Thank God, we didn't cut relations with Libya

ON THE JOB: We are seeing the wisdom of the Aquino administration’s having refused to be stampeded by the West into cutting diplomatic relations with Libya when detractors of Moammar Gadhafi mounted a rebellion against their iron-fisted leader of 40 years.

President Noynoy Aquino did right in keeping our embassy in Tripoli open. We have been able to keep normal channels to the Gadhafi regime open while looking after the safety and interests of more than 30,000 Filipinos in that troubled Arab country in North Africa.

Moving around in the war theater amid the bombardment, strafing and street fighting (bombs and bullets do not pick their targets) is fraught with danger, but duty continues to move our embassy staff.

Our limited resources have been compensated by the bountiful courage and dedication of the embassy personnel who were joined at some crucial point by no less than Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario in shepherding Filipinos out of harm’s way.

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THEY KNOW BEST: Because we decided to maintain normal relations with Tripoli, our people have been able to go around the embattled country and stay in touch with our kababayan who continue to honor their work contracts despite the war.

From the safety of Manila, it is not fair to criticize our “hard-headed” compatriots opting to attend to their contracted assignments in Libya. Standing right there on the shaking ground, they are in the best position to know what they should do.

We know from official feedback what has been done to assist them. We can assume that the Department of Foreign Affairs under hands-on Secretary Del Rosario has contingency plans for Filipinos still in Libya estimated to number 16,000.

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FALSE REPORT: Note the earlier reports that 10 Filipino nurses in Libya had been kidnapped. With the rampant kidnapping in Muslim Mindanao as backdrop, that was alarming news.

When our embassy personnel checked, however, it turned out that the nurses were merely relocated.

This illustrates how media reports, especially in areas where there is no free flow of information, could be totally wrong and not just misleading.

Based on what I have seen the past four decades of news coverage, I dare say that we cannot always be sure of reports being beamed to us in our neutral corner about the true situation in Libya.

Sad to say, even the media giants have been shown at times to have played into the hands of propagandists of governments enmeshed in the conflicts being covered. This happens either in the innocent rush of coverage or in the calculated collaboration of biased media.

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NO WMDs: In the Iraq war, for instance, it turned out to the embarrassment of the Bush administration that the weapons of mass destruction around which was built the United States rationale for its invasion of that sovereign nation were non-existent.

Not even when the US-led invaders were in control of every inch of Iraq were they able to find any trace of the WMD stockpile that Western media had been trumpeting as intended by strongman Saddam Hussein to be used against the US and the rest of the civilized world.

Pursuing the line of George W. Bush — whose family happens to have considerable oil interests in the Middle East — the US and its cohorts invaded Iraq. Until now, that “cradle of civilization” has not recovered from the destructive American attempt to gift it with “democracy.”

That has been a shameful recurring scenario: After making up its mind about removing a head of government elsewhere, the US corrals media mercenaries into bombarding the hapless target with all kinds of black propaganda to justify the desired regime change.

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ALTERNATIVE MEDIA: The problem of the common tao is that he has no direct personal knowledge of the people and events being talked about in the news. Not everybody is equipped to challenge pervasive media reports, so the public is at the mercy of what comes out in media.

Fortunately, with the information revolution raging around us, a growing number of people now have access to an array of media, traditional and otherwise, whose reports can be cross-checked, compared and intelligently evaluated.

We in the mass media concede that, like all humans, we make mistakes. In good faith, however, what most of us do is make the proper correction as soon as we spot the error.

But it is something else when some media-media operate in cahoots with propagandists with the ulterior motive of misinforming the public and demonizing a chosen target. This is usually in preparation for the coup de grace at some calculated future time.

One tragedy is that sometimes coopted media start believing their own lies.

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RADIATION CONCERNS: There was no urgent need for a Senate inquiry on how prepared we are for radiation from Japan possibly drifting to our shores. Media covering the inquiry can simply report the facts without prominently mentioning the senators conducting the probe.

The possible problem arising from radiation is more of an Executive concern. All that is needed is for President Aquino to update himself with the officials concerned and ask them how ready we are, what they have been doing and what more they recommend should be done.

Depending on their answers, the President can then give the proper instructions, tell the people something reassuring about the distant danger still some 3,200 kilometers away across the seas.

The worst that could happen is to whip up panic by holding inquiries in aid of publicity.

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