Anyone can be a ‘journalist’ in social media

“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.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Defensor’s Hemingway Solution to MIWD vacuum

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” 

John Quincy Adams

By Alex P. Vidal

ILOILO Governor Arthur Defensor Sr.’s use of authority and influence to arrest the impending vacuum at the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) Board of Directors can be called as the Hemingway Solution.

Defensor has installed Dr. Teodoro Robles and Architect Ramon Victor Singson as new members of the MIWD board.

Robles, president of the Central Philippine University (CPU), will represent the academe sector, while Singson of the Rotary Club of La Paz, will represent the civic sector.

The appointment came in the heels of the resignations of Engr. Adrian Moncada and Bernadette Castellano.

The duo informed Defensor in a letter dated November 28, 2014 that they will serve the MIWD only until December 31, 2014.

Moncada represented the professional sector, while Castellano represented the women sector.

Their terms should have expired on December 31, 2016.

Robles, who will replace MIWD Chairman of the Board, Dr. Danilo Encarnacion, and Singson, who will replace Dr. Sergio Gonzalez, will officially join the water utility family on January 1, 2015 until December 31, 2020.

Encarnacion’s and Gonzalez’s terms will expire on December 31, 2014.

Defensor will fill up the posts vacated by Moncada and Castellano from the list of nominees to be submitted by Corporate Secretary Cyril Regalado.

It has always been the dilemma every leader faces at one time or another whether to use authority or influence in directing an organization.

AUTHORITY

As appointing official, Defensor’s authority gives him power to force change, to set goals for an organization or standards of performance, and demand that they be met.

Influence gives Defensor power in a different way.

Time magazine highlights the difference between authority and influence: “To have influence is to gain assent, not just obedience; to attract a following not just an entourage; to have imitators, not just subordinates.”

Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is a classic that better demonstrates the difference between authority and influence.

It is a product of Hemingway’s interest and involvement in the Spanish Civil War.

The book focuses on man’s fate as he faces the difficult problems of living in the Industrial Era.

It closely scrutinizes the dramatic human issues of turning around a troubled organization like the MIWD, enabling leaders to understand better the differences between authority and influence, two of the most important tools of the leader.

STRATEGY

As a leadership strategy, Defensor’s influence requires a willingness to guide--not command--employees.

It takes times and patience in the case of the MIWD.

It involves the nurturing of an organizational culture in which employees are the initiators of change because they see the need for it.

Influence empowers employees and in the process, empowers the organization.

“I will not be pressured. Arthur Defensor cannot be bought. I will appoint people whom we believe will serve to the welfare and development of the city and province of Iloilo,” the governor recently vowed.

“Nobody can dictate me on what to do. Even the President, if I believe that he is wrong, I will not follow him.”

Don’t nominate, we’ll just donate

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.” Rachel Carson   

By Alex P. Vidal

PLEASE don’t nominate us for the ice bucket challenge.

We will just donate.

If we feel like participating in the promotion of awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research, all we need to do is donate cash.

No public announcement.

No ice dropping demonstration.

No self-congratulatory video gimmick that focuses primarily on fun while others are watching, giggling and cheering for all the world to witness.

We find the challenge as a clear example of substituting a trivial activity for more genuine involvement in charitable activities.

We may sound like killjoy to excited ice bucket enthusiasts, but if our intention is golden, just donate.

Don’t procrastinate. Don’t celebrate!

Let's go straight to the point. We don’t need to dump cold water on our heads if our intention is purely to raise money for charity. 

The challenge may have adverse health effects on participants, especially adults like Justice Secretary Leila De Lima (Et tu, Leila?).

FEVER

What if we have typhoid fever and other respiratory ailments that prohibit us from getting wet?

Instead of helping solve the problem on ALS, we could end up the ones shaking and trembling in the emergency room.

And find ourselves the recipients of cash donations from friends instead of the ALS research.

Experts have already warned of the potentially inducing vagal response which might, for example, lead to unconsciousness in people taking blood pressure medications.

In many places where the challenge was recently practiced, a number of participants have sustained injuries but were not all reported in media.

Sources said at least one death has been linked to the challenge, with another thought to be from a variation on the challenge, jumping feet first into water.

WASTE

We can’t waste water only for this instant pop culture phenomenon and brief videoed spectacle.

Ilonggos are saddled by water crisis owing to the recent furor involving the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) and the FLO Water Resources, Inc. headed by Bombo Radyo tycoon Rogelio Florete Jr.

It’s an insult to MIWD consumers to waste water in the challenge when there is no drop of liquid in the buckets and others can’t take a bath and drink potable water on time.  

We can’t afford to be insensitive during the crisis.

When water utilities and their bulk water providers are at loggerheads, water becomes a premium.

And we need to save every drop of water specifically for the household use. Not for celluloid gimmicks.

The problem is we are easily smitten by almost all the myopic activities that emanate from the Western world.

COPY

And we are good in copying them—for fun first; and, perhaps, for charity second.

We are always guilty of gaya-gaya or sunod-sunod or copycat. We lack the originality. Many of us have become poor trying hard copycats.

And we also drag our senior citizens in this slapdash challenge without any regard to their safety and health.

We have enough of such water-related gimmickry in the Philippines.

In our barangay (village) in Iloilo City where we celebrate the Feast of St. John The Baptist every 24^th of June, we splash water on friends and passersby, and participate in different games.

We line up on every street and alley with water guns in hand early in the morning and “shoot” the first “victims” spotted walking or passing by.

We do it with fun and excitement since time immemorial, but for purposes of religious celebration and festivity as part of our culture and tradition, not to raise funds for charity or research.

'Give us water or give us death'

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”W. H. Auden

By Alex P. Vidal

We can live for seven days without food, but not without drinking water.

In this modern age, we can live without electricity, but not without drinking water. Food is hard to swallow and digest without water. Human evolution is impossible to attain without water.

We have been expressing fears that our endless woes with the cash-strapped Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) would develop from bad to worse.

And those fears have now become our nightmares.

MIWD continues to maintain a Punch-and-Judy relationship with its bulk water supplier, FLO Water Resources Iloilo, Inc., and the direct casualties are the water consumers.  

Since FLO Water Resources Iloilo, Inc. operates as a business entity, its transaction with the MIWD is purely business.

Compassion and whatever “human” considerations won’t interfere in this conundrum.

If MIWD fails to pay its arrears on time, which has reached P5 million, FLO Water Resources Iloilo, Inc. cuts off its water supply. We, the consumers, bellyache! As simple as that.

How long shall we suffer? If MIWD continues to renege on its obligations with the FLO Water Resources Iloilo, Inc., we will also continue to suffer indefinitely.

CYCLE

It has become a cycle. We have the same problem several months back, and the same problem will continue to haunt us if the situation is not remedied.

The debate on how to deal with the bungling water agency was only temporarily set aside when other pressing issues took over these past months, but MIWD’s inefficiency and inadequacy to perform its obligations to the Ilonggos remained.

The move of Iloilo City Rep. Jerry P. Trenas to introduce House Resolution No. 1363 calling for the privatization of the MIWD last August 12 won’t immediately solve the water district’s mismanagement.

While the politicians debate in the House of Representatives, the Ilonggo consumers won't have water to drink.

The threat by Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog to file a case against MIWD also won’t immediately solve the water crisis.

While the lawyers prepare for the legal battle in court, there is not water in the faucets.

Gov. Arthur Defensor, the appointing official of the MIWD board, neither supports nor opposes the privatization and the filing of case against the MIWD, but he, too, is hard-pressed to ferret out any immediate solution to address the mess.

EMBARRASS

Some local officials, especially the business sector, fear embarrassment should MIWD’s skullduggery prolongs until next year when the city will host part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministerial meetings here.

Never mind the APEC. These ministers will stay in the hotels anyway. With or without the APEC, we still need water. 

It’s the household consumers that badly need drinking water on a daily basis. APEC will come and go, but the Ilonggo consumers' need to have a drinking water on the table during meals, is still the most paramount.  

Ilonggo consumers are getting impatient. Unlike in the electricity, they seldom complain about their water bills, which are “cheaper”, thus they almost religiously settle their bills on time without any prejudice to the MIWD.

But they don’t get the kind of services that they deserve in return. MIWD does not reciprocate the consumers’ goodwill and show of support for the management. 

Instead, MIWD bungles on its job and takes the consumers for a ride.

Enough is enough. 

Each time water fails to come out from the faucets, we can almost hear the Ilonggo consumers scream collectively, “Give us water or give us death!”