Roadkill

I’ve been meaning to post something profound to herald my return to active blogging.

Before I can compose anything remotely wise, I had the misfortune of listening to Chris Cornell’s Scream album.

It was all I could do to scream myself crazy as it was shockingly bad and at 4am I’m not too sure my neighbors would understand why.

I categorically say that Chris Cornell made a big mistake when he hired Timbaland to produce his Scream album.

His vocals were clearly wasted, all tracks had the artificial beat that Timbaland is known for and he just sounded comically R and B.

Dude, what were you thinking? Isn’t this a travesty to your rock and roll fans like me?

That would make Cornell the second artist that I admire that Timabaland ruined.

The first was Duran Duran, whose Red Carpet Massacre really got creamed on the floor upon delivery…

No wonder both albums resoundingly flopped. When Duran Duran came over to Manila for their concert last year, I felt the chilly reception that the audience gave to their Red Carpet Massacre songs – and Manila loves Duran Duran huh!!!

I still adore these two musical artists though despite their misfires.

At least now I’m looking forward to their next outputs given their current debacles.

As for Timbaland, he should leave rock artists alone and just concentrate on Justin and his R/B gang…

RP #6 again in countries with journalists’ killings…

The Committee for the Protection of Journalist or CPJ, came out with its second Global Impunity Index yesterday, in a simple press conference at Annabel’s Tomas Morato Avenue… The CPJ with the help of its local partner, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility or CMFR and the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists or FFFJ, held the event in Manila, to coincide with the fourth death anniversary of the murder of Marlene Garcia-Esperat today, March 24. The following is the full report:

“CPJ’s Impunity Index spotlights countries

where journalists are slain and killers go free”

New York, March 23, 2009 — The already murderous conditions for the press in Sri Lanka and Pakistan deteriorated further in the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Colombia, historically one of the world’s deadliest nations for the press, improved as the rate of murders declined and prosecutors won important recent convictions.

7 for 9/11

Who would have thought that 9/11 is already seven years ago today? There’s probably a generation now growing up who may just regard it as some horrific movie based on an obscure event.

I do not mean any disrespect to those who suffered and have love ones who died in 9/11. But looking back , it really seems to be just one big nightmare whose impact is slowly being healed by time.

I still remember what I was doing when September 11 in 2001 happened. I just dove on my Tokyo hotel bed, which I was sharing with two other reporters since we just arrived ahead of the week’s coverage of PGMA’s state visit in Tokyo, Japan and we were tired as hell from travelling. I gained the upper hand when I got hold of the television remote and immediately fired up the tv set in our 33rd hotel room floor.

When I tuned in on CNN, I immediately marveled at the images that I saw which I first thought was the latest trailer of some cool movie featuring a plane crashing into what looked like New York City’s World Trade Center. To our horror, we suddenly realized that what we were seeing was no movie trailer but CNN’s breaking news coverage of the 9/11 attack in the U.S. Like many around the globe, we were glued to the boob tube – curious yet repelled at the horror of it all. We also realized that our trip to Tokyo may be cut short due to the incident (while Japanese PM Juinichiro Koizumi’s government cancelled all his appointments in deference to the 9/1 tragedy, he went on with Arroyo’s state visit). Our subsequent coverages in Tokyo were overshadowed though by the tragedy happening thousands of miles away.

Two months later, I was assigned again to cover PGMA’s state visit, this time to the U.S., the highlight of which will be a visit to 9/11’s Ground Zero in New York City (two other highlights included PGMA’s first ever one-on-one meet with President George Bush and her first address in the UN General Assembly).

As luck would have it, I drew the raffle of the broadcast pool to cover PGMA’s Ground Zero visit. On the day of the coverage, I was pinching myself that it was really happening and that I was going to report on the place that was historically tragic for the world.

On Ground Zero’s visitor’s platform, there was a wall where the flags of the nations of those who died in the World Trade Center were mounted; many bore signatures and messages of hope especially from the leaders of these nations. PGMA was to sign her name as well on the Philippine flag which was unfortunately positioned way beyond her reach. While a couple of her aides scrambled to find a makeshift platform, she was also signalling to her other aides that she was in need of a sign pen. Since no one was able to produce one and I remembered I always kept a pentel pen wound with masking tape for emergencies in the field, I immediately got it and gave it to her aide who gave it to her (the said pentel pen never found its way back to my backpack since PGMA’s aide never returned it to me). Thus she was able to affix her signature on the Philippine flag in the Ground Zero memorial… Curiously though, no official was on hand to either greet her or be with her in her visit although we were with the staff of then Mayor Rudy Guilliani including a Fil-Am staff.

Eventually, Guilliani arrived just before PGMA left Ground Zero and thus averted a snub of our diminutive leader. They had a brief talk and some quick photo opp before we all proceeded to her next event which was her address before the UN General Assembly.

I hope to be able to visit Ground Zero again but next time I vow it would not be work related so I can pay my respects properly and unhurriedly to all the brave men and women who innocently lost their lives on 9/11 seven years ago.

greatest equalizer

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about from watching the Olympics through the years is that sports is possibly the greatest equalizer in the world.

Athletes compete with each other and are judged equally by their performance, excellence and sportsmanship whether they are old and young, rich and poor, white and black. 

I am happy to note that this was still evident in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, an event I am extremely proud to be held in Asia and in China at that. I’m just sad though that I’m not able to watch it even though this was probably the closest that the games could get to the Philippines. This has only firmed up my resolve to prepare for the next staging and make sure that I will be able to watch the 2012 London Olympics.

I missed the opening ceremonies but I was able to watch the replay and I can’t help but marvel at how China did prepare for the games. It was clearly important for them to make give their best as befits the greatest sports event of the year. Now it will be really difficult to top the Beijing Olympics… After seeing last night’s closing ceremonies (which Solar Sports clearly bungling up its supposedly live coverage, no thanks to you), I sense a scaling down of proportions in London. Their officials have recognized though that they will have to present a different Olympics and judging from the presentation that the London contingent did in the closing ceremonies, it seems we are in for indeed a unique, if scaled-down treat in 2012.

It was a miracle that the Beijing Olympics hurdled its many obstacles – the human rights issue in Tibet, the May earthquake, the capital’s pollution woes etc. While the Tibet issue deserves its fair argument too, many people and nations seemed to prefer tackling the issue elsewhere and not make the games the scapegoat that others wanted to.

Many countries in the past have tried to politicize the games for their own agenda; some have succeeded with tragic consequences (The 1972 Munich Olympics where 11 Israeli athletes where killed by Palestinian terrorists) while some have disrupted their athletes’ chances of having their talents showcased in the world’s premiere sporting arena (the boycotts in the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics among others).

What the games simply are is a celebration of humanity. Beyond the Babel of different languages and the different appearances, the athletes of the world simply stood as one, shoulder to shoulder, smiling like kids and gamely posing for the television cameras as well as their own digital camcorders, cellular cameras and still cameras. After all, underneath our different skins, languages, clothes, beliefs etc, we are not that different at all from each other and what we really like best is just to play and make friends with each other and bring out the best in ourselves and in others. Maybe this is why we celebrate the Olympics as one big party for humanity. 

Memory is important

Is there hope at all that impunity will be defeated and that press freedom will still prevail in the Philippines?

Who knows. What I do know is that a step towards conquering impunity and the enemies of press freedom is what Spanish Journalist Ricardo Trotti said — that memory is important…in his keynote address at the 2nd day of the Impunity and Press Freedom International Conference held at the Manila Peninsula.

For me, this is the most important yet simplest message I heard in the 3-day seminar, that closed today.

What did he mean by this?