By Geraldford P. Ticke

UNDERSCORING A story is one way a writer or a reporter, for this matter, entices readers to dig deeper in to the content rather than merely reading the title and then turning the pages of the papers. And one way to do this is to quote anonymous sources aside from the regular personalities who give details of certain breakers, especially controversial events that unfold by the minute. This is however an escape for some reporters to setup one-sided reports that often makes minor events blown up to draw unproportional attention.

It is not once that we’ve read items where Lady Justice’s hammer came crushing down, handling verdicts to individuals and/or organizations allegedly in the middle of something illegal through the inks and the tube. And while finger-pointing between our government and political leaders come swinging, the real culprits freely watch along the sidelines, laughing out loud at how they were able to make a mockery of the system.

Now the powers that come with the pen that a reporter holds have been overtaken by another tool – the Internet. Just recently, the Palawan Times webblog were flooded with anonymous comments, some of them even appearing that the comments came from the Paper itself. These commentors who use blatant and derogatory remarks yet hide behind the furtive curtains of the net are nothing but cowards who just want to employ press freedom for their own satisfaction at the expense of other people’s credibility and integrity. Sad to say for those who were able to go at it the first time around, these kinds of reactions have no place in the pages of our papers and the web as our editor has manifested.

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The soon-to-be-signed baseline bill recently approved by Congress, made Palawan officials squirm. The baseline excluded the Municipality of Kalayaan and other islands in the Kalayaan Islands Group being claimed by the Philippines outside the territorial baselines and will soon become a “regime of islands” of the country, thanks to the opposition of other claimant countries in the Spratlys, particularly China.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile asking for “battleships and squadrons” to fight for the country’s claims to Scarborough Shoal in the Spratly Islands and the Kalayaan Island Group only shows how a third world country such as ours bows its head to the mighty ones.

The two representatives (Alvarez and Mitra) of the province in the House battled it out during the bicam deliberations but as Mitra said, they were outnumbered when voting came.

Keeping in mind the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas provisions, maybe our government officials should look at American State Hawaii or Guam, for this matter. Kalayaan, just like Hawaii, is a municipality of Palawan having established a municipal government since Marcos’ proclamation. The only difference is, America is a super power and the Philippines is