Big Brother

A fashion designer was caught on video berating, taunting and eventually humiliating a Duty Free store clerk, by apparently demanding that he kneel down in front of him and ask forgiveness for "inconveniencing" him during a check out. The video clearly shows an irate Boyet Fajardo raining down on a store clerk. Naturally, the video made its way to the media, and was played for all its worth. An expected cyber-outrage immediately erupted. As the smoke was clearing, charges were filed against the designer, who issued a public apology for his "creative outburst". Such is the power of the video camera in today's society, where it can both be a cure and a curse to society's ills.

I cannot help but wonder if he would have issued an apology or even admit to this deplorable celebrity attitude if there were no video available of the incident. But mind you, there are still those who deny certain things even in the presence of irrefutable proof such as photographs or video. People like Jimmy Paule who would cry "Photoshop!" over a picture showing him in the company of people also complicit in the Fertilizer Scam, and the policemen in the EDSA shootout. But pictures do paint a thousand words, accusations too. If only we had video of the Dacer-Corbito kidnapping, the "conversation" between Sen. Ping Lacson and Michael Ray Aquino, the brawl at Valley Golf, the shooting of de la Alas by Tony Leviste, First Gentleman's "Back off!" gesture, if only to give more details to these stories and pin down those criminally involved. Indeed, video is now an important tool in providing the truth.

But at the same time, we have seen how the privacy of people have been violated and trampled on, for the sake of accepted voyeurism. Society is just all too hungry for more of the private lives, and parts, of people. And let us not forget the biggest brother of them all, government. I remember the installation of a video camera focused on the gate of La Salle Greenhills, where ZTE/NBN whistleblower Jun Lozada and his family are still in residence. Perhaps we should turn the cameras on them, and follow them wherever they go. I'm certain that the country would be better run, and corruption be made extinct, if we could be at every meeting, every conversation, and every deal that government makes.