Ben Contreras/ A MAN bitten by a dog is not news but a dog bitten by man is. Innocent people robbed and brutally killed, an entire family massacred, women raped and murdered, young students gangaped and killed, kids violated by adults, etc.. These happen all the time. Chances are, these types of crimes are committed by deranged individuals or those under the influence of drugs. And because all these are happening so often that they no longer draw much attention as they should be, much less from Commission of Human Rights or any international watchdogs, they are thus easily forgotten until the next crime. What can be different and long lasting? What attracts and draw attention? What can be manipulated to become controversial, something far from normal? Who can help make a mountain out of a mole? Certainly not a child raped and killed by a drug addict. Yup, they can write about it, take a few pictures perhaps but unmindful of the agony and pain of the victim’s families and relatives. How can the killing of a drug addict or pusher be any different from a child raped and murdered or any one’s death in the hands of criminals? It can. It happened and will continue to happen. Make it newsworthy than the death of an innocent child, raped and murdered by an addict. Take the best shot, the best angle, make it appear he’s a victim of social injustice or police brutality and that he is poor and he has a grieving family with many children to feed. Capture a grieving family left behind. Write the best story. Make it appear like extra-judicial killing. Echo the same in media. Make it a front page story. A lie repeated a thousand times can sound like truth. Aha, get an award from it. How far are they willing to go to destroy a President? Talk about his mistakes. Never mind what good he has done. See his weakness, his strength is their envy. Make fun of his illness and his medicine as if they don’t get sick, too. Compile all the ugly things happening around us as if we don’t enjoy the good things he’s done for the people. At least one is doing that. He’s got a great compilation of deaths and called the president a monster. He is probably not a relative of the child raped and murdered. He probably has more sympathy for a dead addict/criminal than a dead innocent child. It’s really about us, how we choose to believe and to become. Sometimes, our being is influenced not just by our belief but also by our biases. Go on, talk dirty and bad of our president. It’s your right and no one can and will stop you. Pray that your ego is big enough not to say “thank you” when one day you’re saved from a possible harm because our president made it possible to keep us safe. Make fun of our dead soldiers and wryly blame it on our president. But when millions witnessed how happy our soldiers are when our president risked his own life to be with them, then you must be missing something here, something you failed to see, deliberately. While you continue doing your things, there are also people who are helping instead of just criticizing. They would rather light a candle than curse the darkness. And they help in silence, “sariling kuot” pa, if you understand that. Yes, the president is not perfect. Yes, he could be not in the best of health. Yes, he is in his ’70s. But I can bet my life that years after he is gone, people will be saying, “Kung buhay pa lang sana si Digong.”