When hatred clouds our judgment

Pepe Alas

Jul 14

Hold your horses. Or rather, hold your tongues. Because we have to check different perspectives first on Liza Araneta-Marcos's seemingly disgusting tongue-sticking during her husband's inauguration before coming up with a conclusion.

Raissa Robles, a known anti-Marcos journalist, wrote:

What is this? First Lady Lisa (sic) Marcos sticks out her tongue at the Filipino nation just before her husband-president delivers a speech stressing UNITY. Rrrrrrright.

But ABS-CBN, a media company that was once shut down by President Bongbong Marcos's father and is often accused of bias against the Marcos family, saw it differently:

And after witnessing her husband taking his oath, Liza sweetly congratulated Marcos Jr. who, in turn, gave her a handkerchief so she could wipe off her tears. Embarrassed by the cheering crowd, Liza teased the crowd back by making face.

When "news" broke out a few weeks ago about the Marcoses and their friends partying in Amanpulo, we did little fact checking and immediately took it hook, line, and sinker. Marcos casí, eh. But that news turned out to be a hoax, possibly even a smear campaign. When the Marcoses went to Australia for a vacation after the election season, all sorts of nasty Amanpulo-like rumors came out again. During the campaign season, Marcos joked about having a troll army when he was obviously referring to his three-man social media team, but his haters (one of whom was Raissa's husband Alan) took advantage of it and turned it into a news item.

Has hatred finally clouded our good judgment?

If we are to attack Marcos and his family, why not do it fairly AND maturely? Because if not, we might appear more villainous than the people whom we try to paint as villains. We might begin to sound like the trolls that we abhor.

May the above two examples help us discern journalistic maturity.

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