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.

Opinion writing 101

“Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough,” Karl Marx (1818-1883).

IT TOOK years of coaxing and goading from people I have come to respect and revere for me to even start considering to write opinion pieces. To put it bluntly, I find punditry hilas.

I find it even ironic that I have been pursuing a journalism career since I've always been more inclined to poetry and literature when I started out writing ― unlike my father.

Yes, before Emilio dragged me into this shit storm of a career, I was perfectly comfortable thinking up of quatrains and couplets for my Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets. I was more interested in devising twists and turns in the plot of a short story.

I blame Emilio for all of these.

Anyway, I'm here now ― working for a daily newspaper with the widest circulation in northern Mindanao. But, it took me grueling years in the trenches (read: beat reporter) before I started writing opinion pieces.

Five years ago, I remember one of my mentors, Carolyn Arguillas, asked me to write an opinion column for Mindanews. I replied with an anticlimactic no. I said I was too young to be writing what my thoughts are on current events.

To even think about writing something that bares my soul on any given subject out in the open still gives me goosebumps.

I felt that my body of work wasn't enough to build my credibility as a pundit.

When I did, finally, decided to write my column, My Wit's End, I read a butt-load of opinion pieces first. I found that punditry, although subjective in nature, must be based on real events. This is only logical because how could you arrive at a sound hypothesis if it is based on imaginary events.

Opinion and fiction or creative writing are two distinct approaches to writing, I was taught. But unlike creative writing, in column writing, your characters are already there. You do not create the characters to fit your narrative. You do not base your accusations on events that didn't happen.

One thing I found to be true to most opinion pieces, the common denominator, if you will, is that this articles are and should be based on facts and documented events.

Opinion writing, to me, is the distillation of current events that affect society and so you offer your humble analyses of these events for your readers to come up with intelligent and informed decisions. You do not write opinion articles based on the figment of your imagination.

Column writing can also serve as a call to action. It serves as the embodiment of journalism's role in society as a check and balance. It is the practical application of the fourth estate’s “watchdog” role.

I think this is where the concept of “conflict of interest” comes in. You have to be detached to the subject you’re writing about to be able to give an honest opinion.

Now if you write a column to attack a public entity based on the imagined wrongs this entity did to further line your own pocket, then that. my friend is not punditry. It is just nothing short of a shakedown ― a con and the purveyor of this, a hack job. It is nothing but a receipt of a tigbas.

It is correct when you say that a wrongdoing can never be contained, much like air or smoke. But an imagined wrongdoing cannot get off the ground either.

I am not the least threatened by this supposed age of post-truth and fake news (read: imagined events).

You see, pundits who base their opinion on a fake news or imagined sources is not really a fake pundit. It only shows the author’s gullibility and stupidity.

This kind of people will eventually self-destruct but like the fool that the economist Karl Marx described at the start of this article, they will always jockey for the position of having the last say in the matter.

Until then, we will just have to contend with these maladjusted paid hacks and take their writings the way it should be ― as works of fiction, ergo for entertainment purposes and nothing more.

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.

‘Facebooking’

ABOUT a fortnight ago, a Facebook group account, Duterte Today, screen grabbed my post and shared this on its wall. For a Kagay-anon to be trolled by somebody from Metro Davao, I must say is quite flattering.

I had posted my usual mundane satirical post after aggressively hunting fake news articles and photos, which has been this administration’s hallmark by the way.

Anyway, I posted: “There has been a deluge of friend and message requests ever since I amped up my fake news hunting. Good luck with that. I don’t ****ing know you. Pfft.”

Duterte Today captioned its screen grab of my post with: “Char. Swerte mo nga umabot 15 likes post mo this time.”

It’s fine because I set the post to public, anyway. Also, the Duterte Today page has a username of @indaysara. If that is not flattering I don’t know what is.

Of course, I don’t think Davao City’s mayor and presidential daughter has got something to do about the troll-like screen grabbing but you have to appreciate the “down time” the people of Davao are paying for this kind of sophomoric social media attack.

I chided a friend in Davao for their city information office for having too much time on its hands while on the people’s employ. The asswipe must be reeling with its/his/her newfound power.

Sorry for the digression. What I really wanted to say is that the incident made me think of the past (cue in: harp)–when I joined Facebook, what I expected to get out of it and what it has become.

Have I, indeed, turned into a “like whore?” Have I let my Facebook account define the person I am supposed to be in real-time? Did I let my inert psychological need to belong rule over what I really am?

All these questions pushed me to look back into my Facebook history, hoping to find some answers or at least clues to the person I really am.

I first joined the Facebook social networking site in 2008. Yes. When Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin launched Facebook in 2004, it wasn’t called a social media platform yet. They meant Facebook to be about connecting people across the globe.

My circle of real-time friends then were still agog over Friendster. They thought it weird for me then to invite them to Facebook. Before that, I used Mirabilis’ ICQ social network.

It was really fun connecting with friends and relatives abroad or from across the country. We exchanged photos of how we look like at the moment.

However, all of that changed when Facebook became a weaponized voyeur’s instrument. It started with “lurker” accounts. People made a different account and followed the same people in their original account just so they could “lurk” on their friends. And when the 2010 elections came, lurker accounts became troll accounts. The rest, as the old cliche goes, is history.

But I will continue my presence in Facebook. I have been using it to vent my frustrations on–not for likes, mind you. It has become a sort of real-time, online, journal for me.

So, do I feel slighted with the Duterte Today screen grab? No, because I think we have different perspectives and agenda when it comes to going online.

To my dear readers (yes, all 243 of you), if you are also a Facebook friend, following, or even lurking me online please understand that you are in no way obliged to like, comment, or do anything. What I post on my wall is an expression.

It’s really nothing personal. It’s not about you.

It’s just me.

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.

Job application

AS I watched my daughter excitedly write her job application letters the other day, I recalled the positions I applied for and those I had before I ended up in the newspaper industry–I mean, before I got “hooked” in the print medium.

Leia asked me how I applied for work before. Yes, my fresh graduate is itching to put her degree to use. So please don’t begrudge me for a little shout out to my friends and potential employers out there before I continue. Leia earned her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Technology degree at the University of Science and Technology in Southern Philippines. Now, I don’t know what a graduate of that course actually does for a living, ergo this short shout out.

Okay. Let’s go back to romancing the past.

Leia told me she felt insecure because, obviously, she has a short curriculum vitae. I assured her it’s quite “alright” because it is her first foray into the job market. Before, we did not have to write CVs to go with our application letter. We bought a pro forma bio data for one peso. So, imagine how embarrassing it was for me to leave out some of the items in the bio data because unlike my daughter, I was a college dropout. However, living in the Corrales household which was a dual-income family and being a college dropout, I started feeling like I was a freeloading loser–and I was. After two summers of just skulking around the house and playing video games with our Nintendo Family Computer, I figured I had to somehow start contributing to the “real world.”

I became an apprentice for a salesman of a merchandising company. We sold baby powder and bathroom tissue from Iligan City to Kapatagan. I remember being stranded in Kapatagan for two days because my bosses, the salesman and the driver, got into a binge drinking spree and were too drunk to travel, much less, make sales calls.

After a short stint with the drunken salesman, I applied and worked for a Grolier encyclopedia distribution company. Yes, I was a book salesman. Before the Internet, encyclopedias were king. I experienced a lot of my “firsts” in that job–“firsts” which I’d rather not go to details in this column.

I reached my sales quota and was awarded a whole set of encyclopedia. But after that, the caravans and the book conventions started to bore me. I had to go out. I was looking for something. What it was I still didn’t have a clue.

I got out of that job and applied for a more “physical job”–an assistant welder. I recall being good at it. I enjoyed getting my hands dirty and getting paid by the sweat of my brow, so to speak. We fabricated window grills and we had a variety of designs catalogued. I remember filling out a large order from a subdivision developer somewhere in Kauswagan. So if you live in a subdivision in Kauswagan, chances are we made your window grills.

However, my boss decided to work overseas and had to close shop. So I was officially unemployed again. From that time until I started to work for a local newspaper were a string of odd jobs. The oddest of which was being an “Internet coach.” Internet was something new that time and there was this German expat who posted a job ad in a local daily for somebody to teach him how to use the Internet.

After that, I worked as a personal assistant which I have come to understand is a euphemism for “yaya”; as insurance agent; as a folksinger; and as a community organizer for a non-government organization.

Leia asked me if I regretted having applied for all of those I mentioned. I did not because all the jobs shaped the kind of man that I am now. It shaped my biases and principles, and it made me a better journalist today. Whenever I write a news or feature story about something, I can write about it honestly because I lived it before.

I think the lesson my Leia and the others who are entering into the job market for the first time is not to be choosy and just explore. Of course, some of the wisecracks out there will reply: “I can be choosy because unlike you, I have a degree.”

The first job you will be applying and work for will just be to acquire practical knowledge outside the academic bubble. Believe you me, there will be lots of theories that will be debunked in the course of your careers.

But then again, what do I know, right?

Back to the grind

EVERYTHING is back to normal. The only one true god and savior is back in the hearts of the fanatics. The infallible and incorrigible is back to thriving in the country as he is encouraged and nourished by the very society which he abhors.

Every disciple of the regime is back to calling for blood in the name of their savior’s war on illegal drugs. Each fanatic is back to mocking priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. Human rights advocates are not safe again and, as declared by their one true god, it’s an open season against the press.

Yes, folks, Lent is over. The mass hypocrisy and delusion is over.

Last week, I conducted a social experiment on my Facebook wall. I posted outrageous, ridiculous, and for the believers, sacrilegious ideas on my wall. The posts were meant to draw out reactions from my friends and relatives.

As was expected, some friends parried my posts by posting on their own walls about respecting their beliefs and religion. I say it was an expected response because most religious people feel the need to defend their belief system especially when it is questioned during the most serious and religious week of the church calendar-year.

They say they respect the belief of others or the lack thereof. But the point is, I am not obliged in any way to respect something which I think is ridiculous.

A few others, those who really know me, just laughed off my posts and even offered their own brand of ridiculousness on the thread.

I will not, however, belabor on those kinds of reactions. My Lenten social media experiment was targeted at the insanely religious yet supports the wanton extrajudicial killings, the bashing of human rights advocates and civil libertarians.

At least five distant relatives and two acquaintances “unfriended” and “blocked” me from their Facebook accounts. Based on that kind of response, I believe my social experiment was spot on.

I find it funny and ridiculous that these people find my Lenten posts as “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful” (I used the quotation marks because these were the exact words sent to me via private messaging on Facebook) yet would willingly and consciously applaud and approve their one true god and savior every time he lambasts the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, makes the most misogynistic pronouncements, and promotes purging of “lesser” human beings under the pretext of his war on drugs.

Yesterday, this regime’s disciples were back to their old selves– “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful.”

However, we, sane and rational people, have respite from all of these tirades. We’ll always have Lent next year when these disciples will again wear their religious masks.

For now, it is back to new normal–back to the grind, as it were. 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.

Fake obituary

OF all the clauses in the code of ethics in journalism, the most memorable one for me is: “Do no harm.” I know it is more of a guideline than an actual rule but you can understand the damage you could do to your fellow human beings when you broadcast or publish just about anything without the checking the facts before reporting it.

Humans as we are, we are all bound to commit mistakes.

I once inadvertently “killed” an associate justice of the Court of Appeals by choosing the wrong photo to go with the banner story of a judge who died. The associate justice was so mad that he sent me a letter. I remember becoming a bit nervous because it was written on his official stationary. You know the kind that starts with “from the desk of associate justice…” He asked me to explain within 72 hours why he should not sue me in court.

I explained that it happened because his photo was erroneously filed in a folder under his name. After asking for an apology, profusely, we published an erratum the next day explaining that the photo was not of the judge who died, and that we committed a mistake.

In my 10 years or so in the print medium, I have made mistakes. However, it is another thing when you willingly lie or quote imaginary sources or text messages sent by who-knows-who.

Over the weekend, President Elipe broadcast over Magnum Radio that he received text messages about Opol Mayor Maximo Seno supposedly passing away. Seno subsequently told this paper that it was a lie, and that, obviously, he is alive. He went to the US for a three-month medical leave. Imagine what the false information has done to his family, friends, and worse, his constituents in Opol.

Just so the ex-councilor would understand, let’s turn him into an example. Again, this is just hypothetical. How would Elipe’s loved ones feel if a broadcaster, quoting an imaginary source, falsely reports that he was abducted by the Maute group and then beheaded? Of course, the broadcaster could, like him, hide behind the Sotto Law that allows him not to divulge the identity of his news source. But wait, I recall Prof. Chell Diokno teaching us that the Sotto Law (Shields Law in the US) only protects journalists in the print medium. Sorry, I digressed.

Going back to the Elipe's lie, because he broadcast the terrible rumor passing off as a “news item” over a radio station, his listeners could have taken it as a legitimate news. What if a close relative of Seno with a medical condition keeled over after hearing Elipe’s fake news? Would Elipe be responsible for such death?

It was like Martin Andanar quoting an “intel report” that the journalists who covered the press conference of Sen. Antonio Trillanes III were given $1,000 each.

Working in mass media should not be taken lightly. There will consequences to everything you publish or broadcast. Andanar got demoted for maligning the Senate press corps. What do you think will happen to Elipe?

Just recently, this paper erroneously accredited a photo to our correspondent although it was not his. We have since admitted our faux pas, apologized, took down the photo and article, and published a clarificatory article the very next day.

Still the group felt pissed off. But that’s another story all together because it turned out their beef was misdirected at us when they were really pissed off with another group with the same name.

Post no bill, please

CONSIDERING how many times this regime has been finding ways to mess up our civil liberties, it should change its logo to a fist with the middle finger sticking out.

As if the be-wigged stooge of President Digong Dada at the justice department hasn’t wrangled the Republic’s judicial system enough to serve the regime’s vendetta, here comes another stooge who wants to impose the historically “effective” ghetto-like branding – all, of course, in the name of waging the war on drugs.

About a fortnight ago, Interior Secretary Ismael Sueño opined to label houses that are supposedly “drug free” with a decal telling people the house is such.

Sueño suggests this will be better than the violent Oplan Tokhang. He is so convinced there is nothing inherently wrong with this that he vilified Amnesty International-Philippines when the latter called him out on his plan to brand houses. Sueño even resorted to a childish play on words against the Nobel Prize laureate saying: “They should be branded as human wrong group, not human rights group.”

Who will determine if the household is indeed drug-free? Who will evaluate and confirm this as a fact? How will they categorize and what are the rules of implementation of this branding campaign?

This came to him, Sueño said, after meeting with the regional peace and order councils recently.

He said this regime is shifting to a non-violent and positive way to combat illegal drugs. Is he admitting that Oplan Tokhang was wrong? The plastering of “drug free” stickers on houses, he said, will not be a police operation but by the civilian peace and order councils from the regional down to the barangay level.

Hasn’t Sueño been listening to his boss? Didn’t Digong Dada push for the postponement of the barangay elections because “most” barangay officials are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade? Now, Sueño wants these people allegedly involved in illegal drug trafficking to decide which house in their barangay is drug-free? If he doesn’t see the problem of conflicts of interest in that arrangement, I personally don’t know what will.

How sure is Sueño that this new branding campaign will not be used by barangay chairpersons as a subtle campaign for their own pedestrian political careers? Let’s not forget we are going to elect a new set of barangay officials this coming October. I, for one, am not expecting for such decal. This is because I have been at odds with our barangay chairman in Consolacion – a Roa, I might add – since he practically abdicated his mandate to policing our village of drug users and hooligans. My regular (at 165 of them) readers will bear this out since I have been writing about his governance style or to be accurate his lack of it.

Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines – a third world impoverished country – where a house does not automatically mean one family. I live in a house being shared by two other families. Should our brilliant barangay chairman decide not to stick a decal on our house on my account – just to get back at me – won’t that be unfair for the other two families, who may or may not be involved in illegal drugs?

I am most certain that this will be used arbitrarily by barangay chairpersons who want to stay as chairpersons in their barangays after October.

“Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines…”

Which company will be printing the drug-free decals. Who stands to gain from this enterprise? In street vernacular: Pila man gyud, ser?

I mean, how different is this to Nazi Germany’s posting of a Star of David on the homes of Jews not too long ago. This may be a reverse of what Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim did before, spray-painting houses of suspected drug traffickers but its effect is still the same. It will discriminate the household members of a house with no drug-free sticker plastered on it.

So, no, Mr. Sueño, I will not participate in your version of a Star of David – respect my right to private property and post no bill, please.

Public conversation

THE public conversation on corruption is bound to happen whoever is in power. Even the almighty Apo Ferdie couldn’t get under wraps. It is nothing personal. It is a conversation where the taxpayers hold to account those who swore to be true and at their service.

Forbes Magazine recently cited Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Index where the country slid back some six places in ranking – from an index of 134 in 2010 to 168. We are now neighbors with Pakistan and India in terms of level of corruption.

“President Duterte’s dramatic rise to power in the Philippines made extensive use of anti-corruption rhetoric. Yet, the impact of death squads, attacks on media, and violent intimidation to the detriment of democracy and democratic institutions is yet to be seen in 2017,” Transparency International’s observation reads in part.

Deflection must be the most useful tact in any self-respecting politician’s arsenal. Even the ones who claim they have nothing to hide.

As I see it, there is really no need for President Digong Dada to order the Anti-Money Laundering Council to “release” his bank account records because as the highest elected public official in the land every asset he and his family has, earned or inherited, should all reflect in all of his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth. Yes, from when he was a non-crusading public prosecutor up to his winning the presidency of the Republic last year.

For the dense and ignorant, the submission of a SALN, as stipulated in Republic Act 6713, is a prerequisite of all public officials and employees – sans those in an honorary capacity, laborers, casuals, and temporary workers –upon assumption to office and on or before April 30 of every year in government service. Public officials are also required to file a SALN within 30 days after separation from government service.

“The SALN lists the properties – real estate, vehicles, jewelry, shares of stock, etc. – that an official has acquired or owns, when, at what cost, and their current market values. The SALN also enrolls the official’s liabilities such as loans, including those from government institutions (read: GSIS) and insurance payments. The SALN should list as well the names of the official’s wife and children below 18, and the names of the official’s relatives in government service up to the fourth degree of consanguinity and affinity,” our codigo cum notebook when I was with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism reads.

So when Sen. Antonio Trillanes brought up Duterte’s supposedly suspicious fat bank accounts I was surprised that the latter’s initial response was childish name-calling and insults. The next day, as if sobered up, ordered the AMLC to “release all his bank records.” A little digression for the online trolls and fanatics, I agree that Trillanes looks creepy. Well, they both look sinister as fudge to me. But looks and gut feel has got nothing to do with the Trillanes-Duterte to-and-fro (which basically is turning out to be a b-version of a Star Wars saga).

If Duterte has nothing to hide he need simply point Trillanes to all of his SALNs. This, of course, has a lot of conjectures attached to that statement. That is assuming Duterte faithfully and honestly filed SALNs in all the years of his career as a public servant. There’s the assumption, too, that he really advocates for transparency and accountability in public service – and so on and so forth.

Trillanes’ accusations should also not come as a surprise for Duterte considering the former comptroller of the Navy’s acquisition division already filed a plunder case last year. A second attack, as it were, was bound to happen. Like a rat that got wind of a rotting cheese, it will pursue it no matter what. Trillanes will not back down. He has already drawn first blood.

Whichever sides of the fence you are sitting, Trillanes’ accusations is primarily a call for transparency. If he has shady practices in the Senate then these should also be investigated on – as pointed out by the Fifth Estate (Duterte’s barrage of spin doctors). Too bad, Trillanes beat Duterte to hurling accusations first.

This also brings to fore the need for a public conversation on the alleged corruption under the Duterte administration which was bound to happen as with the past presidents of the Republic.

So, no VG, this is not about whether I’m opposed to this administration or not. This is not about the person. This is about us – yes, including you – pulling our heads out of our asses and start asking the really ugly questions that need to be asked.

We cannot just sweep the conversation under the rug, so to speak.