Editorial

Only a Maranao can speak for the Maranaos

No matter how we try but still we could not understand why our local leaders and other local officials in agencies of the government in the Islamic city of Marawi and province of Lanao del Sur are spending much in inviting media people from outside the city for press conferences, or every time they want to announce something to the public, and ignore local practitioners who are more competent and more deserving than many of those they are inviting.

We know many of these media people they are inviting are not journalists in the true sense of the profession. They are blackmailers thus if you don’t give them money, they will hit you left and right, accusing you of even the most unfounded blunder if only to satisfy their anger, and possibly for you to bow down to what they like.

The GMA reporter’s notebook which reported biased and unfair reports of municipal halls in some towns in Lanao del Sur is an example of sheer blackmailing. Other municipalities whom they visited would have been mentioned in the report if the mayors did not give certain amount to the lady stringer and her company.

We know that it was so because the report was abetted to the giant media outfit by a known stringer of cheating officials. One former town mayor informed The New Ranao Star that this stringer promised to publish something in a MIndanao daily paper and asked big amount from the mayor who readily gave.

Until now, the former mayor said, the lady stringer had not published the document.

Another fraudulent practice is that of an Iligan based radio commentator who affiliates himself to a block-time program he does not own, to have a way of going on the air. This man is making money by going around soliciting donations for activities he would sponsor wherein for certain amount he will give an award to somebody, even if that somebody does not deserve an award.

Surprisingly, most of his clients are officials based in Marawi and Lanao del Sur.

Have our local leaders in government really no trust to the local media practitioners that they cannot support them like inviting them in their press conferences and media announcements?

Or are they afraid of these media shams from outside who are nemesis to the media profession that they can give in to any thing they dictate because they (these leaders) are also hiding something that they fear may surface and be among the likes of those scandalous corrupt officials?

Whatever the reason they may have, they should trust the local media practitioners because like them they are also Maranaos, and like them they are also concerned to the welfare of their people. Nobody and nobody can truly understand a Maranao except a Maranao. And nobody and nobody can truly speak for the Maranaos except a Maranao. Besides, the local practitioners are competent enough than many of those media imports.

RANAO STAR