Lessons drawn from the ‘anti-planking’ issue
1. It can take a genius, a magician even, to create it as top trending topic, here in Philippines and beyond.
2. That 15-minute of fame has a price.
3. The anti-planking bill is not, after all, stupid nor idiotic or that is tantamount to saying all those who tweeted and more so those who re-tweeted are themselves stupid and idiotic.
4. There is absolute freedom in the internet and the National Telecommunications Commission is obviously sleeping on its job.
5. No intelligent argument could be formed from mere motherhood statements such as, but not limited such phrases as – “there are more urgent problems”, “it’s a publicity stunt”, “pushing the envelope too far”, “more absurd than planking itself”, “current level of idiocy in Congress”, “waste of taxpayers’ money”, et cetera, et cetera.
6. Left-leaning party-list representatives become ‘poster boys’ for planking activists to the point they made it ‘currency’ in all subsequent street rallies or protest actions.
7. One TV organization failed to take a more balanced view on the issue thereby defeating the real role of the so-called Fourth Estate.
8. A careful, perhaps dutiful look at the comments posted on Twitter or Facebook by the irreverent dissenters or oppositors to the anti-planking bill readily show that there are not much variations on a theme as one can only count by his fingers what comments were set forth (e.g. stupid, idiotic, useless).
9. A more serious, possibly mature and responsible commentary on the bill is yet to be advanced not to mention the sad fact that there is yet to be a blog site that will post the text of the bill, its explanatory note and the companion press statement unless that of Prof. Prospero de Vera could be considered as one.
10. Should a word be added in the lexicon, the word to “tweet” ought to be mean to “character-assassinate” and Twitter as such, is inhabited by a universe of ‘character assassins’.
11. A rather oblique argument claims that the bill is unconstitutional as being violative of the freedom of expression despite author’s claim to the contrary.
12. It should be worth considering how Dep Ed or CHED could be made to operate in an ‘enabling environment’ when it can property perform its inherent ‘extra-parental’ authority over students.
13. When did a ‘Code of Student Conduct’ became too bad to even think about in a bill unless one can say the Code of Ethical Conduct for All Government Officials and Employees has been a useless law?
14. The chief proponents opposed to the bill uncharacteristically pretend that obstructing flow of traffic, harm that street protests could inflict on others and the like are not at all unlawful or illegal.
15. A planking world has called attention to oneself as though every right-minded parent will allow his son or daughter to plank in furtherance of political beliefs.