to society other than "performing arts". A concrete example: Food Not Bombs. Type that phrase search word in, say, Google, and I’m sure you’ll see what it is. (I actually haven’t seen one online, but I’m sure it has ‘net presence. Tell me if there isn’t.) Plus, I’ve never seen pop or hip-hop groups do some big concerts against poverty, or for peace, or against famine. It’s always the rock scene, alternative, punk… It’s always them (Hint: Rock for Peace, Live Aid, those performances shortly after 9/11, and of course, U2 and Rage Against the Machine concerts). And if ever the "phoppers" do something like that, it will be because they’re being left behind or because people have been saying that they didn’t care. Or both. I won’t be watching for it. Don’t give a heck. Punks Not Dead! (With apologies :’p )
—————
I heard a certain Lito Combalecer on radio some days ago this week. (I remembered his name because I had a teacher before named Combalecer, and he was a thinker. I mean, he was one of those whom I call "free thinkers", a term I discovered in 1997 from a friend in the university.) I always see comparisons being made about PGMArroyo’s moves and those things that happened before during and after Martial Law. Frankly, I don’t concern myself with that very well because a lot of these comparisons don’t come with disclaimers — because we must remember that historical comparisons don’t matter much if you have two different people who are doing similar things (not "the same things", mind you) within different environments ("situations" or "contexts", whatever you want to refer to it) . Anyway, so I was in my uncle’s bedroom, the radio’s on DZRH, with Mr. "Pangga". Lito called in and instead of comparing the previous Martial Law with what is happening today, he contrasted. It was funny, really. Essentially, he said that the rally leaders of yesterday didn’t hide behind curtains (or skirts, or the shadows…). They were "frontliners" (his term) unlike today’s "revolutionary leaders". That’s true.
Actually, on that same radio program I first heard an old lady who was complaining about the worsening economic situation. And Pangga was engaging in a conversation with her — clarifying statements with questions, and making his own seconding statements on what she’d said. And then Mr. Combalecer called up, saying something about the inconsistencies of comparisons with the previous Martial Law and today’s Proclamation 1017 and such political… things, and Pangga was noticeably disconnected to him. The only words that I heard come up from him were, "Uh-huh"s and, "M-hmm"s. Now, Hmm? Was he eating something that time? Was he engaged in another conversation with one of his colleagues inside the booth? Did he have an inkling that Mr. Combalecer might be a government man who was passing himself up as a common citizen? Well, common citizen or government element, he proposed some important points. And it was funny. Funny how I’ve heard no one else talk what he talked about, and funny how "the great" Pangga became so dumb. And when another man who called to complain about the high price of LPGs, he was engaged again. (But, then he also put some harness on the man’s mouth who was complaining "too much" without having considered the complex and real conditions that happen behind LPG pricing. So for that I give him some credit.)
- and then on ABS and GMA7 there were all these news about snakes everyday (or "every night" if you want to be that precise)! There was a snake found inside a car hood, inside a house, in the backyard, heck, maybe even inside noses. There were snakes given to DENR, there were those denied by DENR, those that were taken care of by the captors, and most probably those that have already been eaten… What’s up with that?!
Since when did snakes become such celebrities that they’ve managed to slither their way into regular TV news programs? Wow. The endangered Butaan must have been so pissed off that they went out from hiding and became featured on Discovery Channel — a foreign channel… an international channel — and being studied by foreign scientists…
Anyway…
Now, we return you to our regular snake features…
[
3/3/06
22:51:40
>Whenever there's any doubt there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you. –Sam {Robert De Niro}, Ronin]
03/20/06
12.43.03 >All I know is that I know nothing. –Socrates
3/19/06
02:04:28
>end edit.
—————-
03/22/06
19.24.57 >Below is a complete transcription of one of my conversations with G0-T0 in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. It’s quite interesting.
"
Shadou: On the yacht, you mentioned Revan. But Revan sought to destroy the Republic.
G0-T0: A common misconception, not supported by facts.
Revan did not intend to destroy the Republic. He deliberately left the infrastructure of many planets intact - and many military production facilities.
S: But why? Revan had limitless forces.
G: I believe that by whatever means he used to build his armada, he recognized that it was somehow a limited source - or that he was only willing to use it to a point.
My predictions is that whatever production facility was being employed, it carried a price that Revan perceived as detrimental to the goals of the Sith.
And that is why Revan left many military production facilities in the Republic intact.
S: But why? Revan wouldn’t need to conquer anything else once the Republic was beaten.
G: That is what occupies my calculations as well. I believe that Revan saw a war on another front that we did not, or saw the value in keeping a strong military force.
S: Do you know where Revan got her forces?
G: That is also a mystery to me. I don not have any evidence upon which to build an answer.
It is significant that after the defeat of Malak, the forces decreased considerably, and after Revan’s departure from known space, production ceased completely.
It is my prediction that whatever was producing such forces needed a strong, effective leader to insure its stability. Without Revan or Malak, there was no such figure left among the Sith.
S: What about Malak?
G: Unlike Revan, Malak demonstrated no concern for the future of the Republic in his attacks.
His stratagems were painfully obvious, intending to crush all resistance, everywhere. There was little thought beyong the complete destruction of anything that opposed him.
He left quite a mess. I’m still trying to assess all the damage.
Between the two, I would have preferred Revan rule the galaxy. He had foresight in his conquest, a subtlety that Malak did not possess.
"
———————
"Cogito ergo non ferio." –
The Shadoufang – telin le thaed:·
