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the unfortunate spin of 2016 presidentiable mar roxas
we saw the above tweet by philippine daily inquirer this morning. the strong coffee we were drinking was no match to that tweet waking us up.
first thing that popped in my mind was – “what? wow is roxas that rich that he will ‘give P4B to survivors’?”. i thought roxas would be the biggest individual donor to yolanda survivors. i thought roxas deserves a monument with his P4B donation to yolanda survivors.
i immediately clicked the PDI (philippine daily inquirer) link to read the full article and this was what we found out – 
contrary to the headline of the article, the P4B that “roxas will give to survivors” is not coming from his own pocket but actually from the government.
that headline surely and very strongly communicated the P4B was coming from mar roxas’ own pocket not from any government fund or government project.
the words said it (“Roxas to give P4B for survivors“) and not only that the lead-in to the headline also reinforced it – “Christmas in Lent”. that lead-in clearly says it is like some christmas present that roxas is giving to the survivors.
(full article here : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/593735/christmas-in-lent-roxas-to-give-p4b-for-survivors)
all that of course is incorrect. in fact the whole article talked about the funds coming from government funds. there was nothing at all in the article where it said it will come from the personal funds of roxas but all of it from the government.
it feels like two different people handled this article – the person who wrote the article is a different person who wrote the headline.
The P4 billion is apart from the almost P1.8 billion in rehabilitation funds that the government has started distributing to typhoon-stricken cities and municipalities in three regions in the Visayas, Roxas said at an orientation seminar on the Recovery Assistance on Yolanda here.
Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/593735/christmas-in-lent-roxas-to-give-p4b-for-survivors#ixzz2ydjv0gSu
so what happened there?
we think the misleading headline is the result of some PR work from Mar Roxas for the 2016 presidential campaign. the roxas campaign was able to get to the PDI reporter and/or the PDI desk editor on this one. often, the desk editor is the one responsible for writing the headlines for articles submitted by field reporters to the “desk”. the desk editor also has the prerogative to rewrite or add things to the article from the original that reporters write.
it is either the roxas PR team got to them or the PDI writer and/or desk editor somehow found it smart to write a misleading headline on their own. of course the first part is speculation on our part and perhaps even the second one too.
to be fair the PDI is one of the most if not the most difficult to do PR work with. they are very independent will write and publish what they want regardless of who it is trying to influence them.
we suspect that this was PR spin for two reasons – (a) the framing of the fund release is highly suspect, it was being framed as like a christmas gift (“christmas in lent”) and (b) “roxas giving P4B” is an idea that is not at all in the article. it does feel very much that the one who wrote the article is not the same person who wrote the headline.
on the first one, the closest that to the framing of a “christmas gift” was what roxas said was this which was in the article:
“Advance Happy Easter. May you spend your money wisely to help your [constituents],” Roxas told local officials of Capiz as he handed over more than P200 million in rehabilitation aid for his home province.
roxas mentioned “happy easter” but somehow the framing morphed into a “christmas gift”. “framing of messages” to favor or skew the message to a particular person or group is typically done by PR practitioners, not editors of newspapers. in this one, it is obvious the effort was meant for the benefit of mar roxas.
the other part of this is that we think saying the money is some kind of “gift” we feel is very insulting and degrading to the survivors. gifts, specially christmas gifts are a happy occasion and a source of joy, something that is given willingly. these funds are not at all in that context, the funds for the rehabilitation of destroyed properties of people. the people suffered and lost a lot. this is being received as a gift in the context of Christmas joy, it is aid or help to the misery that the people had to endure and are still enduring.
we understand mar roxas has plans to run for president in 2016 and by the looks of it the campaign period has already started with efforts already being done by his main competitor, vice president binay.
with that we also understand that there should now be PR efforts for the presdinetiables, but we think this kind of PR effort for the presdientiable mar roxas is very much misplaced and incorrect from a marketing and political campaign point of view.
if we are right about this being spin for the mar roxas campaing, then we think the campaign has not developed and is not following a strategic plan for the roxas campaign. that is a very dangerous lack and can hurt the presdientiable roxas.
supreme court decision – RH Law is “not unconstitutional”, is now law for implementation
SC upholds RH Law
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Voting unanimously, the Supreme Court upheld yesterday Republic Act No. 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act, but struck down certain provisions.
In summer session here, justices of the high court voted to declare unconstitutional eight provisions in the controversial law and in its implementing rules and regulations (IRR).
Voided were portions of Section 7 of the law, which require private hospitals owned by religious groups to refer patients to other health facilities and allow minors suffering miscarriage access to modern family planning methods without the consent of their parents.
The SC also struck down Section 17, which requires healthcare providers to grant free services to indigent women as prerequisite to securing PhilHealth accreditation.
Also voided were provisions in Section 23 penalizing health workers who fail or refuse to disseminate information on RH programs regardless of his or her religious beliefs, or those who refuse to refer non-emergency patients to another facility regardless of religious beliefs, or public officials who refuse to support RH programs regardless of his or her religion.
Also branded as unconstitutional is a provision in the IRR allowing married individuals not in an emergency or life-threatening case to undergo RH procedures without the consent of their spouses.
Headlines ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1The high court also declared unconstitutional Section 3 of the law’s IRR, which defined “abortifacient” as only contraceptives that “primarily” induce abortion.
The magistrates, who came up with 10 different opinions, voted differently on these provisions.
But except for the eight provisions, all 15 justices voted to declare “not unconstitutional” all other provisions questioned in the consolidated petitions.
The SC did not use the term “constitutional” in deciding on the legality of the RH Law, saying it used the double negative term since the constitutionality of the assailed law was assumed in the case.
The grounds used by the high court in making the decision, however, were not immediately known as copies of the ruling as well as those of separate opinions had not yet been released.
Associate Justice Jose Mendoza penned the decision, while Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno wrote her separate opinion in Filipino.
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/04/09/1310524/sc-upholds-rh-law
read the SC decision here : http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/microsite/rhlaw/
in a tweet, the supreme court had an explanation on the double negative in their decision of the RH Law being ” not unconstitutional as follows (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s1attl ) :
* The formulation that uses the double negative “not unconstitutional” is peculiar to constitutional adjudication and is premised on the presumption that all laws are presumed to be constitutional and the burden of showing that a law is unconstitutional is on the petitioner. Failing that burden, the declaration is in the double negative—“not unconstitutional.” To assert that it is “constitutional” would presume that the law operates on a starting point of unconstitutionality, which is not the situation; also to declare that a law is “constitutional” connotes a degree of permanent immutability, i.e., that the law can never be declared unconstitutional.
the main decision, read it here:
http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2014/april2014/204819.pdf
here now
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