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Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Capillas: Falling prey to disease
By Stephen Capillas
The lowdown
IF it's not assailants paid by politicos or creatures of the foul night holding a grudge against them journalists are also mortals who can be killed by the most common to the most difficult to treat ailments.
Last Friday the national media's ranks fell by two more with the deaths of Reyster Langit, son of famed TV and radio broadcaster Rey Langit and former Palace official turned respected columnist Teodoro Benigno.
Reyster Langit in particular received quite a sendoff from the ABS-CBN TV News Patrol program since his death also came on the heels of the deaths of two media practitioners from malaria.
As far as we can gather malaria had been considered extinct in most First World countries owing to advances in medical technology. Sadly for the Philippines that is not the case because the country can't even wipe out dengue.
Whether it was timing or not the Provincial Government undertook anew measures aimed at wiping out dengue as well as malaria in Misamis Oriental by launching their program to eradicate malaria and dengue-carrying mosquitoes.
Well and good though we have to reiterate that these renewed, re-intensified campaigns against malaria and dengue should have resulted in the extinction of these diseases a long time ago. But better late than never.
Meanwhile Benigno's death, while tragic, had not caught anyone by surprise since the man had lived quite an eventful life, an existence that would have been the source of envy and pride for any self-respecting media practitioner worth his or her salt.
His story is one of many that had provided a source of inspiration and motivation for aspiring journalists--he was a sports reporter whose expertise in writing served him well as political analyst and respected columnist later on.
To top it off he was a former government official in the Aquino administration, one of several whose integrity in office remained untarnished to this day. How many people had those privileges?
Speaking of which we disagree with Mayor Vicente Emano who quoted Benigno as saying that once a columnist starts calling someone by names, he or she has run out of issues.
With all due respect to Benigno, we have to point out that some of the best columnists and writers do cast insults to their targets every once in a while with great results.
One can read the columns of former columnist Hilarion M. Henares as a point. Henares was among those who coined the word "Council of Trent" to describe the holier than thou-alliance that ran the country's economic policies during the Aquino administration.
Oh heck, even the great ones can slip sometimes.
(June 8, 2005 issue)
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