By Alex P. Vidal
“If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.”—Sun Tzu
VICE President-elect Sara Duterte-Carpio should control her temper when it comes to dealing with the critical press.
Media is not an enemy. A criticism from any journalist is not a declaration of war or a plot to put down any public official.
Whether she likes it or don’t, it’s “part of the job” of the critical press to make her and other panit sibuyas or onion-skinned public officials mad (it depends actually on what kind of public officials the people have elected)—if they don’t perform effectively and efficiently; or, if they sleep on their job or become waslik poder or abusive.
There is a saying that “ang pikon talo” (he who is oversensitive or short-tempered loses).
In a free society, no jittery public official however powerful or influential can take away the rights of the critical press to exist and “fiscalize” the government.
King Louis and other despotic and croaky leaders of antiquity and modern times have learned fatal lessons after curtailing and muzzling the press.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1786: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
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If Duterte-Carpio will react to all the media criticism in all her six years in office like what she did when she lambasted journalist Raissa Robles for criticizing the tourism program of the incoming tourism secretary, Christina Frasco, in Mindanao, she can’t perform her task as duly elected vice president of the Philippines.
If she will react to all negative stories and treat them as personal attacks, her efficiency and usefulness will be crippled; and she has no business being in government service.
Robles had Twitted, “Apparently, Frasco would like to open up Mindanao to tourism. Im sure the extremist Abu Sayyaf and other bandits would be pleased by the prospects of so many potential kidnap victims. Way to go, Frasco. Prep yourself for ransom negotiations. ASG might ask you to nego personally.”
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Duterte-Carpio responded by calling Robles’ Tweet “insulting” and a “demonization” of Mindanao, saying it is “replete with journalistic recklessness and irresponsibility,” according to a report from Inquirer.net.
“What Robles did was a demonization of Mindanao and an insult to its people,” the incoming vice president, who is the incumbent Davao City mayor, said in a statement as reported by the online news service.
The daughter of outgoing President Rordrigo Duterte apparently felt “insulted” because she is from Mindanao and Frasco, the object of Robles’ valid criticism, is her former spokesperson.
But as the incoming second highest official of the Philippines, Duterte-Carpio should learn to change her choleric attitude toward the critical press.
She is now in the big league and the playing field is wider, bigger and demands a higher level of accountability and tolerance toward constructive criticism.
Roble’s flak was only a tip of the iceberg, so to speak; it’s only a pinch in the buttock. It’s not even a molotov, yet it already triggered a snafu inside Duterte-Carpios’ central nervous system.
In the next six years of the incoming administration, Duterte-Carpio and other high-ranking public officials in particular and the government in general will definitely face more tidal waves of criticism from the press, more explosive and chronic, more “irritating” and powerful than Robles’ carping admonishment of the tourism program.
The kids will be separated from the adults.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)
