Journalism

We Pinoys love our New Year celebrations and we drop everything to party at the eve of the coming year. But the web team of GMA News skipped the celebrations to launch the new GMANews.tv with the reinforced Bloggers' Network.

Malou Mangahas and old Collegian colleague Ben Moncerate invited me to blog for their site on tech matters. I was both happy and excited at the invitation.

Cheap, portable and easy to use – this is the future of videotaping. The technology and art of videotaping will be so accessible and portable that we will be recording our lives not only with one camera, but a whole bunch of them.

The word “tape” is destined to become anachronistic, since magnetic tape is slowly being replaced by media cards and discs. Cameras will be implanted in our bodies and record directly to artificial neurons implanted in our brains. Of course these cameras will even be implanted in the bodies of our families and friends, too.

A couple of weeks ago, I received forwarded email about one of the hottest celebrities today -- Bench model, Beer model and daughter of hero Ninoy Aquino: Kris! (tadah!)

The email recounted how a doting aunt brought her two nieces to see Kris Aquino. Since they were fervent fans finally getting a chance to meet their idol, the young people were excited, even though the only time they got was a photo opportunity. As the aunt tried to get a good shot, she asked Kris to turn slightly to favor the light. Here's what happened next:

I had just come from giving a talk about blogging and the new "new media" when I switched on the TV and saw Cheche Lazaro on ANC in a show titled Media in Focus.

In this particular episode, Cheche was dissecting a controversial article by respected columnist Isagani Cruz. Cruz's column titled Don we now our gay apparel used colorful language that indicated disdain for homosexuals ("Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy?").

<!-- ckey="00000000" -->

"The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead.

Times like these, I wish I could follow Jim Paredes's example and move to Australia.


On the news today: Manila's City Council has formed a resolution to ban The Da Vince Code movie. Interviewed on ANC was Congressman Abante, whose character unfortunately is the reverse of his name.

His arguments:

• The Philippines is the only Catholic country in Asia.
• A portion of the Catholics in our nation -- and he quoted 26% -- are "weak" Catholics because they don't even bother to hear mass.
• In light of these statistics, we shouldn't show The Da Vinci Code -- we might further weaken our Catholic country.
• Moreover, Abante stated, Dan Brown's book weaves fiction and fact together. Doing this might mislead the ignorant Filipinos to question their faith (and thus weaken the foundations of this country).
• He also stated that there is a clause in the Revised Penal Code that makes it a criminal offense to show movies that offend religion, and Da Vinci Code falls under this.
• What I picked up from the debate (other anti-Da Vinci Code advocates were interviewed) is that Filipinos should not be left to decide for themselves.
• Also if I remember my Constitution correctly, freedom of speech is a basic right, and where a law conflicts with this (as the clause from the Revised Penal Code does), then the Constitution prevails, since it is the fundamental law, after all.
• Get this: they want the movie -- and eventually the book -- banned all over the Philippines.