The Philippine Media: Trustworthy?

Disclaimer: I am not referring to ALL media individuals. I am referring to the Media as a group.

I’ve been observing for several years now how the major media networks in the Philippines behave. My conclusion? The Media’s credibility and trustworthiness is decreasing. The Media, who claims to be the defender of truth and of the people, has abused its power and influence. Why do I arrive at that conclusion? Here are my reasons.


First, some media groups and individual journalists are biased in their way of reporting simple news. There are many ways of how you can sensationalize the news and how you could embed “opinionated” content to ordinary news. You can see this when they make “leading” headlines or headlines that “conclude” instead of relaying the summary of the story. I also noticed that instead of telling the story as it was, they usually insert words that show their side of opinion. When you report an event, just say what happened. There’s a commentary program where you can voice out your opinion. Don’t insert it with the news.

Second, during elections like this year’s presidential election, you can always see some bias in how some cover the campaign of each candidate. Instead of giving them equal coverage, some media groups give more emphasis to one candidate than the others. How much did they pay for the airtime?

Third, the Media has become 99% business and 1% public service. During the time of the famous scandal of some Filipino celebrities, the Media took more emphasis to it instead of doing more important things. When criticized by some concerned people, they just answer: It’s what the people like. Yes, Media in the Philippines is a huge business, a huge money source and it will sell things that are of more demand rather than of more importance. How much did they earn from advertisement during the time when that scandal is on its peak of controversy?

The Media is a powerful entity in the Philippines. They are very influential on how the next generation of the Filipinos would be molded. Is the Philippine Media trustworthy? Let me know your thoughts.

Still Concerned With the Philippines

The election is coming. The term of the current president is coming to an end. A new administration will be emerging. Will it bring hope? Will it bring prosperity and end the poverty in the Philippines?

Image by Wikipedia

Yes, it may bring hope but hope is futile if not fulfilled. Hope is just a potential that is useless until realized.
Prosperity is a result and result will just take place if there is an action. Will the next administration do the right action? I personally believe that the country’s prosperity is a system issue. You cannot just blame it to the government. The government is but the reflection of the people. If you see corruption in the government, then you are actually seeing the people. Government officials were in fact one of the people.

We are a democratic country. We choose people among us and empower them to lead us. We call them president, mayors, senators etc. If the government is corrupt, it means that the people are corrupt. If we are angry to the government then we are angry to ourselves. I’m not talking here of persons as individuals. I’m referring to the majority. The majority or the dominating spirit among the Filipino people is corrupt.

I think the issue of corruption is deeply rooted to our cultural orientation. And it will not change in six years even though we elected a good leader. It should be a cultural upheaval. It should be a change of mind to the majority of people. It may not necessarily start with the person of the government. I admit though that the country’s influential people like our elected leaders can be of strong influence. The Philippines future is in the hands of the Filipinos ourselves.

Are we proud to be a Filipino? Are we proud of being unable to accept defeat? Are we proud of thinking for ourselves only and not for our country men? Are we proud to be bias to our family members even though doing so will violate fairness and justice? Are we proud to be always looking for the government to take care of our needs? Are we proud of our principles? Are we proud of our values?

I believe that the Filipino culture has its good qualities but I also believe that we have cultural thinking and practices that keep us from progressing. It’s like a weight tied to our knees that slows us down. Admit it, WE ARE STUCK! And it’s our fault. We have to realize that or we will still believe that we are great and Filipinos were the best in the world. We must not keep a blind eye on the defective spots of our culture.

Are we proud to be Filipinos? Is this what we want the Filipinos to be? Is this what we want the Philippines to be?

I’m not proud to be a Filipino. I want to change the current Filipino thinking. I am still concerned with the Philippines and this is not the Philippines that I wanted to be.

Why 7 Opinions?

You may wonder about the title of this weblog: 7 Opinions. Well, here’s the reason:

Seven has been symbolically used to denote completeness or infinity. I chose 7 Opinions to reflect my vision for this blog: my way of expressing my opinions completely without hesitation.

But of course, I will still have limits. I will try to avoid, as much as I can, offending or otherwise undermining other people. That can be difficult and I would like to give in advance my sincerest apology if ever you found something that is offensive, discriminatory, or hurtful in nature.

Again, I want to stress that 7 Opinions is primarily for me but I want also to share this to everybody whether you share my views or not. You can post your own opinions through comments or just let me know if you would like to post an article. You can always challenge my views but take note that although there’s no RIGHT or WRONG opinion, I believe that there is a PROPER and IMPROPER way of expressing it.

I also want to maintain the integrity and truthfulness of this blog. I want my readers to clearly see whether the information I present here is a PROVEN FACT, SPECULATION, GENERAL ASSUMPTION or JUST A MERE GUESS. I will take full responsibility to the content of 7 Opinions Blog.

Introducing Lerpe and the 7 Opinions Blog

You can call me “Lerpe”. I cannot expound more regarding the origin of my name but I want to make it clear that it’s not in any manner related to being a leper or leprosy.

I am a Filipino in mid twenties, single and unmarried. I am currently working for a private company. I am a Christian by faith but I recently decided to be OPEN to any religious views.

I want to keep my identity at bay. I want this blog to be part of my SECRETS. People love secrets as you may realize and I’m one of them.

My vision of this blog is to be my online briefcase of my secret opinions. I have lots of opinion on many topics but I decided to keep some of them for very personal reasons. You may consider me coward because I hide some of my views, but FEAR may not be the only reason for doing so. I decided to keep some of my opinions and viewpoints to myself to keep peace or to avoid hurting the feelings of people close to me.

Also, please take note that English is not my mother tongue so please bear with my English. If you find something confusing in my writing, don’t hesitate to clarify with me through comments or email.

You can freely express your views by commenting on posted articles. But please take note that I may force to delete comments if I found it to be either SPAM or VIOLATING the rights of others. I am a supporter of human rights but I believe that you can only practice your RIGHTS long as you do not VIOLATE other’s RIGHTS.

Lastly, this blog is primarily for ME but I also want to share it with others. I personally believe that each person has something unique to share to others.

PROLOGUE

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (New International Version, NIV)