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THE Washington Times editorial last Sunday, which drew an
unflattering picture of Gloria Arroyo on the eve of her State of the
Nation Address and visit to the American capital, was as much an
attack on US President Barack Obama as it was a smack on the
Philippine president.
The Washington Times—reportedly Ronald
Reagan’s favorite reading material when he was still in the White
House—does not conceal its rabidly conservative agenda, which is
diametrically opposed to Obama’s liberal platform.
Malacañang mouthpieces who took umbrage at The
Washington Times commentary, titled “Obama the sanitizer” should
perhaps have taken a cue from the White House’s own
reaction—which was, to borrow a term from local swardspeak, dedma.
Either the Obama administration has learned to
take such editorial smacks from its right-wing detractors in stride
or it does not give a hoot about what Washington’s “second
paper” has to say.
Online sources show that from October 2008 to
March 2009 The Washington Times had an average daily circulation of
83,511—about an eighth of the audited circulation of The
Washington Post, the number one paper in the District of Columbia.
The Sunday circulation of The Washington Times
for the same period was 43,889—roughly one-twenty second that of
The Washington Post.
Given the limited reach of The Washington Times,
some coffee-shop wags in Manila have ventured that perhaps more
Filipinos read or got to know of its “Obama the sanitizer”
editorial than the D.C. residents targeted by the paper.
In fact, “Obama the sanitizer” was at the
bottom of a lineup of three editorials published in last Sunday’s
edition of The Washington Times.
As of 2:30 p.m. Monday (Manila) time, The
Washington Times website showed that the first editorial,
“Americans’ right to carry,” generated 14 online comments and
the second editorial “No profit motive” seven.
The third editorial “Obama the sanitizer”
drew 19 comments from online readers, many of whom by their apparent
familiarity with the Philippine situation and, in a couple of cases,
by their grammatical lapses were probably Filipinos.
In response to the editorial, a Palace
spokesperson did offer a clue as to where The Washington Times was
coming from.
Brett M. Decker is the managing editor for
opinion pages of The Washington Times. He is the likely author of
“Obama the santizer.” However, even if he did not actually pen
the piece, he must have given it the once over and then caused its
publication.
Decker is also the author the life-story of
former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.—with the kilometric title
Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia Jr.,
the Visionary Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of
the Philippines. Whew!
Decker’s position in the ideological spectrum
can be reckoned even from the titles of a sampling of his articles:
“Frustration in the Desert” (March 15, 2004); “The Vatican II
Sham” (December 9, 2003); “The Jihad Menace to the West”
(October 16, 2003); and “Islam: A Religion of Conquest”
(September 24, 2003).
But Decker’s involvement in the publication of
“Obama the sanitizer” is not the only tell-tale sign linking one
of Mrs. Arroyo’s fiercest critics to the editorial.
Again online sources point out that The
Washington Times was founded under the direction of Unification
Church founder Sun Myung Moon in 1982.
During the paper’s 20th anniversary party in
2002, Reverend Moon was reported to have said, “The Washington
Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to
the world.”
By 2002, sources added, the Unification
Church—whose members some quarters call “Moonies”—had spent
about $1.7 billion in subsidies for The Washington Times. The paper
has lost money every year that it has been in business. By 2003, The
New Yorker magazine reported, the owners of The Washington Times had
spent a billion dollars since its inception.
In 2008 Thomas F. Roeser of the Chicago Daily
Observer mentioned that Moon had “announced he will spend as many
future billions as is needed to keep the paper competitive.”
Where does JdV figure in all this?
In 1999 Unification Church officials in Manila
invited several Manila newsmen to South Korea to attend a conference
of the Universal Peace Foundation in Seoul. To their surprise, they
found out that a speaker in one of the workshops was de Venecia.
Through the years the Pangasinan lawmaker has
evidently cultivated his Moonie ties.
An article in the website of Family Federation
for World Peace and Unification, another Moonie organization, spoke
of a gathering held in June at the COEX Convention Center in Seoul
where “nearly two hundred dignitaries from overseas [came] to
celebrate the successful publication of the surprising new
best-seller, Becoming a Global Citizen of Peace, the Reverend Dr.
Sun Myung Moon’s autobiographical memoir.”
The article added: “Current and former
political leaders both from Korea and from abroad participated in
this event, which coincided with a conference of world political
leaders organized by the Universal Peace Federation. Attendees
included . . . Alfred Moisu, a former president of Albania; Rahim
Huseynov, a former prime minister of Azerbaijan; Hassan Muratovic,
former prime minister of Bosnia; Hamilton Green, former prime
minister of the Republic of Guyana; Kessai Note, former president of
the Republic of the Marshall Islands; Jose de Venecia Jr., former
speaker of the house in the Philippines; Sir James Richard Mancham,
first president of the Republic of Seychelles; Gabriel Mesan
Agibeyome Kodjo, former prime minister of the Republic of Togo; and
Malimba Nathaniel Masheke, former prime minister of Zambia,”
Enough said.
dansoy26@yahoo.com
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