Hail to the chief!

“And when the band plays ‘Hail to the chief.’ Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord.”  — Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival

FUNNY how the sparkling new Armed Forces chief of staff has just admitted to red-tagging us journos because of our bias to the truth and actual reality. It is nice to know that he is folding like a cheap suit without actually needing to. However, the thought that he has trained its cross-hairs towards us is disconcerting.

Late last week, CNN-Philippines quoted newly appointed Armed Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Noel Clement advised journalists to avoid showing their “biases” towards the armed communist insurgents.

He was quoted as saying that journalists who have the tendency to “favor” the enemy than the state forces will most likely get red-tagged.

“Red tagging is a very strong word to be used actually kung sasabihin mo na may article kang isulat then automatic ire-red tag ka na agad,” CNN-Philippines quoted Clement as saying.

Please don’t get me wrong. This is not something new to us. The state forces have been red-tagging journalists, rights defenders, and even sitting lawmakers. The secretary of defense himself has said something to that effect. Earlier, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana challenged the Makabayan lawmakers, a minority bloc at the Lower House, to condemn the communist movement so that the red-tagging will stop.

However, as a red-tagged journalist, how can I denounce something I have never been a part of?

As journalists, our role in society is quite well-defined. We are the fourth estate — our mandate is to inform the citizens of the republic for the latter to arrive at intelligent and well-informed decisions. This means that we cannot just take only your side of the story, hook, line, and sinker. Doing so will negate that mandate.

We are not stenographers of events. As journalists, we present the facts whether or not we like or agree with those facts. Objective reporting is meant to portray issues and events in a neutral and unbiased manner, regardless of the writer’s opinion or personal beliefs.

Freedom of the press cannot operate on a culture of fear, Sir.

How can we practice our profession when you have blurred the distinction between an unarmed civilian — which you have sworn to protect, by the way — and an armed guerrilla? Pfft.

Fabilioh!

“Fabilioh! Halikinu.” — Ateneo traditional cheer

I AM an Atenean although I would rather call myself a “Xavierian” for emphasis. These insecure sphincters hate that. What with all the “branding” this certain university president wants and all.

But for all intents and purpose, I am an Atenean at heart. I bet even the national hero Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda yelled that same cheer above when he attended the Jesuit-run school in Manila.

Look, I understand where these people are coming from. Heck, as I’ve said, I have spent most of my formative years in Xavier-Ateneo — that’s what they want to call it now, not Xavier University, as it should. Pabalik, yes. Fabilioh, no.

Here’s the skinny, in its July 17 statement, the Cebu Landmasters Inc. received a “notice of interest” from Xavier University for “the development of the latter’s Manresa, a 63.5-hectare property. The Jesuits in Cagayan de Oro wants to build the “campus of the future.”

One, it is their property. Two, it is their property.

By the way, a cursory check on Google about the impending sale of the Xavier University-Corrales campus will show you how it is supported by a number of groups. Many of my “Spartan” batch mates support it, too. Mind you, we were not mere “transferees.” Most of us in Batch ’91 started our Jesuit education since Kinder 1.

However, when you include a troll in your advocacy to oppose the sale, you can be sure your campaign will fail. Its very presence reeks of bovine excrement and political ambition. Believe me, because I have been at the worst end of this thing’s social media drive in the midterm polls.

I mean, the thing is the very textbook definition of a pathological liar.

Saying that this piece of excrement is an Atenean and that it has every right to express its thoughts on the matter at hand is naive at best. Women and men for others can, certainly, do better than this. It has already announced its ambition for the mayoral seat only months since its spectacular loss in the midterm polls.

Saying that this advocacy transcends political lines is way worse. I have been told that the organizers have been able to enroll a few politicos in their cause. But why was it the only one given the podium to speak last week? Its foul mouth will spell the failure of this advocacy. Even its own batch mates know why it is riding the opposition of the XU sale — to earn political brownie points. It will create more enemies than allies to the cause.

I know my agaw Antonio Montalvan II does not support this sale as is evident in his series of columns, but I know he will agree that he would not want to trek this campaign with the main architect of the deluge of fake news online since 2016.

So, good luck with who you go to bed with on this journey, my beloved Atenistas. Have a field day in getting alums to support the cause with this sorry excuse of an Atenean at your side. Pfft.

The blues

DEPRESSION is this generation’s silent killer. It does not also help that until now, there is still a stigma attached to any mental illness. The reason why most people who suffer from depression opt to keep it to themselves or worse, be in denial.

Major depressive disorder, as psychiatrists call it, is a common but nevertheless serious and lethal mental illness. It affects your ability to function at school and at home.

The realness of this issue hit close to our home when a cousin of my ex-girlfriend took her own life at the age of 18. It left all of us in shock. We just couldn’t believe she could do that because she seemed bubbly and outwardly happy.

Depression is different from sadness and grief. The sadness felt during the grieving process comes in waves and are accompanied with positive memories of that special person who passed away or a loved one you broke up with. While, when you are having major depression, you lose interest, pleasure with most things for at least 15 days.

Depression can hit anyone, even people who seem to be living in a relatively comfortable status. According to the American Psychiatric Association, there are several factors that trigger depression in people.

• Biochemistry: Differences in certain chemicals in the brain may contribute to symptoms of depression.

• Genes: Major depressive disorder can run in families. If a sibling has depression, the other has a 70 percent chance of having the illness sometime in life.

• Personality: People who are easily overwhelmed by stress, or who are generally pessimistic, or have low self-esteem are most likely to experience depression.

• Environmental: Continuous exposure to violence, neglect, abuse, or poverty can also make people more vulnerable to depression.

With grief, a person’s self-esteem is pretty much intact. Depression, however, feelings of worthlessness and self-hate are common. This is the reason why many depressed people, when left untreated or unaddressed, almost always lead to suicides. Grief and depression may overlap but they are two different and identifying between the two can help people seek support and treatment.

According to the Department of Health studies, the suicidal rate in the country is 2.9 per 100,000 people. In the Philippines, males are more prone to suicide than their female counterparts at a ratio of 550 females against 2,008 males. Here in the city, there have been seven suicides involving young people in March alone. Although we enjoy the lowest suicide rate among Southeast Asian countries, it still remains a serious problem, especially among young people.

Earlier this month, we commemorated the World Suicide Prevention Day. The health department has launched the “Hopeline Project.” Since it is a phone-based counseling service, it aims to remove the stigma from mental health issues.

For landline calls, you can reach (02) 804-HOPE (4673), for cellphone calls you can reach 0917-558-HOPE (4673), and you can also dial 2919, it is a toll-free number, for all Globe and TM subscribers.

If you’re suffering from depression, know that there are people that can help you. Please do not be embarrassed to admit you have depression. The sooner you embrace that reality, the sooner you can get help and treatment.

Empathy

EMPATHY is an evolutionary necessity. It is the principle of self-preservation in practice. It is self-preservation in practice because it enables us to understand and share the feelings of others.

It is an ability that enables us to place ourselves in someone else’s perspective and understand where they are coming from. It is different from sympathy. Sympathy is a shared feeling, usually of compassion, for another human being. Empathy is being able to feel what that other person feels. It is to be in somebody’s shoes, so to speak.

When we are enabled to understand what another person is going through, then we could respond appropriately. That is why empathy is important for our very survival as a species.

However, it is saddening to see this human imperative continuously eroding from our collective psyche — as the Filipino people. Reading the threads on news articles posted on social media, it would seem that these people haven’t gotten over the hate rhetoric at the height of the 2016 campaign.

At least, then the hateful rhetoric was limited to political intramurals. But now, the hateful threads in Facebook appear to just injure other people’s feelings just for the heck of it. It seems that spreading hate is as regular as opening a can of sardines. As I have warned in my column a couple of years back, apathy is the most unfortunate by-product of impunity.

But I would like to proffer that empathy can trump apathy if we are to survive this post-truth era that we are all in now. How else can we survive this era if we continue down this path of hateful rhetoric?

Just over the weekend, I read the thread under a news post on Facebook about a teenager taking his own life because he was accused of touching a breast of a woman and he was afraid of the death penalty.

The responses would make you feel weak in the knees. Responses ranged from he got it coming, he was an idiot for taking his life because there’s no death penalty, and then we have the most common retort in this Catholic-dominated country — he will surely go to hell.

Hate has become the go-to, default if you will, response nowadays that it has given me a complex of sorts.

The human imperative to survive and flourish may be understood as selfish. As Dr. Richard Dawkins referred to it as the “selfish gene.”

In his book The Leap, Louise Erdrich wrote that whether survival requires selfishness or not is situational. We could debate, for or against, the idea that self-preservation requires selfishness. But that selfishness trait is not of the individual but of the species. By getting the grips of what this “selfish gene” is supposed to do to our own individual psyches, we can alter what it is supposed to do to serve us as a species.

As Dawkins wrote in his book, The Selfish Gene: “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”

Why don’t we give empathy a try? Haven’t you had enough of the free-flowing hate rhetoric that has been going around? If we are to survive as a people, in this increasingly toxic environment, we must find our way back and assert our humanity.

Red-tagged redux

WHILE I understand that part of the winning the hearts and minds of the people is the “unmasking” of supposed enemies of the state, red-tagging members of mainstream media are counter-productive. It doesn’t serve the agenda of the whole length of the political spectrum. It only antagonizes the fourth estate against state and non-state actors.

Red-tagging members of the media blur the distinctive line between civilians and combatants in the conduct of the ongoing war between government and rebel forces.

I denounce being even remotely considered as an active combatant. Again, I am an unarmed civilian. I write news and op-ed pieces. That’s what I do. Before I came to be a journalist, I used to work with non-government organizations. My work there did not involve any rifles, too. It required only words and conversations.

I am not, have never been, and never will be a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ New People’s Army.

About a fortnight ago, I found myself, and colleague Froilan Gallardo listed again as being part of the armed insurrection to topple down the government. Like the other red-tagging incidents since February this year, the word ridiculous does not even begin to describe the contents of one red-tagging flyer.

However, the cowardly people behind this new spate of red-tagging incidents have upped their ridiculousness. It maliciously and falsely linked me to an alleged rape and murder case supposedly docketed under criminal case 2006-2802 before the “Surigao Regional Trial Court Branch 01-1.” This was the reason, the flyer alleged, why I supposedly joined the New People’s Army. The group, “Black Mamba Mat-NMR Press Club Chapter,” placed a bounty for my death at P1 million.

Even though the allegations contained in the flyer against me were really ridiculous, I still feel the need to debunk these. As I have experienced in the February red-tagging of my family, social media trolls of a certain local political group used this for their own political ends.

Here goes, first, I was in Cagayan de Oro during the entire year of 2006. Second, there is no such thing as a “Surigao RTC Branch 01-1.” Regional Trial Courts are not numbered like that.

Having said that, I would like to thank my family for supporting me during this ridiculous but just as scary year in my journalistic career. I would like to thank friends in the Armed Forces and National Police for their assurances to investigate this latest attack on my person. I was just told over the weekend that they are already tracking two “persons of interest.”

I would also like to thank friends who did what they can, according to their capacities, to denounce my red-tagging, albeit without fanfare. I also extend our gratitude to the support of local and international media community, be it private or public institutions. You, who have issued statements and wrote news articles about this red-tagging, thank you.

However, as I have said before in February, I will not let this cowardly act gag me into silence. I will continue — as what my father taught me before — to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I will continue to tell the story of the downtrodden, the marginalized, and voiceless people of this Republic.

Shape up or ship out

UNWITTINGLY, the shiny new senator drove the student leader’s point on why reviving the mandatory Reserve Officers’ Training Corps is not a good thing at what has become one of the most “memed” Senate hearings now.

Sen. Ronald dela Rosa threw a hissy fit — with pointing fingers, flaring nostrils, and all — at National Union of Students of the Philippines chairman Raoul Manuel at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture last week.

As one dear friend pointed out: “If he had another brain, it would be lonely.”

Manuel, who was invited as a resource speaker on the ROTC bill, pointed out that asserting human rights is made more difficult having lawmakers who are willing to give heinous crime offenders like a convicted rapist and murderer Antonio Sanchez a “second chance.”

“Siguro if mahirapan tayo na mai-uphold yung ganito rights awareness, magkakatalo na lang kung among the ranks of our public officials ay hindi po nana-agree doon lalo na if we have a senator who will say na okay lang na makalaya at may second chance yung isang rapist na mayor habang yung mahihirap ay madaling tokhangin na lamang,” Manuel said.

Instead of debunking Manuel’s claim, Bato suddenly flared up and harangued an invited guest at the Senate hearing. This, even as he red-tagged Manuel and NUSP on live television.

“I take offense on what you said na yung ROTC is a misrepresentation of nationalism. Anong tingin mo samin? Ganun ka lang mag-judge sa ’min? Jinu-judge mo kami na ganun? Are you sure you are the true representation of the Filipino students? Iilan lang yang makakaliwa dyan sa estudyante. Mas marami dyan gusto mag-ROTC, I must tell you frankly,” Bato, nose flaring and finger pointing, yelled.

How can a senator with a supposed doctorate degree, to boot, be so moronic? Manuel was talking about human rights and how these can easily be abused under mandatory military training.

“We would not witness an onion-skinned Bato dela Rosa today without the collective rage of the Filipino people over the current state of our nation. The challenge now is to come together to create meaningful change!” Manuel said on his Facebook page.

However, I was not surprised by Bato’s hissy fit. He has been around people who bark back “Sir, yes, sir” for the longest time that when confronted with a critical thinking student leader, he mistakes him as a product of “brainwashing.”

Bato and his ilk, even his overlord, have been carpet-bombing red herrings whenever they are made to account for the extrajudicial killings, repression, and violation of human rights in the country.

Merriam Webster defines a red herring as something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion.

My understanding of Manuel’s point is that the former mayor of Calauan and the policemen who abducted Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez might have undergone ROTC during their college days. That reviving it is not such a good idea, especially now that this administration is increasingly getting more tyrannical in each year it has been in power.

If Bato doesn’t see something wrong with the proverbial rule in the military of “obey first before complaining,” then his view on rights to expression and dissent is as skewed as can be.

Besides, mandatory ROTC does not teach students patriotism. It teaches them jingoism, chauvinism, and xenophobia. Also, I do not find consistency here. Our generals have been harping against New People’s Army recruiting “child soldiers.” How is mandatory ROTC in Senior High being any different? Is the administration saying that prepping 17-year-old students for war is not wrong because it is state-sanctioned?

So, here is my unrequited advice to the senator with what ROTC taught me: Shape up or ship out, you lousy cadet, gardemet!