THEY DON'T WRITE, DO THEY?

 By Ba Ipe

FAMOUS American broadcast journalists like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, and a host of others wrote books during the span of their careers, and even in their retirement. Their books contain interesting details, enabling them to preserve them in their written works. In brief, they have respect for writing. Incidentally, many broadcast journalist were writers before they made the transition to broadcast journalism, which is more lucrative than working and writing as reporters in newspapers or news agencies.

Walter Cronkite, a revered name in U.S. journalism since he was once proclaimed “the most trusted man” in the U.S., wrote three books. I have a copy of his book, which I bought for a song in a sidewalk book sale some years ago. His book “A Reporter’s Life” contains interesting details, which included his transition to a broadcast journalist from a wire service reporter stationed in the old Soviet Union. Later, he established a venerated name in CBS and the whole U.S. broadcast journalism. He made a successful transition when television was a nascent technology.

Cronkite’s book contain some sidelights of his major coverage including the 1945 Nuremberg Trials, Vietnam War, Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, among others. He witnessed how Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson fumbled in his cross-examination of Hermann Goehring, the second highest German Nazi official, during the Nuremberg Trials.

I also bought a copy of Brinkley’s book “Beat: People, Places, and Events That Shaped My Time,” which contains his memoirs of the major events he covered in his career in NBC and ABC. His humor was wry and dry but profound and poignant to a large extent. Brinkley interviewed Ferdinand Marcos during his dictatorial years. He was a tough interviewer, who was never afraid of raising the most intimidating questions to the late dictator.

Brokaw’s book” Boom: Voices in the 1960s,” likewise brings memories of the major events that took place in the tumultuous decade. They included the Vietnam War, the rise of the Hippie culture, the Civil Rights Movement, the emergence of SDS, among others. I have noticed the profundity of many Brokaw’s views on these episodes of American history.

Barbara Walters’s book “Audition” details her competition with other broadcast titans like Cronkite, among others, to bring out the best in the coverage of many world events. I found it most interesting and profound to read because she even wrote how she lost her virginity and how Cuban dictator Fidel Castro took a liking on her, putting her ahead in the competition. Her narrative on her daughter’s rebellious ways and reformation to become an NGO leader is also most telling.

Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote two interesting books on the rise of terrorism in Southeast Asia: “Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda's Newest Center (2003) and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism (2013).” She worked for CNN for two decades before forming rappler.com.

But Maria Ressa is an exception of the host of Filipino broadcast journalists, who hardly have the appreciation, much less the passion to write and leave something to posterity and history. Knowing that Filipinos are not a reading people, they too have developed the abhorrence to put their thoughts into writing.

The late Rafael Yabut, Johnny de Leon, and Rod Navarro once dominated the airwaves for three or four decades, but are now half-forgotten because they have left no memoirs. This is not good for journalism and the country as well. I could not stand those pseudo-journalists like Boy Abunda, who are all talk but no ideas. I wonder if he reads, or writes. Well, that's too much to ask for a semi-literate guy, who specializes in gossips. 

SARA DUTERTE'S IGNORANCE

 BY BA IPE

SARA Duterte's proposal to require mandatory military service for every Filipino citizen of training age is laudable but not feasible. She favors the creation of a huge standing army, which is unsustainable given the current fiscal position. The outstanding debt of the national government could reach between P13 to P14 trillion, when his father ends his term on June 30. The heavy borrowings will trigger economic issues, which make her suggestion unrealistic to pursue.

Since current fiscal policy favors debt repayment over delivery of services to our people, thanks to Presidential Decree 1177, a marcosian creation, the priority is pay the huge public debt of the national government, lessening the public funds for mandatory social services like education, public health, and disaster mitigation. This situation further lessens additional services like mandatory military service. Where will Sara get the money to finance the mandatory military service? That is the question.

The Philippines is rich in guerilla traditions. Since the Spanish colonial era, those recalcitrant leaders used guerilla tactics to face the Spanish armed brigades. The likes of Sumuroy, Tamblot, Dagohoy, Silang, among others resorted to form guerilla groups, which used guerilla tactics against the Spanish forces..

Even the millenarian groups of Apo Ipe, Papa Isio, the Colorums, or even the Sakdalistas, had guerilla groups to harass the American colonial forces and the paramilitary Philippine Constabulary. When the Japanese invading forces came, we had the various guerilla groups – HMB, Marking Guerillas, among others, which cleaned the country to the Japanese forces when the American forces led Gen. Douglas McArthur arrived in 1944.

Now, we have the NPA, which employs guerilla tactics to face AFP. They have been unconquered since its creation in 1969.

We had standing armies during Emilio Aguinaldo's time and when the Japanese invaded us in 1941, but they lost miserably to enemies. Aguinaldo's army lost to invading American forces, while the USAFFE forces surrendered in Bataan in 1942.

Because of the richness of our guerilla traditions, then Defense Secretary Renato de Villa, in an interview I had for the Philippines Free Press in 1991 (it was our cover story during those days), said the country’s defense strategy has to be recast to acknowledge the use of guerilla tactics to fight potential enemy.

I remember de Villa telling me that the standing army does not have to be very big because we don’t have enough resources to support a big army. It should approximate the size that it could deliver lethal blows to the enemy when they attack us and come over to our country.

But we should have strong militia fores that could be used automatically to become guerilla units that would use guerilla tactics, de Villa said. Our terrain favors this approach, he said.

Although Sara is listed to have obtained some courses and training at the National Defense College and she is registered as a reserve officer, she hardly knows our defense requirements.

Apparently, her statement is her way to ingratiate herself to the defense and military establishment. Its election time and she needs their support by hook or by crook, even by half-truths and lies.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT POLICY UNDER QUESTION

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

DURING the pre-pandemic days, it was normal for a passenger to pay less than P500 for a ride from Quezon City to the idyllic town of San Felipe in Zambales, a distance of 175 kilometers. He took the ride in a bus belonging to Victory Liner, a 70-year old legitimate bus firm whose bus fleet traverses almost the whole expanse of northern and central Luzon. Victory Liner is reputedly a progressive firm that issued insurance for passengers to cover accidents and unforeseen incidents, while riding in its buses.

Nowadays, passengers have to take private vans, cars and other modes of land transport and pay at least triple the pre-pandemic fares of pubic transport. This is simply because public buses are not easily accessible. These private owned vans and cars have taken over the provincial routes. But they are not registered as public transport firms. Ergo, they do not pay taxes to the government or issue receipts to passengers.

Since they are part of the so-called “underground economy,” owners of these private vehicles do not assume responsibility if ever accidents happen along the road. Moreover, they hardly follow health protocols. In case of contamination of the dreaded Covid-19 virus, their owners could not be forced or counted to be responsible to their passengers.

The bus industry providing public transport now suffers the worst crisis since the postwar era. Most public buses literally came to a complete halt, when the government imposed what could be regarded one of the worst lockdown in the community of nations at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

When it was time to revive the economy after months of complete lockdown, the government did not immediately order the bus firms to resume their operations put their buses on the road. Instead, it ordered the use of face shields, which was not even necessary.

It also formed the Inter-Agency Task Force Against Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), whose members were mostly retired military generals, who have no medical training, and other public officials, who have established a notoriety for official incompetence and lack of sensitivity to public demands.

The IATF responded to the public clamor for a revived public transport, when on February 26, 2021, it has issued Resolution 101 , requiring provincial buses to load and unload passengers on designated ITXs. This resolution has named three terminals: Sta Rosa Integrated Terminal (SRIT) in Sta. Rosa, Laguna; Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX) in Paranaque City; and the North Luzon Exchange Terminal (NLET) in Bocaue, Bulacan adjacent the Iglesia ni Kristo’s Philippine Arena compound.

The SRIT and PITX have been chosen and required to serve as the hub of the provincial buses traversing the south and southwest of Luzon. The NLET has been assigned to serve buses traveling northern Luzon. But going to these terminals is inconvenient for passengers. They are far from passengers, who have to go first to the towns of Sta. Rosa in Laguna and Bocaue in Bulacan, take tricycles rides from there to go to the two terminals, and get a bus to go the provinces. The terminal in Paranaque City is in a location, which requires passengers to walk great distance, an inconvenient situation for them. 

Moreover,  all buses bound for provinces would be required under the IATF resolution to use the integrated terminal exchanges as the central hubs for public transport. No bus company or public transport would be allowed use of their private terminals.

The resolution has unintended unfavorable consequences, as it has promoted the use of the so-called “colorum” vehicles, which  taken advantage of problems of legitimate bus firms. Their vans and cars do not follow loading capacity. They charge exorbitant fees and fail to comply with minimum health standards thus causing more danger to passengers given the pandemic.

Meanwhile, provincial buses have been suspended for almost 2 years already. Despite this, bus operators continue to meet fees to renew bus registration and business permits, and pay insurance premiums and workers’ compensation. Incidentally, the bus industry has been a steady source of income for employees, transport workers, and their families. Most small and medium enterprises depend on bus operations for their daily existence.

Legitimate bus operators and their representatives have repeated talks with the Cabinet, the Department of Transportation, LFTRB, and IATF people, but their efforts have resulted only in these functionaries pointing fingers at each other. Instead, government officials repeatedly claimed that it is the bus operators who are remiss in getting the special permits.

How about rescinding that Resolution and allow bus firms to use their private terminals? They are still useful and could be easily revived for use.