🇵🇭 PANGASINAN • Flesh-Eating Disease: Of Prophecy, Hypocrisy & Politics

"...though media are very entertaining and informative, our role is to become critical thinkers."

When I heard about the news of a mysterious flesh-eating skin disease having an outbreak in Villasis and Sta Barbara towns in Pangasinan, I was not surprised. I personally think that news like this may appear anytime. Being linked to a prophecy, some (not all) of the Filipinos went wild.
 

[VILLASIS] A town said to be one of the locations of the disease

This country, being run by [some] people who never experienced to become poor (and probably never tried nor attempted traveling to the poor communities of the remote areas), the root of poverty would be very hard to determine (for them, the rich). In such case, finding the solution for poverty would be very hard. This scenario might lead to poor delivery of social services, education and health care. Now I want to relate the latter to this gone-viral news.

 THE NEWS

Bandila, a late-night news program in ABS-CBN reported that a skin disease they call as mysterious is spreading in Pangasinan. The news made the netizens hysterical. Fear and worry flooded my Facebook and Twitter timeline for that news.

A prophet, who has predicted a strong typhoon (Yolanda) in Samar and Leyte to happen, was linked to this news. The latter also mentioned this flesh-eating disease to happen in Pangasinan. This prediction became the cause of hysteria.

OF FEAR, HYPOCRISY AND BEING RELIGIOUS

I laughed the idea of some people that they should start praying to God now, or magbagong buhay (have a new better life) upon learning this news. Why??? Why people only learn to pray and have a new life when there are news like this? Some people seek God because of fear. Fear is the motivation to their 'going back' to God and not because they really love God. A bunch of hyps!

Hypocrite people pop out during fearful conditions like this. They become religious. They talk about God. They want to go back to God. But when they all have the happiness and wealth in the world, they forget God. They only remember the Lord when they are covered by fear. So what's the use of returning to God? Coping mechanism for fear? For the foregoing, I am only referring to coward hypocrite people. I know there are people there who seek God for better or for worse, sincerely.

The idea I just want to point out is, we must love God because we really love Him - in every moment of our life, and not because we need Him or we feel fear and we want Divine security.

OF POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

When the news came out, the victims of this skin disease dragged the attention of the public. Public officials of Pangasinan visited the victim to offer help. This scenario does not only happen in Pangasinan - it happens in the Philippines in general.

Thanks to the news. Whether it's malicious, factual, fictitious, excellent, irresponsible or whatever you want to call it, I still consider it as an eye-opener. It has shown [the news] to the public how poor is the delivery of health services to poor Filipinos who have serious illness like this. The poor are suffering while few people are enjoying the wealth of the Land that is supposed to be allocated for public services. I should have not been emphasizing the poor condition of the Filipinos because there are also wealthy Filipinos. But since we always hear news of corruption of public officials everyday, I want to mention poverty as the result of corruption.

Ok, let's say the news is tantamount to irresponsible journalism. But what if this news did not come out? Shall these poor people get the attention of our public officials that quick? Or will just die in suffering and poverty? In that case, such mistake somehow opened the eyes of many Filipinos about the alarming condition of poor Pinoys.

OF IGNORANCE

So people are blaming the media.  Some people have never grown up. Of course the mainstream media is a 'commercial media.' In the first place, these mainstream media are there for profit. This is business. Sometimes they control you. They show you unhealthy food and branded drugs so that you will buy them -- and most of the time you believe them.

What I am telling is, though media are very entertaining and informative, our role is to become critical thinkers.  As long as there is profit, the mass media will be there and it will depend on you if you're going to watch them or not. If you want to watch them, be wise, think critical. Don't put the drama as if it happened in your life just because you were carried away by the emotion and excellent cinematography. Below is a comment from a facebook netizen.

[SCREENSHOT] A facebook netizen's opinion.

So what now? The video showed a pitiful picture of common Filipinos. They slowly die in pain, in disease, in poverty and these two featured victims represent the many more Filipinos dying of poverty and poor health care while some politicians allegedly enjoy the luxury of stolen wealth from the public fund. HEY PUBLIC OFFICIAL? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN HOW PITIFUL THESE PEOPLE ARE? #NGANGA!!!

And if ever this is a true mysterious flesh-eating disease and you decided to release fund to control it, it's too late!!! You only act now? Now that you're afraid that this disease will soon penetrate your exclusive village? /end

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions. You can rebut it. At the end of the day, we can not please everyone because the principle of Pedro might be different from the principle of Juan. My personality in writing this is of being a travel blogger. Pangasinan is a very beautiful province close to my heart. Having seen the poor communities of the remote villages, I decided to touch this Pangasinan news as an illustration to the real situation of the poor Filipinos as a whole.

PANGASINAN #TownExploration Series

Map showing the Location of Pangasinan