Passing Thoughts

The world of multi-media continues to flood us today with information that test the limits of our ability to appreciate, understand and respond.

Television programs of leading networks bombard viewers with violence and entertainment rather than intellectually stimulating presentations. Major daily broadsheets including tabloids and regional newspapers splash sensational headlines over stories that build a culture of peace and harmony. Radio programs saturate the airwaves with discussions that heave more on personality conflicts than issues and actions: All summed up, these contents easily drown out whatever independently formed views we have about today’s current realities.

Today’s opinions are shaped on people’s minds not mostly on account of logical appreciation of issues and facts, but largely by persistent presentation of biased and politically loaded stand of quite amount of information materials we get from newspapers, televisions and radio programs.

Principled thinking had become invariably modified or altered by the swinging of personal conviction from one stand to another depending not on how credible information is presented but on how emotions are graphically played up to sway sentiments to a directed end.

This reality partly explains why many have started to become passive and would rather offer cynical views about the future, with confidence waned and enthusiasm lost.

There is no certainty if media awakening will ever emerge or is possible in not too distant future. But with the way the general public reacts to major political developments, it will be a while before we see Philippines as a nation united, with people solidly rallying behind the government.