BY ROMMEL YNION
AS they say, ignorance is bliss. And how I wish I was as ignorant as most journalists today so I could, at least, live a life as blissful as theirs.
But no, I am not like most of them, gifted as I am with an intuitive sense that enables me to see through smokescreens.
Schooled in investigative journalism early in my career, I have honed that “gift” which has been the root of my “depression” all these years.
Yes, when I see evil, I get depressed – a cloud of hopelessness descending upon me.
Yesterday, all the newspapers, including my alma mater The Philippine Star, announced that the rainy season has begun.
In The Philippine Star, a seemingly innocuous headline, just below its masthead, read: “Rainy season is here; Ester moves northeastward.”
After reading the same press release in the other papers, I felt sad, not because rains had come – as a farmer myself, rains mean good news actually – but because no journalist outside my sphere of consciousness, saw anything wrong with that piece of news.
Yes, journalism has sunk so deep into the mind control methods employed by spin doctors who, working for political and economic interests behind the scenes, have manipulated media the way puppeteers control puppets in a puppet show.
For crying out loud, haven’t we seen the obvious? Are we that blind that we can’t even see any anomaly at all?
Just last month, we saw all newspapers tackle the effects of the “El Niño” phenomenon upon our land like a plague – and every time that story came out, there was always a corresponding pitch for the need of a multi-billion peso budget for cloud-seeding to induce rain all over this benighted archipelago.
Even the official gazette of the agriculture department read: “Secretary Alcala announced in mid-May that the Department is looking at an initial budget of P1.61 billion to mitigate the adverse impact of a possible prolonged drought across the country. Of the total amount, P764.3 million is already available while the remainder is still being requested from the Department of Budget and Management. Nearly half of the total, or P729.9 million, is intended for stocking and distribution of inputs, P340 million for the construction of small-scale irrigation facilities and P199.9 million for crop insurance.”
Now, let us pause and ask ourselves: Have already seen what is wrong with the strange “turn” of events?
First, the news was about El Niño and the need for a mega-budget for it – only to be met with the announcement of the coming of the rainy season after most of the budget had already been released and a “moro-moro” cloud-seeding program implemented complete with a docudrama on television of a small plane crashing into parched land after spraying the clouds with chemicals to induce much-needed rain.
Then, all of sudden, as if nothing happened, the PAGASA announces through their press releases that rainy season is now here, advising us further to be ready with our umbrellas, raincoats, and even rubber boats!
Honestly, I am writing this in the hope that this column can serve as indictment of the state of media in our country today.
What is happening to us, my dear brethren in the Fourth Estate?
Aren’t we supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?
No offense meant, but PAGASA’s press release is applicable to us especially that part of it that emphasized the possible need for rubber boats.
For we have become like rubber boats tossed to and fro in a sea of lies, rudderless, aimless and directionless, doomed to sink as soon as our luck runs out.
Plagiarized from the Bible, the slogan of The Philippine Star – Truth shall prevail – can still serve as our lighthouse as we navigate through the seas of manipulative methods employed by spin doctors to keep us away from the heart of issues that pulsates with the blood of our nation.
For starters, let us enroll in an imaginary class in our minds that we may call, Muckraking 101
In this “class”, we engage in a project that will hone our abilities to separate the grain from the chaff; the truths from half-truths and downright lies; and horse manure from vanilla ice cream.
And what do we call this project?
Oh, let’s call it Cloud Seeding Scam.
Let’s roll up our sleeves then and buckle down to work.
Once we do, then and only then can we truly say that we have rekindled the old art of muckraking in investigative journalism that has made media an effective tool in fighting evil around the globe./PN
