Tuesday, April 08, 2008 Seares: From ZTE to rice: shifting crises By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
IT'S not new: Creating a crisis to divert public attention from another crisis.
Government or private business, politician or CEO, the culprit has to be super shrewd and a scoundrel.
The ruse can be a mere rumor.
The gossip that Noli de Castro built a mansion for a mistress pictured the vice president morally unfit to sit as president (the plotters assuming he’s already reputed to be unfit in other aspects).
It also drew, if briefly, public focus from the ZTE broadband scandal whose stench was being traced to the Palace.
Or the ruse can be a problem of national magnitude, such as the rice crisis.
Opposition saw the Arroyo government teeter on the edge, ready to fall anytime (a Gloria hate group even started counting down). Until the rice issue emerged.
Government, one anti-Arroyo leader says, manages and influences agencies and groups controlling supply and price of rice. And an emerging worldwide food crisis must have set off the idea. As in any crime, present are motive, means, and opportunity.
Near obsolete
You can punch holes in that theory, most gaping of which will be this: It requires an evil streak—and charging Gloria with being evil is no evidence she made the evil diversion.
Whatever source or cause, genuine or bogus, the rice crisis is already making star witness Rodolfo Lozada Jr. ludicrously obsolete.
Unless he stands on his head in middle Edsa or BanTal traffic or, God forbids, a priest beats him up, he’s banished from Top News.
Who would listen to Jun talk about seeking the truth when most people’s worry these days is hunting cheap rice?
