Spratlys > Analysis

The Biased Filipino Media Towards China: Ideology, Spratlys etc.

By www.spratlys.org on 2006-04-26, published on http://www.spratlys.org/ 2006-12-30

The article "Disturbing the peace" published in Manila Times on April 24 2006 shared the author's views on some happenings during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States of America on 23 April 2006. From this article one can find how biased the Philippine media and general public is towards China on the related issues.

About Falun Gong Sect, whether the author has done his research on this sect is unknown. Anyway Falun Gong appears to him "is a mind-body practice based on truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, and includes gentle exercises and meditation". What the author and the public should also be notified is the fact that many followers of this "truthfulness a spiritual meditation exercise" committed inhuman crimes of killing their own family members in order to achieve "heaven" or "to help their loved one to go to heaven", as inspired by the Sect Chief Li Hongzhi. The obvious missing part about the Falun Gong is that in many places dominated by the western media, people blindly believe that the Falun Gong is a pure "meditation exercises" and don't look into this sect members' real behaviors or ignore what they did before the sect was "clamped down". Sympathy based on fiction but not facts affects many westerners and even prevents them from getting to know the truth of the Falun Gong Sect.

We also notice that while more and more often China has been viewed as a capitalist country by many in the world, with its free market and economy and its capitalist thinking and the living styles of many Chinese people. The ideology of communism in China is diminishing yet here in the Philippines, the ideology on "Communist China" has not changed at all. Whether the Chinese government or leaders is a dictatorship or not is for the Chinese people themselves to check and say, not someone here in Manila to declare.

On the Xizang (Tibet) Issue, again, the people living inside the Xizang Province have more say than those who are outside China and having no real knowledge of the real situation there. One should understand the pre-liberation Tibet situation under the Dalai Lama's dark reign - note it was not free at all, but a slave society.

One should also notice that it is a common for the Filipino media and reporters to mention the Spratlys at any time they feel like, while many do not really know the truth behind. The Filipino politicians and congressmen have always played the Spratlys Card since long ago, even before the Philippines entered into the Spratlys Disputes. Here in the article, the author says "China occupied Philippines' Spratlys" but the truth is the Philippines for the interest of oil and national security, invaded and occupied what it recognized as Chinese territory when oil findings emerged in the 1970s and betrayed its promises to the Nationalist Taiwan and made good use of the time to intrude into the Spratly Islands when Taiwan's position in the United Nations was replaced by mainland China. (At the same days Taiwan was expelled out of UN, the Philippines fought with the Taiwanese troops stationed on the Spratly Islands and occupied a few islands since then). Which one is the invader and the shameless one, it is quite clear.

We have seen many of such biased articles, reports and news in western and South East Asian media, and sure they will continue to appear for some time. Many readers will continue to be blinded by these views. This marks the funny part of these so called free media -- they are not promoting understanding and cooperation among peoples and nations but try to create misunderstandings, they call themselves "free" and "rightful", but simply ignore others parties' points.