Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Ledesma: The tale of the fish kill and Diarog slay By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
THERE had been quite a number of lessons I learned from my not-so-impressive record of community journalism. Many of us country mice of the fourth estate have not gone through journalism school. The joke among us is that "napag-utusan lang bumili ng suka nagging commentarista o kolumnista na."
It is a sick humor but true. Nevertheless not a few community journalists turned out to be effective communicators. Because most of them have indeed not gone through the formal school and earn a degree on journalism, they developed their own fashion and technique which made them pleasant to listen to and readable. Admittedly, not a few failed to improve their craft instead deteriorated into "last two" tipsters or herbal quacks.
Aside from getting a bullet in the head, among the hazards of community journalists is to be inveigled into believing stories from putrid source. Being kidnapped is the least of our worries because by our income and social status we are the kind of commodity that cannot be ransomed even just to pay for "board and lodging". For lack of resources, community journalists oftentimes cannot double check on information that is fed by sources and because time and exclusivity are of the essence we won't to rely on the info as they come.
I must admit that I have erred several times because I failed to obtain corroborating detail. Among the booboos I committed was to report the death of a Court official when in fact he was alive and kicking. It's a good thing that the subject took it with humor although I have to profusely apologize.
But many writers and broadcast journalists are being deceived by their sources, who, for reasons of their hidden selfish agenda, delve into half-truth and exaggeration. Remember the issue of "lead contamination" of Talomo-Lipadas River? A foreign-funded foundation reported that the waterway was heavily polluted with lead element.
The Davao City Water District, which is participating in the so-called "research" of that NGO followed with a parallel story alleging that the hazardous metal contaminant came from the fungicide aerially sprayed on banana plantations. I sought the source of the story from DCWD to inquire how this was possible. Without winking an eyelash he explained that plantation management pulverize lead bars, mixed the powder with the chemical so that the solution will be heavier and will not be wafted elsewhere when it is sprayed by plane. Because he is head of the department, some radio people believed him! On the part of the NGO, it did nothing until some investigative reporters unmasked the fund-raising agenda. Later on it called for a press conference to say that what they saw was only a streak of lead obviously coming from leaded gasoline from dump trucks loading sand and gravel upstream. They later changed the name of their foundation, although still maintaining the acronym, because I think the donor foundation got wind of their foolishness.
Sometime in March 2006 a catfish fishpond operator used a gullible environmentalist militants to help him provoke public and government alarm and sentiments over the massive death of thousands of hito in his ponds. As you see even militants indulge into a knee jerk reaction without really going deeper into what caused an incident of some kind of magnitude to happen. What they claimed was that the massive fish kill happened because of fungicide spray from banana plantations which drifted into the ponds and killed several thousands catfishes.
Boy, they really made a big issue out of that. Buying the line of environment watchers some of whom are, AGAIN, local NGOs out to go fishing for funds from foreign donor foundations, even religious orders and some of my friends in the media establishments took the bait dangled by the hito pond operator hook-line-and sinker. From radio to television and print media, they feasted on the massive kill of catfish that even the local sanggunian and other government authorities started believing them.
I too almost believed the crap except that I sense something very wrong in the attempt of the pond operator to drum up dramatic sentiments that were out to make them heroes. "How can we now pay our loans?" they cried. Loans? I had that checked with the small pond operators in Angalan (this is between the barangays of Tugbok and Los Amigos). As you see I used to buy thousands of dozens of roses in these parts to be sold to Manila buyers. Some rose growers raise tilapia.
These neighborhoods were never interviewed by the media, which I learned later, but they knew something which had been kept secret from the prying journalists. Their story? The big time hito operator expanded to General Santos City and leased an existing pond there. That the ponds get water from an irrigation canal. Since summer was too hot then, the water dried up prompting the operator to haul the several thousands of fishes from Gensan to Tugbok, which is more or less 200 kilometers away.
Before coming out with the story, I had this info checked and together with a friend from the Manila Bulletin who is based in Gensan, we finally found the owner of the pond. The pond owner spilled the beans. He confirmed that the Tugbok hito operator leased his ponds. On the eve of the reported fish kill, the lessee borrowed all his plastic and metal drums and jute sacks where the fishes were placed and hauled off to Davao. To make the story short, the fishes which had already asphyxiated in small containers and dying because of the torturous travel eventually turned belly-up the next day in the ponds in Davao. I checked later with the Bureau of Fisheries, Quedancor and Department of Science and Technology found out that the operator was up to his neck in debt from these institutions. The fish kill was the easy and dramatic excuse.
Why am I resurrecting this issue? Because some of country mice in broadcast and print are being reproved for writing about the revelation of lumad Chieftain Joel Unad who bared that the killing of Datu Dominador Diarog sprung from land dispute and history of murder and counter-murder within the clan. As with the environment activists, the human rights militants were not happy with the turn of events for obvious reasons. But they should not take it against the community journalists for after all, sometimes by our own faults and inadequacies; we have fallen into the trap laid out by dubious sources. In journalistic parlance we call that "nakuryente." In the end we leave it to our readers and listeners whose story to believe.
