Jim Paredes, Filipino entertainer and die-hard fan of President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III, is on the warpath. On a Facebook post today, he lashed out at veteran Manila Times columnist Rigoberto ‘Bobi’ Tiglao accusing him of making false statements about his citizenship.
Paredes was reacting to a blog post on Politics.com.ph (Politiko) titled Tiglao blasts Jim Paredes for meddling in PH affairs despite ‘Australian citizenship’. Note that enclosed in quotes in the blog post title is the text “Australian citizenship”. However, the actual words quoted off Tiglao’s Manila Times article‘Daang Matuwid’: PH’s most wacko slogan ever – plagiarized from Islam?, did not have any such. In his article, Tiglao actually stopped short of categorically asserting Paredes possesses Australian citizenship…
A big fan of Aquino, Jim Paredes, pretends to be concerned about the nation, when in his middle-aged years, he chooses to be an Australian.
The Politiko blog site itself, which Paredes relied on for the information upon which he issued his tirade against Tiglao, is guilty not just of sensationalist reporting but deliberately misleading its readers. Consider too that, Paredes was but a mere side note in Tiglao’s lengthy article on topics of greater significance to humanity in which mention of Paredes took up all of those 20-odd words the Politiko article fixated itself on.
This did not stop Paredes from calling Tiglao “A LIAR or a really bad journo who doesn’t check his facts”, and issued this challenge:
If you can prove me wrong I will give you 10Million Pesos more than you ever received from PGMA admin. Where will I get the money? The same place where you get your facts.
Funny enough, it seems it is Paredes who did not check his facts and, instead, reacted prematurely to the Politiko headline without actually reading the article itself. Rather than post a link to the original source of the quote on which he based his tirade, he, instead, posted a link to the second-hand information in the Politiko blog. Note too that he himself accuses Tiglao of being in the payroll of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Perhaps he should prove those allegations first.
As to Paredes’s inclination towards presuming to accuse anyone of being a liar? That’s even funnier, considering Paredes himself is one.
That said, Paredes, being associated with a group whose members are not really known for being the brightest bulbs in the Philippines’ chattering classes, makes it no surprise that he’d focus on the wrong aspect of the argument. Anyone can comment on Philippine politics and national affairs. Whether one is a Filipino citizen or not is irrelevant. What is important is how well a person’s arguments stand up to critical evaluation. That’s what Paredes could have argued instead of go down the path of a pointless quibble on citizenship.
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