People, Please Don't Get Delusional

Another Senator Tito Sotto blog, I know. I just need to get this out once and for all. Before that, let me make it clear (and yes this is me being defensive) that, politically, I'm not a fan of this guy. I grew up watching his movies (dahil yun lagi ang palabas sa sinehan sa Tagaytay) but I never voted for him, he never gave me a reason to. This blog is not on his defense either but I know some fanatics (of stuff they don't understand) might look at it that way because ... well, they don't understand. So let me begin discussing the topic by telling you that yes, like many haters and (feeling) patriotic people on the web, right now, I think this guy does not deserve a seat in the senate and that I do not think he knows what he's doing.

Now, most of the people online bash these politicians for the things they say but they may be doing it for the wrong reasons. The main thing that pushed me to write this blog, though, is not what the senator above said, but something I heard from a grown person somewhere ... that it's shocking and sad to know that this country's rulers, the upholders of the law, do not write their own speeches and their own papers (for whatever cause). So ... as the title of the post says ... People, please don't get delusional. 

If you do not know yet, politicians and our country's leaders very rarely (or do not at all) write their speeches. They have a personnel(s) for that, and they have a team who does the research. Why? Because they have other things to do than spend the day in front of a desk writing a speech or going out to do research from scratch. Writing a speech, ladies and gentlemen, is not their job. It's not what they're getting paid for. And it's not the reason why people should vote for them ... although, of course, in this country, mamatay lang kamag-anak qualified na maging presidente.

Granted, the speeches should get their approval first and the content should be what they believe in (or what they got paid for, kee-hee), but that was not my point. The upholders of the law's real job is to, UPHOLD THE LAW. They are the "face" of what people (and again those who paid for it) believes in and fights for. 

Here's an example, the president. This guy's job is not to make laws (yes he can lean and put pressure on some people because he has that power to, and that ladies and gentlemen is the biggest form of corruption, duh!!!), he does not write the law and does not approve it (supposedly). Other parts of the government writes and the other approves. He should also not be wasting his time blaming the past administrations for his failures but that's another story, eh? THE PRESIDENT IS AN ADMINISTRATOR. He administrates, overlooks, leads, inspires etc. Yes he should make sure whoever stole money should pay for it but he is ruling a country with actual people in it and a lot of problems to face. SO he can't just concentrate on that one thing. What does a manager in a company do? DELEGATE. That is what secretaries of departments are for and that is what his allies are for. Get the gist?

So if I am a senator, for example, that gets invited to hold a speech for whatever function or for the RH Bill (there, I said it!), and I have a ton of appointments to go to like a closed meeting with the party to discuss our official stand on an issue, meeting other people who wants me to lobby for their cause, publicity stunts, functions I'm invited too, personal stuff (and TV shows ngehe) I can't slave the day away writing speeches for 8 other functions I'm supposed to give a pep talk at for the month. At best, I should be sitting with the team making sure things are in order. That they know what I want to say, and that we get the facts straight so I don't look stupid in front of people.

So you see, what's really scary here is that the people who works for him (Sen. Sotto) gets away with it because he himself is unaware of what the real issue is about. Also, the people he hired are competent but only up to a point. They do not know how to address an issue, they just deflect it. Maybe it's ego but clearly, they do not want to accept the fact that they made a mistake by not doing their job properly. If our leaders' staff can do that, can the rest of us act the same way? And if we do, could we get away by being arrogant too (like that lawyer who couldn't keep his mouth shut about bloggers being just bloggers).

If anything, this senator should fire his staff and get a new one.

Random ramblings ... and Why You Shouldn't Mess with Michael D. Higgins

DISCLAIMER: I am somewhat drunk so bear with me.

Apparently, this debate between Michael D. Higgins and Michael Graham that had recently gone viral  is old news (it was from 2010) but I have to join in virtually shaking the hands of the Irish President because he really killed it. Lol. I'm not going to pretend I completely understand what's going on, as far as I know (and by know I meant read-from-the-internet-which-sometimes-doesn't-really-amount-to-anything-because-people-copy-paste-and-react-about-shit-they-don't-know-anything -about-all-the-fucking-time), the tea party movement is a bunch of whiny people who oppose government tax spending and tax increase (but which citizen in what country doesn't have an opinion on this? ... oh wait ... N.Korea),hates Obama and sometimes support the war and may have racist members. And if that is truly the case ... I don't think I like them much.

Actually, I'm not going to discuss the tea party movement here. Hey, I'm not from their parts of the world so don't expect me to be able to relate to the tea party hoopla much more pretend to make a solid opinion on it. No,  this is about some of the things that the Irish president said that may be related to local events. I liked Higgins in this debate because of the bit about his Sarah Palin depiction. It's very true in a lot of ways but I can say that because it can be attributed (if that is the right word) to other conditions and circumstances.

The more popular line was, "You're about as late an arrival in Irish politics as Sarah Palin is in American politics, and both of you have the same tactic. The tactic is, to get a large crowd, whip them up, try and discover what is that creates fear, work on that and feed it right back and you get a frenzy." He said this while Graham tries to interject but to no avail *sniggers*.

For the most part, I can understand where the Irish President was coming from. Aside from the loud cheers when Higgins said "... be proud to be a decent American rather just a wanker whipping up fear" (I mean, seriously, who didn't like that :p), it's his description of the alleged Sarah Palin “tactic” that people should ponder about. Face it, it happens … all the time.

A lot of people talk of things they barely know anything of (like me right now?lol). It has happened to everyone at one point or another. You read something online, watch something on the prime time news and suddenly you feel very passionate about it or against it. That is what the media feeds on right now, people’s thirst for sensationalism. And of course they have the gall to deny it and call what they do responsible journalism.

Locally, on the death of the DILG Secretary Robredo … while  in a cab going home, there was a DZMM radio broadcaster who was answering a listener’s tweet. The listener said something about the media (particularly ABS CBN lol) sensationalizing and milking Robredo’s death too much. To this, the broadcaster answered something like it’s hard for us to report anything else as journalists, but he did not elaborate on that. He also said, they respect the former secretary and honor him so they feature him a lot. First off … journalism is not an easy field … so don’t say it’s hard for you to talk of anything else because if that is the case, what the hell are you doing working in there??? There is no easy line of work. And if you respect the guy so much go ahead and report the facts, give him a bit of a tribute but stop planting conspiracy theories in the heads of your audience. You’re reporting these things because that’s what a common person wants. Drama. The frenzy. Conspiracies. Get your facts and work on them, why doncha?!

Seriously, Higgins said it all in his debate (the long part) if you paid attention: “You're not dealing with facts … you're talking about ships that you don't know the name of, you don't know the number of. You're really a good student of that kind of journalism that says: well look, if i could get away with it it's good; if i can work people up it's even better, but the fact of the matter is this is just, this is just very, very dangerous stuff …”

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RANDOM RAMBLINGS: (If only for the fact that I'm too lazy to create a separate post)

• The guy who slapped the MMDA employee on the road ... Yes, he was an arse and yes he shouldn’t have slapped the MMDA guy and yes he probably deserved to be crucified for the world wide web to see but a FB page that had his (alleged) home address in it??! Goes to show how powerful, so out of control and so scary the social media can be. How would you like that to happen to you just because someone didn’t like something you did? No matter what size of the action is.

• The RH Bill and that plagiarism issue … I’m pro, btw. And I don’t think the people associated in making the bill approved or not should appeal to people’s emotions when debating their point (because being too emotional is the second biggest problem of the Philippines -- first being the increasing population, hah!).  But anyway, the plagiarism issue … people got so worked up on that and I too was upset when the Senator said (or was it his chief of staff) that Ms. Pope was “just” a blogger. Well, you know what? I’ll say this again, people copy and paste on the Internet ALL THE FUCKING TIME! The biggest mistake of the senator’s staff is that this is a very controversial issue and that the whole country and even people out of the country is actually paying attention! Of course, there is this thing called spinning articles and the senator’s staff should’ve at least done that. But what about the other bloggers who not only posts but does actual research before writing something up (but before you say you can't write without researching, please read the paragraph again, wise-ass)? Their articles get copied too and then get spun using a bot and presented as a brand new article under a different writer’s name, all for the sake of traffic. And we all wonder why writers don’t get paid much? Lol. Okay, okay, that’s for a different topic. Moving on …