CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
4/11-17/2011
One of my purposes in writing this regular Critics’ Critic series is to offer readers of OpinYon a select summary of opinions of commentators from tri-media that I think are worthy of special attention.
But with over 50 op-ed columns and articles everyday from at least seven major newspapers and at least five major AM news and talk shows, these would be impossible to follow unless you are a pundit of pundits like me.
As such, this is my service, as well as OpinYon’s, to you all. This week we review the reproductive health (RH), drug mules, and Jan-jan issues, as tackled in choice columns of different newspapers:
“Damasos and ovaries” by Elizabeth Angsioco in the Manila Standard Today got me really interested to read her take on the RH issue with this striking title. Part I of her two-part series came out in the paper’s April 2 to 3 editions. Had the title just stated an obvious proor anti-RH position, I wouldn’t have taken another look at it since there is now a diarrhea of chatter on the debate; but by bringing up our history’s Padre Damasos, juxtaposed with a most sensitive organ in the female anatomy, Angsioco perfectly summed up the clash between the pontificating conservatives and the female gender’s right to their own.
Here’s a sampling:
“Damaso lives. He mingles with us exacting obedience even on personal matters, women’s ovaries included… Controversies surrounding the reproductive health bill are significant because of present-day Damasos who vigorously oppose its passage… Recent developments like the anti-RH ordinances approved by Barangay Ayala Alabang (BAA) and the seven barangays in Balanga, Bataan, the ongoing black propaganda against the RH bill particularly using the pulpit, all these show us how modern-day Damasos and their allies work… The BAA documents are explosive… no public hearing was called to discuss the ordinance. All of the kagawads our leaders spoke with said that they were just asked to sign the ordinance…The plot thickens. There will be more next week.” Search for “Elizabeth Angsioco, Damasos and Ovaries” on the Internet to read more on this.
On Bended Knees
The past week saw the drama of the three Filipino drug mules’ execution drummed up by mainstream media. The Inquirer bannered it on March 30 with “Nation on bended knees.”I was really aghast. It’s a demeaning headline for a nation of 90 million normal, righteous Filipinos whom I don’t believe would be that cross-eyed.
When I tuned in to the major radio stations that morning, all of them were on it too, as were the TV networks with tearjerking interviews of the condemned convicts’ families. I thought everyone else had gone insane until I came across Ellen Tordesillas’ column in Malaya’s April 1 edition:
“TV networks realize that their attempt to sensationalize the deaths of the three to boost their ratings failed. In my prayers for the families… as they try to cope with the loss of their loved ones, I also… hope the TV networks learn… and not to again attempt to replicate a Flor Contemplacion… a media event in 1995 that violated all rules of journalism, as what ABS-CBN tried to do…
In the man-on-the street survey of TV Patrol (on) whether the three deserved to be executed, Noli de Castro couldn’t hide his disappointment that 80 percent answered in the affirmative… (When asked) if they thought that the government had done enough…
45 percent said ‘No’ and 55 percent said ‘Yes.’ De Castro said, ‘Halos tie lang.’ He didn’t stop there. He said… ‘May gusto kasing pumapel…’ Yes, there’s one who is trying to exploit the situation: De Castro and his ilk.” Bravo, Ellen.
Enough with Hypocrisy
A similar view was expressed by Conrado de Quiros in the Inquirer: “One text message sender said enough with the hypocrisy. The Filipinos who were executed in China were selfconfessed drug couriers. Even their families admitted so… It is one thing to be dramatic, it is another to be melodramatic… itis another to have a sense of proportion…The day the networks see those differences is the day we are spared grief…”
The spoiler in the piece was his impulse draw a parallel with the emotional Marcos burial issue: “…only a couple of weeks ago, the congressmen voted overwhelmingly to bury Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani… Gone was the fact that Marcos had ruled the country illegitimately, pitilessly and viciously… stealing, enough of the murder, torture and disappearances.” But then, 50 percent of Filipinos remember better things of Marcos and worse of the Yellows.
Child Abuse or Not…
The week also saw the imbroglio over an alleged exploitation of a six-year-old boy supposedly compelled to do a sexy macho dance in Willie Revillame’s primetime program. I honestly don’t watch Revillame so I don’t know how bad that episode went.
I also can’t ascertain as of yet why the child reportedly cried as the audience was said to have laughed like mad.
Child abuse or not, is this really a priority issue for the Commission on Human Rights when teachers and their students are kidnapped (and later freed) in Agusan del Sur and 11 are dead again in Maguindanao, in a clash between MILF elements and the Mangudadatu clan? That’s what I wondered when I read Emil Jurado’s column in Manila Standard Today:
Lesson on Mendicancy
“The move of both the Commission on Human Rights and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board to investigate Manny Pangilinan’s TV5 and Willie Revillame for
that unfortunate episode of a six-year-old boy, in tears, doing a sexy dance should be pursued to their logical ends…
It’s a show people go for since all they have to do is to make themselves look like fools and presto, Willie pulls out wads of pesos from his hip pocket as a give-away. It’s a lesson on mendicancy… Revillame crossed the line. I have supported TV 5 and Revillame in the long fight against the Lopez-owned ABSCBN. But Willie has gone too far this time. Let the axe fall where it should.”
But will it?
TV5 of Manny Pangilinan is no different from the Lopezes’ ABS-CBN.
Laissez-faire capitalism’s media interest is solely for profit and diverting the people’s mind from the exploitative character of the system.
‘Liars’ Next
I have run out of space for the other two writers and topics of real importance: John Mangun of the of Business Mirror pushing for the removal of protectionist constitutional provisions and Ken Fuller’s splendid Tribune commentary (entitled “Liars”) on Washington and London’s “arming the Libyan opposition.”
Those will be for our next issue.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “NFA Privatization: Grains of Wrath;” visit http:// newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)
