MikeLigalig.com

Which side of the “truth” is buttered?
Published on Oct 15, 2006 by The Bohol Standard Newspaper

A good friend in the media is notoriously known in his standing rule of asking first “which side of the bread is buttered” before commenting or printing a news.

Meaning, his kind of journalism is always dictated on what gains his brand of reporting brings to him (mostly computed in monetary terms). The news that would saw print in his newspaper or things he says on radio are always weighed in terms of which side of the story would bring him “return of investment.”

Well, he says that is how smart guys like him do things and he considers himself the best in that field.

That is his own interpretation of the media profession – a potent tool that welds power to coerce and intimidate in pursuit to what he terms as the “buttered side” of the bread.

Sad to say, many in the profession are in the same boat, enslaved by the lust to gain; going up to the extent of even prostituting a medium that should only be entrusted to those who have the calling.

They failed to comprehend the magnitude of what the Lord had warned: “Man does not live by bread alone...”

But leaves go brown and just like anything under the sun, each day brings us closer, back to where we come from – dusts in the wind.

This media man is no exception. He would certainly grow old and would return back to the mainstream society as a “has-been”, minus his menacing tag as a hard-hitting (eating) media man.

That would be the time of unwanted reckoning.
Can he look straight in the eyes of those he abused?
Words like “gaba”, would then become a reality that can’t be denied.
It can no longer be hidden, even with a bluff or a put-on crispy laughter.

*****
Remember the Story of Faust

Even Martin Luther believed Faust was possessed of diabolic powers. The first published narrative of Faust’s life was in Johann Spiess's “Historia von D. Johann Fausten” (also known as the “Spiess'sches Faustbuch”, 1587) in Frankfurt.

In Spiess's version, Faust buys knowledge, power and political clout from the devil for a period of 24 years, at the price of his immortal soul.

But at the end of the contract, he threatened the Devil and questioned the MOA.

He bragged he had a battery of prominent lawyers and has the Big Four as financial backers; but the Devil simply laughed him off.

“You bit more than you could chew (greedy). And now the end is near and you must face the final curtain,” the Devil said to Faust.

A German dramatist and critic, Gotthold Lessing (1598) explored the possibility of making a story redeeming Faust.

The version of his life story said of Faust becoming a desperate penitent, but too late in his repentance to save himself from damnation.

In the story, it could not be determined if Faust was able to escape his fate. But what is certain is: “the Devil is always smarter”.

Lesson for Today: Remember: “What comes up must come down.”

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