‘Fight for love’

JULY is the birth-month of Mindanao Gold Star Daily. Thirty years ago yesterday, the very first copy of GSD circulated in the city and gave Cagayan de Oro City its very first daily newspaper that defied the one-year test.

Frankly, I really didn’t know the more intimate details of the paper’s history until my return to it on June 27, 2015, and served as its associate editor. Years before that, I used to be a staff reporter of another daily newspaper in the city. That didn’t pan out well because that paper had a penchant for delayed salaries and payments of my social remunerations.

So, I decided to be a freelance news correspondent.

Like all fledgling news correspondents, I was struggling to make ends meet. But as a freelance news writer, I could sell my stories to any news media organization, be it domestic or international.

Herbie Gomez, this paper’s editorial jefe, offered me to submit stories to GSD since I’m not officially connected with the other paper anymore. He had only one request, though, that I submit my story first to GSD before I submit it to other media outfits I was writing for. Well, at least three hours of lead time from other outfits. The day I started contributing stories to GSD was the day my journalistic career turned serious.

Before, with the other paper, I had 50 percent of my story is the paper’s banner story. It was not because I was an enterprising or “Boombastic” writer. It was because there were only two of us as staff reporters in the other daily. Being one of many correspondents across the island, in GSD, you had to battle it out to byline the banner story.

Don’t worry, it was a friendly competition. Each correspondent had to out-scoop each other. The end result was we had the most comprehensive banner story on any given subject because at least two correspondents worked on the same story. The story would have covered all the bases, so to speak.

Also, if I was struggling to make ends meet before, now I can make ends meet on time, albeit still struggling. But I was paying my bills on time, this time. This is because in all my years working with GSD, it has always made it a point to pay its people on time, a thing that I, unfortunately, could not say for the other outfits I wrote for before, be it domestic or international.

It was when I worked as a correspondent for GSD that I learned how to view news events more critically. I wasn’t going to slack off and submit a haphazard article and be relegated to the inside pages. I concentrated more on the whys and hows. In other words, I was more invested in the context rather than the political intramurals on the surface of an event. I shied away from the “he said, she said” or more popularly known locally as “sabong” journalism.

It was because of this internal competition in GSD that I dare say I improved my writing. At least, it caught the attention of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, for one. I owe a lot to GSD to my journalistic career.

So, after a four-year stint with PCIJ, it was only proper to return to the paper that gave me my break into serious journalism. Not “new,” but just serious journalism. The decision was fairly simple to make. I wanted to apply all the learning I acquired from PCIJ to THE paper that gave me the opportunity to have opportunities opened to me.

It was at this time that I got to know GSD a little more. I did not know of it in a classroom sort of discussion, mind you. I learned about the paper’s history through informal chats with president emeritus Ernesto Chu.

He would tell us about the days when he drove across the island to personally establish the paper’s bureaus. Yes, you read it right. Imagine, establishing your paper’s presence in at least 20 cities and 24 provinces. He was on the road most of the time. And does he rest on his laurels? No. Now, he wants to establish a strong presence on the internet superhighway. And we will be right there beside him in that undertaking.

When you get to know what the paper has gone through to get where it is at right now, you simply feel pride and love. I am proud and grateful to be with Gold Star Daily.

This paper is a product of love and perseverance. Marketing executive Amor Barlisan suddenly blurted in the middle of the newsroom years ago: “Fight for love!” It has since become the paper’s unofficial motto.

Here’s to 30 years more. “Fight for love!”

‘Unity March’

THE election period for the 2019 mid-term elections started on Sunday. Here in Cagayan de Oro, it was opened with a so-called “Unity March.” Started with a march, local candidates held an interfaith prayer rally and capped it off with a peace covenant signing at Kiosko Kagawasan in Divisoria.

The Commission on Elections in Northern Mindanao, officials of Camp Alagar and the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, and city hall employees attended Sunday’s activity. Camp Alagar spokesman Surki Sereñas posted on his Facebook wall: “United for honest, credible, and peaceful 2019 elections.”

Scanning through my Facebook newsfeed on Sunday, I saw photos of the event. I saw a picture of Centrist Democratic Party candidates posing with administration candidates of PDP-Laban.

Curiously, I did not see erstwhile political kingpin Dongkoy Emano and his supporters at the event. Now, I know you’d say to lay off him since he’s too old for such an event. But I could also return the question back to you. Why is he running if he can’t give his time for such an event?

I say that the message of the unity walk should be that even though they are political opponents this May, they are united in wanting to serve the people of Cagayan de Oro.

Are they too good for the electorate that they can’t get their butts off their stately mansions? As commissioner Luie Guia posted on his wall, the mid-term polls are first and foremost, for the voters.

I commented on Sereñas’s Unity March post, rhetorically asking if the absence of some candidates meant that they did not want an honest, credible, and peaceful May polls. First, he laughed at such non sequitur but then, good man that he is, he followed up by saying: “Of course not… ang uban basin naay equally important commitment.”

The last part of the sentence reminded me of Dongkoy’s default excuse for his absences when he served (or the lack of it) as vice mayor of the city — “attending to more important matters.”

This coming May, Dongkoy will be running again for vice mayor. I repeat my question from my September 2015 column: When you’re the vice mayor, what could possibly be more important than presiding over the city council? When he was vice mayor, he attended a total of TWO regular sessions. He attended only the inaugural and the closing sessions of the city council.

If these candidates can’t give us their time for an activity this simply because of “more important matters,” why run at all? Pfft.

The list redux

THE police here is kind of antsy these days.

Police officials now understand the horrors and paranoia that comes with dealing with the prospect that they could be in a supposed kill list circulating from within their own ranks.

This comes at the heels of an exposé of a former city police director in Northern Mindanao. The source claimed that the daring daylight ambush on Supt. Michael John Deloso was the handiwork of a shadowy group that is executing a kill list of superintendents suspected of being involved in criminal activities. Digong Dada called this kind of police officers as “ninja cops.”

The source added that there are at least two more police superintendents in the list of suspected ninja cops targeted for extrajudicial killing or to be politically correct, serial murders.

On one hand, police officials are denying there is such a list. On the other hand, they are not taking chances either. As one official puts it: “Duna gani uban nga gabaton nag security escort kay delikado baya mapagkamalan ka.”

The official even goes on to call the liquidation of supposed ninja cops as “very unlawful and barbaric.”

I don’t mean to gloat when I say that these are the things that we have been telling the police with their Badac lists of drug personalities. How sure are you that the person who drew up that list included you just out of spite or jealous of how your career has been going?

The official also said that a position in government does not give one the right to trample on the law. Correct, sir. No one should be above the law, even law enforcers should not be above the law.

Now, this officer is on the side of law and order. He said: “Let everyone be heard in a court rather than take shortcuts.”

Well, boo-freaking-hoo, sir. Were the 22 thousand drug suspects who were killed on mere suspicion heard by a court of law? The answer to that is an echoing “no.” Most of them were killed inside their homes while sleeping.

Please don’t start with that pro-forma reason that they tried to shoot it out with the arresting cops. That’s just lazy, not to mention, lousy police work. It is ridiculous to think that the 15-or-so drug suspects killed all used caliber .38 revolvers, had a grenade, and worse, had no money in their pockets except for the buy-bust cash? C’mon, sirs. You can do better than that.

At least, now that you are relatively on the same rut as the drug personalities, I think you’d be more discerning in waging Digong Dada’s “war on drugs.” Let these drug suspects have their day in court.

If there’s anything the police should learn from all of these is that shortcuts, such as kill lists, in law enforcement is untenable.

Any workable list needs a minimum of three items. It doesn’t need due process, supporting evidence or any modicum of rule of law. These three items, by the way, is a workable list. A list of things which we direly need in government right now.

Memory lane

A FEW days before my death, I was born. I died in mid-March of 1974 in Annex II of the then Northern Mindanao Regional Training Hospital. Doctors were only able to revive me after they “cut down” a major artery in my lower leg.

I have so many fond memories in the now Northern Mindanao Medical Center. As I said, I was introduced to the hospital when it was just a training hospital. I practically grew up in that hospital.

Last week, when my brother called to invite me to the launch of their year-long centennial celebration, I was so excited. It is not every day that you get to celebrate 100 years of something because it takes literally a hundred years to do so.

“Housed in a building of mixed materials with a nipa roof, the Misamis Public Hospital opened on Oct. 1, 1917, in the district of Carmen, Cagayan, Misamis Province,” the centennial committee on its history written in its short summary of its 100-year journey to where and what it is now.

It was established at a time when the country was under American colonial rule. However, it was maintained mainly with funds from the Capitol under the then Governor Isidro Rillas, who served as Misamis governor from 1917 to 1919.

In 1932, the then MPH was constructed in its present location at the Capitol grounds. However, the hospital was destroyed during World War II. In 1945, it was rebuilt and renamed as Misamis Oriental Provincial Hospital.

As I told fellow columnist Rhona Canoy, that name seemed to have stuck. Until now, many Kagay-anons, when they flag a motorela, still inexplicably tell the driver: “Sa provincial, nong.”

In 1966, by virtue of Republic Act 4662, it was renamed and declared as the Northern Mindanao Regional Training Hospital. This was the first step in its journey to becoming a tertiary medical facility in the region.

My mother, Thomasita Bajao Corrales, was already a senior nurse then. I would eat my lunch with her at its cooperative canteen or at the room for minor surgeries at the dispensary.

The best part of growing in a training hospital was mingling with student doctors and nurses — lots of fond memories there.

While my contemporaries at Xavier University Grade School were busy with their kote and jolen, I was making cotton balls and vaginal gauze swabs with student nurses at NMRTH.

I was also privy to hospital grapevine. Let’s just say that I was aware of stories about the doctors and nurses. And man, are those stories saucy!

I remember Dr. Dy, with his goatee, ambling his way to the dispensary and never failing to remind me that he circumcised me, much to my chagrin as I try to strike up idle conversations with the student nurses.

There have also been dour memories with the hospital.

No one was with me during my graduation at Xavier University High School. Earlier that afternoon, my father, Emilio, had suffered his fifth cardiac arrest and was rushed to the intensive care of the then newly established heart center of the NMMC.

After typhoon Sendong ravaged our barangay in 2011, all my kids took their prophylactic shots against leptospirosis at the hospital.

Almost two years ago, my mother died at the hospital’s dialysis room.

Let me just say that the hospital has been an important part of my personal history. Maybe that’s the reason why I was also excited with its centennial year. Like a long-time friend, we share a lot of history together.

My brother who is working at the hospital now told me they are planning to hold various activities to highlight their centennial year. It began with the unveiling of the centennial wall in front of the hospital last week. He said they will hold a major activity every month until October 2018.

I can’t wait to cover each and every one of these activities.

Ampatuan massacre revisited

WHENEVER the “ber” months start rolling in, I used to look forward to Christmas like a giddy kid. But now, I try to find out whatever happened to the case of the Ampatuan Massacre. On Saturday was the 94th month since Nov. 23, 2009, when 58 people — 32 of whom were media workers — were waylaid in what has become known throughout the world as the Ampatuan Massacre, the worst case of election violence in the country, and the biggest case of violence against journalists in the world.

The incident has caught the country flat-footed, yet it also exposed several long-festering, and in many aspects, long-known yet unaddressed issues. On one hand, the incident served as a grisly wake-up call for both the national government and local and international civil societies on the issues of election violence, clan politics and dynamics, and violence against media. On the other hand, ending impunity became the priority mission of both the Philippine government and civil societies.

In coordination with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Libertas, a legal policy non-government organization, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) launched in 2013 a research project that dissected the massacre case as a way to understand these issues and offer recommendations for reforms in the country’s judicial system.

I would like to revisit this study because the recommendations it propped up are still as applicable today as it was four years ago especially now that this current administration is broaching authoritarianism by the day.

The research project output is a book entitled “Maguindanao Massacre: Case Study for Breaking Impunity, Increasing Accountability, and Broadening Access to Justice.” It is a compendium of interviews, focus group discussions and dialogues with “family members of the Ampatuan Massacre victims, key informants who are private or public prosecutors, officials from the security sector, relevant government agencies, and representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) and media organizations.”

At the crux of the case study is the fact there is still no clear-cut definition of extrajudicial killing (EJK) especially for state players prosecuting the criminal act. The study posits that a good definition is important to set this specific criminal act apart from the other crimes. It further suggests that this particular crime is called “unexplained killing” and “to let it cover both state and non-state perpetrators.” In this way, the study broadened its scope of coverage to be more inclusive of other similar cases of EJKs, not just in Maguindanao or Mindanao, but all over the country as well.

Red-tagging of this type of crime, or identifying specific cases for special attention, also put “value” since red-tagged cases are more closely monitored by the justice department at the regional level. The label also attracts more public attention, thereby potentially increasing the confidence level of the witnesses. “It is suggested that red-tagging be done at the point of filing information in court and that red-tagged cases no longer be raffled. Aside from special handling by the prosecution, this will also facilitate human rights documentation and monitoring,” the case study reads.

The case study proposes that special courts be designated to hear this type of crime continuously. Study proponents also proposed – by way of citing one of the observation of its key informants — the resumption of peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), because “while peace talks are ongoing, extrajudicial killings are seen to slow down and become intermittent.” In order to further speed up the court processes on EJKs and other human rights violation cases, the case study also proposes there be mechanisms in the rules of court to allow the perpetuation of testimonies of witnesses.

According to the case study, key informants from both the government and civil societies agree that there should be an enabling law on command responsibility to exact criminal liability and for command responsibility to be applicable to all criminal offenses under the country’s Revised Penal Code. The case study also recommended that there should be “transparency in the conduct of internal investigations and in the military justice system.”

Presently, the rules on command responsibility in the Philippines cover only as high as two degrees. However, a respondent from the Philippine Army conceded that — with respect to civilian supremacy over state security forces — court-martial will surrender the “subject and the case even if there is a separate crime or administrative case arising under the Articles of War,” provided that there will be clear parameters.

On Aug 30, 2011, the Senate gave its concurrence to the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute, among others, defines the coverage of the doctrine of command responsibility to all state signatories of the international.

Other recommendations put forward by the study include:

• requiring a human rights clearance process for personnel in all law enforcement agencies;
• enhancing and increasing coverage of the Witness Protection Program (WPP);
• training of paralegals on the investigation and legal support in the prosecution of cases;
• more inter-agency cooperation and evidence-sharing among agencies involved in the investigation and prosecution of the cases;
• initiation of administrative cases involving human rights violations by government agencies despite the absence of private complainants;
• more effective firearms control through improved logistics management system by the Armed Forces of the Philippines;
• more concrete measures to depoliticize the local police force; and
• engagement of the Anti-Money Laundering Council in cases involving human rights violations.

The recommendations for more effective firearms control and the need to depoliticize the local police forces stood out starkly against the backdrop of the Ampatuan Massacre. The Ampatuan clan, the family accused of masterminding the massacre, has been accused of amassing firearms and ammunition through the help of regional and national patrons. In effect, the Ampatuan clan had been able to build its own legal private army using both government arms and ammunition.

As well, the clan has been accused of using the local police force in Maguindanao in carrying out the massacre. Based on the Local Government Code, the local governments have operational control over the local police forces. In the case of the Ampatuan Massacre, the local police units were said to have been compromised by the clan because the clan had full control over the appointments and perks of the local police officers.

During the course of the case study, it was also recommended that there should be a “community and peer support in the prosecution of criminal cases” and a “rationalized and integrated financial and other support for victims of atrocious crimes, including families of the Maguindanao Massacre victims.” These recommendations stem from the outcome of a series of FGDs with the families of the massacre victims.

“In this respect, a cohesive financial support program with support coming from various sources may be rationalized and administered just by one agency, perhaps the CHRP or the DSWD, so that the families need only coordinate with one agency, Requirements can be streamlined by such agency, so that the families need not undergo repetitive processes for screening, which merely add to the families’ difficulty and frustration,” the case study recommends.

As observed in the prosecution of EJK and other human rights violations cases in the country, testimonial pieces of evidence play a crucial role. When witnesses and families of massacre victims are killed, harassed and often times slapped with trumped up retaliatory charges in court quicker than the respondents of the cases are arrested, then it negates the whole judicial process.

“Hence, there is critical need to secure witnesses. Unfortunately, one common observation is the lack of funds and insufficient of support for witnesses under the Witness Protection Program (WPP),” the case study points out. Thus, the case study also recommends that the justice department’s Witness Protection Program (WPP) be enhanced and its coverage increased.

“Truly, the Maguindanao Massacre was an unspeakable crime. It represents all that is evil in our political system. It shows what is dysfunctional in our legal processes. The only good that can come out of it is that it compels us to train our sights on these infirmities, and galvanizes our resolve as a nation to address it. The above recommendations are made in this light, so that the lost lives of the victims may not be put to naught,” the case study reads in part.

Of satires and lampoons

“Political satire is ridicule dedicated to exposing the difference between appearance and reality in public life.” -Robert Mankoff

THERE’S another kind of news circulating on social media platforms but it’s not fake. Far from it. It’s satire news.

However, you have to read it in order to appreciate it. You can’t appreciate satire if you’ll only read its “headline.”

I’m bringing this up in light of Sen. Joel Villanueva’s Senate Bill 1492 or “An Act Penalizing the Malicious Distribution of False News and Other Related Violations. It is a serious law.”

“The passage of this bill will encourage our citizens, especially public officers, to be more responsible and circumspect in creating, distributing and/or sharing news. Addressing national and global concerns should not be made more complicated by false news calculated to cause disunity, panic, chaos, and/or violence,” the bill’s explanatory note reads in part.

It carries a pretty heavy penalty for any thinking Pinoy (pun intended) found guilty–fines ranging from P100,000 to P5 million, and one to five years imprisonment.

Based on this proposed law, fake news is defined as “an information causing or tending to cause panic, division, chaos, violence, hate,” and those “exhibiting or tending to exhibit a propaganda to blacken or discredit one’s reputation.”

Therein lies the problem. The definition is vague. What about political satire? Can the law make that distinction? It’s like the “no bomb jokes” in terminals and airports. What if I tell a bomb poem, or a bomb limerick? Technically, it is not a bomb joke but can the security personnel make that distinction?

Merriam-Webster defines satire as “a way of using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, or bad. It is humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, or society.”

Satire is like the jester speaking truth to the king and his royal court. Let me remind you we have some of the most close-minded and “pikon” people in this administration. What will happen to the likes of Professional Heckler or the Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines when Villanueva’s bill is passed into law?

The communications team of this administration, nay spinners, scares the bejeesus out of me. They have a vast mass of followers but there is no informed political discourse in their brand of punditry. They present so much information on social media and pass it off as true, and they have the money and resources behind each and every article they post. Methinks, without satire, the entire public discourse in the republic will collapse.

I can’t even understand why this administration’s supporters are not so receptive of satirical pieces when their principal is the embodiment of sarcasm–hyperbole and all.

Alison Dagnes, a political science teacher at Shippensburg University, got it spot on when she wrote: “Political (satire) is primarily the mark of the underdog. It’s essentially a complaint against oppression. It’s a complaint against the power structure.”

Satire sharpens critique.

Hunting fake news (2)

“You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war.” – William Randolph Hearst, New York World owner

HERE’S the second and last installment of my series on hunting fake news. Purveyors of fake news almost usually also post accompanying fake photos to further bolster the “legitimacy” of their stories.

Fake photos?! It’s hard to imagine, right? It’s because you would think photographs are precise representations of events. Well, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in the last decade, photographs can be manipulated.

However, in this age of photoshop and other digital photo manipulation applications, you might find it surprising that photo manipulation is not actually new.

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It means photographs evoke emotions faster than an article can because it is, after all, visual. You don’t need to read anything. You just look at it and wham–emotions start to flow.

The quote above is an actual reply of Hearst to a cable message of his illustrator assigned in Cuba in 1897, Frederic Remington.

Hearst, for reasons only known to him, had wanted to ignite a war between the US and Spain. Cuba at that time had an insurrection against its Spanish colonizers. However, Remington cabled Hearst: “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here (Cuba). There will be no war. Wish to return.”

So when USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor less than three weeks since the cable message exchange, Remington illustrated the boat as it sank. Hearst wasted no time in using the illustration to foment war between the US and Spain. This was reflected in a phrase he popularized in his newspaper, New York World, “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!”

Spain had nothing to do with the sinking of USS Maine but Hearst made it appear in his articles that it was result of a direct attack of Spain against American forces.

Within three months, the Spanish-American war was raging hard. The Philippines, being a Spanish colony that time, had to be “conquered” by the US as spoils of that war. After that war, the US became a global power to contend with and ended Spain’s old-brand of imperialism.

In a way, bad journalism–in this instance, a fake photo–was the reason why the Philippines was colonized by the US. By the way, a small digression if you will. Hearst was caricatured best in Orson Welles’ magnum opus “Citizen Kane.”

It would have been dramatic that the “new world” conquered the “old world” except that because the war was fueled by a fake photo, it was nothing short of tragic.

Talking of tragic, here in the Philippines now, no less than the government’s communication team has joined in purveying fake news and photos.

The Philippine News Agency posted a story on how the military is having difficulty with close quarter battle in flushing out the Maute Group from Marawi City. I knew the correspondent who wrote the article, so I believed the article. However, the editors, in their incomprehensible wisdom, posted an accompanying photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

Not to be left behind, newly appointed Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Margaux “Mocha” Uson posted a photo of the Honduran police on their knees praying in the hopes of rallying support for government troops who are currently fighting the Maute Group in Marawi City.

When the fake photo was pointed out, Uson brushed off criticisms by saying the photo was mere symbolism of the point she was making or a “representative photo.” Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if her succeeding blogs will not carry any titles–she is already entitled.

They have since taken down the photo and issued an erratum of sorts.

As for my colleagues in media, either they be in private or government employ, I have this to say: If we keep on repeating the same mistakes in a chosen field for a considerable length of time then maybe it’s time to seriously consider another craft or trade. You’re not contributing to the well-being of the planet and your species.

Now that we have the history of fake photos out of the way, let’s discuss how to hunt for fake photos on social media platforms.

But before we discuss knowing what to look for in fake photos, I’d like first to discuss how photos are being faked.

1. Drawing or staging. Unlike studio or glam photography, photojournalists are not supposed to be “directing” a crime scene. The photo should be an accurate depiction of what happened. I have witnessed this once. A photojournalist, at he was back then, asked one of the protesters in a rally to move closer to where he was standing so he could capture a more “provocative” frame. This practice, by the way, is frowned upon by professional photojournalists.
2. Post production alterations. This is where photoshop or other photo editing apps comes in. Sometimes photojournalists would think a column of smoke from a burning building isn’t quite fluffy or big enough they’d clone that column of smoke and paste it on the same frame. There have been times also when photojournalists introduce another subject from an old photo and pass it off as one frame.
3. Inaccurate captioning. It’s quite unfortunate that people in this administration’s communication team have been fooling us with foreign photos with inaccurate captioning, as what we have been witnessing lately. We have also seen our “friends” on Facebook posting photos of bomb victims in the past and captioned it as happening (read: ATM) currently in Marawi City. As in news articles, the captioning the real date of when the photo was captured is also of the same import.

You can also always use Google’s “image search” feature if there’s something suspicious about a photo. I used this in the Vietnam war photo PNA used to pass off as happening in Marawi City. I felt the photo was so familiar but could not put my finger on it. So, I downloaded the photo, fed that photo in Google’s image search, and voila–it was a photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

If the photo is sent to you via email, you can check the details of the photo by accessing its metafile data. You access this by right-clicking the photo’s thumbnail in your file browser. A dialogue box will pop out. Left click on properties.

So, in spotting a fake photo you need to inspect the following:

1. Shadows. I summarize photography as the art of taming shadows and light. Look for inconsistencies in the subjects’ shadow in the photo. For example, if the shadow of a man in the photo is leaning at a 45 degree angle, every thing else in the frame should have the same 45 degree angle-leaning shadows.
2. Light source. Inversely from shadows, the light source of the whole frame should be global. The bounce of the light source on the subjects in the frame should be consistent with the shadows these set. This means the light source should be at the opposite end of the subject’s shadow.
3. Discoloration. This usually happens when a subject introduced to a photo is a clone of a subject from a different photo. If you can see discoloration on the edges of a subject in a photo (read: inconsistent color from the main frame), chances are the photo has been manipulated with a photo editing software.
4. Pixilation. This is akin to the presence of discoloration in a photo, except that instead of color inconsistency there’s inconsistency in pixels of the photo. This happens when the photo editor clones a subject from a different photo and placing it on a new photo without considering the image size (read: dots per inch or pixels per inch) of the photo the photo editor cloned it from.

Now that you know how to distinguish fake news and photos from the real ones, you might ask what am I to do with this new skill. You need to call fake news and photos out. As for those who are share-a-holics: Always check and verify what you share on your wall.

Like the fair warning I posted on my wall weeks ago, I warned friends, relatives, acquaintances, and colleagues that I will be more aggressive in pointing out shared fake news and photos on my Facebook account. I will screen-capture any friend’s post sharing a fake news, and post it with a stamp “Fake News.” Plus, I blocked their accounts from mine.

It’s all worth it, I promise you. Ever since I amped up my hunting for fake news and photos on my Facebook account and called these out for the garbage that they are, the news feeds on my wall have starkly improved.

There are no more fake news except for sporadic trolling on the threads of my posts and a deluge of friends and message requests. But, hey, don’t forget you have full control of your social media account. Like I said in my post: Good luck with that. I don’t [expletive] know you.

Now, I’m enjoying Facebook again.

Uncreative non-fiction

“Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.” -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi party propagandist

I WOULD like to thank the Philippine News Agency for making this column a helluva lot easier to write by posting not one but two fake news articles. Now we have two articles to dissect which will be easier to separate truth from Goebbels-like propaganda.

I was thinking of sharing with you, my dear avid readers (Yes, all 250 of you), the things I learned at a seminar I attended last week. The seminar was about how to spot fake news. I prepared notes on the subject when PNA posted those fake news stories on their website.

This means that I might have to make this a two-part opinion piece. I will discuss and share tips on how to hunt for fake news on my second installment. But for now, let’s first tackle PNA’s latest foray into blatant disinformation.

Unfortunately for us, PNA took down the story and edited the fake news articles.

But good for us because many in the mainstream media (this paper included) screen grabbed the articles before PNA took down the article.

That’s good news for us because now, at least, we know PNA and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) still feel “hiya.” Well, they should be, since their salaries are taxpayers’ money.

On May 15, PNA ran a story entitled: “95 nations in 3rd UPR convinced no EJKs in PHL.” The story, which ran for five days, claimed that 95 member-states who were present in the 27th Universal Period Review of the of the United Nations Human Rights Council believed in Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s report that there are no extrajudicial killings in the country.

Newly appointed Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson wasted no time in posting the erroneous article on her blog on May 18. So the “crusading” blogger–who branded mainstream media “presstitutes”–now became an official “presstitute” of this administration by passing along an inaccurate article.

Vera Files checked its blog and found that as of May 20, at least 8,000 netizens had reacted and more than 900 gullible ones shared it.

The international council took notice of the erroneous article that it posted on its official Twitter account on May 19: “#UPR27 Clarification: To our best knowledge, 95 states were not convinced that EJK is non-existent.” The UN body then posted the full webcast of the UPR session.

The government news wires service took down the story on May 20 (may hiya rin pala) but not before posting a replacement story which is still inaccurate and also served to bolster Cayetano’s claim that the UPR was impressed with his report on the human rights situation in the country. The replacement story bears the odd title: “PHL’s human rights situation commended at UPR.”

So what did really happen at the 27th UPR? To answer this. I went to the international body’s website, www.upr-info.org. Here are samples of the real recommendations of the member-states:

• Further consolidate its national human rights infrastructure, including support to the Commission on Human Rights. (Egypt)
• Continue to improve its capacity to uphold human rights, including by increasing the Commission on Human Rights’ (CHR) fiscal autonomy and organizational capacity, as well as further efforts to prevent human rights violations by Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippines National Police personnel. (Australia)
• Continue to work as a matter of urgency to ensure that there are mechanisms to completely eliminate torture and extrajudicial killings, and to intensify its efforts to carry out investigations and prosecutions on extrajudicial killings and punish those responsible. (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Conduct independent and impartial inquiry in relation to all enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions and that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to justice. (France)
• Work towards the complete elimination of torture and extrajudicial killings, and intensify efforts to carry out the prosecution of such crimes. (The Holy See) For the newbies: The Holy See means The Vatican.
• Further capacity building, such as through human rights education targeting government authorities, particularly law enforcement agencies, and an effective implementation of a national oversight mechanism. (Japan)
• Continue the work to build up the capacity in the area of human rights protection, including through strengthening the national human rights institution. (Russian Federation)

That last one should be a doozy, considering that President Rodrigo Duterte is visiting Russia this week.

For good measure, I also audited the database on the UPR website. I found that extrajudicial killings were mentioned 18 times. Human rights violation was cited 81 times in the 191 recommendations and 74 of which are recommendations that seek “general action” in the categories of action that need to be done. A general action is No. 4 in the action categories of the council. The action categories are: 1 – Minimal action 2 – Continuing action 3 – Considering action 4 – General action 5 – Specific action.

So there. Good luck with your lies and disinformation, PNA and PCOO.

Corrupting the minors

“Corruption is not a victimless crime.” – Malou Mangahas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

SURE, it may not be as dramatic and graphic as this administration’s bloodlust under the pretext of waging a war on illegal drugs but corruption is just as appalling, debase, and vile.

It is subtle. It is because what corruption kills is opportunity. For every peso stolen from the state coffers, it is an important medical check-up not pushed through or an academic path not trudged.

On the side of the corrupted, there is impunity and entitlement that they feel borne out of a weak or even broken moral compass.

When I heard about the “ghost pupils” at our public elementary school here in Consolacion, I was enraged. The fact that a government assistance program–a program which supposedly encourages impoverished families to send their children to school–has been corrupted is cunningly vile.

That was only half of it. The other half of that ball of anger is on the seemingly default response of government of covering it up to the point of pinning the blame on the school principal.

By the way, I believe education is a right and not a privilege. It is a state obligation.

We discovered this debase scheme about a fortnight ago. Since then, the welfare department has since “corrected” the erroneous list of pupil-beneficiaries. However, an investigation on the breadth and depth of the civil workers involved has yet to be launched.

The school principal discovered the 107 “ghost pupils” listed as beneficiaries in the course of verifying the welfare department’s list of pupil-beneficiaries for the months of February and March which is set to be released next month.

The welfare department regional field office’s default response was that the school principal made a mistake in verifying the list. Its program’s focal person said the principal checked their list without the presence of the “pupils” teachers. Well, who would know better who is enrolled in a school or not than the school principal?

The list was crafty. It had surnames that are cunningly familiar to anybody who has lived in Consolacion in the last 15 years. However, the first names were unfamiliar.

I made my own calculations. It seems that I have been making calculations lately. It doesn’t even help the fact that I hate math, but back to the point I was making… Had the erroneous list been “verified” without the school principal’s transparency and honesty, the taxpayers would have given away to a lucky ring of government ulcers with P171,200 next month. The amount is derived from the educational grant of P300 and health allowance of P500 each pupil-beneficiary gets for the months of February and March then multiply that to the number of “ghost pupils” at Consolacion Elementary School.

That is only for one public elementary school. In the course of our discovery, we found out that this same scheme is being done in other public schools in the city as well. So if you have a neighbor who ostensibly works at the welfare department who suddenly has brand new appliances, chances are, those are katas ng pantawid. I have seen such neighbor, mind you. Suddenly, they were able to buy flat screen TVs, washing machines, and even a taxi.

Lately, this administration has been espousing a no-nonsense war against corruption–this administration is so into “wars”–by booting out supposedly corrupt officials. The “purge” has started with the interior secretary.

I say this administration should, nay must, also include its career bureaucrats in the regions. That is if it is serious in rooting out this equally reprehensible behavior.

Until then, the colorful words of this administration will remain as such–mere words. Pfft.

Skating on thin ice

“Don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. You slip out of your depth and out of your mind with your fear flowing out behind you.” -The thin ice, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

THE animosity on social media has really taken off. People whom I thought I knew to be discerning and critical are sharing obvious propaganda passing off as journalistic work. Even people who are close to me by blood have been espousing hatred towards political dissenters of the republic which he based on an article written by paid hacks of the “fifth column.”

It pains me to see government employees, career bureaucrats, and academics swallow President Digong Dada’s hate rhetorics–hook, line, and sinker. Hasn’t it occurred to them that hate escalates? It’s like wildfire. You keep fanning on the flames of hate, you will get burned eventually. When it does, please don’t act surprised, aghast or scandalized at the level of hatred floating around because we did our part in it.

How do you think the Rwanda genocide started? It started with hate propaganda against an entire class of people broadcast on local radio over and over until the collective psyché of the people snapped. Hate took a life on its own. Interesting sidebar to this is that it was fanned by religious people. Just like what the fictional international crime lord on the TV series “The Blacklist” said: “Hell hath no fury than a fundamentalist scorned.”

Trolls and even actual people who behave like trolls on social media have been fanning this great ball of hate. With all the available information online, methinks these people consciously choose to be ignorant like fanatics in a cult. I agree with Prof. Ben Domingo when he posted online: “Trolls do not deserve an explanation.”

I mean what can you really do or say when the person you are trying to reach out to has decided to believe in the alternative reality this regime has whipped up. I used the word: decision, because it is exactly that–a conscious choice to shut out dissenting opinions and perspectives. One cannot even call for sobriety online without being branded as either a “dilawan” or an “adik.”

The “us and them” tactical narrative is as old as time. The generals and czars used it to divide and conquer. It even has a biblical version: “If you are not with us, you are against us.”

As for me, I take solace in the thought that the age-old primeval law of self-preservation will ultimately kick in. Human beings can only eat so much bull crap in their lifetime.

Mob anger

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring (Gandalf’s Advice)

LAST week, the city was overwhelmed with anger when the Balinado house on JR Borja St. near Burgos St. was burglarized. Thirty-year-old graduating education student Cherrymae Dayo was allegedly raped, and then stabbed. Dayo managed to run outside the house to call for help but later died in the hospital. The main suspect, Warren Amarga, 24, admitted to stabbing Dayo to the chest but denied having raped her.

Within minutes after the police announced that they have arrested five suspects hours after the crime was committed, a mob started to form outside the police station in Divisoria. A radio reporter asked one of the kibitzers outside what he hoped to accomplish by joining the mob outside the police station. The kibitzer answered he wanted to punch or at least scratch the face of one of the suspects.

Meanwhile, local social media groups overflowed with angry posts. Most posts wanted death to the suspects. They want the recently approved Death Penalty Bill (House Bill 4727) to be applied on the five suspects.

First, death penalty cannot be applied on the suspects yet since it is still a bill (read: proposed law)–senators have yet to vote on it. Second, the members of the Lower House, in all their “wisdom,” only arrived at a consensus after the House Speaker removed the heinous crimes of rape and plunder in the list of offenses punishable by death. HB 4727, should it pass the bi-cameral session, will only cover drug-related offenses.

That’s the problem with most netizens these days. They read less than their comments. Perhaps, these “righteous” people should direct their anger at our congressmen who were among the majority in the Lower House to delist rape in their Death Penalty Bill.

Some asked why the human rights advocates, specifically the Commission on Human Rights, were silent. That rhetorical question is really dumb. This argument, if you call it that, has been going around social media since the start of President Digong Dada’s campaign last year. The CHR is not a law enforcement body.

It bothers me that in this supposed information age, many netizens choose ignorance.

Look, I understand anger. What I don’t understand is why there was no public outburst of anger in the Jamaca case or the Fernandez case? Is it because the suspects in these cases involved were police officers? Where was the people’s “righteous” anger then?

I agree that whoever raped and killed Dayo should be punished with the full force of the law. Such crime was incorrigible. However, if the mob insists that these five suspects should be killed and that their anger is “righteous,” I dare them to go to the police station now. Go and grab the gun of the officer-in-charge, and pull the trigger to kill the suspects even before their guilt could be established in court. Go put a hole in each of the suspect’s head.

Go ahead, make Cocpo’s day.