Red-tagged redux

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who is the dummy?

LIKE other professions and vocations, we, journalists and media practitioners, belong to a community. At least, that’s what I believed in.

Having worked with national and international media organizations made me believe that. There are lots of organizations that help the local press. Like me, many local media practitioners know this. They have been aided in one way or the other.

These organizations fund pieces of training, seminars and yes, even bail money when media practitioners get into trouble with this country’s archaic libel law.

This is the reason why I felt so disappointed with some of my colleagues who just kept mum when Rappler executive editor Maria Ressa was arrested again last week.

Ressa may not be the most lovable of journos in the country but that’s not what journalism is about. Make no mistake about it, but what this insecure administration is doing to her and Rappler can happen to you and your outlet.

Most of them parroted this administration’s legalese bovine crap. It’s like these people don’t know how to use Google search. It’s like these people haven’t learned how this administration used legal proceedings to curtail the freedoms of Sen. Leila de Lima, booted out Supreme Court Chief Maria Lourdes Sereno, and many others.

Ressa was arrested because the complainant, the National Bureau of Investigation,, claimed that Rappler violated the Anti-Dummy Law in connection with its relationship with Omidyar Network.

It is disappointing that some veteran journalists and editors in Mindanao take this crap hook, line, and sinker. It is as if they haven’t attended seminars in Manila funded by the likes of Omidyar.

A simple Google search would show you that Omidyar is a philanthropic funding organization. Any media outlet could access funds from this organization. This organization gives grants and program-related investments. Their ledgers can be accessed at their website www.omidyar.com. Check it out and then you will realize that the charges they slapped Rappler are just a smokescreen to silence it.

As the fourth estate, media outlets are strategic organizations that tyrannical regimes shut down. This administration has successfully whipped into submission the legislative and judiciary branches. You would be naive if you think that the attack on Rappler is not an attack to press freedom.

Meanwhile, this administration has unabashedly partnered with the communist People’s Republic of China. In fact, it has been brandishing the communists’ investments in the Philippines. Now, I dare pose this question: Who is the real dummy here?

Strangers in the mirror

“The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.” — Mark Twain

WITH what his operatives have been doing to the people they have sworn to serve and protect, a fictional character and plot of a television series should be the least of Philippine National Police Chief Oscar Abayalde’s concern.

It boggles the mind that Abayalde is so concerned with his perceived blowback with Ang Probinsyano to his organization’s integrity when his own personnel is doing a bang-up job tainting their organization themselves.

The fictional Cardo Dalisay, like most of the characters in Philippine cinema and television, acts as a mirror to the harsh realities of society. Television series, like most expressions of art, is included in the right to free expression — a right enshrined and guaranteed in our Constitution. Abayalde would do well not to shut down the show just because he doesn’t like what he sees in that mirror.

He should, instead, concentrate on working towards redeeming his organization’s reputation that, no less than, the President has labeled as “corrupt to the core.”

Why don’t we, in the spirit of public service, list PNP’s “greatest hits.” This list is not to demoralize our police but to point Abayalde to where he should focus on and not waste his time picking on a television show. Besides, from the looks of things, he has been watching way too much television.

For full disclosure, this list of crimes allegedly perpetrated by police officers has been culled from a simple Google search. However, it should be noted that these have been reported by reputable news organizations and some were reported by PNP top brass themselves.

Theft of electricity

Yesterday, GMA News reported that in Cagayan de Oro City, a police station has been using an illegal jumper cable to provide electricity to its camp.

Rape

The PNP’s Internal Affairs Service reported that they have since filed a total of 31 rape cases committed by 43 police officers from 2012 to 2018.

What’s more disturbing is that 2017 marked a stark increase in incidents of rape involving cops, at 15 rape cases. This year, PNP-IAS has been investigating cops involved in nine rape cases.

Kidnapping

In his report to Abayalde, Chief Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said eight cops assigned at the Muntinlupa City Police Station-Station Drug Enforcement Unit were involved in a kidnap-for-ransom case. They have since arrested four. The other four cops, however, are still at large.

Illegal drugs

Lawyer Alfegar Triambulo, inspector general of PNP-IAS reported in June this year to Abayalde that there have been 349 of its personnel who tested positive for illegal drug use. It is worth noting that the drug of choice of these police officers is shabu. The very substance the organization is supposedly sworn to eradicate.

Equally disconcerting in Triambulo’s report is the fact that of the 349 who tested positive for drugs use, 341 are uniformed personnel. Eight are non-uniformed personnel. The figure is 341 too many for an organization mandated to stamp out illegal drug use.

Extortion

The PNP’s Counter Intelligence Task Force arrested two cops caught extorting P250 in an entrapment operation by another cop who posed as an ordinary motorist on Feb. 12 last year.

As if the amount these cops extorted from a poseur-motorist is not embarrassing enough, the public knows this modus only too well. Where do you think the terms “kotong cops” and “scalawags” come from? These terms did not come out of thin air. It has been happening that is why this modus has been named.

Since the PNP has been ordered to focus on internal cleansing, the organization has received more than a thousand text messages reporting cases of scalawag cops.

Torture

Let’s not forget the 10 police officers who were suspended for running a secret prison where they illegally detain suspects and beat the living daylights out of them.

The detention facility, by the way, is not officially listed in the PNP’s detention facilities. It is a converted house in a residential area in Biñan, Laguna. It has been known to have used the infamous “Wheel of torture,” where different kinds of torture were written on a wheel and what the inmates spin for the choice of the kind of torture to be done to them.

Murders

This May, PNP reported that the organization killed 4,251 drug suspects in anti-drug operations between July 1, 2016, and April 30.

However, Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay refutes the figure since this conflicted with another report the PNP bared to the public before.

Palabay pointed out that last December, the PNP reported at least 20,000 extrajudicial killings in anti-drug operation from July 1, 2016, to September, last year.

Talking of extrajudicial killings, this week we will be commemorating sans justice the Ampatuan Massacre.

Nine years ago on the morning of Nov. 23, 58 people, including lawyers and 32 of whom were media practitioners, were killed on a hilltop in the village of Masalay in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province. Nine years since the victims’ families have yet to exact justice from the most gruesome election-related violence in the world.

With all these cases hounding the PNP, it seems Abayalde has so much in his plate that the Cardo Dalisay, a fictional character at that, is much more threatening to the image and credibility of the police force of the country.

Here’s an unrequited advise to the good general: Lay off the boob tube and get your house in order.

Regulating the fourth estate

THE Presidential Task Force for Media Security, in all its wisdom and intelligence, is pushing for a “Magna Carta” for media workers supposedly to uplift the living conditions of journalists in the country.

Its main stooge, Undersecretary Joel Egco, is set to consult “various legitimate media partners.”

Under the proposed Magna Carta, media personalities will have to take an exam every six months to calibrate their qualification of whether the practitioner belongs to a managerial position or to a corresponding salary level or grade equivalent to that of government.

“Question is, would this be automatic once passed? This would still depend on private media owners but with the qualifying exam, journalist can now be qualified as a level 1, 2 or 3 journalists and depending on the vacant position to be applied, the journalist can now, for example, apply for a reportorial position which is level 2 while obtaining a level 1 qualification,” A Baguio-based news daily quoted Egco as saying last Thursday.

The Philippine Press Institute’s executive director Ariel Sebellino is opposing Magna Carta for media workers.

“Levelling has nothing to do with the quality of journalism. We should care for the following:  Welfare and protection, ethical practice, and truth-telling,” he posted on his wall.

The supposed Magna Carta for media workers is nothing more than government meddling into the independence of the press.

I urge these former journalists and news readers who are now in government service to address the media killings rather than regulating the industry it clearly doesn’t have an inkling on.

The other night, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines has not only gave a flat no, it enjoins other media entities to join it in opposing this threat to the independence of the fourth state and freedom of expression in general.

I would like to share with you NUJP’s statement in full here. Please do read on.

NUJP rejects PTFOMS proposal to regulate press through ‘Magna Carta’ (July 22, 2018)

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines rejects outright the proposal of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security to regulate the profession in the guise of a “Magna Carta” and urge all colleagues as well as media owners to unite in opposing this clear threat to freedom of the press and of expression.

(A Baguio daily) quoted PTFOMS Executive Director Joel Egco as saying the proposed measure would seek to professionalize journalism through qualifying and classifying exams.

“If you want to become a media personality, you will have to take an exam every six months to assess your qualification which would set either a managerial position or a corresponding salary level or grade equivalent to that of government,” Egco was quoted as saying.

This is, in fact, not the first time the idea of regulating, even licensing, journalists have been proposed. And the NUJP, along with other media and free expression advocates, has consistently opposed and thwarted all such attempts.

We do not question the intent of Usec Egco, himself a former colleague.

But the proposed “Magna Carta,” which goes so far as to set salary grades depending on “competency,” is fraught with danger, not least of all allowing government to determine who can or cannot be a journalist, which is totally anathema to a profession that can thrive only in independence.

We maintain that journalism is an extension of freedom of expression and serves the people’s sacrosanct right to the information they need to make decisions about their individual and collective lives.

The Magna Carta would also infringe on the rights of media owners and managers to determine who to employ.

We cannot allow the government – this or any other – the opportunity to meddle in any way not only in the profession that serves as the people’s watchdog against official abuse but in any other matter that may endanger freedom of the press and of expression, and the people’s sacred right to know.

National Directorate, hotline: +639175155991

Just thank the lord

“People, get ready. There’s a train a-coming. You don’t need no ticket. You just get on board.” –Curtis Mayfield, People get ready

I STILL can’t get the grip of how the number of “ingrates” in this country has grown in just two short years.

Imagine the gall of these fault-finders. Can’t they see that Digong Dada is hard at work? Can’t they see that now, because of the 16 million “enlightened” citizens, we are better off, as a country and as individuals?

Don’t you believe me? Let me enumerate at least three things this administration has been “astonishingly good” at the past two years.

This regime has been busy unclogging our swamped out court dockets. It has been busy helping the judicial branch. The Philippine National Police puts the number of drug personalities killed in legitimate operations at 3,451 as of July 26 last year.

This figure, the police say emphatically, does not include the vigilante killings. Other human rights advocacy groups have their own number of drug suspects killed but what do they know, right? It’s not like they can actually count how many people have been killed simply because they didn’t kill them. So, I’m sticking with the PNP figures. Now, that is reliable data.

Imagine how liberating this 3,451 deaths to the lower courts are? Judges can now schedule more important cases. They don’t have to settle cases regarding drug use. Kudos!

On another front, didn’t the President promise a train system for Mindanao? Well, he did one “better”. He gave us the Train (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) for the entire archipelago to “enjoy”.

Look, with this Train, the government does not only make your take-home pay tax-free, it also helps you watch your blood sugar. It doesn’t matter if it’s your only source of energy because you don’t have a regular income on account of having absolutely no job security being contractual, this regime will tax your sugar anyway.

Under this Train, drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup are levied at P12 per liter while excise rate on drinks containing caloric or non-caloric sweetener is P6 per liter.

Isn’t that great? With or without you meaning to shape up, this government will do it for you by raising the tax on sugar. The same thing could be said for the sugar barons, but to hell with them. This regime doesn’t care for them. Digong Dada has said over and over again that he hates oligarchs and the elite.

This Train simplifies the estate and donor’s tax, increases the excise tax on petroleum products, as well as with automobiles, and expands the value-added tax. Let’s see the oligarchs and elite claw their way out of that! Woot woot!

Don’t you believe me? You can check it out for yourself at http://www.dof.gov.ph/taxreform/. There, you could see that I used the same exact words they used.

This regime’s propaganda team (read: PCOO) even touted it as the “best Christmas gift to Filipinos ever.” Now, these people wouldn’t lie to our face, would they? What with their stellar embodiment of the truth.

Okay, that may be taking it too far. There have been instances where this team of intellectuals and pundits have spun the President’s pronouncements in the past. But hey, they do it so we, the people, could understand what Digong Dada is actually saying. They are looking out for us, that way.

Speaking of propaganda, if it hadn’t been for PCOO assistant secretary Margaux Uson’s booboo on the location of Mt. Mayon, our visual artists would not have been able to flex their creativity with photo editing software that much. See? The faux pas ushered in a massive interest where the friggin’ volcano really is from this generation of entitled half-wits and meme-dependent truth-seekers.

Palace spokesman Harry Roque eloquently argued this point by saying last Sunday: “Kung walang fake news, hindi natin malalaman ano ang true news. Let there be a free marketplace of ideas.”

I didn’t know that Roque is heavily into dialectics. Like, how would you know white if you haven’t seen black? How would you thresh out the truth if you haven’t heard the lies surrounding that truth? This argument makes perfect sense. Sieg Heil!

The killings, the Train, and this regime’s propaganda team are all for the “benefit” of every freedom-loving Filipino to enjoy.

Going back to my opening quote from Curtis Mayfield’s “People get ready, I suggest we stop our whining and just enjoy this regime’s Train ride to, err, somewhere. Let’s forget about critical thinking and what it’s for. Hell, let’s just give up thinking altogether and just thank the “lord.” Pfft.

Doggone year

“Dogs lick their balls because they can.” -Bill Burr, You people are all the same

SINCE it is the year of the dog, I think it’s only fitting that my first My Wit’s End will discuss the dogs of war, hound politicians, and its loyal mutts barking in their respective home fronts.

This is going to be a fun blind item article because I don’t even have to give you a clue who these people are in this administration. Somehow, you’ll supply your own in your head. They are that prevalent in this administration.

To be fair to Digong Dada though, these kinds of people were also present in the past administrations, even during the Commonwealth days of what would be the Republic now. So much so, that after at least a full year under his administration, I am wondering about the change he promised.

All the bluster during the campaign of eradicating drugs and corruption now appear to be just an intestinal gas from a publicity hound.

Let’s start dissecting these kinds of characters with a sort of glossary. The fun part will be, you, my dear readers, supplying who specifically these people are in your head. Whether they are the same people I have in mind does not really matter.

These characters: dogs of war, hound politicians, and their mutts can be collectively called pimps. However, there are certain subtleties or nuances, if you will, in how they operate.

The phrase “dogs of war” was first spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”

For the Trekkies, the exact same Shakespearean line was uttered by the character of Odo played by Rene Auberjonois in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Since the term was used first by a British bard, it is only fair that we start with how the English Oxford dictionary defines the phrase.

“The dogs of war (phrase), literary: The destruction accompanying military conflict.”

However, we are not using this phrase in a literary context. For the purpose of this article, we are using this phrase as a type of language that is more common in speech than writing and more specifically restricted to a particular context. Hence, we will use the English dictionary of Slangs.

Online Urban Dictionary defines dogs of war as “A somewhat derogation term used for mercenaries, or soldiers for hire. Generally describes ex-soldiers or combat experts that offer either direct service or military training in exchange for money.”

I know what you’re thinking right after you read that preceding paragraph. You are probably thinking “Marawi City.” The supposed liberation of Marawi City was P3 billion to P4 billion easy. I didn’t pull this figure out of thin air. This figure is based on actual pronouncements of people in government.

This administration’s penchant for waging “wars” on almost anything the dogs of war cannot help it.

Now, where do you think the commission of all those purchases of bullets, ordnance, rockets, bombs, the fuel for tanks and fighter jets, to name a few, go? Katching!

Let’s go to the next character, the hound politicians.

Merriam-Webster defines a hound politician as “a mean despicable person.” While Online Urban Dictionary defines it as “a man-whore, pimp, or player.”

Anent to the hound politicians is that they are, for the most part, also publicity hounds which are a slang for someone who seeks to have the attention of the public constantly focused on him or herself, typically by means of attracting media coverage. A hound politician is also a compulsive womanizer, an inveterate schemer, and thinks only for its own agenda.

Now, I wonder who could these people be? There are so many people in Barong nowadays seeking public approbation without practically anything to back it up (read: the war on drugs and corruption).

These people are usually in the limelight of national polity. That leaves us with the last character in our list — the hound politicians’ mutts.

Again, using the Online Urban Dictionary, a mutt is an informal noun. It is defined as “humorous derogatory or a person regarded as stupid or incompetent.”

My late father Emilio used to define these people as “persons who are too big for their britches.”

Now, I need not name names here but we see these people on TV, hear them on the radio, and see and hear them online.

These are the apologists. The supposed “translators” of what their hound politicians’ pronouncements actually mean, like we are the stupids in this equation.

I have a deep connection with these politicians’ mutts. For those who are following me on social media platforms, you can see them expertly hounding almost anything I post. They screen capture it and put their own twist on what I posted. These people are not your average garden-variety trolls, mind you. These mutts employ trolls. In a way, they are slightly further up the leash of command.

There you go. The characters that will regale us with their antics and stunts during this dog show of a year. They may not be pedigree but still, I regard these people as wayward souls who had pathetic pasts and are only making the most of what these recent doggone years could offer.

So, here’s to the dogs of war, hound politicians, and mutts: Raise the woof!

Resist state terrorism

“No one can terrorize a nation unless we are all his accomplices.” – Edward R. Murrow

I REFUSE to aid and abet this administration’s state terrorism. I have resisted the state-sponsored terrorism of past presidents of this Republic and I am not about to change that on account of the misleading chatter on social media platforms.

Yes, just as what past populist despots have done, Digong Dada has owned the new platforms of expression — thanks to enterprising online people.

State terrorism has been defined as “a form of terrorism which sometimes occurs when governments implement neoliberal policies lacking widespread support.” I dare say it’s lacking widespread support because far more Filipinos are not online. This administration’s noise on social media platforms is fake. We have uncovered them time and again since Day 1 of this administration.

The Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, more popularly — or in this administration’s perspective infamously — known as Karapatan, aptly puts in its second issue of its monitor of Duterte’s first year in office.

“Duterte has become a public relations expert – spitting out arguments that drug users are less than human, strutting with public displays of apathy regarding national and international pressures, manipulating old verbal assault and threats against progressive organizations and human rights advocates who raise concern over the rights issues in the country.”

This administration can yarn every possible spin-off it could muster online but the fact remains that only 14 of every 35 Filipinos are wired online. This seemingly overwhelming “support” rhetoric on social media does not include the marginalized sectors, the sectors that have undoubtedly catapulted Digong Dada to the presidency.

I do not blame them. It is tempting, though. But I will not. These people have every right to hope for a better Philippines when Digong Dada promised it to them albeit in a brusque and curt manner. They have been manipulated and f***ed up (pardon my French) by the ruling system for so long that when Digong Dada came about, they were all too willing to pledge their allegiance to the seemingly no-nonsense talking politics.

However, his lies started unraveling from the very first day of his presidency. I don’t have to enumerate it here since it would take up most of the space for this column. I do call on readers to witness the state’s affairs with more critical lenses. Unrequited suggestion: Read up on this administration besides Facebook posts, Instagram memes and Twitter feeds.

The last thing you’d want is to be sucked into this administration’s hate rhetoric. And this hate rhetoric worsened with every engagement the president had since Day 1.

Yesterday, Digong Dada gave his second State of the Nation Address. I couldn’t wait for it since our Constitution specifically stipulates this to be done starting at 1 pm and I have to submit this column by 8 am yesterday, at the latest.

I have a soft spot for satires, as you may have noticed in my past columns. That’s why I was glad when I read Professional Heckler’s parody of Digong Dada’s Sona because to be honest about it, I did not expect the President to say something new. It would have been on his war on drugs, f**k human rights defenders, f**k the European Union, etc ad nauseum. It would have been like a “folk” song — folk this and folk that.

As I have mentioned in my past columns, satire is an effective tool in exposing the untruths issue by issue and politico by politico. However, the writer should focus their satirical lens to particular policies or individuals for this to be effective because if you satirize the whole political structure, then it will give the impression that all policies are the same. This would enforce further the status quo. In this case, the state terrorist wins.

A sample of Professional Heckler’s satirical take on the President’s Sona yesterday: “Nang ako ay maging pangulo, nangako akong magbibigay ng trabaho sa ating mga kababayan. Hindi naman sa pagmamayabang, tinupad ko ang pangakong ’yan. Ngayong hapon, kasama natin dito sa Batasan ang tatlo sa pinakamasisipag kong appointees. Hindi lang sila sa office nagtatrabaho kundi pati sa mga rally laban kay Robredo. Palakpakan po natin sina Mocha Uson, Kat de Castro at Arnell Ignacio.” (Applause.)

Digong Dada’s latest verbal stunt was when he said he is willing to go to war against the communist insurgency. Adding that he has the might of the Armed Forces behind him and the Maoists only have the indigenes on their side. He said he is willing to fight this war up to the last standing communist.

Wait. How many days, nay months, did it take him to quell a singular clan in Marawi City again? How is this administration addressing the end of contractualization? What is the position of this administration on the West Philippine Sea?

More importantly, when will he really jet ski and plant a flag on Scarborough Shoal?

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.