Losing cool is only human

The problem with what goes online is that people almost always automatically assume it to be true. To its great pain and embarrassment, the Philippine Daily Inquirer belatedly found this out to be so.

Needing photo support for its story about President Aquino being on Time Magazine's annual list of 100 Most Influential People in the World, PDI snatched what it found online and thought to be the Time cover for the story, for the simple reason that it had Aquino on it.

Alas and alack, the photo was a big fake. Aquino was not the cover for the edition in question. Time did not even include Aquino in its smaller list of seven people it considered to put on the cover.

Accordingly, there is reason to believe a video posted online about the Philippine consul general in Vancouver, Jose Ampeso, does not tell the whole story. In the video, posted by Proceso Flordeliz Jr., Ampeso was shown in a rather uncharacteristic and undiplomatic mood.

Flordeliz supported the video with his own account of the incident depicted therein, which was essentially that Ampeso supposedly got mad that, while applying for a passport renewal, Flordeliz only offered a dollar when asked for a Red Cross donation.

But a caller to Anthony Taberna's Punto por Punto TV program on ABS-CBN recounted an entirely different side of the story. The caller, who claimed to be present during the incident, said it was Flordeliz who was reacted haughtily and arrogantly when asked for a donation.

Unfortunately for Ampeso, this side of the story did not have any video support. It was only the footage showing Ampeso in a state of agitation that was posted online and which quickly whipped up a firestorm among netizens.

That freedom of expression is alive and kicking on the Internet is an understatement, judging by the comments generated by the incident, which swung widely from being sober and making sense to being nasty and totally out of whack with what was going on.

I will not bother with these comments as everything, it seems, is fair game in the unrestricted world of cyberspace. But there is one comment which, based on my own personal experience, I cannot but have to disagree with.

The one comment that caught my attention said that "Ampeso, being a diplomat, should have conducted himself diplomatically," which I understood, in this context, to mean with decorum, or in a nice and appropriate manner.

First off, let me correct the impression that a consul (which Ampeso was) is a diplomat (which he was not). An ambassador, an envoy, a minister, or a charge d' affaires is a diplomat. A consul, or an attache, is not.

Diplomats conduct diplomacy in representation of their country, protect the interests of their nationals, and promote information, trade and cultural exchanges. Consuls, on the other hand, perform administrative functions, like processing visa applications.

 This is not to say consul Ampeso is exempt from acting "diplomatically" because he is not a diplomat. All I am saying is the online comments against his behavior are misplaced when taken in this context. But then again, who says even diplomats cannot lose their cool?

I say they can and they do and I have the experience to prove it. This was some years ago, at a presscon called by the American ambassador to the Philippines at the time (I will not name him since he has nothing to do with the Ampeso incident).

The presscon was by invitation only and we were all seated around a long table at the Mactan Cebu International Airport VIP Room. The ambassador was answering a question when the door suddenly flung open and in strode a female radio reporter.

With microphone in hand, she strode toward the ambassador and thrust the device straight into his face. With quick reflexive action, the US envoy slapped the microphone away and sent it flying. "Take that away," he screamed at the girl. Now who says diplomats can't lose their cool?