Who died? Aquino or Arroyo?

Reputable news publications committed the “greatest” sin in journalism when they announced to the world that a living person was dead.
It didn’t help that the person attributed to have died was the President, the highest government officer of the land, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
This happened during the burial of former President Cory Aquino.
Some publications, among them the Manila Bulletin, wrote that the casket about to be buried was that of President Arroyo, instead of former President Aquino.
This monumental mistake highlights the fact that journalists, are only humans.
They too commit mistakes.
Indeed, to err is human.
Good thing, Malacanang, nay the President, the one who was published to have “died”, is not planning to take legal action.
In fact the Palace was magnanimous.
Malacanang said this should have been an “honest mistake,” devoid of any with malice whatsoever.
Case closed.
However, if journalists mistakenly think there can be no legal action on these kinds of mistakes, they could be wrong.
Legal history tells us that when a publication is negligent with their facts, particularly then it wrongly/erroneously casts a person in a bad light, they can be liable for damages.
Let us re-visit the case of Eugenio Lopez versus court of appeals, decided by the Supreme Court in 1970.
This story gets us back to 1956.
A sanitary inspector named Fidel Cruz assigned to the Babuyan Islands sent a distress signal to a passing United States Airforce plane.
This US airforce plane relayed the message to Manila.
Fidel Cruz was not ignored.
An American Army plane dropping on the beach of an island an emergency-sustenance kit containing, among other things, a two-way radio set.
Fidel Cruz, the sanitary inspector, utilized the two-way radio to inform authorities in Manila that the people in the place were living in terror, due to a series of killings committed since Christmas of 1995.
Losing no time, the Philippines defense establishment rushed to the island a platoon of scout rangers led by Major Wilfredo Encarnacion.
Upon arriving at the reported killer-menaced Babuyan islands, however, Major Encarnacion and his men found, instead of the alleged killers, a man, the same Fidel Cruz the sanitary inspector, who merely wanted transportation home to Manila.
In view of this finding, Major Wilfredo Encarnacion branded as a "hoax," to use his own descriptive word, the report of Fidel Cruz.
That was the term employed by the other newspapers when referring to the above-mentioned incident

Cory's Legacy

The nation will principally remember Cory as the restorer of Philippine democracy.
Being the nation’s, and Asia’s first female head of state, her ascension to political power was so dramatic when she, a mere housewife, toppled a regime that ruled using the barrel of the gun.
In my perspective Cory left a political legacy that ought to be a lesson for all politicians.
More than a political lesson, it is a moral lesson.
To my mind, I have yet to know a political leader other than Cory Aquino, who voluntarily relinquished power when her term of office was over.
Cory Aquino was never power hungry.
For all of Cory Aquino’s political deficiencies, as she was not perfect, political greed was never one of them.
When her presidential term was over, she eagerly relinquished power to her political successor.
Then she gracefully and quietly faded, and returned to ordinary civilian life.
In this day and age of our political history, most if not all, politicians practice opposite the example shown by Cory Aquino.
When a politician’s full, allowable term ends, he starts to think of ways to circumvent our laws so he and his clan will remain in power.
They will let their wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, run for office to maintain their grip on power, only to go back after the political interregnum.
If this is not feasible, politicians will engage in horse-trading, and switch political places with other politicians, just so they can remain their hold on power.
To these politicians, it is plain stupidity to give away political power.
For political power translates to economic power.
This is the norm in Philippine politics today.
But I don’t believe this is the spirit and intention of our laws.
That is why you see the same faces over and over again every election time.
The problem is, you can’t see any visible progress with these rotating and recurring faces.
I cannot yet see in the horizon that day when politicians will emulate the example of selflessness of Cory Aquino.
Today, it is selfishness, not selflessness.
But Cory is different.
A distinct breed, indeed.
Perhaps, she lived ahead of the times.
God bless Cory Aquino.