“Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every
journalist is a moralist. It’s absolutely unavoidable.” Marguerite Duras
By Alex P. Vidal
AS members of the Fourth
Estate, we don’t have the monopoly of the guts and glory in as far as safeguarding
the taxpayers’ money and bringing the bad guys before the bar of justice
through our no none-sense exposes and crusades against graft and corruption are
concerned.
The case of murdered
former Philippine Daily Inquirer
(PDI) correspondent Melinda Magsino of Batangas is a proof that nowadays, one
doesn’t have to be a full-time journalist to criticize bungling public
officials and expose anomalies in government.
You don’t have to be a full-fledged
journalist to anger corrupt government officials and push baleful characters in
society to harass their media tormentors and commit homicide.
A Facebook account in
the social media can be used as a powerful medium to lambast the thieves, the
thugs and the pagans and put them in their proper places.
A Facebook account can
be used as a tool for a just and socially-relevant crusade and promotion of advocacy
in the wider scale.
This is where media’s
power and influence become immensely diabolical.
It can be abused by
irresponsible and vindictive account users; it can be exploited for extortion
and blackmail.
Like a newspaper column,
a Facebook account can be utilized to unearth abuses and anomalies.
Magsino, 40, was already
a “semi-retired” newshen when she decided to continue banging at dishonest
people in government using a Facebook account, according to reports.
HARD-HITTING
If her murderers were
piqued by her series of hard-hitting Facebook commentaries, a criticism from
any Tom, Dick and Harry with no background in journalism or experience in mass media
could also send shivers down their spine.
Thus killing Magsino was
not a solution if the masterminds only wanted to cover up their tracks in a
certain anomalous deal purportedly exposed by Magsino.
Gutsy netizens can also
do what Magsino did.
The only difference is
that they are not former correspondents of a national daily like the PDI, thus
any retaliatory act couldn’t be immediately enforced with urgency and necessity
like what they did to Magsino.
Other netizens can
always pick up the cudgels for Magsino and sustain what she had started in her
crusade against graft and corruption on social media.
For every Magsino
killed, 10 or more Magsinos will rise to tackle the issues continuously and
endlessly.
Thus Magsinos’s killers
and their brains are doomed.
Practicing journalists
don’t have anymore the solo act in fiscalizing the government.
Our counterparts in the social
media are as aggressive, intrepid and enterprising.
The critical battle has
shifted from the traditional broadsheets and the air-lanes to the social media.
The more the merrier,
but deadlier.
-o0o-
THE metropolis’ water
shortage and how the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) has been dealing with
the problem should be not be equated with our preparations for the two
ministerial meetings of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in
September and October 2015.
When summer is gone, we
expect the water rationing on MIWD’s 31,000 subscribers in the city,
municipalities of Oton, Pavia, Sta. Barbara, Leganes, Cabatuan, Maasin and San
Miguel to end and it's back to normal again.
We must trust MIWD OIC-general
manager Edgar Calasara who assured us they still have additional 5,000 cubic
meter ground water source to help sustain the supply even if the reservoir in
Maasin had decreased by more than a meter amid the searing summer.
Even if the water
shortage will extend until September and October, which is a remote possibility
since rainy season will commence in June and July, APEC delegates will never
run out of water to drink.
Our world-class hotels
and convention centers will have enough potable water supplies for all the
guests.
When there is water
shortage, it’s the consumers in the households that are affected most, not the
VIPs in the hotels.
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