Second class

Ruffy Magbanua

JOHOR Bahru, Malaysia – A tete-a-tete with the local press here over the weekend yielded some commonalities  with the way we treat ourselves as members of the fourth estate.

It was not surprising  though of the  many things we share in common, yet what appears  disturbing and disgusting is how we handle our own media affairs versus the way Malaysian media do their thing.

In this country where press freedom is regulated, equality among local and national media here is transcendental,  even prevalent and widely observed–in bad times and in good times, we were told.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, is 300 kilometers from this State of Johor yet infrastructure is world-class, theme parks abound,  nightlife bursting with colors, and tranquil peace felt all over.

Manila, on the other hand, is just an hour and 15-minutes plane ride yet Mindanao, as it were, feel so detached and to be blunt about it, deprived from all kinds of manna.

Say it, we do not have a world-class   transport system yet, smooth as silk expressways, reliable power supply and lasting peace.

We flaunt as the bastion of press freedom in Asia but shame on us, the  discord and disunity among our media colleagues are tightly embedded, perhaps permanently, at the very core of our national pride.

In the eyes of Imperial Manila,  Mindanao is second-class and therefore deserves the backseat. As always, people from Visayas and Mindanao are known as bisdak, very provincial. Yet it was Cagayan de Oro homegrown beauty in the person of Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtsbach who stunned  the world by her clear-cut Bisaya accent.

This classy attitude towards the provincial press holds true as well in almost all  dealings–that feeling of being superior over and above everyone who lives and reigns in the hinterlands of  this beloved country the Philippines.

The hullabaloo on  the organizers’ list  for the big event on Sunday in Cagayan de Oro is a classic example of Imperial Manila’s paranoid thinking of “promdi” media tagged as second-class citizens.

Meantime, let the skeptics enjoy what they always say to us: when Manila sneezes, Mindanao gets the cold. Maybe this could be true but wait as we come close to judgment day, we are going to prove them wrong.

This May elections, we are in for the reversal of it: when our Mindanao eagle soars high over the length and breadth of  Philippine skies, Manila by then gets the flak of wet doo-doos. Cheers.

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com