These two make my eyes roll

Herbie Gomez

WEDNESDAY’S Senate committee hearing on the proliferation of fake news only confirmed what many have been suspecting all along — that is, the government is wasting its resources to bankroll the operations of arrogant, dishonest and morally bankrupt bloggers who promote mass ignorance.

I mean, this is our government using our taxes to pay these bloggers cum peddlers of fake news whose only qualification is the mouse that netizens click whenever they “like” and “share” the political propaganda crap posted on the blogs. The hordes of unsuspecting netizens and their gullibility are their only capital. What a sellout!

One braggart even had the gall to tell senators that the reason why he is doing  “consultancy” work in the government is, “It’s just that the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) needs me more than I need them.”

Really. What kind of air is this? Except for his principal in Davao, I don’t recall ever hearing a cock-a-hoop talk like that on national TV in recent months. I want to know from Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano if he and DFA really, really need this self-aggrandizing blogger more than the braggart needs them. I have never seen anything that looks like a man expel intestinal gas from its mouth.

And then we are treated with the hilarious blabber of a presidential communications assistant secretary. This creature invoked the right against “self-discrimination,” um, er, self-incrimination, even as she asserted that she has no obligation to be fair, truthful, and ethical in her blog because she is not a journalist but a blogger. It’s as if the word “fairness” does not apply to blogging, and has no meaning, whatsoever, to her.

Since when did fairness — the ability to make judgments free from dishonesty — been an exclusive territory of journalists? So physicians, engineers, businessmen, vendors,  taxi drivers, mechanics, et cetera, are not expected to be fair because they are not journalists?

Not all all Rotarians are journalists. But why is fairness No. 2 in the Rotary’s Four-Way Test then? The excuse is so dumb that it wouldn’t surprise me if she says none of the Rotary tests apply to her because she’s not a Rotarian.

What she conveniently tried to omit is the fact that she is holding the position of assistant secretary in the executive department in a government that has set standards for public officials and employees. The last time I checked, there is still a law in this country that provides that public servants “shall at all times be accountable to the people and shall discharge their duties with utmost responsibility, integrity, competence, and loyalty, act with patriotism and justice, lead modest lives, and uphold public interest over personal interest.”

But even in the absence of a law on this, fairness is a lesson people in civilized societies started learning when they were little children. It is ingrained in our humanity.

This is a virtue these two shady characters in the Duterte administration clearly don’t have — and don’t value at all. Pastilan.