On bread, butter, and the myth of the envelope

THERE is a pervasive, cynical whisper that floats around political circles — and sadly, sometimes echoes even within our own ranks.

It goes something like this: these politicians wonder if media practitioners could even eat regularly if they didn’t receive anything from them.

It’s a statement dressed up as a noble critique of corruption, but let’s be real: it serves as a lazy, blanket insult to a profession and a convenient erasure of actual hard work.

This is disconcerting. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the news media community actually is.

We are not a monolith.

We aren’t a hive mind where every worker drone operates on the same frequency of compromise.

We are a motley crew of workers with divergent beliefs, various political colors, and different economic realities.

To assume that a journalist cannot feed their family without the patronage of a politician is to assume that journalism itself has zero market value. It ignores the reality of honest-to-goodness hard work.

This editorial cartoon was created by Gemini Pro.

In my 28 years in this community — 10 of which were spent grinding as a freelance correspondent for international news wires — I have a newsflash for the cynics: Nakapakaon pud baya ko sa akong banay gikan sa akong hinaguan.

International wire work is not for the faint of heart. It is paid in sweat, strict deadlines, and blood pressure spikes. It does not pay in favors; it pays in output. And believe it or not, that output puts food on the table.

More importantly, it paid for tuition. To date, I have sent my children through school on this income alone. I have seen them graduate, one by one. Isa na lang kulang.

That is the ultimate receipt.

When you raise a family on honest money, the food tastes different. It tastes like dignity — with a side of clear conscience.

To suggest that we need a politician’s “blessing” just to survive is to discount the thousands of column inches written, the photos filed, and the deadlines met by honest workers in this industry.

We are not all the same. And for those of us who have ground it out for decades, we don’t need the handout. We have the receipt.

The news media has a social contract with the citizens of the republic. Our role is to hold the powerful to account. That is why we are called the Fourth Estate — we are the check and balance to the other three.

Here’s a wild idea for the onion-skinned politicos: How about you do your job, and we’ll stick to ours?

‘US troops out now’

MANY eyebrows, including mine, were raised late last week when President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US in retaliation to the latter’s cancellation of Sen. Ronald dela Rosa’s visa.

“I’m warning you, this is the first time: ’pag hindi ninyo ginawa ang correction diyan, I will terminate the basis of Visiting Forces Agreement. Tapusin ko’ng p**ang inang ’yan,” online news outfit Rappler quoted Duterte as saying last Thursday during a speech in Leyte, where he distributed aid to former rebels.

As a backgrounder, the VFA is a bilateral agreement between the US and the Philippines which consists of two separate documents — the VFA-1, and the VFA-2 also known as the “counterpart agreement.” The Philippine Senate ratified the agreement on May 27, 1999. The ratification of the Senate meant that the country regarded the agreement as a treaty. However, the US regards the documents as “executive agreements,” which meant that it did not require the concurrence of the US Senate.

With the enforcement of the agreement came the highly controversial Balikatan Exercises. These military exercises are designed to maintain and develop the mutual security of the two nations via crisis-action planning. These are done by conducting counter-terrorism operations and by promoting interoperability of the two countries’ forces.

These military exercises supposedly empower our country’s armed forces in rooting out the Abu Sayyaf Group and other terrorist cells operating in the country. However, after decades of these military exercises, our Armed Forces have yet to quell terrorist cells in the country.

I remember covering the very first Balikatan Exercises in Zamboanga City. I was working as a correspondent for Mindanews then. With another Mindanews correspondent Vanessa Almeda, we embedded with the convoy of some 20 plus buses of delegates from across the country who were against the agreement. We were pelted with rocks as soon as we entered the city.

Many protest actions sprung all throughout the existence of the agreement. There were rallies dubbed “US troops out now” in most of the major cities in the country. Those who opposed the agreement contend that it was disadvantageous to the country’s welfare. They claim the Philippines got the shorter end of the stick with the agreement.

Back to Duterte’s threat, this wasn’t the first time he threatened to abrogate the agreement. He did it five months into his presidency when the US didn’t renew an assistance package for the country. He felt the country is being short-changed.

The difference between the two threats is that the former was issued in anger over a diplomatic slight against his attack dog while the latter was issued with the country’s welfare in mind.

It is almost laughable, really. The wimped out Senate, as usual, relents the threat by saying last Friday that there is no need for the Senate’s concurrence in abrogating the agreement. In fact, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they are already in the process of terminating the agreement after solons said a Senate action is not needed to scrap the agreement.

Believe it or not, I understand where Duterte is coming from. As petty as it sounds — VFA abrogation unless the reversal of Bato’s visa cancellation — the President has a basis for his threat.

Under the agreement, Philippine personnel is supposed to be exempt from visa formalities and further guarantees expedited entry and exit to the US.

I said I understand. I did not say I agree. I just hope that the President could sort out his priorities. The year of the metal rat greeted us with a volcano eruption, earthquakes, and an impending viral pandemic. I think it doesn’t need a genius to categorize which should be addressed first.

Don’t get me wrong. I say, go ahead and abrogate the agreement. But do so with the welfare of the country in mind and not because of some macho retaliation of a diplomatic slight against his minion. Pfft.