Viewpoint : Grinding scammers down

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091124-237995/Grinding-scammers-down

By Juan Mercado
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: November 24, 2009

“Example is the school of mankind,” parliamentarian Edmund Burke wrote. “They will learn from no other.”

Solita Collas-Monsod’s columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer document how the Arroyo regime embeds scams that ousted President Ferdinand Marcos and tycoon Lucio Tan cobbled. They’re examples of first-rate investigative reporting. Journalists and mass communication students have another model to learn from.

Monsod’s work is critically relevant. “We’re moving towards the new impatient culture of a journalism of assertion, rather than verification,” Harvard University’s Bill Kovacs writes. “The new journalism (presses) to go on with the story before going through the discipline of editing.”

“Journalism of unfiltered assertion” is the alternate model. “It (won’t) separate fact from spin, argument from innuendo. It exacts too high a cost from society … ruthless respect for facts remains journalism’s most enduring strength.”

The Inquirer published Monsod’s columns—“Tortured claims” to “Overpowering stench”—from October through early November this year. They probe into the P51-billion Sandiganbayan Civil Case 005. The meticulous research display “ruthless respect for facts.”

Tan wrote Marcos to wangle a P310 million standby letter of credit on March 26, 1977. That was “a Saturday,” Monsod wrote with an eye for the telling detail. Monday, Tan had P310 million on hand. The “PNB” single borrower limit then was P200 million. Another damming detail.

The dictator had 60 percent stake in seven Tan’s firms, Imelda Marcos testified. However, “Tan never delivered the shares of stock to FM’s estate in accordance with the deed of assignment.” Did one’s unexplained wealth morph into another’s unanticipated windfall following “People Power”?

The careful authentication reflects journalism’s First Commandment: “Thou shalt check, then recheck, your facts.” Thanks to Monsod, one now understands Imelda’s choice of epithets. “That beer bottle-peddler,” she once dubbed Tan.

The columns go beyond trashing historical carcasses. They reveal that the Arroyo regime cloned the Marcos-Tan corruption. Tuloy ang ligaya. What does such betrayal mean?

At this storm’s center stands Mariano Tanenglian, Tan’s brother who acted as financial consigliere” for decades. “Tanenglian knows where all the bodies are.” He offered to sign in return for immunity, as did earlier other Marcos cronies. Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera and Presidential Commission on Good Government Chair Camilo Sabio rejected the offer.

Devanadera instead cashiered PCGG lawyer Catalino Generillo for painstakingly gathering the evidence. If Tanenglian wants to testify, he shouldn’t set conditions, PCGG’s Ricardo Abcede piously insisted. Earlier, this commissioner was at a loss why the public howled delicadeza when he partied with defendant Imelda.

“Why does Devanadera want to lose the case against Tan?” Monsod wondered. I’d ask the justice secretary first, of course. But, then that’d be Devanadera too.

Reminds one of Ombudsman Aniano Desierto. He was skewered for filing cases rigged to fail. Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is an “Aniano Desierto in skirts,” critics say. History repeats itself as a farce.

“What will the President (Macapagal-Arroyo) do?” Nothing—except probably appoint Devanadera to a Supreme Court crammed with her appointees. PCGG’s Sabio? He’s busy denying junketing with his family, all over Europe. Who foots the bill?

“You journalists live in the reality-based community,” a senior official told editor Bill Kovacs. “That’s not the way the world works anymore. We create our own reality ....We’re history’s actors.... And you’ll just study what we do.”

“Yet, today’s generation is empowered by technology to instantly tap into wells of information,” Kovacs said at Boston University. “You can challenge history’s actors. To survive you must ask: Is the information verified? ... Help us learn the new role of citizen journalist and gatekeeper of reliable information.”

How many Filipinos are potential citizen journalists?

Worldwide, eight out of every 10 persons on social networks, like “YouTube,” “Twitter “ or “Multiply,” are Filipinos, Jane Paredes of Smart Communications says. And 70.4 million Filipinos heft cellphones.

Will 70.4 million journalists verify facts, Sun Star’s president Jess Garcia asked a Cebu Press Freedom Week seminar. A columnist like Amando Doronila does. Or will we have 70.4 million who merely assert.

Tomorrow’s “citizen journalist” must be the “gatekeeper of reliable information” if new media is to be a force for reform and service. And work by investigative journalists like Monsod, Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism or Yvonne Chua of Vera Files, among others, set the parameters for this new tool.

Also, no substitute has yet been found for journalists of integrity. Thus, the late Alan Chalkley of Financial Times would drill into cub reports the pig-Latin motto: Nil Illegitimati Carborundum. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”