Is Philippine Daily Inquirer going sexy?

Hard times, yeah. And sometimes, people had to do what's best for business.

For the first time in its thirty plus history, the Philippine Daily Inquirer released a photo of a bikini-clad woman in its frontpage.

Classy? Sexy? But why? Is it to attract more readers or more oglers?

IN a survey, PDI ranked second behind Manila Bulletin and a tad above Philippine Star. Surprisingly, Manila Times and Manila StandardToday are giving the bigger broadsheets a run for their money. Or, that just shows a shift of readership from the perceived "decent tabloid-ism" of PDI to a more "revelatory" treatment being provided for by Standard and Times?

Going back to PDI, hey John, can you explain this?

Manny Pangilinan's Dream--Be The Country's No. 1 Media Mogul

Manny Pangilinan is positioning himself as the penultimate media mogul of the Philippines. Pangilinan, according to news sources, has offered 52 billion pesos to the majority owners of GMA Channel 7. Pangilinan sees GMA 7 as the second acquisition of a media entity in just three years. Should he finally buy the country's second biggest TV network, Pangilinan will become the country's no. 1 media mogul. 


Pangilinan has a ten percent stake at the Philippine Daily Inquirer and an unknown number of shares in Philippine Star. Basically, Pangilinan owns more than sixty five percent of the local media environment. With the acquisition of GMA, this will increase to seventy five percent. 


Seems like the convergence dream of Pangilinan is taking concrete shape. He will dominate the platforms, and hope to also dominate the content realm. Pangilinan should recognize that what sells are not platforms but content. People talk about content. It is content that sells.


In an era where platforms are being created independently of business interests, where the Internet is slowly being mined for newer applications that lead to consumers' empowerment, there will come a time where dominance in the traditional platforms would just be treated as a mere company acquisition than anything else. Surely, public opinions are slowly being shaped by information coming from newer, cheaper and even cost-free channels. 


Competition in the media sphere will eventually be dictated by consumers and users themselves. Fact is, right now, consumers and users of content are dictating the pace of the media revolution, and singular dominance will eventually be frowned upon even of consumers of traditional media. 


With free information now slowly permeating the farthest corners of the media realm, the possibility of a "dictatorship" of a few thru platform dominance is going faster South than North. The shift is inevitable, as platforms become more and more cheaper and user-friendly. Attempts at creating a singular platform of views and opinions will not anymore be possible in the traditional-sense; rather, the creation of a collective view will naturally spring from the cacophony of voices expressed online than thru the boob tube or paper. This is the liberation of the consumer from the commercialized content seen thru traditional media. 

Ratsada sa Inquirer tomorrow

Tomorrow June 16, 2012 is a pretty busy day for me. Noemi Dado, a colleague of mine, will pitch-hit for the first time with me on the show, Ratsada sa Inquirer (8-9am over at Radio Inquirer 990 khz). A good friend from the workers' party will also be a guest, along with representatives from Teleperformance and Lenddo.com. What is Lenddo? Find out for yourself tomorrow.


Listen as we give you a rundown of the most important news events that shaped our history these past week. Erin Tanada will also give us an update on the Universal Health care program.


If you want to suggest something for the show, email us at ratsadainquirer@gmail.com. I will also be setting up a Ratsada sa Inquirer Facebook page, and a twitter page very soon.


INteract with us tomorrow, my friends. 

Isagani Yambot says finis

Mang Gani will be reading Heaven's Daily Inquirer
there, along with Mang Max, Jules Fortuna and the rest
of the guys. 

I saw Mang Gani wearing what appears to be a hospital robe, at the Rockwell center in Ortigas, beside the Medical City. Gani, as you know is Isagani Yambot, publisher of Philippine Daily Inquirer. I've known the man since way back, when I was still  a reporter. Not too many people know, but, I nearly became an Inquirer desk man way, way back, more than a decade ago. It could have been fate that I was thrust to another path. 


Anyway, Mang Gani appeared okey so I did'nt even wave to him to show him I was there. No. I leave the man his privacy. Gani is one of those men beloved by me. I respect the man so much that even if I had the chance to bump to him in a condo where I shared the privilege of him being a neighbor, I dare not ask him about favors or anything. I just looked at a distance and admired the guy who transformed Philippine journalism.


I was so shocked when I found out that he left us some days ago. This unassuming man of prodigious wit and of always bright composition is no more. What is left are found memories of sharing experiences with him and learning much from this man who has always been a giant among men.


One by one, the giants of the media industry are leaving us. I lost not just a friend, but a mentor and I felt this great loss when I was writing this piece. I felt that when Mang Max Soliven left. 


I hope that he was running his fingers down his hair when he slowly closed his eyes to meet his Lord. 


Sleep mightily, Mang Gani. And when you open your eyes once more, let it be at the Great and MIghty City of God. 

Vicki Bello risks

Vicki Bello, the controversial cosmetics consultant claiming to be a cosmetics or plastic surgeon, has not really learned her lesson. Bello has been charged by numerous entities. And she is, well, still very stubborn. She probably thinks that she can bend the law since she's awash with cash.


Well, Ms. Bello, there is a limit to everything.


For one, Bello is reportedly behind a malicious smear campaign against a quiet Filipino-Chinese family, who happens to be her major competitor in the beauty business. 


Bello's products have not moved in groceries and supermarkets for reasons, only the discerning consumer knows. Her soaps and other beauty and cosmetics products, even her perfumes have not really been hits. Fact is, these are seldom used or even noticed by the public. Maybe they don't want to smell like Hayden or they don't want to be part of alleged fakery, as alleged by Bello's detractors and former friends.


Anyway, Bello used her publicist to heap a set of lies against this very private family. What Bello does not know, and probably even the publicist, they risk jail time because the courts have already decided repeatedly these cases they heap against the family. 


The RTCs and even the Court of Appeals have repeatedly belied the accusations, but Bello wants daw to pressure this company for her own ends.


Poor Bello. She does not know what she is going into. She is entering a world totally different from her own.


One advice to Bello and her publicist, former Inquirer entertainment reporter Leah Salterio---we already know that you are the source of this new smear campaign. 


You can be prosecuted for this since it is illegal to use a case already lost before the courts as basis to spread lies, malicious that is. 


It is very easy to prove this since the family, whom I described, has all the tools to prosecute Bello and her publicist. 


If they don't want to spend two or three years in jail, says this source of mine, they will not dare tread this path.

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?

Politics behind food crisis

There's another scam over at the Philippine Department of Agriculture now being headed by Secretary Arthur Yap. The Inquirer today bared a Joc-Joc Bolante type of scam which occurred again in the same department. Names of beneficiaries were faked and funds siphoned off to other uses and possibly, lined the pockets of greedy men.

So, that explains why our farmers were unable to plant seeds because they have'nt received their rations from the government and that also explains why there's low harvest yields.

And why, aside from graft and corruption, the DA allows this (meaning low rice production)? To justify rice importation, that's the reason. If the country continues to produce only 90% capacity, it allows rice importers to puncture the market with their stocks. Also, an insufficient supply due to low production, also justifies the entry of smuggled foodstuffs, ergo, giving a windfall to importers.

The pressure of imports plus low local food production causes pressures for local food costs to rise. This, my friend, is an artificial tool that is the core cause of our present day misery!

This is too much already.

This government is too greedy and doing these at our expense. What's worst, this scam involves food security and how would we secure our food stocks if these continue? No wonder we have exorbitant food costs. Food costs continue to rise due to low productivity. And we allow smuggled goods and foodstuffs, even import rice when the main problem lies not in production capabilities rather in graft and corruption.

Politics have totally corrupted our state. Governance has now been totally transformed from being public service to public nuisance. What's worst, this threatens the very lives of each and everyone of us because it concerns food.

When will all these things stop? When will we wake up and muster the courage to stop these evil administration from pillaging our rice bowls? My God, this government threatens not only our lives, but the lives of our children, our families! My God, this things are sickening already.

Gising na po Pilipinas! Gising na po tayong lahat!

High Society Scam

Before that scandalous declaration of martial law in the 70's, people in high society were partying like crazy. Some of those who survived that era remember that time when the Lopezes were hosting parties left and right, in their palaces of pleasure, with wines flowing out of their fountains.

If Brian Gorrell is to be believed, Manila's jet-setting, high rollers are also doing the same shit their parents did in their prime. And I don't blame them. They're totally dysfunctional. Being rich is dysfunctional. Too much money in their hands. Too much coke in their heads (if this Australian gay guy is to be believed though).

When I was teaching history to a bunch of rich kids in one of Manila's top universities, I was exposed to this. I admit being friends with a lot of society people. They do party. They do kid around. They do use drugs. But they don't do what these "Gucci" group allegedly did--deprive this poor HIV-positive gay guy of his life's savings.

Drugs are crackers to these people. They have so much money to spend that they use this to buy happiness.

I remember so many incidents of socialites being raided because of drugs. When I was a beat reporter then, I used to cover so many instances of arrests of these druggies belonging to rich and known families. They were eventually freed and did not even spend a single month in jail. Maybe their parents put them in rehab. Some probably were exiled somewhere in the States.

People know Bora as a druggie's paradise. The reason why its so popular is its liberal drug-oriented culture. I know of some rich guys and gals going to Bora just to get their high. The police is sooo lax there that these rich guys don't give a damn. Bora is RP's version of Phuket or Bangkok. You can do whatever you want for as long as you have money and you have a short surname.

Everybody knows Tim Yap's a fraud. That's why he was kicked out of Inquirer. His articles suck. Its not even near the quality of Patricia Evangelista's writings. I was surprised though to learn that some of PhilStar's editors are junkies. It pains me to even read stuff about this because I know a lot of PhilStar editors and reporters and really, they are NOT junkies.

People in my industry treat lifestyle writers and editors with respect. The buzz is, the main section editors are the ones dirty. With Brian's tell-all blog, I have lost all respect to these so-called writers, especially from the lifestyle section of the Star. I heard PhilStar has fired two of their reporters and editors. Good riddance. With this scandal flying off the pan so to speak, its time for the PhilStar to make those changes. And fast!

Compared with these lifestyle wannabe writers, my section editor and reporter friends are angels. Yet, one glaring fact should be done.

Purge the industry with these scumbags and scammers. Cleanse the filth they caused.