PING PONG COVERAGE OF A GOLFERS’ BRAWL
By Kathryn Roja G. Raymundo
THE MASSIVE online interest on the fight between the families of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman Sr. and businessman Delfin De La Paz at the Valley Golf and Country Club in Antipolo City last Dec. 26 eventually caught the attention of the mainstream press.
Despite the attention, however, the coverage was deficient and biased. The press mainly relied on information from the personalities involved without corroboration from independent sources. Because of the conflicting accounts between the two families and other supposed witnesses on what happened, the public could not make out from the ping-pong coverage who was telling the truth.
PJR Reports monitored three newspapers (Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, and Manila Bulletin), three news programs (TV Patrol World, 24 Oras, and Teledyaryo), and selected online news sites from Dec. 26 to Jan. 10.
Versions
Marie Dhel “Bambee” De La Paz broke the news at her blog Vicissitude that the son of the Agrarian Reform secretary, Masiu, Lanao del Sur Mayor Nasser Pangandaman Jr. with other men allegedly beat her 56-year-old father Delfin and 14-year-old brother, Bino Lorenzo over a “stupid misunderstanding on the golf course (http://vicissitude-decidido.blogspot.com/2008/12/world-is-fucked-up.html).” Her blog post “The world has gone crazy” told her version of what happened that day, which triggered a massive reaction by other bloggers and online users.
The press ran the story a few days after. The initial reports and commentaries largely favored the De La Paz family because the Pangandamans were not available for comment (so the reports said)—and because, let’s face it, it’s easy to assume that all politicians, especially Muslim ones, must be at fault.
Unfortunately for the Pangandamans, while they remained unavailable the whole De La Paz family found time enough to talk to the entire Philippine media. Only much later did the elder Pangandaman say that people had been told a distorted and even patently false version of the incident. Pangandaman Sr. said it was the businessman and his children who attacked first and that his family only reacted in self-defense.
Which is a lesson in patience, since before the Pangandamans decided to break their silence, the accounts were so one-sided that Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo could not resist venting his usual anti-Muslim spleen by claiming that what the Pangandamans supposedly did was typical of Muslim politicians. Before releasing the story, it seems hardly necessary to expect the press to talk to the Pangandaman family and/or the officials of Valley Golf first. Failing this, there were other sources other than the De La Paz family the press could have consulted to verify the story. There were the police blotter and/or investigations, medical records, and independent witnesses available.
The Jan. 1 Inquirer report on the perceived “sober image” of the Pangandamans prior to the incident was an example of how a media organization could have balanced somewhat the resulting anti-Pangandaman (and anti-Muslim) sentiments among readers and viewers (“Pangan-damans’ ‘sober image’ soiled”, p. A1). “Before the brawl, the name Pangandaman was associated with a Cabinet member or with a diplomat-turned-governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM),” the report said, providing a different look at the Pangandamans.
Generalizations and biases
Tulfo launched his diatribe against Muslims despite the paucity of details on the incident, particularly the absence of the Pangandamans’ version of it. A mere day after the Inquirer reported the incident (“Golf club suspends DAR chief over brawl”, Dec. 29, p. A1), Tulfo wrote in his Dec. 30 column: “The mauling incident at the Valley Golf Club in Antipolo involving the mayor-son of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman is not surprising given the arrogance of some officials who belong to a cultural minority group.” He then cited instances that showed “abuse of power by some Muslim officials” which he claimed has been abetted by the Arroyo administration.
“Our brother and sister Muslims complain they are looked down upon as ‘second class citizens’,” he added. “But have they bothered to ask why their non-Muslim compatriots look at some of them with contempt?”
“There’s a saying that if one wants respect from his fellowmen, he should respect them first,” Tulfo wrote.
In detail
With the possible exception of Tulfo’s, and as expected, the columns and op-ed pieces provided both the perspective and the context lacking in the news reports.
Danilo Araña Arao in his column “Pampublikong galit, midya at ‘Valley Golf Brawl’ (Mass anger, media and ‘Valley Golf Brawl’)” provided an analysis on why the public was critical of the involvement of the Pangandamans (“Konteksto”, Pinoy Weekly, January 16-22 issue). Arao discussed the circumstances using the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees or Republic Act No. 6713.
The incident highlighted “an unequal encounter between officials holding public authority and plain powerless citizens,” columnist Amando Doronila wrote last Dec. 31 (“Abuse of power”, Inquirer). “This abuse of authority has been the stamp of the violence that has defined the response of the high officials of the administration, in which Secretary Pangandaman is a key Cabinet member, to social and political issues confronting it.”
Doronila added that the government has “an unabated record of violations of human and political rights in a culture of violence perpetrated by either state security authorities or state functionaries enjoying impunity from accountability.” This is the culture which breeds the likes of the Pangandamans and law enforcement and justice department officials, he wrote. “It is a culture that propagates arrogance and violence as a response to insurgencies that have now shifted to the parliamentary arena from the mode of armed struggle. It is a culture that has made a monster out of retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan.”
In its Jan. 4 editorial, the Inquirer pointed out: “As many an outraged blogger and commenter on the Internet has put it, regardless of what actually led to the beating up, the assault on a minor is simply unpardonable. The secondary issue is how public anger over the incident hasn’t led to more than pro forma apologies from Secretary Pangandaman (and silence on the part of his son, the mayor).”
The issue “can be boiled down to that line allegedly uttered by Mayor Pangandaman: ‘Don’t you know who I am?’” it added. “For older Filipinos, the line used to be, ‘What are we in power for?’ The line outraged citizens then; its contemporary version outrages citizens today.”
The boon and bane of blogging
Some reports chose to look at the role the Internet, particularly blogging, played in the golf club brawl. (Please turn to page 28 for a discussion of this issue by journalist and blogger Carlos H. Conde.)
The Inquirer reported how Bambee’s blog triggered various reactions online and off, and at home and abroad. “Dela Paz’s blog entry drew more than 400 responses from fellow bloggers, many of whom wrote about the story on their own blogs, and linked hers to theirs, with the intention, it seemed, of spreading it in all cyberspace,” wrote the Inquirer last Dec. 30, just four days after she posted the entry (“Dela Paz blog on brawl heats up Net”, p. A5). When the paper reported on her blog entry two days after, the number of comments on her original blog entry had already reached more than 700. On her follow-up entry expressing gratitude for the online support, the number of comments reached more than 140 (“Bloggers whip up storm over Valley brawl”, p. A6).
In his Jan. 7 column, Doronila wrote that the incident showed there is “a new people power movement, lodged in the Internet, (which) has emerged and has intervened forcefully to seize the public opinion initiative. It has drawn people to take sides on behalf of the victims of injustice and the abuse of power by persons in authority” (“Blog power”, p. A11).
Babe Romualdez wrote a similar column last Jan. 4 (“Internet power”, Star). Romualdez said “Public officials should especially be careful about the way they behave in public because their actions are being closely watched, and the minute they make a misstep, the news can spread easily across the country through text and (can be) reported all over the world through the Internet.”
After receiving much public criticism, Pangandaman Sr. appealed to the people, specifically the bloggers, to stop posting unfavorable comments about the family.
The ABS-CBN News Channel talk show Media in Focus also discussed the relationship of blogging and journalism (Jan. 15). The guests said while blogging emphasized the faults of journalism in the golf club brawl, the incident also aroused the ire of the blogging community and showed that it can complement the role of journalism in informing the public as well as command the attention of the powerful to address the ails of society.
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