Ridiculous Right to Reply Bill

My colleagues in the mainstream media have already wrote their pieces against the Right to Reply bill. Doronila described the bill as "offensive to the freedom of the press" and "as pernicious as the muzzling of the press by totalitarian dictatorships." His quips are just some of the hundreds of words used to describe the effects of such a bill would do should it pass executive scrutiny.

The bill's author, Senator Aquilino Pimentel challenges us to make a "reasoned argument" against it. He thinks that it's logical---a news paper hits you, you hit back. Good. But, is this sound reasoning?

Consider this--a newspaper reports a scam based on a final report given by a government agency. The agency condemns a Senator for being part of that scam. Notice that it's a final report, meaning, the agency already made the necessary preliminary investigation, called both parties, the accuser and the accuse to a hearing and already made a conclusion, which now forms a part of the final report.

Now, under the Right to Reply bill, the newspaper will then be held liable for a crime should it fails to give the accused the right to reply, for what? To contest the results of that final report? It's final already, is'nt it? Why will the newspaper give the accused the right to reply?

And is'nt it right to say that the accused be made to reply in court or in that government agency, not in the newspaper?

Likewise, a newspaper writes about a Supreme Court ruling. The Highest Tribunal says that the son of a Senator is guilty of rape. Under the Right to Reply bill, the newspaper is now obliged to give space to the rapist who will probably contest the ruling of the Highest Tribunal and say his innocence.

There are so many instances that we can cite here that refutes the arguments of Pimentel and his colleagues. What Pimentel is probably referring to here are opinions, not news. He should have qualified the provisions of that bill. But, if he do so, will he not violate press freedom and the right to self-expression clauses enshrined in the Constitution? Yes, he will.

Consider this---an opinion writer, under the Right to Reply bill, will lose his job because the bill will effectively curtail his responsibility of writing a learned column. For example, my friend Jarius Bondoc writes about an anomaly at the DOTC. With a space requiring just 2,000 or 3,000 words, would it be sufficient to write about the side of the DOTC? Probably yes, Bondoc still has some space left. But, it is his discretion to include that reply in his column. NO ONE has the right to tell him otherwise.

Likewise, my friend Neil Cruz of the Inquirer and Julius Fortuna will also lose their shirts because of this bill. Why? Their columns will eat up so much space if we allow millions of Filipinos to exercise their right to reply for or against the things which they wrote in their columns.

So, now, Mr. Pimentel, is this logic for you?

Why are we so sensitive? My take on Filipino doctors and Cory as Slut

Why are we suddenly so sensitive on other people's views about us? Look at the reaction of Filipinos when Teri Hatcher said something about the "competency" of our doctors. She was just telling the truth. Do we really think of ourselves as "geniuses" or really "experts" in the medical profession that we can't be told of such things, like a joke? Or, we just don't want the world to know that we have been producing doctors or medical practitioners from diploma mills?

Let's be reasonable, shall we?

How many doctors, nurses or caretakers do we "produce" every year? Close to a hundred thousand? How many of those are quality doctors, nurses or caretakers? I know that we really have very, very good doctors. But, do we have a monopoly of quality doctors? Can we really claim that every year we churn out quality medical practitioners? Or most of those whom we grant nursing licenses are half-baked ones?

How many review centers do we have? How many colleges who previously don't give nursing courses or medical courses now suddenly claim to be "expert" schools in medicine? Examples are IT schools such as AMA and STI. They now have their own "medical" schools. Just go around Metro Manila and you'll see that every school, every review center of every Tom, Dick and Harry have their "specialists", "experts" in medicine.

Admit it---we are now one big medical school diploma mill. Since everybody wants to go abroad and the surest way to do that is to become either a nurse or a caregiver, we have treated medicine as a cheap profession. Yes, we have made the medical profession like a skills or technical course.

And, its like, we are hypocrites. We made a big fuss out of this and this latest dig against Former President Cory (whom by the way, its really below the belt, that American show calling Cory a "slut". Former First Lady Hillary Clinton is a legitimate slut, compared with Cory. Bush is also a man-slut. How about Bill Clinton? He's also a man slut (remember that sucking episode?)

We are hypocrites because we protest about these things but we don't protest the things being thrown at us by the Arroyo regime. We protest against these things but we don't go to the streets to protest about the shitty things being done to us by our leaders.

I blame the government for the low regard of other nationalities to Pinoys. How will one be proud of being Pinoy when our leaders show dishonesty? Our leaders are spineless thieves. They not only rob us of our hard-earned money, they also rob us of our voices. GMA is the biggest thief. We have the worst model citizen--GMA. What values do we attach to GMA? The value of dishonesty, robbery, immorality. So, why are we so sensitive? How can we counteract such views on us when we have a president like that?