Pubdate: Mon, 06 Jun 2016
Source: Philippine Star (Philippines)
Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2016
Contact:  http://www.philstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622
Author: Ana Marie Pamintuan

LOWLIFES

When we see corrupt public officials also turning up dead in the 
streets, with cardboard signs declaring "nagnakaw sa taumbayan, huwag 
tularan," we will believe Dirty Rody and his trigger-happy kindred 
spirits mean business.

Since this could decimate the ranks of Congress, paralyze the 
judiciary, and shut down many local government offices plus the 
Bureau of Customs, Land Transportation Office and other 
revenue-collecting agencies, I don't think we will ever hear Dirty 
Rody endorsing the same mass killing for these agencies' crooks that 
he has justified for corrupt media workers and ordered for drug dealers.

 From the way he rants against crooks within media ranks, it's 
obvious that president-elect Rodrigo Duterte is talking from 
first-hand experience. He should be glad to see, from responses to 
his harangue, that no one is denying his accusation.

But there are "lowlifes" and "vultures" in all sectors of Philippine 
society, and all along I thought politics and government in general 
had the lion's share of them. Should we line them up and kill them 
all, and will we get P5 million per head as a reward?

If we go by percentages, media workers get an inordinate share of 
lethal attacks in our country. And we can't even tell for sure who 
was killed over corruption because hardly any case has been solved 
and few suspects have been arrested.

The principal defendant in the world's single worst attack on 
journalists  Andal Ampatuan Jr. of Maguindanao massacre 
notoriety  may even be cleared since his former lawyer is now the 
president-elect's spokesman. Having said this, I think Duterte 
actually enjoys bantering with journalists. You have to enjoy the 
company of reporters to hold two-hour press conferences regularly.

We boycotted coverage of President Corazon Aquino over grievances 
that included too few press briefings, so those covering Duterte 
should consider themselves lucky. Two-hour press conference with 
President Cory? Not on your life. She boycotted us back, refusing to 
even look at us as she walked past us. The matter was quickly 
settled, with our admission that we couldn't stop presidential 
coverage, and she with the ugly reality about mass media in a free 
society: can't live with them, can't live without them. This is a 
lesson Duterte and his team may want to learn quickly - but I think 
he already knows this.

Duterte is right - journalists can be full of themselves. And we can 
also be rude and ask idiotic questions.

I believe Duterte, for all the profane and vulgar speech, also 
respects women in an old-fashioned way, and can in fact be protective 
of those he thinks are worthy of respect. The Women Development Code 
of Davao City, which he enacted as mayor way back in 1997, is one of 
the most thorough city ordinances promoting the welfare of women.

His tearful visit to his mother's grave after his victory was also 
touching. Since I know a creep who threw out his mother when he no 
longer had any use for her, I believe any man dedicated to his mom 
can't be all bad.

President Cory never sanctioned the killing of journalists, although 
several were murdered during her watch. She just sued The STAR 
columnist Luis Beltran and publisher Max Soliven for libel, after 
Beltran wrote that she hid under her bed at the height of the 1989 
coup attempt. She demanded damages that she planned to donate to 
charity. We lost the case before the Manila Regional Trial Court 
after an unusually swift court trial, but the conviction was 
overturned by the Court of Appeals when she was no longer in power.

Much later, President Cory gave the rueful observation that one 
couldn't win a fight against "those who buy ink by the barrel." 
Duterte, who challenged a print journalist last week in an 
obscenity-laced tirade, will probably dismiss her observation as BS.

Libel laws in the Philippines are skewed in favor of a free press. 
Proposals to decriminalize libel may in fact be more damaging to the 
survival of newspapers, since the alternative for those who feel 
aggrieved by defamation or wrongful reporting is a civil suit where 
the required preponderance of evidence for conviction is much lower. 
The cost of litigation and damages if convicted in a civil case can 
shut down a small newspaper.

Still, considering how affordable hired guns are in this country, and 
how easy it is to get away with murder, killing a journalist to stop 
critical reporting is still a better option for those who are in a 
position to do so.

Whether inadvertently or with malicious deliberation, with Duterte's 
intemperate remarks, he has just declared open season on journalists 
- - all three types that he described: the genuine ones, the 
"mouthpieces for vested interests" and "vultures pretending to be journalists."

In this killing season, if the corrupted lowlifes can be killed, why 
don't we toss in the corruptor  usually politicians themselves? The 
Duterte camp has reportedly set aside what's left of his campaign war 
chest to cover a P5-million bounty that he is dangling for each of 
about 200 notorious drug dealers he wants dead before Christmas.

While he's at it and Pinoys are still in a murderous mood, maybe he 
should also put a price on the heads of the notoriously corrupt in 
certain government agencies.

English tycoon Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, in his Manila 
visit, urged the business sector to do its part by refraining from 
resorting to bribes. He has a point. On the other hand, as a number 
of upright citizens trying to eke out a decent living in this country 
have sighed to me, it's very hard to be an honest businessman in an 
environment designed to be rotten.

What's an honest entrepreneur to do, for example, if his small 
shipment is right there in front of him at the Port of Manila, and 
the Customs guy in charge is demanding about four times more than the 
legitimate amount for its release, or else he's in for a long wait 
and repeated visits to the same office and the same crook?

Unless systems and procedures are changed, simply eliminating crooked 
personnel won't solve the problem.

In the short term, shock and awe through the killing of crooks can 
have an immediate effect. But in a society that cherishes civil 
liberties, law enforcement through state-sponsored killings tends to 
have diminishing returns. Without structural reforms, the shock 
dissipates and the lowlifes return to their old ways.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom