But you will have to get your facts straight as well, Chuck. It appears you are being blinded by you anger towards my first (and perhaps second) comment. I do not live here in Australia. I live in Davao, but I’m studying in Australia for one year. After studying here in Australia, I will be coming home to Davao to work my ass off for the improvement of our entrepreneurship education program there. Furthermore, I do not live a comfortable life here in Australia at all. I have just enough to get me through the year. I can work part-time but decided not to because I’d like to get the most out of the university I’m in so that I have a lot to give when I come home. I don’t at all think that I’m being more patriotic than anyone else (I don’t even know why you would think that I do), but I’d like to think that what I’m doing is patriotic enough, wouldn’t you?

granting, for the sake of argument, that davao today is biased toward critical news — that, i would like to think, is its mandate. it is an alternative media outlet. if you noticed, it carries items from marginalized sectors that mainstream papers like the inquirer or your favorite davao papers don’t even bother to print. in that sense, davao today balances the utterly mainstream and uncritical coverage of events of the mainstream press. in that sense, it serves a good purpose to us all. by castigating it for printing critical news, you are in effect telling davao today to just live with the status quo.

having said that, name one davao paper or media outlet that depicts the “real” davao city? and what exactly is the real davao city, mark? is it just the beach? the mall? the durian? is it just the pretty decorative orchids on its streets?

and if davao today does not carry critical news — the news of its dispossessed, the victims of abuses and neglect — who would?

the problem with you is that you reacted instinctively to only one story on the site that got your goat. have you checked out the travel and leisure section, for instance? before you disparage an entity like davao today, be sure of your facts. and be sure where you stand. don’t think that just because you’re lucky enough to live in australia, everybody thinks like you do.

since you mentioned patriotism, i dunno mark. you chose to live what i can imagine as a comfortable life in australia, perhaps because you’ve grown tired of the philippines. (poor me, i’m stuck in matina.) don’t delude yourself in thinking that just because you’re spending one year in davao city for that entrepreneur thing you said you’re doing you’re more patriotic than the rest of us. the problem with you people who make good abroad is that when you come home and find our place in disarray, you think we’ve not been working as hard as you do. that somehow gives you the moral right to be arrogant to the rest of us.

Chuck, the tone of your comment provides hints on the type of person that you are. But I am still hopeful that you do not really think/talk that way off-line and that this tone of yours was only fueled by the anonymity that the Internet provides. I don’t completely blame you though, it happens to every Internet user every now and then.

Chuck, I never said I can’t take the negative news and neither did I say I want only the good news all the time. My comment above clearly stated that, as a reader and, effectively, as a customer of this website, I would like for it to deliver a balanced view of my city. I find it odd that you would think a news website should only deliver bad news. News encompasses both good and bad and I believe both types are present in Davao City just as any other city. Furthermore, both types are worthy of being presented in any news website and not just in magazines that you listed below. I find it odd that you would think otherwise.

The Philippines is like a very very sick person right now. But like a person trying to get better, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to tell him the bad news AS WELL AS the good news about any progress that he is making, however small that progress may be? A little motivation goes a long way. You can probably attest to that.

Don’t think that just because a person wants to hear of the good news that he’s being unpatriotic, Chuck. On the contrary, the person who only wants to hear of the bad news would be more unpatriotic…or perhaps will have the stronger tendency to become unpatriotic in the long run if that’s all the he or she will hear. Give that a bit of a think before you start typing your response. Also, please try to sound more like a grown-up when you reply. Your last one was totally unclassy and puts any civilized man to shame.

God bless you, Chuck.

The way I see it, DavaoToday doesn’t truly portray what Davao really is today.