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Thursday, March 16, 2006
Garcia: Instigative journalism
By Pablo John Garcia
Breakfast at Noon
I agree. The Senate should investigate this disturbing allegation that a Palace official called ABS-CBN at the height of the Fort Bonifacio non-siege and tried to stop the network from covering the non-event.
Because I think the coverage was hilarious. And it is not everyday, and certainly not in these crisis-prone times, that we get a good laugh from watching news programs. Least of all on ANC, with its brat patrol of anchors in full force.
Ricky Carandang was working the field. There he was, dodging one particular question as if it were the bullet that ANC had waited to be, but never was, fired.
“Can you give us an estimate of the crowd over there at Fort Bonifacio, Ricky?”
“Well, it’s too dark out here, Twink…” Ricky said, without bothering to explain how the darkness never stopped him from seeing everything else, and from doing, as he is wont to do, an extended commentary on the supposedly imperiled state of the nation.
Three times Ricky was asked the same question and three times he ducked, blaming everything except global warming for his failure to give a crowd estimate. If there’s such a thing as a fear of crowds, Ricky Carandang, at that point, was suddenly stricken with an inordinate fear of crowd estimates.
It was at this point that, like the Palace official, I wanted to call ANC, first to thank them for the great time I’d been having so far, then also to save Ricky from this unknown phobia. I wanted to tell ANC: “There’s a crowd of maybe 20. Give or take Ricky Carandang.”
It was great comedy, really. And the Senate should investigate this Palace official for being such a killjoy. It was like watching a bad magic show, with a bumbling magician trying to will something to happen, but failing. You could almost feel the collective disappointment of the ANC anchors when both factions in the supposed standoff had declared the matter “resolved.”
“Is it really over?” they kept asking. I wanted to tell them: Well, the other network had switched back to Allan K and Jaya, if that’s any indication.
But Ricky Carandang would not give up: “Earlier, Senator Biazon said ‘I’m not leaving until it’s over.’” A pause. “And Senator Biazon is still here.”
“Does that mean it’s not over yet, Ricky? Where is Senator Biazon?”
“He’s walking to his car…” You could feel the strong sense of anticipation in the ANC studios. For the anchors, the fate of the country hung on whether Senator Biazon’s driver would click the ignition or not.
“He’s inside his car now…”
“So does that mean it’s over, Ricky?”
“I don’t know about that, Twink. He’s just sitting in his car…”
It was funny. Even when it was over, you could feel the ANC anchors in deep denial.
I could almost hear Karmina Constantino asking: “So, Ricky, how do you think this non-siege at Fort Bonifacio, which might well be a major non-withdrawal of support, in the aftermath of the non-coup this country just witnessed three days ago, where millions of Filipinos collectively avoided Edsa, in a non-expression of national outrage, will affect the nation’s stability?”
And Ricky saying: “Senator Biazon is just sitting in his car…”
(pablojohn@gmail.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 16, 2006 issue)
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