Cheap shots in social media

A portion of Conrado de Quiros’ column “What doesn’t kill you” (Opinion, 12/30/13) prodded me to write this letter.

It was especially in the days following the Supertyphoon “Yolanda” tragedy last November that I read on my Facebook newsfeed various comments that also “…ceased to have a semblance of serious disputation, and had become brainless and venomous rant” (as De Quiros described antigovernment comments regarding the Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Disbursement Acceleration Program).

Reading the comments was dismaying, tiresome and dispiriting, not because people were expressing their anger (at the government) most passionately (which they have the right to do), but because some of the posters had resorted to name-calling, unreasonableness, profanity and gutter language. One very crass comment I read expressed regret that Cory Aquino gave birth to Noynoy. And I thought that the person who wrote it was (supposed to be) beyond such vicious trivialism, considering his educational background. I later on read the same person’s preposterous declaration that the Yolanda aftermath had become a battle between those for and against the government. Sheesh! What a notion to entertain at a time when everybody needed to come together to urgently respond to the needs of  countless victims!

As I’ve noticed these past few years, the use of social media has come to this—discussions and debates cheapened by cruelty, irrationality and vulgarity (especially in comment boxes that allow anyone to post anonymously). In criticizing the Binays (of whom I am not a fan) for unabashedly power-tripping in the Dasmariñas Village incident, must we also poke fun at their dark complexion? As if there’s anything wrong with being dark-skinned.

I suggest we do away with our propensity for resorting to cheap shots and low blows when debating issues online, regardless of how high-strung we get. As it is, all these things happening in the political front can be so overwhelming, and therefore deserve to be discussed and debated rationally and responsibly. Doing so would elevate our way of thinking and ability to reason.

Happy New YEAH!

—CLAUDE LUCAS C. DESPABILADERAS,

claudelucas2003@yahoo.com