The Medium Is The Message (About Philippine Media) Poem by Eddie Roa

Let’s not talk about terrorism, write, nor broadcast it
No more the sight of blood and gore from dismembered
Carcasses of men and women, young and old, and the tender flesh
Of babies scattered, alighting on treetops and eaves of houses
Unchecked hell, ball of fire singeing, bloody scimitars like
Venomous tongues of diamond-eyed serpents strike
With senseless abandon on bright sunny days of barrio fiestas

Innocents dragged for ransom, indiscriminate and ruthless
To forward political and religious causes, or is it just banditry?
The white flags drip red oozing from wounds of the unwary
Enough of this on tv, enough of this in newspapers and radio
Get your revenue from somewhere else, not from blood money
You only stoke the flames, ransoms go higher, embolden scum and make
Famous the infamous, opportunists into heroes ready for the polls

Enough of the false glitter reflected on the tube and silver screen
Let’s be done with silly plots, martyred women and crying waifs
No more the inane and vulgar dialogues and dragging scenes
Clothe the immodest, the mammalian freaks who bare as if in art
The sick and kinky pleasures penned by hysterical fairies
Selling obscene laughter from the tasteless slapsticks of gay ridicule
Lewdness and crudity are now clicheic fare regardless of audience

Let’s raise the cause for better media offerings
Uplifting themes, virtue rewarded, moral lessons to children
Heroes worthy of emulation, not the rich and the powerful who
Flaunt their ill-gotten loot, getting away with their insidious deeds
Let’s sing hymns to those who serve well, applaud exemplars from the barrios
Those who labor with honest toil, plowing and seeding the native sod
Let media deny those who self-aggrandize, those who create saccharine images
Reject bulging envelopes of releases with ulterior motives and wads of bills
News that disinform, make malice, besmirch the honest, lionize the crooked
The tube and the diode box are bad news, the press blotted by its own ink
Let’s now defer listening, seeing and believing the heralds of a muddied estate