The main headline today renders an unflinching judgement on the Arroyo administration (Mother of midnight deals. PCGG, Marcoses forging P140-B deal), although the first few sentences are less sure:
This could be the grandmother of all midnight deals.
As if desperate to beat a deadline with barely two months remaining of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s term, the Presidential Commission on Good Government is making an eleventh-hour attempt to hammer out a deal to recover what remains of the Marcos ill-gotten assets.
And as if the headline doesn't have anything to do with the content, the news went on to say that Abcede, the PCGG commissioner trying to broker the deal wants full public disclosure:
Abcede said, however, that he would insist on a full disclosure of the extent of the Marcos ill-gotten assets before a settlement is perfected.
While the news is a rebuke to the government, even if the news itself did not say why so or whether a negotiation with the Marcoses is wrong, the report has given Sen. Aquino a hands-down winner treatment:
Based on the latest surveys in the remaining two weeks of the campaign, Aquino’s son, Sen. Benigno Aquino III, could likely emerge as the country’s next president.
Also, the news did not say whether the deal is anywhere near completion nor did it say that it is legal or illegal. The news did not say why on earth it calls the supposed negotiation, which it did not even confirm, a "midnight deal". Perhaps the Inquirer believes that people does not read news contents but only headlines so there is no need to connect them. Or perhaps, during this time, there is a survey going on asking people to rate President Arroyo (Just as like the non-news about the Villar PSE "manipulation" came seemingly coordinated with a Pulse Asia survey).
The news from Villar camp's reaction to the Puse Asia survey is quite positive for both Villar and Loren (Villar: Survey timing suspect; Legarda: It’s infiltrated, for trending). But while the Villar drop on the survey yesterday uses the largest fonts, the Villar news today comes not even half of that font and right under the "mother of midnight deals" headline. Perhaps by putting the news positive to the Villar camp this time, the Inquirer is trying to say they are balanced. Oh yes they are balanced, like a ton of steel on one side balanced by a ton of trash on the other. But OK, since we are trying to be fair to the Inquirer, let us say this news goes positive for Villar.
The next news is capitalizing on the remarks made by Tamano on his own party, supposedly taking to task their own black propaganda backfiring at them (Smear tactics vs Aquino hurting Villar, rues Tamano). Apparently the news is not just from yesterday as there are references where Tamano says he will talk with Villar about it last Thursday. As to why the news goes only now, no one can be sure. But surely that piece of news goes negative for Villar.
Meanwhile, a commentary by Christian Monsod (‘Let’s not feed people’s fears with gov’t plots’) goes the opposite way from recent MBC and Namfrel manual count pronouncements, and could therefore be gleaned as support for the COMELEC efforts to make the coming automated elections work. It does not affect any of the candidates, though.
The news about Binay's indiscretion (Binay admits affair ‘long ago,’ says he’s forgiven) gave enough space to Binay to answer that charge. It is quite clear how the Inquirer is treating black ops. While if there is a supposed propaganda against Noynoy and say Binay, the main story deals on the defenses. The propagadan itself is supposedly nipped on the bud as it comes direct from the defenses' point of view. Meanwhile, if there are bad things about Villar, they are not treated as propaganda - newspace is given widely to those people exposing them however baseless they are. We can say that this news report is kind to Binay and therefore neutral as far as the issue is concerned.
The special report on Villanueva (Eduardo C. Villanueva: Revolution for righteousness leadership) came with some kind of disclaimer:
Editor’s Note: The presidential profiles will be running in no particular order but as the stories come in from our reporters in the field.
Surely, what they are trying to say is that if Aquino's positive profile is strategically printed on a Sunday when the Inquirer sells more paper, or nearer the elections meant to be preserved in the People's mind, it is just mere coincidence.
In any case, the Villanueva piece turned out positive for the subject.
The other news on politics is positive about Gordon (Gordon won’t play ratings game even if he’s No. 1) giving him chance to complain abour surveys and to take a swipe at both Aquino and Villar.
So who is the front page rooting for today? Definitely not Villar's. A bit positive though for Gordon and of course positive to Villanueva. It is a bit positive as well for Aquino, although there are no news about him. The news is also a bit positive to Estrada who overtook Villar in the Pulse Asia surveys.
So I say, the front page today goes for Villanueva and we now have the following scores:
Aquino: 12
Estrada: 1
Villanueva: 1
All others: 0
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