Is it their search for truth or the other way around?

Over the years, the government and media are slowly losing their reputation and credibility. The politics of survival has long been affecting the very nature of profession that interests were trimmed down to that of the personal and profitable; and now that the country is facing serious issues of corruption and left-and-right double deals, it is a bit ironic that the institutions known for candy-coating salient issues are now at the forefront of the country’s search for truth.

In Richard Linklater’s animated movie, Waking Life, offered was a keen observation on how powerful the media has become—that it has changed the way people looked at things: “Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world. No. Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them.”

Who’s to blame? If media allowed their honest opinions to appear in the newspapers, before twenty-four hours, their occupation would be gone. The government, on the other side, is playing hero in the country’s search for elusive truth. But who really conceals it?

We are always in search of truth when the answers are already falling off our faces. The truth is in us. In fact, it was probably in search of us for God-knows-how-long. A Jun Lozada is not enough nor credible enough to claim it. Just look at the way he defends his sudden declaration of his “truth” and probably you’ll doubt. What does he want? He is now swimming in the pool of fame. I still could not believe the stardom he got from the Ateneo people when he visited there for his “in-search-of-truth campaign.”

People grew tired of believing. The quest for truth is always open-ended and most of the time left unanswered. The responsibility should not only be claimed by the government and the media. They alone are not enough to call for truth. They, too, have their own delineations. If at this time, people cannot absolutely entrust their affairs with the two powerful clusters, then the change must start within themselves. In either way, people just have to learn how to let the truth speak for itself.