Aquino takes another swipe at PH media

JAKARTA, Indonesia (via PLDT) – President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday night took a dig at Philippine media for supposedly focusing on his love life and reporting negative news about the country instead of looking at its brighter side.

In an impromptu speech before the Filipino community here, Aquino said that there were instances that he had good news to tell the country but the media focused instead on his love life.

"There were several times I had good news to announce [but] they instead came out with [stories] about my love life," Aquino said. "I asked why is it that you are focusing on my love life – who I'm courting, where we eat, and what we talk about – instead of reporting that we have [good news] about fighting dengue? Unfortunately, that's true."

Aquino said people became intoxicated with freedom after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 and numerous newspapers sprouted.

"People who were so suppressed for 14 years suddenly found freedom to be so intoxicating, so we had 28 newspapers in Metro Manila alone and each one of them competed on a daily basis to find the most negative headline," Aquino said.

"[Of course] when you say the situation is good, there's no controversy...and then there's rumor-mongering," he added. (report from Philip Tubeza, Philippine Daily Inquirer)