Gonzalez and Gonzales

Yesterday, Raul Gonzalez said that the University of the Philippines "breeds the destabilizers that haunt the country year after year." He also told the Philippine Daily Inquirer: "They are acting as if they are the only ones who know how to run the country.”

"He made it clear, however, that he was not assailing the entire university population because 'there are many students there who are bright and good'," the Inquirer report said.

Is this another case of Gonzalez's propensity for doublespeak?

He also criticized the Oblation run of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity as "another indication of the kind of students that came from UP."

Read the report here. Gonzalez is really funny, no?

Meanwhile, here's the report of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility on the claims recently made by the "other" Gonzalez:

Government links communist group with media

A government official recently warned against possible communist infiltration of the country’s newsrooms.

During a state-sponsored forum last 21 August, national security adviser Norberto Gonzales said that there “are big possibilities in the media that there are some practitioners being courted by enemies of the state and probably successfully.”

“We are profiling everybody as you (the media) are profiling us,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said that media had always been a primary target of the communist movement anywhere in the world because of its emphasis on propaganda.

Just last month, the Philippine National Police claimed that the communist group New People’s Army is using certain media organizations – both local and international -- as its front in undermining the government.

“It’s hard to say that there is no attempt to infiltrate media here. Media practitioners are either mercenaries or sympathizers who will continue to create issues even though they know if they are helping the leftist cause,” he said.

Gonzales claimed that he had proof of the rising influence of the left in news headlines but he did not show this. Gonzales admitted though that these communist sympathizers in media were only a few.

“But (what is important) is not in terms of their numbers or percentage but if they are able to present their view effectively,” said Gonzales.

“What will be controversial is the action of the government. But so far, you have observed that the government has not in any way clamped down on media. Our attitude is that these are additional challenges to us,” added Gonzales, who was one of the key figures in President Gloria Arroyo’s declaration of a state of national emergency last February. The declaration sent a chilling effect across media with the raid on oppositionist newspaper The Daily Tribune and the arrests and harassment of certain journalists and media organizations. (with reports from the Inquirer News Service)