What’s Next, Mindanao Cross?

With the fast growth of technology in the world today, many media of communication have slowly melted into oblivion and are replaced by new ones that are more responsive to the lifestyle of the new generation (as represented by millennials). It is not just the typewriter that is viewed as archaic by many, but the telephone is also going its way. The typewriter was first replaced by the word processor, which had to give way to the computer when all the bulky tubes were done away with.

In its 75 years of existence, the Mindanao Cross has tread all these progress in communication. It has served as a logbook of events that took place in this part of Mindanao. Because of this, the Ateneo de Manila University Library has taken the complete issue of the MC and converted these into digital copies for easy access of researchers. It is therefore available in Manila at the Ateneo, and in the Notre Dame University library here in Cotabato City.

Realizing the importance of this weekly newspaper, vis a vis the rise of the modern communication technology it becomes imperative to keep up with trends. It is general knowledge that the Oblates of Mary Immaculate as a congregation has been using communication in its missionary endeavour. Reaching the far away missions becomes easier with the use of communication technology. Realizing its importance, the Oblates established radio stations and a newspaper to reach these far flung rural areas, and keep its missionaries updated with the more urban areas.

The history of the Oblates forey into Mass Media is detailed in the book entitled “ Evangelizing the Poor in the Philippines (50 Years of OMI Presence with the People in the Philippines). The Oblates are known for pioneering in this powerful instrument of evangelization. It formally involved itself in Mass Media as early as 1947 when it set up the Notre Dame Press. A year later, it published the Mindanao Cross with Fr. Cuthbert Billman as its first editor. Since then, it set up the local Catholic radio station DXMS in Cotabato City in 1957, DXND in Kidapawan in 1974, DXOL in 1988, DXMM in Jolo in1986, DXMI IN Bongao in 1988 and recently 2018– DXOM in Koronadal. Added to this is the I-Watch, a social media outlet based in Cotabato City.

The Oblate pioneering spirit in the mass media continues as more Oblates use these as powerful instruments of evangelization. As the world gets older, the trends in mass media also changes. This is composed of many forms of electronic communication. Those associated with the Internet, now accessible through both computers and mobile phones, include e-mail, instant messaging services, chat rooms, forums, social networking sites, interactive online gaming networks, etc. It is not only logical but imperative for the Oblates to keep up with the trends, particularly in the Social Media which is saturating the mass media market at present. Although the printed copies of MC has decreased due to the high cost of printing, the Mindanao Cross is available in the internet at mindanao.cross at gmail.com.

Although the Oblates have been discussing the importance of integrating the various mass media outlets into one Oblate Communication Center, the creation of new development structures in this region makes this move more imperative as soon as possible. MC

“The Philippine economy ended 2022 with the fastest growth in over four decades underpinned by a robust final quarter, but analysts and policymakers warn that a global slowdown and soaring inflation will make for a difficult year ahead.”

So opens an online report by Reuters datelined January 26 Manila.

In its official website, the Philippine Statistics Authority said the country’s Gross Domestic Product posted a growth of 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, resulting to a 7.6 percent full-year growth for that year. The figure is higher than the government’s target GDP growth range of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent.

Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the outstanding fourth-quarter growth performance can be attributed to increased demand following the lifting of pandemic restrictions and full reopening of the economy in the last three months of 2022. He expressed confidence that the country’s high growth trajectory will remain.

But where is the windfall?

Thus asks House Deputy Minority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera. Herrera, in a January 29 statement, said “Economic growth must be inclusive and it must be felt all across the country for all Filipinos.” Herrera said it is unfortunate that despite reports on improving economy, the reality is that “millions of Filipinos remain poor and have to struggle daily to earn a living.”

According to Herrera many people are saying they do not feel the growth that the country’s economic managers and President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. are so proud. Instead, what they feel are the high electricity rates, slow internet connection, inefficient public transportation system, rising food prices, and stagnating real wages. Herrera said Filipinos who called themselves poor in the fourth quarter of 2022 according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey rose to 51 percent – an estimated 12.9 million – higher than the 12.6 million or 49 percent recorded in the previous quarter.

The same survey, as this writer had cited in the previous edition of this column, also showed that around 11.8% of Filipino families, three million families, had nothing to eat at least once in the past three months. This was slightly higher than both the 11.3% hunger rate in October 2022 and 11.6% in June 2022. This latest survey showed that hunger rate was highest in Mindanao at

IMET this senior police officer who spent much of life’s wasted time in detention, pending 10 years of marathon hearings on the Maguindanao Massacre murder cases. Life behind bars literally devastated him and his family.

While he was in detention his wife died of terminal illness secondary to physical stress, and that they had to sell the family’s home to sustain a legal battle that kept him under state-restraint in a decade-long detention on criminal charges stemming from the massacre.

Having regained his freedom by acquittal in 2019, the officer keeps being too reserved. His conduct of professional affairs remains at very low-key, along the track of a second lease in public life. Even after being restored to service, he kept his distance from the media lest his acquittal gets caught on spotlight by a sense of “activism” that might generate a subjective public opinion.

Remembering post-massacre coverage in Shariff Aguak for the Inquirer, I did share in exchanges with two close-in lawyers there that a statement condemning the incident would have made a difference for the media, and particularly the families of the victims.

Indeed, a distinguished member of the Ampatuan clan, then Maguindanao Congressman Simeon A. Datumanong delivered his privilege speech in the House of Representatives on December 10, 2009, condemning the massacre by acknowledging that some of his relatives were involved. This was the December 10 bicameral deliberation on the declaration of martial law in Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City by Malacanang on December 3, 2009.

12.7%, followed by Visayas at 12.0%, Metro Manila at 11.7%, and Balance Luzon at 11.3%.

According to IBON, the government only distributed P18.3 billion in targeted cash transfers out of the P37.2 billion budgeted for this. It said that while the program was supposed to give P3,000 in cash assistance to 12.4 million households or the poorest half of Filipino families. Social welfare department data show that it only gave P2,000 to 9.2 million families. And this “stinginess” will probably continue this year given that allocations for regular emergency assistance programs have been cut by P7.5 billion from P97.4 billion in 2022 to less than P90 billion this year. The government has also reduced funding for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, or 4Ps, by P5.1 billion and of the KALAHI-CIDSS community development program by P2.8 billion.

And what good is this hyped growth if it is not felt by ordinary Filipinos?

According to Representative Herrera economic growth is useless if its benefits do not redound to the entire population, adding: “The challenge now for the present administration is to address these valid concerns (high electricity rates, rising food prices, and stagnating real wages) of our people.”

IBON believes a more productive starting point for policy to address this is, first of all, being more candid about the real conditions of poor and low-income Filipinos instead of relentless spin and propaganda. The group also said that Marcos Jr and company should spend less time and government resources on their trips abroad and instead prioritize immediate and substantial aid, wage increases, and small business and production support.

Indeed, when the trickle-down effect comes in droplets instead of trickles, it will definitely be hardly felt at all. It could, in fact, potentially lead to bigger problems and even more explosive situations.

The other side of justice: Meek and innocence

P enlight

Nash B. Maulana nash.penlight@gmail.com

Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 221. The families of the two of them, however, believe that justice remained not served well for as long as they and few others are still behind bars.

Their families believe that at least two of them were in Shariff Aguak; not in the crime scene at the time of the gruesome killings. Also it was maintained that one of the Ampatuan scions was in Manila at the date and time of the incident to attend a meeting in Malacanang which the President then had attested to in writing.

But many have expressed opinion that the “time was up” really for the (inner-core members) of the powerful political family that even a Presidential testimony could be “demolished” by an electoral fraud testimony of a resigned provincial administrator charging a former President, no less, based on his affidavit, and the respondent was herself sent to detention.

John

COTABATO CITY

Williamor

With just about everyone’s mode at story sourcing set on a high-tone of universal emotion, Inquirer editors wanted me to watch over local developments amid state of disorders in the field. This small pie given to local reporting was practically left to the Ampatuans who’d then have little chances gaining shares of time-and-space anywhere in the national and international reporting. That was the essence of the Inquirer brand of journalism—‘Balanced News Fearless Views’. In big stories like that, news organizations involve workers in the field in story planning, or at least their essential part of the coverage is given preference.

Back to the police officer: The story of the lone junior military officer designated to monitor the situation that day, failed to convince the court that the senior police officer was involved in the mass murders, directly or indirectly.

Three other senior police officers currently serve terms for 57 counts of murders in the historic Decision of the

In other words, the Ampatuan men were in sheer quandary then to be spared from charges. One state witness pinned down that family scion with a testimony that that accused allegedly called him up on mobile phone to clean up the mess—to “bury” the corpus delicti (body of the crime), effectively establishing himself as that “missing backhoe operator.”

The fate of a 58th victim has remained unknown, and his daughter cried over his perceived exclusion from the count of murder cases that the respondents were convicted for. On the other hand, there should not be this much of a fuss, as his perceived disappearance was charged to each of the convicted respondents as a separate crime. But calling the incident “Ampatuan Massacre”? It will cast but will hardly delve on implications and sensitivities of a “double-meaning” that will be too much for the young, the innocent members, even the unborn among them to bear in a lifetime of perceived “involvement.” I mean enough; it may not be that perfect, but justice has already been served by the court.