By Boy Guingguing
Bohol Sunday Post Publisher
For half a century, the Bohol Chronicle succeeded in perpetuating the myth that anybody who touched it with a 10-foot pole will have to bear the bitter consequences. Meaning, as a media institution, for 50 years it has taken a life of his own that anybody who messes up with this media institution, the one thing he can hope for is that he would emerge in one piece. If this Bglante may hazard a guess, it has come to a point that it can afford to claim an aura of invincibility.
No coward in the real sense, it earned the sobriquet, dragon slayer, because it considered public officials no sacred dragons. While other media enterprises adored sacred cows as if they are objects of pagan rituals, the Bohol Chronicle maintained its so-called independence. To the venerable paper, sacred cows are in fact milking cows to media interests beholden to the dispensers of favor.
The sting of the powerful weekly became more potent when it branched out into the airlanes. With DYRD as its broadcast arm, the tandem utilized its watchdog tag to the hilt. No one has mistaken its watchdog role until a political giant killer hooves into view. He is City Mayor Dan Neri Lim. Then the storied saga of the twin media outfit was never the same again.
When it comes to prying into the realm of official wrongdoing, no media firm comes close. Try looking for skeletons in the Chronicle/DYRD morgue and you will only find the carcasses of public officials whose refutations are shattered beyond recognition. With its credibility at its highest peak comes the concomitant equation that in terms of revenue generation it is way ahead of the competition. In fine, have financial muscle will fight anyone who is somebody in the political firmament.
You cannot fight city hall? Tell it to the editors of the paper. This means, even city hall is a fair and moving target.
But now, the battle lines are drawn. What used to be sacred cows in the enclave of public scrutiny are reduced to nothing but noisy bulls, so they say.
What will happen to the political future of Mayor Lim who assumed the role of a two-fisted sheriff in the mold of Wyatt Earp when he squared off with an otherwise untouchable media combined is now the subject of speculation. Both strong-willed, the torrid exchange between Mayor Lim and the Chronicle/DYRD combination is the most exciting warfare ever seen in print and heard on the air.
For the moment, the two protagonists are still enjoying massive support from their respective fans.
To balance the terror of his media adversary, Mayor Lim is riding on the crest of whatever is considered a power of its own of Station DYTR. Any limitation on the part of Mayor's Lim's media vehicle is more than compensated by his rabble rousing style and take no prisoner mantra.
A good copy all his own, Mayor Lim is no pushover in any kind of media attack. No wonder nobody is claiming the upper hand in this running word war amidst eager spectators enjoying every minute of it. It is as if it has come to a point of no return.
Both warring parties may be engaging in argumentum ad hominem, but the bone of contention was a simple problem about drainage.
If we have to give our two-cent worth of advice to Mayor Lim, if he wants to come out in this fight unmolested, all he needs is follow the swoosh motto of Nike leather and garments products' maker "Just do it". To our mind, that's the long and short of it. With all the resources at his disposal as principal tenant of city hall, a problem as simple as drainage needs a simple solution.
But it appears that Mayor Lim as a public servant is made up of a different breed. For one, he is not one willing to be dictated. If what comes from the point of view of DYRD/Chronicle business concern amounts to dictation for Mayor Lim to follow, then they are in for a big surprise.
If it will come to this, we are afraid that the two protagonists will be caught in an immovable object meeting an irresistible force scenario. That would be unfortunate to the people of Tagbilaran. In military parlance, they call it strategic stalemate. What a way to settle a simple problem that only needs a simple solution and by inference result to an impasse not of the own making of the helpless city population.