- Advertisement -

Batas Mauricio

I BELIEVE it is now appropriate, perhaps for the benefit of everyone, to re-state the story of the king who believed that everything he was saying and doing were correct, even if it did not reflect reality.

- Advertisement -

Here is a part of that story from Wikipedia: “A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two weavers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or `hopelessly stupid’.

“The Emperor’s ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same. Finally the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects.

“The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor suspects the assertion is true, but continues the procession.”

Why am I bringing this up at this point? The reason is that, like the officials and subjects of the Emperor in the story, all of us seem to have started to pretend likewise that everything that is happening now are okay, and are acceptable, because they are protrayed as necessary ingredients of the promise to bring about the change that Filipinos hoped for ever so fervently in the last few days.

And so, all so suddenly, all of us have accepted rudeness in public, and cursing and mouthing invectives as a part of our everyday language, whether in public or in private. All of us now appear amused, instead of being indignant, at previously-frowned upon behaviors such as sexual harassment, done in public yet, with full media coverage.

And, suddenly, it has become okay to threaten everyone suspected of a crime with death. Observance of constitutional guarantees, particularly of the guarantee of due process, seems passé or has gone out of fashion at this point, as long as it is done against persons accused of a crime.

The question now is, where would all these lead us to? I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I am uncomfortable with what is happening. Maybe, like what President Aquino and Mar Roxas and the other Liberal Party members did the other day, it is truly the time to be singing our songs.

For me though, the song I wish to sing, and, maybe, the song that President Duterte should be singing, too, goes something like this: “It’s a time to change ourselves and show the world, that we still truly care for each other… if we must change our ways, call on God for our guide…” The title of this song is “Time to Change.”

We, who are in media, should accept the truth that there are many of us who use our profession for purposes which are less than sublime, like extortion, as President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said. It is no use denying this unfortunate reality, because it is something that is there for all to see. If we deny extortion in media, then we would be lying.

And because extortion is a reality that cannot be denied, we who are in media must also accept the fact that the people who were victims of extortion by media practitioners cannot be prevented from thinking and acting negatively against those who extorted from them, and this is where Duterte was correct once more–media extortionists do get killed by, or on orders of, their victims.

But Duterte and his government should also accept the truth that there are still many in media who practice their profession to uphold truth and justice, and as a tool against wrongdoing and corruption both in the public and private sectors, despite the difficulty of doing so. And many mediamen get killed or persecuted, simply for espousing these righteous motives in the exercise of their profession.

And that was where Duterte was totally wrong, in generalizing that many of the media personalities who were killed were assassinated because they were engaged in extortion or corruption, or because some of them were, as he derisively described them to be,  “son of a b..ch”

There are good mediamen, as there are mediamen who are sons of “bi..es”, but not all are bad, as not all are good either. It is therefore wrong for Duterte or anyone else to be generalizing about a bad media, or even about a good media. With his long experience as a local chief executive, I know that Duterte would know, even from a distance, who is bad, and who is good, in media.

Be that as it may, the next important matter that must be clarified is this: assuming that a media personality is extortionist, or is corrupt, would that be a justification for summarily killing him or her? Does anyone have the right to take the life of a newsman or a broadcaster simply because of what he wrote or say? And, perhaps Duterte can clarify: when is a mediaman a “son of a bi..h?”

But let not this be a blind defense of media, for, indeed, practitioners have an urgent task to examine themselves and their colleagues, too, to look for solutions to the long pestering issue of corruption in media, whether it be the in the form of the so-called “envelopmental journalism”, or of distortion of news and events in the guys of commentaries carried out by broadcast networks and giant newspaper companies.

Indeed, many practitioners who are supposed to be merely dispensing the news, writing an account of events as they actually happened, nowadays have strayed into interpreting and commenting on the news, not really innocently or as an honest-to-goodness attempt at commentaries, but more on satisfying the interests of the people who had talked to them earlier on what to write about or what to broadcast.

Unless media carries out this self-examination real soon, and its practitioners thereafter conduct themselves in a manner worthy of respect and deference from the public, it should not expect media killings to stop, and harsh criticisms even from the President of the Philippines, to abate. Media should change first, before it can expect change from others.

Senator-Elect Francis Pangilinan, the author of the much-derided and much-hated Juvenile Justice Law (or Republic Act 9344, as amended, the law that allows children to commit heinous crimes and yet evade being arrested, detained, and then prosecuted and held liable for those crimes), must feel very, very slighted and uncomfortable with President Duterte’s moves to impose tougher disciplinary measures against children criminals.

Whereas Pangilinan and outgoing President Aquino (who signed the law amending Republic Act 9344 in 2013) did not want children criminals arrested, detained, or even investigated for any crime, Duterte is now pushing for a national curfew on children, and even jail terms for parents who fail to stop their kids from living a life of criminality.

Perhaps, somebody should study whether Pangilinan and Aquino could be charged with graft for crafting and enacting the amended Juvenile Justice Law, because, clearly, in the discharge of their duties and responsibilities as government officials, they caused undue injury not only to the children, their families, but to the entire Filipino nation as well, for coming up with a law that turned Filipino children into rabid criminals.

Now, it would seem that President Aquino, the Commission on Elections, and even Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, will have a lot of explaining to do to obviously-dissatisfied members of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) who are now coming out in full force in social networking sites like Facebook, denouncing what they say was the wholesale stealing of their votes for Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the May 9 elections.

It looks like INC members feel that the proclamation of Robredo as the vice president-elect of the country was part of a sinister scheme aimed not only to stop Marcos from becoming vice president, as President Aquino repeatedly announced before May 9, but more to make the INC look like a Church that could no longer deliver the votes of its members, as it used to, because of internal division and discord.

I really don’t know how this will ultimately end or be resolved, but, from what I have been hearing, INC members are one in thinking that they could no longer remain silent while their votes are being stolen, and while politicians are maneuvering to sow intrigue among their leaders in a bid to destroy the might of the Church in solidly voting for chosen candidates.

Cynthia de Guia Ramirez, a former broadcaster who is a member of the INC, is one of those rejecting the proclamation of Robredo as vice president-elect, insisting through her Facebook posts that the Bicol lawmaker is not the legitimate winner in the May 9, 2016 vice presidential race.

Here is one of Cynthia’s posts: “To all Philippine media outlets and tri-media news and current affairs writers and personalities, please refrain from calling Leni Robredo the vice president of the Philippines. She is not the legitimate winner and we do not care who or what body proclaimed her as such…

“…She is a clear symbol of election fraud. You are just making things worse if you keep on acknowledging her. We want a fast investigation done publicly, because the evidence is available all over the Internet, and witnesses are coming out now… Can’t you see? Please do this for Filipinos…”

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com

Disclaimer

Mindanao Gold Star Daily holds the copyrights of all articles and photos in perpetuity. Any unauthorized reproduction in any platform, electronic and hardcopy, shall be liable for copyright infringement under the Intellectual Property Rights Law of the Philippines.

- Advertisement -