I couldn’t set up the mini projector properly so I just focused the lens on the ceiling—et voila! Movie screen on the ceiling.

I realized that it’s hard to watch a movie when you’re flat on your back. I feel nauseous. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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To start my Monday on a better note:

This is way better than any Dept of Tourism video. I hope I have the energy to visit South Cotabato and Bukidnon in the near future.

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So much is going on since this weekend. First off are the protests in Indonesia.

@etchaskej

Please help stand in solidarity with the people of Indonesia by making sure they are not being silenced. #indonesia #affankurniawan #PrabowoSubianto #onepiece

♬ original sound – Ed

I had been monitoring the situation since last week and this escalated with the death of a motorcycle taxi driver when he was ran over by the police. I told our Jakarta reporter to leave and fly to Bangkok immediately because there is a huge possibility that Prabowo Subianto will declare martial law. He is the former son-in-law of Suharto, the Indonesian dictator, so it’s not far-fetched that he will follow in his former father-in-law’s footsteps.

Right now, the Indonesian government has blocked social media to immobilize the people. But no, Indonesia will go down in flames before the people will be silenced.

Our JKT reporter will be flying out this weekend and I advised him not to go out of his apartment until he goes to the airport. They will let a foreigner leave before a possible lockdown but it would be tricky for foreigners to move around once martial law is imposed.

Meanwhile, Bangkok is not really a slice of heaven these days. The Thai high court has removed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office for her bungling of the  Cambodia conflict.

But as my sources in Thailand say, the markets are used to events like this, so life goes on.

However, I’m tasked to write an analysis piece on Thailand’s slowing economy, declining birth rate, sky-high household debt, and flat consumer spending. I have to take a trip there myself. 🤔

Back at home, the controversy over ghost flood projects have given birth to the public shaming of the children of government contractors who flaunt their lavish lifestyles on social media. These daughters (most of them are women) and wives of these government contractors show videos in Instagram and Tiktok their private planes, million-peso handbags…

… while we ordinary Filipinos wade through floods.

Quezon City had a freak storm that dumped a month’s worth of rainfall in just a single day. People were unprepared. The infrastructure cannot handle the volume of water that came rushing to the streets.

Our former neighbor told me that they were in UP Town Mall when it happened. The mall got flooded! She also said that the flood water at the intersection where Save More was up to waist-level. That area is 200 meters from our old apartment.

To think the UP Diliman became flooded! Hello! That place has a lot of land and trees that could absorb all that water — but noooooo, the soil is inundated with water that the campus became a swamp. The students in dorms had to be evacuated in several academic buildings to spend the night there.

Ghost flood control projects + climate change = Metro Manila sinks. God help us.

It was really a good call on my part to leave Metro Manila.

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We went to the public market today in our town to buy Filipiniana costumes for Monday.

The Linggo ng Wika celebration — supposedly slated on the week of Manuel L. Quezon’s birthday every August 19 — was delayed due to several class suspensions and whatnot. Good thing we still had this weekend to prepare my kids’ costumes.

Good thing we checked this out first before driving to Lumban because the outfits were a lot cheaper, around PHP 500 per set. The Filipiniana in Lumban are the real deal — the type that you wear for formal occasions and not as costumes so the prices are premium. I’m not willing to pay that price just for a school costume.

Meanwhile, one of my bffs saw that a high school classmate is selling their family home. The seller was my bandmate and we used to have our studio there, which was their former storage room.

This was just a storage room that we turned into our practice studio. I used to go here everyday for practices and every 7 pm, we drove to the city where we used to play regular gigs.

So many memories are packed into this small room. And that house. His parents welcomed us with open arms and they didn’t mind the noise that we used to make. His dad passed several years ago and now it’s time to for his mom and nephew/niece to leave the place. Climate change = stronger typhoons made it impossible to live here now. They often get flooded since they’re just at the foot of a hill and all the water from the hilltop cascades into their subdivision. It wasn’t like this when we were growing up. 😢

Sad.

Moving on.

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This is not a good way to waste gas and toll. The event I attended in the morning was useless. I was 2 hrs late but it was ok since it wasn’t relevant to me. I was just hoping there was a senior executive around but nope, it was purely a marketing event.

The afternoon conference was so-so. At least I got to exchange cards with a few CEOs and had one quick interview with a government official who I used to cover closely 16-17 years ago when he used to be a CEO. The story was thin but I’m desperate. Thank God for the email interviews I did (I was very persistent) so these helped me shore up my numbers.

Then it rained. I guess I won’t be going home early tonight.

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The government—DILG to be exact—yesterday cancelled classes for today. I doubt if Remulla consulted PAGASA or even NDRRMC before declaring it. The annoucement was made “cute” to appeal to Gen As (ugh!).

No rain. No wind today. Wasted a perfectly fine school day.

Based on this Himawari satellite image, tomorrow may not be that rainy so I can risk driving to BGC to attend two events.

But should I stay or should I go?

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I’ve been holding back on writing about this since so many of my colleagues in the industry have been posting about this on social media. I didn’t want to write it down because it makes my brain bleed. As I posted on FB:

As a journalist, you must ask the most obvious question. If you didn’t and just swept it under the rug, you are not doing your job. Or you have an agenda, which may not be noble.

Fluff piece? Yes. What’s your agenda?

Vico Sotto, the incorruptible, young mayor of Pasig, has attacked celebrity broadcasters Korina Sanchez and Julius Babao for allegedly practicing “envelopmental journalism” by featuring the Discaya couple, whose questionable wealth was featured in both of their magazine programs right after they filed for candidacy last year. They were DPWH contractors whose flood control projects were a total waste of public funds. Both shows were “lifestyle” shows that flouted the lifestyle of the rich.

The couple admitted in Julius’ show that they started to get rich when they became government contractors.

As a journalist, I would have raised hundreds of red flags right there and then. But no, Julius didn’t.

Korina didn’t.

Both of them swept it under the rug.

If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t have accepted that interview, especially when everyone knows about the Discaya couple’s reputation and also the timing of the interview (right before the elections). Just the same I refused to write about Maharlika Investment Corp, the sovereign wealth fund that was formed by Sandro Marcos, Bong-bong’s son, and his uncle, Martin Romualdez. You know, sovereign wealth funds and Marcoses do not really spell “trustworthy”. Ever.

They said Karen Davila turned down the “opportunity” to interview the Discayas.

As a journalist, even if you are doing soft features, you still have the news judgment of whether the subject is worth featuring, even if it would just be a fluff piece. What would be the news value of such piece? You have to ask the questions, “Am I going to be an instrument of corruption and perpetuation of lies? Am I going to hurt the public?”

Korina Sanchez’s show, Balitang K, sent a press release to Philippine Star in an attempt to discredit Vico’s claim. The badly written statement inadvertently admitted that there was a “fee” for features. They later asked Philstar to take down the statement and sent a new one for publication.

Then they quietly took the interview off the internet. This does not do them any favors.

Then Korina threatened to sue Vico for cyber libel.

One of my bffs asked me if it’s true that Korina and Julius are corrupt. I told her, I don’t have evidence but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard whispers. I told her, only a few are clean in our industry. I told her, I know which columnists are worth PHP 50,000 per column (this was 10 years ago; I don’t know how much is the going rate now). I know how much is the budget for killing a story or an issue. I know who is asking for condo units or free phone bills or whatnot.

Media corruption is cancer killing our industry that is on its last legs.

Now, I told my bff, I’m on Vico’s side BUT there is a better way of doing this expose that he should have employed so that any libel case against him would not prosper. I took a semester of media ethics and media law in grad school so I would know how to cover our (me as journo and editor) asses. Vico was a bit careless in his statement, which gave Korina’s cyber libel threat legs to stand on. I’m on the fence if I should write down here the merits of the case, if ever she files a case, and the possible defense that Vico can use.

If I detail it here, I would be doing a disservice to my profession since this cyber libel will be a precedent and be used to torture every innocent and responsible journo in this country. It’s a tricky slope.

If Korina has brains, she would not pursue this case. The court of people has already nailed her to the wall as guilty and she would lose either way in the eyes of the public. She has nothing to gain. Vico will be vindicated either way. If I were Korina, she should take the road her husband, Mar Roxas, took after he was constantly vilified by the public, especially after his disastrous run against Duterte in the 2016 presidential elections. She should just keep quiet and let the issue die down. Like it or not, the news cycle in the Philippines is only two weeks and after that a new issue would crop up and this Discaya-Korina-Julius issue will naturally die on its own.

There, I said it. It made my brain bleed.

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