April 26, 2010

While the Yahoo home page includes the AP report on the QC slum fire yesterday on the top three of its world news, the Philippine Daily Inquirer seems to have missed the event all together (or at least not in their front page). Yesterday, being a Sunday, perhaps there may be no reporters on duty. Or perhaps the fire is not worthy of headline treatment, as we see a lot of them anyway, as far as the Inquirer front page editors are concerned. In fairness to the Inquirer, I do not have the actual paper though, so I do not really know if they reported the fire at all (as of 7AM, the news is not to be found on inquirer.net).



In any case, looking at the headlines, the Inquirer Front Page today seem devoid of any favorable treatment to any of the candidates, unless of course one would say that the news about parallel counts and COMELEC corruption are the topics the LP and their candidates are all so raring to talk about.

The main banner reports (Comelec exec tagged in secrecy folder deal. Lawyer says directive to suspend bidding defied.) a supposed secrecy folder bidding in 2008 which a lawyer supposedly working under COMELEC Chairman Melo reported to the PPCRV. While we expect "news" to enlighten us of the events, I am now having the habit of expecting the Inquirer reports to muddle the same issues they headline. This specific report does not include the dates when the reporter interviewed the source of the news, a lawyer supposedly working under Melo, who instead of reporting to Melo reported what he knew to the PPCRV who then reported the same to the COMELEC's Rafanan and who in turn wrote it eventually to Melo. Of course, the very blatant question we want answered upon reading the report is why the source did not report directly to Melo. The report also misled me, at least, that the content reports the current secrecy folder problem and thus naming who the executive is is really big news. Well, the news disappoints. In any case, the report, although has not directed any blame to the current commissioners, puts the COMELEC into a negative light. I would be conservatively be saying that no "Presidentiable" today benefits from this report, although it could be argued that this line of topic could have only come from the Liberal Party (but we cannot say definitively).

The front page has a special report, supposedly first of a series (Congress won’t end reign of political dynasties), which seems neutral to the national candidates. We will see later (coming issues) as to how the story is played out.

The news about the Defense Department's plan to purchase "old" planes (Old planes on DND shop list, says bet) is definitely beneficial to LP Senatorial candidate Ruffy Biazon. There is also reference to Sen. Noynoy Aquino, rendering the report favoring the LP bet.

A brief Reuters report on the "Presidentiables" position on private armies (Next president can’t stop slays, says watchdog) made it to the front page. It is somewhat negative to the 4 candidates considered (Aquino, Villar, Estrada and Teodoro) and also negative to the current President.

The report about the President's congressional campaign is surprisingly neutral (Candidate Gloria hits campaign trail). I did not find any hint of negative reporting on the Mrs. Arroyo except that she is reported to have sang with Lilia Pineda (alleged to have connections to Jueteng), and that his son is running for a Party list seat representing Security guards.

On the top corner of the paper is the report on the demand by some groups (yesterday's news) to do a parallel manual count on the election votes (Comelec meet Monday on parallel manual count). The report itself is generally neutral although it gave wider space to the demand rather than on its obvious foolishness. In a matter where normal minds would have asked questions to those who demand the manual count, the Inquirer let it pass and just let those affected to air their own sides, press releases we can say. To me, it is obvious that the LP is behind this idea. However, I cannot say whether the Inquirer is reporting this to favor the LP. Conservatively, I say this report is neutral and does not benefit any candidate (although it does, really).

The AFP (Agence France-Presse) news about Yellow stick-ons, looked at first to be an Aquino coverage (Yellow stick-on still a hit at 30). But no, it is about the real 3M stick-on Post-it-Note which is having its 30th anniversary. It does not talk about any of the candidates at all.

The final news we see on the front page is an interesting news about the Fil-Canadian Boy who was discriminated for using a spoon (Fil-Canadian boy wins damage suit). There is no mention about any candidate in the report.

So for whom is the Inquirer front page going today? Again, I find it surprising to find it harder to make the call today. I say though that the front page benefits Aquino with a news of some reference to him. The topic of the main headline also is surely to the LP bet's liking. The point though is that the last 3 days is harder than the first 9 days front pages to judge. It is either the Inquirer has read our monitor and starts cleaning its act or has just become more subtle in their endorsement to avoid any charges. Given that for three days in a row, the Aquino camp is given even a slight only advantage, I give today's front page to the LP candidate. So the score now stands at:
Aquino: 9
Estrada: 1
All the rest: 0