Pedestrian Observer GB: "Mob Rule" in Malu Fernandez Downfall, ANC

That is just how “some” ( a handful is a more apt description) people perceived the Malu Fernandez fiasco and the unexpected tidal wave of response never seen before since the Flor Contemplacion case that toppled 2 high ranking government officials. Watching the 6 part ( one, two, three, four, five, & six) you tube series on “MOB RULE” aired by ANC having such title tells you right away it was an indictment not of the culprit but those of the lowly mortals of the online world particularly the OFW kind.

Is it because the host and the station just like the self-proclaimed “Diva” caters to the same market that delusional Malu Fernandez think she has….. the elites or thinking they are elites in a third world economy where a great portion of the “wanna be’s” or the shrinking middle class are pushed down to poverty level and majority of the population are wallowing in the muck of poverty? I can’t help notice how the host alarmingly tries to portray the reactions of the online community to a mob of out of control riotous rampage out to burn and destroy anyone and anything on their path.

The host mind was set as she desperately tries to picture the netizens in a bad light or the so-called “mob” like and “violent” comment mostly pertaining to Malu Fernandez weight issues owing to the so-called anonymity cover that the internet provides. The sad part is while the host points out what she perceives as the excess and out of line response she and her production staff failed or did not do extensive research on why people reacted in such manner. As usual scratching the surface just like the shallow Malu Fernandez ranting on what she deems the “problem” but never attempted to understand the very core of the issue.

They were right though in seeing the internet as unstructured and what I believe was their apprehension not of the egalitarian nature of the internet and the emerging role of bloggers to sway public opinion but the inevitability of making them obsolete. At the rate Philippine print and broadcast media goes they might as well turn irrelevant due to corruption and lack of ethical standards as the lure of “ATM journalism” sways quite a number of them in that direction.

Sadly while they have the resources to undertake a more in depth coverage they choose to cover the bruha errr the Malu Fernandez brouhaha in a scratch the surface manner. If that is the case what then set them apart from bloggers like us? Nada, zip, zilch and if this is how they handle this incident then bloggers have the upper hand because unlike media establishment, bloggers are not beholden to anyone. Most bloggers offers a no holds barred entries that is not beholden to anyone affording readers raw and unadulterated commentaries that defies the norm of “ATM journalism”.

Thanks to one guest Ricky Carandang for his views in clarifying the nature of a mob…… no one pointed a gun at Malu Fernandez or was there an incident of an actual mob throwing stones or setting fire to her residence or her publications offices. On a scale of 1 to 10 the latter being the highest if I am to rate this coverage, this is my take:

R. Carandang a 10 for keeping an open mind and not succumbing to the "mob" portrayal of the online community particularly the OFWs.

Che Che Lazaro and her staff a 2 for lackadaisical research and not having a single OFW (as if there is no one to be found when there is Ellene Sana of CMA, Migrante, Ding bagasao of Ercof, Julie Javellana-Santos who has been writing for the OFWs for quite sometime, OFW Journalism consortium etc.) or an email comment from an OFW blogger at the least in the panel. A low 1 for misguided concept of OFW demanding respect from the feudal concept of the word not realizing that respect is about treating people your equal.

Alex Magno a 4 because he is not an OFW and more identified with La Glory.

Belmonte a 2 for her unwillingness to open up and too afraid to blurt out politically incorrect staements.

Our 2 fellow blogger Benj Espina of Atheista and Josel Gonzales of Nomadic Thoughts an 8 for trying their best not to represent the bloggers or the OFWs.

How about you how would you rate the Media in Focus of ANC hosted by Che Che Lazaro on the Malu Fernandez bruha errr brouhaha which they titled “MOB RULE” referring to us bloggers and the online communities reaction? Let your voices be heard and speak out.

As I was about to end this entry I found Isip Lugaws entry on another Malu derivative who is even thanking Malu Fernandez for showing the “ugly Pinoy in us”…. oh, boy talk of self-flagellating individual trying desperately to do his penance and desperately dragging us along is just pathetic.

ofw

6 Speak Out:

Anonymous said...: i was about to make a post about media in focus today but had to put it off til wednesday. anyway, yes, i agree with some of your sentiments. its like cheche lazaro wants to tell the audience that the bloggers are bad and that malu's the victim! the true issue of why the blogging community hates malu was neglected.; 9/3/07, 11:44 PM
lateralus said...: Our 2 fellow blogger Benj Espina of Atheista and Josel Gonzales of Nomadic Thoughts an 8 for trying their best not to represent the bloggers or the OFWs.

---

Hmmm, I think Josel was great in that regard. I actually think he was very hard-line when he came to the defense of the OFWs and justifying why they had the right to voice out.

As for the bloggers, I still think that I was able to show the sober side of the blogger reaction. I think there is a need to put things into context - most bloggers reacted in a sober way. There was condemnation, but the violent outburst didn't come from bloggers. Most of them were from the commenters and guests. That was why I had to make it clear that I was speaking for myself and not for everyone else. hehe

But yes, Ricky did elucidate a lot of the finer points in the show.

He took off from my "there is no hierarchy" argument to his "there are no IRL manifestations" case in the second segment.

8 is a passing score right? hehe

Thanks and more power.

Benj Espina
http://atheista.net; 9/4/07, 4:05 AM
Anonymous said...: True Nna, eactly my point why I rated heche a 2 and a 1 for "siding"wth the "agrieved" Malu.

Yes Benj, 8 is pasing, you know I can't be partial towards fellow blggers, lol.

One thing I left out was giving Malu a -0 for not showing up and issuing another shallow I am hurt boo hoo hoo statement.... oh well I guess I get a 2 or a 1 too just like ANC & Che2 for laziness in going back and quoting her statement, lol.; 9/4/07, 12:31 PM
fidel_umaga said...: OFW REACTION to MALU FERNANDEZ IS SIMPLY THE CHICKEN COMING HOME TO ROOST.

The OFW is not ignorant of its role in the survival of our nation. That is why it accepts, with mix pride and wariness, the title NEW HEROES OF THE MOTHERLAND. As a matter of fact, the OFW is fully aware that the wages of its sacrifices keep their families alive and our country afloat financially. Yet it could not understand why it is almost always treated less honorably than the REAL TRAITORS to our people and country. It could not understand why, beyond the greed and selfishness which still reign supreme in many of us and in our national polity, it remains one of the most maligned, betrayed, abused, abandoned, ill-treated and neglected sector of our society.

And since the different sectors of the OFWs are still not unified, as they are not yet fully organized as they ought to be, the political decision-makers in the Philippines do not seem to treat the OFW issue, as a whole, with great concern and at par with other organized groups such as the existing big labor unions in the Philippines or some other religious groups e.g. Al Shaddai or the INC. This disparity in treatment and concern that bore on the OFW, exacerbated by its inability to protect its own interest, which inability is rooted from the absence of organized OFW power, coupled with the lack of options available to the OFW to find other ways for his family and loved ones to survive, leave the OFW to grudgingly toil in silence but toil it did without complaint, 24/7, for decades, in lonely strange lands, under forbidding conditions but keeps a smoldering anger slowly burning and building deep in its heart. While the OFW keeps that pain deeply suppressed inside, he slowly unchains himself from the confining shackles of his own circumstances.

Then the Malu Fernandez article came about. Compared to the proverbial cards the OFW was actually dealt with time and time again, the Malu Fernandez article was actually a fable, a bed time story. However, for one reason or another, the Malu Fernandez article became a phenomenal key that seemed to have opened the floodgates to the long suppressed emotions of an oppressed sector of our society. It was like a bell, whose tolling has awakened the Filipino OFW all over the world from its deep slumber. From the slew of insults that peppered the article of Malu Fernandez, the OFW suddenly seems to find the need to have a common voice. Since then, it has never stop talking about Malu Fernanadez. The written diatribes the OFW sent ranged from the most mundane to the most ascerbic. Certain sectors however commented that the reaction of the OFW has turned into a MOB RULE.

Assuming that the OFW’s reaction to Malu Fernandez had metastasized into something of a MOB RULE, did we really bother to ask ourselves the reasons behind the OFW reaction? Is the OFW's reaction to Malu Fernandez's article, merely a manifestation of the nature of the social circumstances that greatly made up the bulk of our OFW, or is it a preview of forthcoming episodes not only from the OFW but also from other sectors of our society which, like the OFW, had long been abandoned and betrayed before, by their leaders and government, but have now found their salvation on their accord and is now on their own road to freedom? I believe it is the latter.

And as such, I think it is simply TOO LITTLE TOO LATE for some quarters to expound NOW on what should be the moral width and breadth of the OFW’s reaction to the subject article. For those of us who opted to simply MOVE ON and NOT TO GET INVOLVED whenever confronted in the past, by the FACE of betrayal and injustice to what was right and just for our OFW, it is plain hypocrisy now for these people to exert their moral influence on our OFW. It is simply the height of their pretension to expect that the OFW owe them a breath of decency.

For those of us who have abandoned the OFW and now find repulsive the so called rabid reaction of some to Malu Fernandez's article, what MOB RULE are we talking about here? Excuse me, but it is simply the chicken coming home in the barn to roost!

These people should rather be most thankful that our OFW still believed that the pen is mightier than the sword. They should pray harder that other sectors of our society, which in the past, had also been been betrayed and abandoned by many of us, would react as benign as our OFW as in the Malu Fernandez brouhaha, once they too have found their own road to freedom and a phenomenal key opens their own floodgates.; 9/4/07, 1:45 PM
mschumey07 said...: I saw the show and was totally dismayed with Che-che. I thought that the brains behind the Probe Team would have stood up and defend the OFWs. Alas, she showed her true color, she would protect her kind. Malu was never a victim.

Ricky was very honest with his comments and actually swayed Magno to his side. He changed his views during the show and acknowledged that blogging is an emerging power. I read Magno's column about the Malu issue where he insinuated bloggers are mere armchair journalists and unlike them, we are not answerable to an editor. Had the editors done their job, Malu's unsavory side comments would not have been printed.; 9/4/07, 2:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the ANC show, but I have watched Che Che Lazaro & have heard Alex Magno a lot before to know that these people are mere puppets of a corrupt system that is known as Phil journalism. Most of the so called journalists we have often mistake license for press freedom, take the case of Malu Fernandez, she really believed that she had the right to insult OFWs because she is in the so called group of "elite" journalists. She is not the only one with that kind of mindset, most of ABS CBNs so called news readers are all opinionated and do not really just read the news but offer their opinion which they try to pass off as the majority's opinion. Don't get me wrong there are a some good ones, who really try to give us the news as it happens but most of them would like to have their opinions imposed on people. That's what Malu and her kind were used to so that when the OFWs reacted differently they all banded together and called it mob rule.; 9/18/07, 3:49 PM