Educating Edu

IT WAS a request.

Councilor Edgardo Pamintuan Jr. has clarified that it was never his intention to dictate on and censor media.

"I made a request to our friends in media and it was a request not a dictate. From my point-of-view, a request can be granted or denied. It was even defined in several dictionaries as a 'polite way of asking for something'," Pamintuan Jr. said.

So stressed a press release Wednesday from the Angeles City Information Office in the wake of Pamintuan’s brickbatting by the Pampanga Press Club and the provincial chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines for having “cautioned” the media against publication of press releases from opposition councilor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr.

It was a request, alright. To re-quote him in his press release of 13 Sept. slugged Pamintuan Jr to Lazatin Jr.: Study pa more, to wit:

"They can write all the press releases they want but I am requesting our media friends to be discernful.

No plainer and simpler than a request there, indeed. If only Pamintuan stopped there. But he went on: Filing a questionable measure is one thing and getting it published in newspapers is another. Pero huwag naman yung nagmumukha tayong katawa-tawa at walang alam sa batas at mga pambansang regulasyon. Sabi nga doon sa spot.ph site, 'there are laws that have us cheering on the lawmaker who filed it and there are laws that make us laugh out loud or cringe in shame.’

There lies the whale of a difference between a request and a… No, “dictate” was never even once mentioned in both statements of NUJP-Pampanga and the Pampanga Press Club. Go, Honorable Councilor, read them.

How Pamintuan came up with “dictate” as his expressed alternative to “request” I can only surmise as having been induced by some subconscious dissonance.

Admonition. That, to me, makes the addenda to Pamintuan’s “request” statement. Precisely, as it was preceded by: The councilor son and namesake of Angeles City Mayor and League of Cities of the Philippines National President Edgardo Pamintuan also cautioned the media against publishing press releases from Lazatin Jr's camp. (Underscoring, mine).

To caution, Honorable Councilor, means “to warn.”

And that warning to media is grounded on Pamintuan having earlier lambasted, in his same press release, Lazatin’s proposed ordinances and resolutions as "out-of-this-world", and urged the sophomore local lawmaker to "study pa more so that your proposals will not look mere propaganda.”

Hence, publishing Lazatin’s proposed ordinances and resolutions – being out-of-this-world and mere propaganda – would reduce media to being katawa-tawa at walang alam sa batas at mga pambansang regulasyon. Right there is Pamintuan’s admonition – “a strong warning with dire consequences.”

Indeed, as Pamintuan quoted: There are laws that have us cheering on the lawmaker who filed it (sic) and there are laws that make us laugh out loud or cringe in shame.

For Pamintuan to impact this on the media, however, is way out of line, as much politically as rationally. For the object of either honor or ridicule or scorn there is the lawmaker and the laws. The media or the publisher not even mentioned there.  

To paraphrase, in the case of Facebook or Instagram: There are posts that have us cheering on the uploader, and there are uploads that make us laugh, cringe in shame, or scandalized too. The object of our reaction being the uploader, not FB or Instagram. Got the drift?   

Discern between the message and the messenger. And while at it, discern the difference between “discernful” – as Pamintuan requested media to be – and discerning. 

Discernful – getting red underline in Word, invisible in Google – is a most uncommon word. Usual usage in the instance of Pamintuan’s statement would have been: …I am requesting our media friends to be (more) discerning. An action or behavior there.

Semantics now: the suffix -ful means “full of” or “notable for.” Discernful then takes the adjective form that may mean “full of discernment.” A personal attribute then. Now, to request media to be “discernful” presupposes they have an utter lack, if not totally devoid, of discernment.     

That is an insult Pamintuan inflicted upon media. Unwittingly, maybe, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This is not the first time though that I find Pamintuan -- innocently, if not ignorantly, but just as ignominiously – insulting, albeit on Facebook. On the occasion of Eid ul-Fitr this year, he wished his Muslim friends “Eid Mubarak,” complete with Assalamu Alaikum...accompanied by a photo of a bottle of expensive whiskey.

I commented: This is an insult to Islam. You invoke the name of Allah and at the same time post a bottle of whiskey which is haram (forbidden by the Law)…      

Pamintuan’s response: Sorry. No pun intended.

Until now I am still searching where the pun lies in that post. Duh!

Study pa more.

So Pamintuan haughtily told Lazatin.

Educate Edu pa more.

So I am telling his handlers now: Your ward just does not get it.

It can’t be any simpler than the heading of the PPC statement: MEDIA HERE TO REPORT, NOT TO JUDGE.

And still articulated some more by PPC president Deng Pangilinan: Media do not and will never act as a judge or even discern who or what party is right or wrong, especially in reporting facts from news sources in straight news articles.

Plainer still: Ano man po ang usapan o maging away ng mga konsehal sa bawat isa, wala po kaming pakialam sa mga iyon. Ang aming layunin at misyon ay ang mailathala ang mga pangyayari sa konseho.

Yeah, E duh, pa more.