More painful than jail?

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has just confirmed that he is issuing a circular to the judges in the country asking them not to mete jail sentences to journalists they convict of libel. Chief Justice Reynato Puno says he suggests that they penalize erring writers with fines, instead. Considering the financial positions of most journalists, I think that will hit them harder than a stint in jail.

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But I have my suspicions about the justification the Chief Justice has for his circular. I think he is afraid that journalists, being the persuasive people that they are, they would probably start proselytizing among the other inmates and, who knows what that will lead to. Note that, recently, journalists are being blamed for every bad thing happening, or matters that the police and the military find difficult to solve.

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Just look at their story about the media woman they claimed had given aid and comfort to their enemy. Just because they failed to keep an eye to Captain Nicanor Faeldon, and he slipped away, they had to pick on a female journalist. And they not only zeroed on les girls, they even kept playing guessing games so that at least two became suspect. Sounding as if they really had the goods, the officers claimed that they had a video of the guilty gal, which they would use to nail her.

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Ah, they forgot about the feisty nature of our media women. The girls did not hide, in fact, they confronted the police officers themselves. First was Ellen Tordesillas who, I might say, is a veteran reporter and a very daring one at that, being also a cancer survivor, if I remember right. She thumbed her nose at them, not admitting and not denying. Which serves them right. Then they changed tacks and said it was the girl from Jiji Press, Dana Batnag, the real coddler of Faeldon. But the media people preempted them and showed the allegedly incriminating video tape, and lo! Not even the paranoiac Justice Secretary could find fault in the shots of a girl talking to a soldier. Just talking, mind you, not even handing him anything, not even whispering escape plots!

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I think it is a good sign for Hillary Clinton that the four contenders for the presidential nomination on the Republican side have all ganged up on her. This, I got from the late, late dispatches last night. That can only mean they have come to regard her as the more formidable of the two front-runners in the Democratic lane. That should add to the blows and slurs to be cast on her, but so far the lady is still standing, none of them have knocked her out yet.

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Even if she had been staggering, she would have sprung up to life with the editorial of the New York Times yesterday where the prestigious and influential paper minced no words in endorsing her bid. I do admire those American dailies. They really come out waving banners for their choice when election time comes. I can just imagine the Clintons dancing jigs out there in South Carolina , even if Obama is said to be bragging already that he's gonna take that state. We'll see, we'll see. But, by the way, the New York Times did not endorse Hillary only, it also rooted for John McCain, that is, if you are going Republican.

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The NYT editorial was reportedly product of a decision of the paper's editorial board, so we can say that it speaks for the publication. For those who don't know it yet, the editorial is just that: the voice of the publication itself. It's not like a column which is the opinion of the writer only. Anyway, this is what the NYT said about Hillary: “Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America 's big problems, we are deeply impressed by the depth of her intellect and by the breadth of, and, yes, her experience.” To that, this Hillary fan (and others in the STAR, too) say AMEN.

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By the way, I hear there are about 90 people in the Philippine President's entourage to Switzerland ! My, how much in our tax money has gone to that junket? The millions will probably exceed the Internal Revenue Allotment, or IRA, of many of our cities, maybe of all of them. If the hangers-on are all officials, this would be true. I hasten to add that I have joined several presidential state visits, but, like my other media companions, had always paid for my own fare, my hotels and meals. I still have receipts to show for them. Maybe I should run for Congress to get freebie trips, considering what my mother used to call my itchy feet.*

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