I fully agree with The Philippine Star editorial yesterday entitled “Intemperate” which chastised Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s speechwriter Assistant Secretary Maria Carmen Mislang for the Tweeter faux pas that was heard round the world; that the wine that their Vietnamese hosts served sucks and that Vietnamese men are not sexy; and if you wanted to die, just cross the road. These are statements that prove once and for all, that the people running Malacañang do not only lack experience, they lack social graces as well.
As the editorial said, “If a person is tech-savvy enough to tweet, she should be savvy enough to remember that every message posted on social media can be read by the whole world, including Vietnamese citizens and nosy journalists. And if a person is capable enough to be a speechwriter of the President of the Philippines warranting her inclusion in a lean Presidential delegation in his first state visit—meaning the host country shoulders the expenses—she should be capable of mature, responsible behavior in the President’s company, with the prudence to keep her intemperate remarks private.”
How very true. Mislang is a Cabinet Assistant Secretary with the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (CDSPO) who should have been given crash lessons on how to behave in a foreign country. Almost exactly a year ago, during the previous administration, I had the honor to be with the Malacañang Press Corps to attend the ASEAN Summit. I was able to meet up with the team of the late Press Secretary Cerge M. Remonde who allowed me to join their meetings before the President arrived. Believe me, Cerge made sure that he left no stone unturned in making sure that what they do won’t embarrass the President and our country. This never happened during the time of PGMA.
That’s exactly what the careless, reckless tweet by Assistant Sec. Mislang has done for the Philippines. Sure, she may have apologized to the President for her stupidity, but in my book, she insulted the Vietnamese people. She should have apologized in her tweet to their Vietnamese hosts. Sure, we can be flexible to allow a few kinks to happen here and there, but under the Aquino administration, there seems to be too many of this happening, not just in this country, but internationally as well. Let’s hope that these people will learn from their mistakes. So much for the Aquino government’s “On-the-Job-Training.”
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All Saints Day was observed by all Catholics all over the world. In Baghdad, gunmen believed to be linked with Al Qaeda entered the Our Lady of Salvation Church a Syriac Catholic Church and fired at all those attending the Holy mass killing 58 people including the priest, the Rev. Fr. Meyassr al-Qasboutros and scores of the faithful taken hostage. It was the worst massacre of Iraqi Christians since the war began in 2003. One would think that after the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire and after it embraced Christianity as a religion, it would have ended the persecutions of Christians. But apparently, 2,000 years later, the persecution continues.
Iraqi Christians once numbered from 800,000 to 1.4 million, but because of the war, half of them left their native Irag. This massacre no doubt would force more Catholics to move out of Iraq. As one hostage Catholic bewailed, “They came to kill Iraq, not Iraqis; they came to kill the reason to live.” This massacre has caused an outrage by the Muslim community in Iraq.
But strangely, except for the Vatican, where no less than Pope Benedict XVI came out to denounce this killing of Catholics, there is silence from Christians from all over the world. Yet in Sweden, when a cartoonist came up with a caricature of the prophet Mohammed, the entire Muslim world condemned its publication to the point of declaring a Jihad on that publication. What about us here in the Philippines? Do I hear anyone shout in condemnation that Catholics are being persecuted once more?
Worse, the killing of innocent (including the unborn) children which began during the time of the pharaoh and later with King Herod also continues up to this day, when irresponsible parents abort the blessing of a child that God gave them. Indeed, the Cory Constitution protects the wildlife or mammals to the point that legal environmental luminaries are filing cases on behalf of dolphins and whales but no one cares for the human species that has no protection from this constitution.
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The shooting to death of actor Kirk Abella in Barangay Parian by Tanod Edgardo Cuizon shouldn’t have happened if only there was some kind of coordination by the Film company with the Cebu City Hall or at least the barangay officials, where the shooting was being done.