CES RODRIGUEZ: Just another gossip writer or worse?” part II

The decadent 90’s marked an upsurge of the so-called “society” columnists. It was a time when everybody and her cousin were swashbuckling cameras, seeking the attention they thought they deserved from imprudent brand managers and their marketing ilk.

And oh yes- It was no less than Ces Rodriguez’ “party of fools” from the Philippine Daily Inquirer who started it all. (photo taken from: http://delfindjmontano.blogspot.com)

This same horde comprise what is known today as the infamous “Gucci Gang”. For almost a decade, their weeklies encouraged and featured drugs, parties and the “good life”.

Even before the arrest of the so-called “Alabang Boys”, this brat pack were staples of their “Gucci-Gang banged” columns (The Alabang Boys even appeared in Maurice Arcache’s column almost half a dozen times!). And who can forget the “Oh so Divine Lee…” whom they coined “Most likely to Succeed” and “Real Estate Heiress”…

And lets not forget Papa Gucci's mantra: "“There is this mind-set, which I think is so passe, that says: ‘The country is in shambles and the country is having a hard time and you are out there partying.’ But this generation is guiltless when it comes to that.”--Tim Yap, “Good times are back for rich folk in Manila”

Should we wax nostalgic or should they be encased in a wax museum?

Demagogues’ of Disgrace
taken from: amiel aguilar cabanlig

While we live in a society where man’s spirit is crushed at birth; where hope is absent and poverty is severe, demagogues thrive in this melancholy. By offering hollow bonbons, sugar-coated in enticing wrapping such as “aspirational” to naive upstarts, they easily tickle the fancies and enslave their souls.

The vocabulary of pretentiousness is nowhere as encyclopedic as in their weeklies. To these sybarites, greed has no moderation. Remember, your Hermes scarves are useless dahlins’, its hot where you’re going!

In a recent article I read, a senior columnist proposes an ethics body to be formed by journalists to “hear and decide the complaints about their abusive peers.” It’s quite amusing, that someone, somewhere, is coming up with a solution. But hey, didn’t it take almost a decade for their own daily to come to their senses and fathom the contemptuous self-serving dignitary that it bred and nurtured? The line to get your passport stamped doesn’t start at the Fort but can only go down from there. Sniff, sniff, sniff!

The PROBE Team has done a survey and says that a reporter takes at least P5,000 a month, an editor at least P10,000 pesos and a columnist at least P15,000 especially during elections! Geez, social writers wouldn’t even bother with these nickels and dimes.

Pushing the art of self-promotion to its toxic limits and masquerading it with spectacular events and public relations, columnist’s profits can easily go up to six figures. Not to mention threat, theft, corruption, hotels, caviar and cruises all in the name of “lifestyle journalism”. When it rains it certainly pours. But now that drought is upon them, can we call a shaman for some acid-rain.

Should we wax nostalgic or should they be encased in a wax museum?

Another case in point: the death of actor Rico Yan brought forth a superfluous national outpour of grief propelled by television. In its aftermath, print-media took stock to the hype and tried to make sense of the brouhaha. But when the same happened to a socialite friend of the guardians of high society’s fourth estate, millions of pesos worth of precious column-centimeters were devoted to beatify their dearly departed. A “cannibalism of grief” as some would say; a case of canonizing or denying ones guilt if I may say.

Will someone hand me the hand-sanitizer!

The declaration of demagogues is set in stone. But when they stumble and fall into disgrace, their alibis are all for naught.