Make no mistake of our defensive posture. For all you know, we are being true to form. We believe in the dictum defense is the best offense. For two days last week, this BGlante took offense to insinuations made by a fellow broadcaster who made a molehill into a mountain of lie. By now, the Boholano listening public must have discerned in its full glory the canard peddled around by lawyer Salva Diputado that a media man has the temerity to be associated with a known drug lord based in this city. Dropping broad hints that the erring media practitioner is receiving drug money from the high-profile drug personality, it has come to the point that the subject of the bribe accusation is already identifiable.

Why are we raising hell in behalf of a colleague who allows himself to be lured with dirty drug money, if at all, there's an iota of truth to the Diputado bombast? For one, the sweeping accusation put all media practitioners in a cloud of doubt. Everybody is suspect. The furor over the Diputado accusation started during his radio program over Station DYTR where the lawyer-broadcaster who happens to be my kumpare, insinuated that a source tipped him off of a CCTV footage featuring the media man in the company of other favor seekers forming a beeline in the vicinity of the drug suspect's house. In subsequent broadcast, Diputado revealed that the video came from the CIDG, one of the police units involved in a recent raid of a known drug lord identified as Sherwin Bautista.

Thinking maybe that his revelation was founded on authentic grounds, he took the tip (actually it was a mere text message) at face value by repeating again and again in his radio program his supposed scoop. Until Station DYRD's Inyong Alagad could not take it anymore because the yarn being peddled raised an accusing finger in the direction of the media powerhouse. Meaning, the media personality accused of consorting with the enemy, belongs to station DYRD. Based on Diputado's assertion that the video footage has its origins from the CIDG, the program anchors lost no time in locating the subject police unit and put on the air its head Police Senior Inspector Carlos Lictag. With the program anchors taking turns in interviewing Lictag, what came out straight from the horse's mouth was that there's no such video footage in its possession.

In categorical fashion, the CIDG head denied vehemently the existence of such a video. With Diputado's lies exposed to the full sunlight of scrutiny, he is left with two options: substantiate his allegations that there exists a CIDG tape or admit before his listeners that he is a victim of a bum steer or nakuryente in journalism lingo. It may be normal that once in a while a journalist, even how jaded he may be, may succumb to the vagary of “electrocution.” Kuryente happens when an unsuspecting media takes hook, line and sinker a supposed exclusive story as truth only to turn out as a hoax. But in the case of Diputado, being a lawyer at that, he should have exercised prudence before opening up his mouth. In his carelessness, he runs the risk of being accused of irresponsible journalism, for his failure to validate his claims which turn out to be false as attested by the CIDG. As a lawyer, he should know what is hearsay in the rules of court or in the bar of public opinion. Anytime this week, the media man alluded to by Diputado in his broadcasts will come out in the open to deny all the malicious allegations thrown his way. Once he shows up to tell all what was behind the so-called CIDG tape, Diputado will have his hands full dodging the slings and arrows targeted in his direction from a discerning public. That done, either his reputation will be shattered to pieces or if he's proven right, he can afford to strut around like a peacock telling everybody else that didn't “I tell you so”.