Let's unite to defeat the virus

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"
-Henry David Thoreau

By Alex P. Vidal

ANYTHING that destroys and kills should alarm us and impel us to be united to stop it.
Whether it's a poisonous food and drink, virus, act of terrorism, bad weather, war, animal attack, epidemic, it must be given major emphasis, importance, priority, and full attention.
The bottom line is to halt its destruction, minimize the death toll, and altogether save and preserve the human life.
In the arena of death and mayhem these past weeks, dengue fever has been the "star of the show."
Luckily, we've seen how the government, media, non-government organizations (NGOs), civic organizations, individual Good Samaritans, military, Philippine National Police (PNP) have combined their talents and resources to fight dengue fever, which has reached red alert level in Western Visayas, particularly in the city and province of Iloilo.

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In times like this, we can't afford to entrust everything to the Department of Health (DoH) and relegate ourselves in the role of kibitzers.
Dengue is not the only problem that bedevils the undermanned DoH.
Although it won't scream for help, DoH definitely needs both moral, financial, personnel, and logistical support from concerned agencies and private groups in the battle against dengue.
If help will continue to come from a myriad of sources outside the DoH, there is no reason why we can't help trounce the dreaded virus that have killed many Ilonggo kids and adults.
The signs that many Ilonggo leaders, organizations, and private individuals are determined to help avert a terrible dengue outbreak have been felt this past week when businessman Johnny Que and the Philippine National Red Cross donated folding beds for Iloilo hospitals inundated by dengue patients.

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We are saddened that another media colleague, Eduardo Dizon of the Cotabato-based Brigada News, became the latest murder victim in the country ruled by an iron-fisted president who once threatened to kill "all corrupt journalists."
Under the Duterte administration, Dizon was the 13th casualty from the Fourth Estate.
We have no idea about the issues Dizon had tackled before he was shot to death by two motorcycle gunmen while travelling in a car on his way home in Makilala town on July 11.
Initial reports said his murder was job-related as he received threats during his radio program prior to the ambush.
Journalists in the Philippines are like sitting ducks.
Every now and then we hear reports of radioman or newspaperman being murdered in cold blood.
And we seldom hear that the cases are being pursued seriously by authorities; or, if the culprits have identified, they are brought behind bars and convicted,

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We hate to again mention that the culture of impunity in the Philippines must have emboldened enemies of press freedom to silence Dizon, who was partly a politician.
The danger that crusading journalists face in the Philippines can be compared to the danger combatants in actual armed combat are facing in the battlefield: no one knows who will fall next.
Authorities must exert strong efforts to arrest Dizon killers soon so that the international community will not accuse the government of "abetting" the murder and connect it to the drastic campaign against illegal drugs now that the Philippines is under scrutiny and being monitored by the United Nations for its horrible record in human rights. (The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

Ilonggo journalists aren’t the enemies

“Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”
--Walter Cronkite

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- I AM a Filipino community journalist and not an enemy of the state.
I belong in the so-called Fourth Estate, the chief vanguard of democracy that serves as the catalyst of change and watchdog of the government’s three major ribs: the Executive (First Estate), the Legislative (Second Estate), and the Judiciary (Third Estate).
I believe that the alleged “Oust Duterte” matrix supposedly plotted by some journalists and human rights lawyers is not only a dud but also a hoax.
It does not exist in reality and is only a figment of imagination.
It is meant to shift public attention from the bigger national issues and scandals and to scare those who are critical against the Duterte Government.
It was intentionally coined by spin masters and members of the Palace “think tank” to cushion the impact of media flak especially if the criticism has become effective and has influenced public perception about how the government is being managed and ruled.
By using logic and common sense, the jobs of journalists and lawyers are apolitical by nature and, unlike the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Muslim separatist groups, ousting a sitting president does not and will not benefit them.
This is not new actually.

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We experienced the same hara kiri or “belly cutting” threat from the previous administrations, which all failed to bring us down and even backfired.
In 1991, the Cory administration, which could not handle the intense media criticism against her “Kamaganak, Inc.” believed to be siphoning the taxpayers’ money through iniquitous means, and the spiraling cases of human rights violations, fired back at the press by letting loose a Bulldog named “Oplan Malunggay.”
The “Oplan” tagged several journalists as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) and, henceforth, were now “enemies of the state.”
Then Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Gerardo “Gerry” Flores (now a congressional candidate in the first district of Iloilo), had served as Tita Cory’s “Gen. Oscar Albayalde,” who recently threatened to “investigate the journalists and the lawyers in the matrix without waiting for an official order from Malacañang.”
Flores and his police “witch hunters” had threatened to arrest “the communists” in the press and charge them with sedition.
The “witch hunters” gathered phony dossiers and spied on some journalists listed in the “Oplan” like they were cosmic terrorists on a mission to launch an intergalactic battle.
It had some chilling effects on many of us, in one way or another, since we feared we could be abducted and disappeared any time; but we were unfazed and continued to blast and lampoon Tita Cory’s administration over issues with paramount public interest.
Media killings had started to rear their ugly heads five years after Marcos was toppled in the EDSA Revolution.

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The spying and harassment against critical journalists continued subsequently under the FVR, Erap, and Ate Glo administrations even as incidents of media killings had continued to pile up in an alarming rate.
FVR, who was black-eyed in the scandalous multi-billion Amari land deal, used the carrot and stick tactics to ward off humiliation from the expose made by the determined press.
Erap miscalculated and underestimated the power of the press when he engaged it in an unorthodox arm-twisting power play, pressuring advertisers to nix critical newspapers and broadcast networks.
Ate Glo allegedly helped make many critical but corrupt journalists rich by awarding them “lucrative” government positions if not making some of them as “dummies” in some multi-billion anomalies allegedly perpetrated by the First Family and their cronies.
No dictator or aspiring dictator has succeeded in muzzling the press to hide and keep his or her shenanigans under wraps.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)