April 28, 2010

Today, Sen. Villar is on the headlines of the Inquier Front Page.


Obviously, the news about Villar (Villar presses ‘psy war’, Report fake, say Ateneo, Jesuit shrink) is patently negative about him and positive about Sen. Aquino. Rather than give enlightenment, the news confuses its readers. It is confusing that the person interviewed (supposedly an NP supporter) says that he is not the source of the report and he is somewhat releasing it for some confusing reason, but not necessarily believing in it:

Delgado said the report was brought by an unidentified messenger to Villar’s volunteer office at Starmall in Mandaluyong. (The mall is owned by Villar.)

“It was in a brown bag when it was given to me by a volunteer in the office,” he said.

Delgado said he released the report because of his concern that people might think that the document, should it turn out to be a fake, came from the Villar camp.

He asked media to check the veracity of the report. “It’s not for me to verify it. I did not also believe the report and you (reporters) should verify it yourself,” Delgado said when asked if he believed the report.

Asked if releasing the report to the media could boomerang on Villar, Delgado said: “My concern about the document goes beyond just the candidacy of Manny Villar. I’m a private citizen. I love my country very much.”

While the Inquirer news did not report anything to confirm that Delgado is indeed a Villar supporter, the paper also left the confusing statement at that. However, in total disregard of the statement of the supposed Villar supporter, the Inquirer totally blamed the Villar camp as the source in the first sentence of the report:

Releasing a second “psychiatric report” in as many weeks, the camp of Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manuel Villar Tuesday claimed that Liberal Party presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III was diagnosed as suffering from depression and melancholia when he was a college student.

The Inquirer also squarely tagged the Villar camp as the source of a first report of similar nature which has since been denied by the camp:

Like the priest cited in the first report leaked by the Villar camp, another priest who allegedly signed the second report and Ateneo de Manila University declared the report bogus.

Asked about the new report from the Villar camp, Aquino said: “Our enemies are becoming desperate.”

It will also be noted that while statements from Aquino are given space, there was not any quote coming from Villar himself. Surely, the one-sided report plainly says that the Villar camp is engaging in black propaganda, that is all. To my mind though, this is the first and only time I can remember where everyone is informed who and where a black propaganda, if it indeed is, is coming from.
The other news about Sen. Villar (Villar on ma: She can’t take it anymore) is still negative about him and surprisingly gave positive coverage of Estrada. Although it gave space for Villar's complaints, it used Villar's competition to quash Villar's own arguments. From reading the Inquirer lately, one would only have the following conclusions about Villar:
> He resorts to black propaganda
> He uses his mother to cry for his campaign
> He is a liar, he is rich even when he is young
> He manipulated the PSE
> He used his position to re-align the C5 extension

I have browsed through the special report on dynasties (Little has changed in politics and poverty in S. Luzon) and it seems not to have benefited anyone from the Presidential candidates. The news on the death of the former governor of Batangas, Sanchez of NP, also comes out nothing about any of the Presidentiables, while it featured a press statement from Remulla who is an NP senatorial candidate.

The news feature about Jonas Burgos (Edith Burgos to light 3 candles for Jonas) also did not mention any of the candidates. It came out negative for the Arroyo government though. The news about Benguet elections is devoid of any reference to national candidates (Cold Benguet not hotspot since 1900s).

Although the news on the manual count (Palace, 3 bets oppose manual count) is obviously on the agenda of the LP camp, it does not include any interview from them, seemingly to avoid any connection. It included interviews from some Presidentiables such as Gordon and Teodoro. The report suceeded to impart subtly that the Palace and the three candidates have similar sides. Also, while the idea of parallel manual count seems lacking in logic, the Inquirer has not pressed the proponents about it. Instead they chose to report the media bits coming out from different sides in seemingly apathetic manner. The news to me could come out at best neutral if not negative to Villar, Gordon and Gibo for being on the same side of the Palace.

The Gordon interview about surveys (Gordon: Aquino paid for polls; Teodoro: I was never asked), although did not have anything bad to say about Gordon, obviously left him hanging with his own seemingly unsupported attacks against the survey firms and on Aquino. I think it did not give a positive picture of Gordon nor was it able to paint Aquino negatively. The news also covered Teodoro which could have either be a bit positive or neutral on possible effect to him.

In the end I judge that this issue of the Inquirer front page is all negative about Villar, mostly positive about Aquino, a little bit positive about Estrada, slightly negative to Gordon, slightly negative to Teodoro and almost neutral to all the rest. The score on which the paper benefits most therefore goes:
Aquino: 10
Erap: 1
All the rest: 0

If there is someone who receives the most negative news in the Inquirer, that person would be Villar.

Note: BTW, I was not able to read nor have a glimpse of yesterday's headlines. If I get a hold on yesterday's issue, I will still report it here even belatedly.