Part of Me is Dead

Watching the video uploaded by Balita’s Romy Marquez gave me goose-bumps, more than goose-bumps. (And I thought my heart throbbing experiences were left in Manila.)
It frightened me to watch three journalists aiming and shooting at each other using their tools of the trade, — still cameras and video cameras. It frightened me more to think why media people who breathe freedom of the press quarrel over the right to media coverage. To cover events and report such events for the public’s interest is a duty that media people by virtue of their profession do, or must do.
The fright in me was not mainly because of what I saw and heard from the video but what I did not see and what I did not hear. The gaps of eerie silence between nervous verbal exchange coming from Romy and Hermie Garcia and his wife Mila, at one point, spoke volumes and very telling of people’s character. But that’s another story.
Hermie is publisher and editor of The Philippine Reporter and current president of the Philippine Press Club of Ontario. The paper is one of the over a dozen Filpino-Canadian tabloids published in Toronto.
The incident happened at an Italian cafe called Artisano where the Philippine Press Club of Ontario held a brunch get-together called by Hermie. It was a well announced event over the organization’s group e-mail encouraging members to attend the social fellowship on April 14, a Sunday.
I am co-founder of PPCO, president for two terms and current member but I was not at the event. In this digital and electronic gizmo driven age, however, I was virtually at the event watching the video.
The PPCO was established in December 2001 by Filipino-Canadian media people based in Toronto, including me as convenor, as well as Ruben and Tess Cusipag of Balita as co-founders. Hermie and Mila Garcia whose paper started publishing in the late 80s joined PPCO later as members.
Responses from PPCO members who said they were attending also promised to bring along guests giving the impression that the brunch-fellowship was an open event as all other previous PPCO events. Such PPCO open events had always been photo ops moments prompting other observers to tag the media organization as mainly a social club with nothing to do but smile and pose in front of media cameras.
I do not want to venture into the seeming controversy and whatever its cause is, between Balita, it’s staff, Romy Marquez in particular, and the Garcias or their paper, a Balita competitor. It could it be a convoluted maze of issues that delving into it would lead one into the labyrinth of evil that resides in people.
What was only obvious to me is what’s shown in the video and the audible words spoken. On the video Hermie asked Romy to stop taking videos because some people did not want to be in it. The video shows the former’s face with one extended hand, palm open, a universal gesture which means stop.
Mila Garcia came on the background holding a camera shooting at the one taking video who said that he was sent by Balita to cover the event and that he would stop if Mila would stop taking his pictures. Mila in a huff said she would stop, seen leaving, touching Hermie by the arm and said it’s harassment which Hermie promptly echoed.
Still with extended hand, Hermie called others to summon the police. As the video camera pans a staff of Artisano was shown talking on the phone and could be heard calling for police assistance. With some grim some in deadpan on the background were PPCO members and their guests sat still which I could not figure out the meaning of: disinterest or disgust. If disgust, for whom?
“Oh what a tangled web they weave, When first we practice to deceive,” says Sir Walter Scott in his poem “Marmion”. Indeed, who is deceiving who? The worst is not when we deceive others but when we deceive ourselves
The terror that struck me watching the video is not only the eerie imagery of a hand obviously wanting to stop the videographer, in this case Romy Marquez, from taking video footage of what was meant to be a sweet fellowship that turned sour as it did upset my stomach causing bile to rise to my throat. The unseen self of Romy Marquez questioning why he is not allowed to take videos as he is covering the event for Balita and his at first quivering voice that later turned firmer was for me disturbing and still is bothering my waking hours.
The PPCO is a gathering of individuals, who, I believe, understands and believes the role each play being in the media in a democratic open society such as Canada. As individuals each is supposed to be wellspring of freedom of expression and transparency for the public good, as an organization they are the bastion of this freedom and bound to defend it from dying.
I am scared because part of me was killed as killing freedom is killing the spirit. Killing the spirit is killing the soul and without the soul man is just a piece of meat.
By the way PAL’s Manila office has sent a letter of apology to me and promises to investigate my complaint which I wrote about in this column in the previous issue of this paper, titled “Why Philippine Airlines is not a pal”. The letter from PAL could be found somewhere on this page.
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