Trillanes failed "power grab", Makati standoff now lost in translation

The overriding message of the Makati standoff led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig Gen. Danilo Lim was CHANGE.

There is moral bankruptcy in each and every social stratum. Corruption is in epidemic proportion in our country.

It is time to call for an honest to goodness moral revolution. It must start from each and every one of us, Filipinos. This moral revolution is not just for politicians, businessmen, church leaders but also for those in the middle class and the downtrodden.

The Philippines is in dire need of CHANGE. There is a "social volcano" waiting to erupt. If nothing is done about it, chaos will ensue. A civil war might not be farfetched.

Unfortunately, Trillanes, Lim and their cohorts the Magdalo group, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, Bishop Julio Labayen, Fr. Robert Reyes and former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo Jr. garbled the message of CHANGE when they holed up at the Manila Peninsula to demand the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

When the police rammed the entrance of the plush hotel with an armored personnel carrier and hauled journalist covering the failed "rebellion", the media too lost its focus. Instead of homing in on the message of CHANGE, opinion writers and commentators are now talking about how their colleagues were manhandled by government forces out to restore law and order.

The message of CHANGE was lost in translation. We all failed to clearly process the situation because self interest came into play. The supporters of President Arroyo came up with there own message. The opposition also had their own message. The media too talked about their own predicament.

The crux of the matter here is that there is an unseen but clearly felt social unrest. This is because of the fact that our country is hounded by massive corruption and moral bankruptcy.

While we all whine over a decadent society, the businessmen who are experiencing economic stability, the middle class who are able to make both ends meet, the politicians who are recipients of "grease money" all refuse to rock the boat.

We should all focus on CHANGE. It must start from within.

That suicide in Davao of a 12 year-old poverty stricken girl

The suicide of Mariannet Amper, a 12-year-old Filipina who lives in Davao is just the tip of our country's social iceberg. Despondent over the harsh reality of their family's poverty, she reportedly decided to end her own life by hanging herself inside their makeshift house.

It's a fact that many of our brethren our mired in abject fortune. But despite the political noise that has continued to reverberate in our nation, there are also many of us who are slowly getting out of the financial rut.

According to a survey, self-rated poverty has been on a decline. The Social Weather Survey stated that it ranged between 55 and 59 percent from December 2005 to June 2006. Now it’s in the vicinity of 47 to 53 percent. By all indication it is still on the high side, but if there is any consolation, it is going down. Meaning there is hope.

The problem is that our media is milking our penchant for underdogs for hideous profit consideration. The broadcast media in particular the giant television and radio networks come out with storylines that portray poverty as a valiant way of life that has to be lived.

Just watch the soap operas on prime time TV or listen to the afternoon drama on radio. Catch how Willie Revillame on Wowie induced people to cry as he dangles the prospect of getting 500 bucks. Listen to the emo music played over the airwaves and sang on karaoke bars. These music suggests suicide as an option.

Worse, many of us have this victim mentality. We brag about our dire strait, subconsciously preferring to stay poor if only to feel good inside. Nauseating, but evidently true.

Notice how PUJ drivers insist on changing their flat tires in the middle of the road for all to see even if it will cause a traffic jam. Go to a politician's house and see the long line of people asking for anything under the sun even bringing with them fake doctor's prescription to ask for money.

It's hypocritical for us to complain and lay blame solely on government and our corrupt politicians.

In the end, we are all to blame for the death of that little girl. Her blood is in our hands because either we choose to ignore the poor or we would rather want them to stay poor for our own pathetic interest.

Jousnalist at Work

Shooting to kill

September 28th, 2007, filed by David Viggers

In this Reuters picture reproduced on newspaper front pages all round the world today, Japanese videojournalist Kenji Nagai lies dying in the street, still trying to record the scenes of violence after he was shot through the chest when soldiers fired live rounds at protestors in Yangon yesterday.

It is a chilling image and yet another reminder, as if any were needed, of the risks faced by the thousands of journalists whose job it is to bring us the news from areas of conflict and instability. At least Kenji Nagai had chosen to be there. He lost his life putting faces to what without pictures are just numbers.

My condolences to Kenji Nagai’s family, friends and colleagues.

Long Live the Internet

Myanmar forces swoop on protests in two cities, Internet cut

28/09/2007 15h54

Monks and their supporters run as police crack down on demonstrations in Yangon
©AFP/Moemaka Media/File

YANGON (AFP) - Security forces moved to crush protests in Myanmar's two biggest cities Friday, unleashing warning shots and baton charges, and cutting Internet access in the third day of a deadly crackdown.

The Internet blockage severely reduced the flow of video, photos and first-hand reports of the violence, which has left at least 13 people dead, galvanising world opinion against the ruling generals.

Up to 10,000 demonstrators surged onto the streets of the main city of Yangon Friday, playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as they repeatedly confronted police and soldiers.

In the central city of Mandalay, thousands of young people on motorbikes rode down a major thoroughfare towards a blockade set up by security forces who unleashed a volley that witnesses believed could have been rubber bullets.

Intent on quelling the biggest anti-government demonstrations in 20 years, the ruling junta has also mounted an offensive against the Buddhist monks who have led nearly two weeks of mass rallies.

With dozens of monks arrested, beaten or confined to their monasteries, the mantle has now been taken up by student groups and youths who dominated Friday's rallies.

Images of Burmese clashes. Duration 00:30
©Democratic Voice of Burma

"The monks have done their job and now we must carry on with the movement," said one student leader in downtown Yangon.

"This is a non-violent mass movement," he shouted as demonstrators tried to move towards the Sule Pagoda, one of the focal points of the demonstrations.

At a separate protest in Yangon, around 500 people marched in the streets, singing the national anthem as thousands applauded them from the sidewalks.

Monks, revered figures in this devout Buddhist nation, helped transform what began as a scattershot series of protests over a hike in fuel prices into the stiffest challenge to the junta's military rule since 1988.

But since the crackdown was launched Wednesday, at least three monks have been killed and hundreds arrested, including eight more on Friday in Yangon and Mandalay.

At least two monasteries were raided Wednesday, including one in Yangon's northeastern satellite town of South Okkalapa, where about 100 Buddhist monks were arrested and eight people shot dead after protesting the action.

In the wake of the violence, which shocked Myanmar people who hold monks in the highest regard, western diplomats said they had received information from several sources about "acts of insubordination" within the army.

Armed troops take position in the streets of central Yangon
©AFP/HO/File

"We heard that some soldiers have refused to obey orders and that others were even willing to stand alongside the demonstrators," one Yangon-based diplomat told AFP.

A telecom official confirmed that the nation's main link to the Internet was down, but blamed the problem on a damaged undersea cable.

Security forces have also smashed cameras and cellphones, and beaten people who were carrying them. Several newspapers in the country, which was formerly known as Burma, are no longer operating.

The official tally of dead and injured has been impossible to confirm. State media confirmed nine people were killed this week, but insisted that only 120 protesters turned out on Friday.

The Australian ambassador to Myanmar, Bob Davis, told Australian radio that the actual death toll may have been several times higher, according to witnesses who had seen significant numbers of dead bodies.

A Japanese journalist was among those killed Thursday, and Japan's Fuji Television showed footage which appeared to show him being shoved down by Myanmar troops and then shot at close range.

A street is littered with blood and sandals from protesters in Yangon
©AFP/File

US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown renewed their call to the Myanmar junta to end the violent crackdown, after discussing the crisis Friday.

The 47-member UN Human Rights Council decided to hold a special session on October 2 to examine the unrest in Myanmar.

And the Association of Southeast Asian Nations issued an unusually critical statement on its fellow member Myanmar, expressing "revulsion" over the use of force against demonstrators.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari was in Singapore on Friday, headed to Myanmar in a bid to convince the junta to open dialogue with democracy activists.

In Defense of Press Freedom

Just when journalists wrote 30 on this year’s Cebu Press Freedom Week, a lawyer dropped a bombshell that sent shockwaves throughout the media industry.

Nestor Archival, lawyer of Senior Insp. Jose Liddawa Jr. “whose car collided head on with a pick-up of ABS-CBN last week and figured in an altercation with the news crew” turned the tables on the giant network.

He said contrary to the news report over channel three in Cebu, Liddawa was “the real victim” and that the broadcast news report did not tell the entire truth.

He pointed out that at the end of the story, ABS-CBN footage showed Liddawa “collapsed on the ground.”

According to The Freeman, Archival “was able to gather witnesses who can testify that the TV crew mauled his client and not bystanders.”

The “lawyer said that just like the statements of the witnesses, who were owners of stores near the site of the accident, the ABS-CBN insider told him that it was (Ramil) Paican, (Joel) Noel and the crew’s driver who mauled his client and not the bystanders as the network earlier reported,” The Freeman further stated.

As a public relations practitioner my initial reaction to the lawyer’s statement was that it was a very clever spin. It was enough to create reasonable doubt. But, after giving it much thought, I got very much worried about the allegations made by Liddawa’s defense attorney.

It was a mouthful. To accuse a news organization, a giant network at that of peddling a lie or reporting half truth is very serious. The statements by the lawyer could be tantamount to an affront to press freedom.

I always believe that there are two sides of a story just like there are two sides of a coin. So, it beckons upon ABS-CBN to conduct a thorough investigation to ferret the truth. I am confident that ABS-CBN will do what needs to be done to protect its credibility.

It is also incumbent upon the media to ensure that there will be no whitewash so that the credibility of the Cebu press, which up to now is held on high esteem, is firmly protected.

The public deserves no less.