Of rats and rants

IT’S an open secret that the Cogon Public Market has seen better days — probably days when tartanilyas still ruled our streets. But apparently, pointing out that the place is a biohazard has suddenly become a dangerous proposition.

When Franklin Dagcuta, the president of the Market Vendors Association, raised a red flag linking the market’s grim sanitary state to a case of leptospirosis, he probably expected a mop. Maybe a pressure washer.

Instead, he got a political ultimatum.

City Councilor Enrico Salcedo — Agaw Eric, apparently the Grim Reaper of Speech to his critics — threatened to declare the vendor leader persona non grata unless he publicly apologized.

This serves as a chilling reminder: In the hallowed halls of the City Council, preserving the government’s Facebook aesthetic often takes precedence over actually sweeping the floor.

This begs a critical question for Cagayan de Oro: Has the City Council prioritized reputation management over public safety? Are we protecting the people, or are we protecting the poster?

A tale of two rodents

Let’s get personal. My ex-girlfriend and I once braved the Cogon Public Market “food court” (heavy quotation marks intended).

In the middle of devouring a slab of humba, a furry creature scurried over my foot. I looked down and saw what appeared to be a “spotted squirrel.”

Now, logic dictates that since we were not in a forest, it couldn’t have been a squirrel. It was, in fact, a rat the size of our Persian cat. I mistook the mange-induced bald spots on its back for the markings of the endangered Xerospermophilus perotensis.

I posted this on Facebook as a funny observation about how neglected the market has become.

But in light of recent events, should I issue a public apology to Agaw Eric? Does my review of a rodent require a retraction under threat of legislative exile?

The Councilor’s response to Dagcuta wasn’t to investigate the rats; it was to silence the whistleblower. This isn’t a request for accountability; it is coerced speech.

The Constitutional pushback

Demanding an apology under the threat of sanction forces a citizen to publicly disavow their reality just to avoid a scarlet letter. It implies that criticizing city management comes with a social price tag.

But let’s look at the law, shall we?

For the nth time, persona non grata is a diplomatic term usually reserved for foreign spies or ambassadors who commit major faux pas. But since the City Council loves throwing this phrase around like confetti, here is the reality check:

A City Council resolution cannot “banish” a Filipino citizen. The Supreme Court and the DILG have consistently held that local legislative bodies cannot prevent a Filipino from entering their city. Doing so would violate the Right to Travel and Liberty of Abode.

Sa ato pa, this declaration is legally toothless.

It is a legislative temper tantrum designed to assuage the “bruised” egos of councilors, not to protect the city’s residents. Remember: The councilors are employees of the city. 

We are Cagayan de Oro City, not them.

The chilling effect

The threat is essentially a formal expression of displeasure — a government-issued “unfriend” button.

But here lies the rub: Dagcuta apologized. Why? Because while the law is on his side, the power dynamic is not. He represents vendors who operate at the mercy of the city government.

This wasn’t an apology; it was a hostage video.

Dagcuta shouldn’t have to apologize for describing reality — unless the rats (sized like mid-sized cats) in Cogon Market were the ones offended.

Using a legislative body to censure a private citizen for a comment on public infrastructure is a gross mismatch of power. 

Even if Dagcuta’s medical link to leptospirosis wasn’t scientifically peer-reviewed, since when is being wrong a crime?

A vendor leader — and any citizen — should have the Constitutional right to be wrong without facing political exile.

When the government uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it creates a “chilling effect.” It sends a message to every other Kagay-anon: Do not complain about the smell, do not point out the rats, or you will be next.

The bottom line

Ultimately, this political intramural is a distraction. By focusing on Dagcuta’s “offense,” the narrative shifts away from the actual issue: the market is dirty.

The apology has become more important than the sanitation.

In a democratic space, the feedback loop between the government and the governed is sacred. If pointing out that a market is filthy results in a legislative threat, that feedback loop is broken.

This drama isn’t just about Dagcuta. It is about the fundamental right of any citizen to complain about their city without fear of retribution.

The persona non grata status should be a shield against actual threats to the city — the daylight killings, the crime syndicates, the visiting motorists with noisy mufflers — not a weapon used to smack down critics who just want a cleaner place to buy and eat.

Hard pass on ‘Pahinungod’: Why I won’t break bread a hypocrisy

THE invitation arrived with all the trappings of officialdom and intended goodwill. 

The Misamis Oriental provincial government has invited the Cagayan de Oro Press Club to "Pahinungod," a gala ostensibly dedicated to honoring the local media.

As the club’s vice president for print, I have a short, unequivocal response: Hard pass.

I will not be an accomplice to this ostentatious display, nor will I lend my presence to an event that reeks of irony.

It requires a particularly short memory to accept this invitation without flinching. 

It was, after all, only late last year when the Governor stood before a captive audience at the Capitol and undressed the local press. She didn't just call us biased; she weaponized our economic reality against us.

She painted practitioners as destitutes, condescendingly remarking on how we struggle to feed our families on “meager salaries.” It was a backhanded statement that implied our poverty makes us vulnerable, unethical, or irrelevant.

I also remember that all the big media organizations issued a statement of rebuke for that incident.

That moment stripped away the veneer of mutual respect. It revealed a mindset that views the press not as a pillar of democracy to be respected, but as a charity case to be pitied — or worse, bought.

To attend “Pahinungod” now would be to validate that condescension.

It sends a signal that while we may be insulted from the podium one day, we can be pacified with a banquet the next. It suggests our dignity is cheap — priced at the cost of a catered meal.

But beyond the personal insult to the Fourth Estate, there is a more pressing issue: the morality of the expense.

Hosting an extravagant gala on the public peso is an exercise in tone-deaf governance. 

We are living in tight economic times. To lavish funds on a party for the press — while Capitol employees reportedly wait for delayed wages — is not just insensitive; the optics are grotesque.

Public funds are finite. Every peso spent on appetizers and venue rentals for a self-serving “tribute” is a peso that should have gone to the people who actually keep the provincial government running.

Journalism is not about being feted by the powers that be. It is about holding them accountable. 

We do not need a gala to validate our existence. 

What we need — and what the public deserves — is a government that respects the role of a free press without resorting to economic shaming, and one that prioritizes its workers’ salaries over its image.

So, keep the invitation. Keep the banquet. I prefer to keep my self-respect.

The emperor’s new ‘crisis communications’

ATTACKING local media with your “crisis comms,” composed of supposed ideologues of media past, is not how you tackle the questions of Kagay-anons.

It is, to put it mildly, a strategic and tactical error of the highest order.

Questions of accountability, transparency, and governance are not mosquitoes to be swatted away by your brigade of known spin doctors, paid hacks, and trolls; they are the bedrock of the office you hold. 

Threatening broadcasters to shut up because they are not cowing to the narrative you are selling is a tactic that belongs in a black-and-white newsreel from the 1970s, not in a modern, aspirational metropolis. 

This is not how a democratic city is supposed to function, nong.

You seem to be operating under the delusion that if you muzzle the weatherman, it will stop raining. 

But the rain — and the traffic — remains.

Let us speak of the traffic woes of the city. 

While the City Engineer’s office proudly releases lists of “233 completed infrastructure projects,” the daily reality for the commuter suggests otherwise. 

We are told of P97 million allocated for flood control projects extending into 2026 to prevent another Sendong, yet the streets of the highway remain a parking lot at the slightest drizzle. 

The disconnect between the press release and the pavement is jarring. 

One has ample time to contemplate the existential void while idling near the stalled drainage projects that seem to serve as monuments to bureaucratic inertia rather than engineering solutions.

And then, the matter of the “Task Force Basura.”

It is a branding triumph, certainly — giving a military-sounding name to the basic parochial function of picking up trash. But why did it require a “Task Force” and an “ultimatum” to solve a problem that should never have existed? 

While the administration now trumpets the arrival of a new contractor to clear the backlog, the stench of the previous months lingers. It raises the question: if the system was working, why the sudden need for emergency measures?

You’re protesting the allegations with the vigor of a man trying to convince a mirror he is handsome.

“The gentleman doth protest too much,” Shakespeare might have noted. 

Lest we forget the water crisis that forced you to declare a State of Emergency earlier this year. When the dispute between the COWD and the bulk water supplier threatens to turn the taps dry, it is not an “act of God” or “force majeure” — it is a failure of foresight and contract management.

It is failed act of a micro-managing, overly-sensitive, political ignoramus.

Governance is not about winning the morning news cycle.

It is about ensuring the garbage truck arrives without a press conference, the traffic flows without a police escort, and a weekly social welfare service that doesn’t need to be named after you — an elected official.

You cannot PR your way out of a traffic jam. 

You cannot spin a pile of uncollected trash into gold. 

And you certainly cannot bully a city into believing that competence is present when the evidence of its absence is parked, unpaid, and uncollected, right outside their door.

Pfft.

Of opinion and judgment

“Salvation is offered, redemption indeed is promised at a low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.” -Christopher Hitchens to Tony Blair, Munk Debate 2011

AS you may have caught on from reading My Wit’s End, I will keep on coming back to the theme of organized religion and belief systems. It is not so much that I hate religion, it is more in the fact that it keeps people from evolving to their potentials. It is a self-limiting crutch.

A fortnight ago, I had a weird philosophical night of discussion and merlot with fellow columnist Rhona Canoy. Among the many things we talked about was the subject of truths, specifically on the subjectivity of truths.

Of course, Rhona and I were on the opposite sides of the fence on this one. Well, truth be told, I held on my definition of truth until she gave her Yoda-ish logic on the subject matter.

I told her right away that there shouldn’t be versions of any truth. I pointed out to gravity or gravitation as an example of a truth. You cannot possibly argue your way around that truth. It’s not like you can debate away gravity’s attraction to you from all other objects, from atoms to photons, from planets and stars.

She debunked my argument by simply saying that gravity is a scientific law. Laws of physics are hardly debatable after all. Unless, of course, you’re from another plane of the multiverse that we’re all in.

For the purpose of our debate that night, she added, truths are based on the perspective of the observer. Perspective, meaning, it depends on the upbringing and all the biases formed during the formative years. This includes how we are taught how or what to think.

I realized that I inadvertently confused truths to facts. My bad. So, I chose to shut up and listen to what Rhona had to say on “social” truths.

She gave a simple exercise to point this out. She held out her glass of merlot and asked me if we are in agreement that she is, in fact, holding out a glass of merlot. The answer is yes, I agreed. However, I couldn’t be positively sure that what she was looking at from where she was sitting was the same exact thing I was looking at from where I was sitting. Ergo, the void for interpretations of the truth that she was holding a glass of merlot.

The truth that we were talking now is actually malleable.

So, after I picked up my jaw from the floor, I likened this understanding to the difference between opinions and judgments.

All netizens on social media platforms also confuse the two, all the time. We treat opinions and judgments as one and the same. It is not.

On one hand, opinions actually reserve a room for doubt. That is because the observers spew out opinions on any given subject based on the facts they have gathered. So given the limitations of an observer’s access to facts, the observers tend to be open for corrections or realignment to their observations which they present as opinions.

Opinions, although based on facts, are malleable because no can really gather all the facts. Opinions, however, open avenues for discussion because the recipient might have some facts that the observer has left out or was not privy to.

On the other hand, judgments are rigid. Although judgments are also based on facts, there is another variable at play in formulating these. How they were raised to nurture age-old biases also comes into play. In this way, judgments are like the belief systems people have. It may not be supported by hard facts but you grew with it anyway.

Judgment is an opinion hardened by hubris.

I, too, am guilty of this. As I’ve told Rhona that night, I have always kept an open mind and reserve judgment, and so I form opinions. However, it is that hubris that sometimes makes me think of rebuttals while other persons are still presenting their opinions. That is a behavioral tic that I consciously want to wean out from.

After two bottles of merlot, we came to an agreement that critical thinking is key to evolving from our biases and rigid perspectives.

Critical thinking in the sense that one should realize where the observer is coming from. The peripherals in that observer’s life that made them form opinions and judgments. Critical thinking, to me then, is not just limited to scrutinizing the facts on which the judgment is based on but also their perspectives why they formed these.

So, the next time you come across a person with judgments, instead of shutting them out or bashing them, try your earnest to understand where they’re coming from. Take solace in the thought that nobody can really “judge” you into accepting other people’s opinions.

Vendetta, not accountability (2)

“The past can’t hurt you anymore unless you let it.” -Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

THE following are the other characters in this charade of justice called the impeachment complaint against Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

If you were watching the same impeachment hearing on television last week, I would not blame you if you feel like it’s a déjà vu. It has been as fast as the congressional inquiry against Sen. Leila de Lima.

So far, we have mentioned two of the characters behind this show. The bruised lawyer and the architect predicated the complaint. Now let’s dig deeper into the cast and characters.

The Pork-Loving Butterfly

The chairman of the House committee on justice is in charge of facilitating the deliberation on the impeachment complaint against Sereno. He is none other than Oriental Mindoro 2nd District Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

What is his beef against Sereno, you ask?

To be fair, he may have a grudge against all the justices who ruled that the Priority Development Assistance Funds unconstitutional or pork barrel.

In September 2013, he was accused of funneling P10 million into a non-government organization allegedly owned by the alleged pork barrel queen herself, Janet Lim-Napoles. In his defense, Umali claimed that the money did not come from his pork barrel but from the then Agriculture Secretary Presco Alcala’s Priority Development Fund.

In December 2013, Umali revealed that he was working on impeachment cases against as many as three Supreme Court justices for flip-flopping on their decisions on the PDAF.

You must remember that Sereno was already the chief justice when the High Tribunal ruled the PDAF unconstitutional.

Let’s not also forget that Umali first belonged to the Liberal Party. That’s right, the “dilawan.” He skittered on to the now ruling party, PDP-Laban, just as the so-called supermajority was forming in the Lower House.

The Bypassed Justice

One male Supreme Court Justice has been poised to be the next chief justice. At least, that’s what he has allegedly been saying to the SC staff for the longest time.

According to reports from SC staff, he makes frequent proclamations that he will be the next chief justice and his wife will be the next presiding justice of the Court of Appeals.

So, you can just imagine his dismay when the then President Benigno Simeon Aquino III chose Sereno over him as the next chief justice. This decision, however, was not entirely a vindictive move on the part of PNoy.

Talk has it that he deliberately did not submit an application during the process of discernment for appointing the next chief justice. He felt that he was a shoo-in for the position and his regular visits to Malacañang have given him that assurance (of sorts).

The Meme Girl

A meme, with the picture of another SC justice on it, has been going around on social media platforms with the caption: “I-tag mo ang ka opisina mo na backstabber.”

Insiders at SC claim she went the rounds to seek the support of other justices against Sereno. To quote: “She does her rounds with judges on a mission to spread gossip about the Chief Justice.”

However, Sereno still supported her in her bid as head of the Women’s Judges Association of which she still heads to this day.

In 2011, she was accused of misusing funds. The World Bank told her that the SC will have to return the US$199 thousand (P8.6 million) of the US$21-million loan which was meant for judicial reform but was instead used for projects not covered by the loan agreement.

In July this year, the Justice allegedly circulated a memorandum to the other SC justices containing the very same three objections in lawyer Lorenzo Gadon’s 27-allegation complaint against Sereno.

So, there. That cast of characters complete the Sereno impeachment circus. If your suspects behind this circus aren’t listed in this two-part series, then chances are you are more inquisitive than I am. Please do contact me, electronically or personally, so we can add those to my next My Wit’s End.

However, you have to back it up with facts. We don’t just whip up something out of thin air. Don’t be afraid because you’ll also be covered by the Sotto Law.

Also referred to as the Press Freedom Law (RA 53), the Sotto Law protects the publisher, editor, columnist or duly accredited reporter of any newspaper, magazine or periodical of general circulation. It protects the journalist from being compelled to name his news source.

Yesterday, Digong Dada submitted his proposal for the extension of martial rule in Mindanao. So let’s maximize the rights and civil liberties we have now while we still can.

Ad for the wishy-washy

“Maybahay, ******** ko 13 oras – Garantisado: buong gabi ligaya.” – www.borsa.ru

CALL it what you will but because of the kind of vibes this administration emanates, its spin doctors and apologists often never fail to follow suit — with “funny” repercussions, if I may add.

I call it the steamy and macho kind of vibes.

Last week, one of the outspoken (which most of whom usually are) apologists of Digong Dada, La Salle political science Prof. Antonio P. Contreras, posted a public rant of sorts on his Facebook wall.

“Rappler complains about the ethics of a broadcaster allegedly threatening one of its reporters, but it doesn’t even bother choosing the kind of ads it allows to be published on its page. Horribly disgusting! John Nery must be furious at this obscenity,” he first posted.

The rant was about a story of Rappler reporting about yet another Digong drummer boy RJ Nieto goading Palace spokesperson Harry Roque to throw hollow blocks at Rappler journalist Pia Ranada on live talk radio over DwIZ 882AM. The quote I cited at the beginning of this column is the exact wording of the ad Contreras pointed out as “horribly disgusting.”

As to why the great Contreras singularly called out Kagay-anon John Nery, I still cannot connect. Nery is the editor-in-chief of Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Internet content and is in no way connected or involved with Rappler’s website. You can even call the two news organizations competitors.

Moving on, naturally, the public post went viral. Most of those who shared (me included), pointed out that the ad that appeared below the Rappler article was a result of Google Adsense’s logarithm. To break it down, the ads that appear on certain parts of any website that avails this ad logarithm depends on the kind of websites you usually browse. It is like an artificial intelligence of sorts. Google Adsense profiles the user according to his or her browsing history.

So, based on that particular ad, the algorithm of Google Adsense profiled the user to be a sex-craving middle-aged male with a limp member. I posted this explanation with Contreras’ public rant and most of the others who shared the “hard” post of Contreras, as well.

Before you judge, it is not a pornographic ad. As I understand it, it is an ad for a sex-performance enhancement drug. In short, it’s anti-erectile dysfunction medicine. Except for the one vulgar word in the ad, I say its totally natural to be able to “get up” when an occasion “rises” for it.  The ad is not “horribly disgusting” to me.

However, exactly eight minutes after his second edit of this post, Contreras added this “disclaimer”: “Note: This photo was only shared to me by a friend.

“Update:

“So, it looks like Google Ads played a cruel game on Rappler on this one. I just learned that ads like the one that appears below (are) driven by the preferences of the reader. On this case, the one who originally took a photo of this and shared it.

“In any case, legitimate and so-called decent and morally upright pages, like what Rappler purports to be, should now really think hard before availing of this facility of Google to avoid embarrassing optics like this one. As parties who claim to be paragons of virtue, knowing that Google randomly loads ads like this, and for Rappler to earn money from it, is somewhat problematic.”

My Facebook friends opened the same Rappler link in their respective browsers to point out what the great Contreras cannot seem to grasp. In a fraternal cousin’s browser, the same ad spot displayed a website that offers “quirky and stylish” home decors. In another distant relative’s try, a website selling ready-to-wear apparels. Mine? Well, it was just a “boring” in-house ad of Rappler calling for its consumers to uphold press freedom and advocate for fearless journalism.

Contreras, ser, a different ad appears depending on what a user regularly browses. Rappler (which didn’t claim to be a paragon of virtue, bitidub) cannot possibly filter what appears on its Google Adsense spot. Do you even know how many active users are on the Internet? Each of those users will see a different ad on the same spot that you riled about.

To those who do not know Contreras, he specializes on political theory and analysis, cultural theory and politics, and the politics of everyday lives. It is safe to say Contreras is a smart noodle (no pun intended). However, I cannot wrap around the fact that a smart guy like him still doesn’t get how Internet AI works.

If you want lewd, sexist, and vulgar language, you only need to listen to the President, Martin Andanar, Salvador Panelo, RJ Nieto, and other functionaries of this administration, Mr. Contreras. Now, those people have said an appalling amount of vulgarity on live TV and radio.

Plus, “maybahay” is vernacular for a wife. What is so vulgar about finding food supplements online just so you can satisfy your spouse in bed? Vulgar would be a city mayor saying he should be the first to fornicate with a corpse so that her beauty won’t be wasted is, Contreras.

Let’s go back to the Contreras’ hard stand yet limp reasoning. You don’t have to be ashamed of what you browse on the Internet. The Internet has been the best thing there is since the invention of the loin clothe.

In closing, I’d like to give you an unrequited advice, Mr. Contreras. Don’t just thrust away in your keyboard looking for “hard” drugs for your “friend’s” limp biscuit problem. As you have shown quite eloquently, one cannot trust everything that is on the Internet. I mean, guaranteed “13 hours”? I cannot imagine the chaffing involved in that.

Try lots of sibuyas bombay (bulb onion) in your diet. If that fails, try banging your “friend’s” limp appendage with your front door.

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.