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.

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.

People's Clamor: Freedom of Information Act

Maguindanao: A case study for justice and accountability

“Those who have less in life should have more in law.”Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay,7th President Republic of the Philippines

WITH THESE WORDS, Magsaysay tried to set the tone for a more socially-attuned administration of justice. Yet 56 after Magsaysay’s death, his words remain a mere slogan.

On November 23, 2009, 58 people—32 of whom were media workers—were waylaid in what has become known throughout the world as the Maguindanao Massacre, the worst case of election violence in the country, and the biggest case of violence against media men in the world. The incident has caught the country flat-footed, yet it also exposed several long-festering, and in many aspects, long-known yet unaddressed issues.

On one hand. the incident served as a grisly wake-up call for both national government and local and international civil societies on the issues of election violence, clan politics and dynamics, and violence against media. On the other hand, ending impunity became the priority mission of both the Philippine government and civil societies.

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


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

At the crux of the case study is the fact there is still no clear-cut definition of extrajudicial killing (EJK) especially for state players prosecuting the criminal act. 

The study posits that a good definition is important to set this specific criminal act apart from the other crimes. It further suggests that this particular crime be called “unexplained killing” and “to let it cover both state and non-state perpetrators.” In this way, the study broadened its scope of coverage to be more inclusive of other similar cases of EJKs, not just in Maguindanao or Mindanao, but all over the country as well.

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

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

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

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

Even though the Philippine Senate had not yet given its concurrence to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute) pursuant to Article VII of the Constitution when—the case study was prepared (2010 to 2011), on August 30, 2011, the Philippine Senate gave its concurrence to the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute, among others, defines the coverage of the doctrine of command responsibility to all state signatories of the international.

Other recommendations put forward by the study include:

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

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


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

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

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

FIGHTING WIDOW. Mrs. Edita Tiamzon, widow of UNTV Daniel who was one of the journalists killed in the grisly Ampatuan Massacre. congcorrales © 2013.

The most recent case in point of this was when news that a number of the families of massacre victims have allegedly opted to settle with massacre prime suspects of the Ampatuan clan. Legal counsel Harry Roque of the Center for International law posted in his blog that the families of 14 massacre victims had reportedly signed a written authority with a “close associate” of the Ampatuans to broker a settlement with the accused sometime in February, this year.

Roque’s law firm is representing four of the 14 families who supposedly opted to settle. However, he claimed that the “settlement” was made without his knowledge and that he got wind of the settlement deal from one of his clients.

Although the news of the 14 families of massacre victims considering a settlement with the Ampatuans may come as a shock for most who have been following the massacre case, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) national chair Rowena Caranza-Paraan said that the move is not “surprising” and that it should not paint the families of the massacre victims as ”sellouts.”

Caranza-Paraan said that there are two main factors that made the families tempted to strike a settlement deal—the snail’s pace of the court trial and families’ lack of sources of income.

“It would always be the decision of the victims' families. But whether some of them decide to accept a settlement or not, the search for justice for those killed will continue because many of them will never settle,” Caranza-Paraan said.

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

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


“Truly, the Maguindanao Massacre was an unspeakable crime. It represents all that is evil in our political system. It shows what is dysfunctional in our legal processes. The only good that can come out of it is that it compels us to train our sights on these infirmities, and galvanizes our resolve as a nation to address it. The above recommendations are made in this light, so that the lost lives of the victims may not be put to naught,” the case study reads in part.―congcorrales for pcij.org/blog © 2013.

END IMPUNITY NOW. Justice remains elusive for the families of the Ampatuan Massacre victims and the continuing reign of impunity in the Philippines. photo by congcorrales©2013

42nd Maguindanao Massacre Monthly Memorial