Aquino blames his bosses in the media for rise of crimes

Aquino just did a very un-Aquino thing---he just shot at the messenger. I think President Aquino forgot how his dad, the late Senator Ninoy Aquino began his career in politics--he was a cup reporter at the Manila Times when he was young and from there, kick-started his career in politics. Ninoy was a journalist. He was assigned to cover the Korean war and don't tell me, poor Noynoy, that your dad started a war?

Did the media kidnapped that Chinoy trader in broad daylight along busy EDSA and extorted millions from him? Was the media to be blamed for the kidnapping and rape of a young woman by two cops? Is Aquino saying that these things are not exactly true or are not exactly rampant, like those robberies and those kidnappings and those killings that are happening almost everywhere in this country?

Like his predecessor, the now sick Gloria Arroyo, Aquino wants us to always dream as if we are living in a perfumed garden or an Enchanted Kingdom. Mr. President, try to ride a jeepney or a pedicab. Try to secure a seat during rush hour at any MRT station and you'll get what I mean.

By the way, Gloria during those times when everything was on the verge of collapse, also used the very same rhetoric of us, living in an Enchanted Kingdom.

Aquino wants us to live in a Lie. He wants nothing more than picture a country in an ordered State, when the very fact is, chaos, disarray and a lack of order are things which we feel, see and hear nowadays.

There is no more Emmanuel Pelaez who had the temerity to question what is happening, because those who dared tell the truth are often shot, even murdered by the very keepers of this decrepit State.

What Aquino did was a disrespect to the profession and a virtual declaration of war against the Fourth Estate. Being accused of lying or of presenting the facts in a not-so-truthful way, is like slapping one in the face.

Now I appreciate what Boy Abunda, a fan of the president and close friend of his sister Kris, did. In every interview, before he ends it, Abunda always ask his guests to imagine facing a mirror and thereafter, answer a question.

Mr. President if you really want to know the truth why crimes are rising, go, face a mirror. Therein lies the answer.

My take on the PNP-Phil Media War

As a journalist myself, let me express my take on the current imbroglio involving the government and the media. I've been immersing myself to the issue and it seems that media is on a higher moral ground in this struggle.

Let me say that media should first unite and fight this creeping attempt by government institutions to control the flow of information. Why? If journalists would not do this, everybody will wake up one morning in an atmosphere of proto martial rule. Media is the only group who is fighting this government above ground. If groups will not unite now, this fight will all be lost.

One of the things that media should reconcile is its internal struggle. This is a good occasion to really determine who are legitimate media and who are government agents.

I wonder why the opposition seems to be so silent about the issue. They are NOT supporting the cause of Philippine journalists. Well, that goes to show how callous and how indifferent the opposition is. Now is the time for cause-oriented groups and like minded organisations to militate against this administration and prevent a repeat of martial rule. If all of us would just be fence sitters this time around, Arroyo's ravenous lapdogs will be more brazen and bold and do other more oppressive actions against all of us.