A News Tour: From India to Thailand, Thailand to Indonesia, Indonesia to the Philippines

I love watching news. Like, I always look forward watching 24 oras on GMA-7 at the end of everyday. But yesterday, this love of watching news on TV suddenly became hatred.

The top news last night was the indiscriminate firing against tourists housed at Mumbai, India's Taj Mahal Hotel. It was a clear act of terrorism. More than one hundred have died and many were injured. Aside from the Taj Mahal Hotel, nine other sites in the city were attacked by alleged Islamic militants.

Next in the news was the ongoing unrest in Thailand. This one though was entertaining to me. Another airport was taken into control by the militants in Bangkok resulting in the cancellation of flights into and out of the city. Thousands of tourists were stranded along with some Filipinos and Philippine airliners. What took my attention was the color of the outfits of the rallyists. They wore yellow. They wore yellow, they were imitating the Philippines' peaceful People Power Revolt in 1986. It was touching to see them emulating our way of achieving change when its nearly impossible to achieve it. There is a slight difference in what they are doing though. The Filipinos never took control of airports during EDSA 1 and the failure EDSA 2.

Though most of the news last night were of negative tides, one - at least - made me happy. I-Witness’ Jay Taruc and his team won the 2008 ABU CASBAA UNICEF Child Rights Award. The ceremonies were held in Bali, Indonesia. Out of 69 entries from 10 countries in Asia, the documentary “Batang Kalabaw" (Child Beasts of Burden) was chosen for the prestigious award this year for being “the best television programming on children's rights produced in the Asia-Pacific region." Proud to be Pinoy!!! Go Kapuso!!!

Hope the news tonight would be lighter...