‘Moratic’ stories

The Inquirer’s editors should be ashamed of the sensational treatment they gave a banner story about the PCSO endowment program, citing as sources unidentified PCSO insiders. (“PCSO stops fund ‘abuse’; 112 charity groups no longer getting P116M,” Inquirer, 9/25/11)

According to PCSO Chair Margie Juico in a Sept. 26 follow-up, inside-page news item (“https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/65005/pcso-chief-assails-fund-misuse-not-abuse”), the Sept. 25 story was a “reprinting of (Manuel) Morato’s column” (in another paper of much smaller circulation). The Sept. 25 Inquirer story consisted largely of Morato’s charges, and the Inquirer should have published the story under Morato’s byline instead of Jerry Esplanada’s.

In the Sept. 26 inside-page story giving Juico’s reply, Esplanada again showed his bias by using about half the space to repeat Morato’s charges, already extensively reported in the Sept. 25 story.

In the language of Inquirer columnist Conrado de Quiros, this is very “Moratic.”

—BENITO LEGARDA JR., [email protected]