Media, minefields, and ‘deep throats’
But I cannot help saying this first! This I learned two days ago on Day 35 of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte that made me break into a sinister smile: If you have a stash of cash in hand or in the bank and you want to let it float around in limbo (the word used by presiding officer Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero) almost, repeat, almost undetected, you can purchase manager’s checks (MCs). The cash could come from your own account in the bank or as maletas of cold cash from somewhere else.
The bank charges a minimal amount for issuing MCs. You can purchase MCs (payable to yourself, the funds’ owner, or to some other) for any amount. These MCs can be kept for six months at most, and could be in the same bank if they are about to expire. Or they can be encashed in the same bank where they were purchased, or be redeposited later as MCs in your own account in the same bank, that is, raised from the dead, if you will. But for some reason that might render them suspect, especially if they are in large amounts, and after a period of time in limbo, you might think it better to deposit them in newly opened accounts in other banks. Hmmm…
When you purchase MCs (but do not encash or deposit them for a period of time for reasons of your own) the funds you used to buy them stay in the issuing bank’s internal settlement account, which means that the bank guarantees payment for the intended payees. In effect, the bank holds the funds in advance. In investigations involving ill-gotten and hidden wealth, I do not know how the money trail can lead to them and when red flags could be raised by the issuing bank to alert the Anti-Money Laundering Council. Learning about MCs in relation to “suspicious transactions” raised at the impeachment trial gave me an aha! moment.
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Not a few times, but sometimes in almost dismissive ways, have media reports been mentioned in the ongoing impeachment trial or elsewhere. It is as if the findings of the media (the mainstream veterans in the field) or of private individuals are not first class because these have not gone through the likes of Senate or House of Representatives committee hearings and investigations. Sometimes media reports are even labeled as “hearsay.” Oh, really?
It is not pejorative when journalists are referred to as writers of the first draft of history and as being in the front row as history unfolds. But to stretch the role of journalists even more, one can say that sometimes they are the first to step into the minefield, the ones to first dig into the tunnels on their own or break open Pandora’s boxes that could lethally explode in their own faces. To young journalist-wannabes, I sometimes have to say that “No story is worth dying for, else, who will tell the story if the writer is dead?”
And for those who bring up explosive information and plead for their stories to be written but insist that their identities be kept out of the story for security reasons even while knowing that the story has to have a byline, I say, “Paano ‘yan, ako ang mapapatay dito. (How now, I could be the one killed here.)” But there are indeed so-called “Deep Throats”—the sources—who have the goods that cry out to be laid bare. They also risk their lives.
I remember how the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) first broke in 2015 the case of Janet Lim Napoles and her involvement in the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund that was funneled into ghost projects and incriminated several high-ranking government officials. The main protagonists are now languishing in prison. That was not an easy story to break, according to PDI reporter Nancy Carvajal who, with editor in chief Letty Jimenez Magsanoc and other editors, made sure the story rested on solid ground even while making sure about security for persons concerned.
Indeed, breaking the story was among PDI’s defining moments as a major media institution. Carvajal had had her share of scares but, later, was compensated with a string of journalism awards. Many of these defining moments and banner stories are in the Inquirer coffee-table book celebrating 30 years in the industry. PDI turned 40 in December last year.
Watch—if you haven’t—the 2017 movie “The Post” (directed by Steven Spielberg) about how Washington Post journalists, editors, and the publisher worked together to expose the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon.
This is not to call attention to journalists as indispensable harbingers of truth, but good, hard work should not be hidden under a bushel or dismissed as hearsay. The bigwigs of this world, the powerful in high places, strut about with their heads high while overlooking the efforts of those in the trenches—they, journalists who do the initial spade work in terra incognita in order to get to the mother lode of information. How scary, how sacred a calling is that.
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