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Thursday, June 01, 2006
Capillas: Sobering thoughts
By Stephen Capillas
The Lowdown
FIRST off, belated happy beerday, este birthday to dxIF Bombo Radyo's assistant station manager MIB "Mr. Labatiba" Michael Bustamante who marked his special occasion with family and friends in a small "salo-salo" Wednesday.
MIB as he's popularly known is currently PNP Press Corps President for God knows how many years. With the support of God, family and friends may he continue to have good health and prosperity in the years to come.
Thanks for the invite sir and may you live long and prosper.
* * * * *
Last Friday's celebration of Press Freedom Week that was sponsored by the Provincial Capitol was, according to some media regulars who joined in on the activity, the best among the activities sponsored for last week.
Though that can be strongly argued by the other sponsors for the week-long celebrations -- notably that of Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. who may nevertheless dismiss such comparisons with a amused wave of the hand -- still, the Capitol activity is quite hard to top in terms of entertainment with Misamis Oriental Gov. Oscar Moreno foregoing the usual speech and being game enough to perform three song numbers.
Which to the uninitiated is surprising considering that the governor is quite the straightforward, generally unflappable government official that he is. That's the impression one gets especially those who have met him for the first time.
At least thankfully for him he managed to perform his song numbers with a certain amount of ease and aplomb though to be blunt he -- along with Provincial Board (PB) member Oliver Actub who also performed some song numbers -- may not even make it to the eliminations of "Pinoy Pop Superstar" let alone the "All Star K: The One Million Peso Videoke Challenge."
So entertaining are their performances that some of those who attended the activity noted that PB member Jimmy Caiña's speech on press freedom was given only polite attention. Which is sad considering that Caiña did say quite a mouthful about the Capitol's appreciation of media practitioners who cover their activities and promote them to the public.
Anyway the merry-making notwithstanding, it's still important to note that while those in the local media still manage to celebrate Press Freedom Week elsewhere in the country there are those unheralded and poorly paid media practitioners like correspondents and block timers who toil unrecognized and tilt at the windmills, waving their fists and railing against the powers that be who dare abuse their mandate to inflict abuse on their constituents whom they are supposed to serve as well as those whose influence and power lead them to think they can get away with anything they want, even bloody murder.
Those are sobering thoughts even as one feasted and danced the night away. And oh, besides there's work to be done the following day. Just like those in the military, the police and the hospitals, a journalist's work is never done.
* * * * *
There was this story that some moviegoers who watched "X-Men 3: The Last Stand" shouted and applauded during a scene in which the major villain Magneto lifted a portion of the Golden Gate Bridge and transferred it to Alcatraz to enable his fellow mutants to cross over a facility housing another mutant who is a source for the "Cure."
According to this report one male moviegoer shouted to have that Golden Gate bridge transferred to Carmen in order to replace the Ysalina Bridge now being repaired by those turtle-slow contractors.
Which may be fine except that the portion of the Golden Gate bridge torn apart by Magneto won't certainly fit into the area covered by the Ysalina bridge since it's a lot longer.
Instead that moviegoer should have asked Magneto to place the Golden Gate bridge as a flyover or overpass at the Marcos highway. That way, there won't be traffic congestion and more vehicles can pass to their destination.
But that would give those contractors a sorry excuse to take their own sweet time in repairing the Ysalina Bridge and they get paid for it too. So ends this fantasy, which still is a pleasant thought however.
For comments or suggestions please e-mail at sunspot12002@yahoo.com or warpath1232@yahoo.com
(June 1, 2006 issue)
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