How to handle meddling media in hostage drama?

MEDIA’S MEA CULPA: There will now be the usual agitated discussion about what went wrong in the hostage-taking drama the other day wherein a wailing four-year-old boy was stabbed to death by a deranged man who had grabbed him from his mother at a crowded bus station in Pasay.

For failing to take full control of the situation from beginning to end and to save the boy despite some clear chance to do so, the police will have to take the brunt of the public outcry over his televised execution. We expected more precision and professionalism.

But we the media will have to acknowledge our own mea culpa. We must review with the police the guidelines on how we are to play our respective roles when a hostage situation arises. In this crazy world, more of such incidents are sure to happen.

Let’s admit it – many of us in media have no qualms about crossing the boundary and presuming to direct the show and untangle the problem live before kibitzers glued to their radios and TVs. Our recklessly getting in the way of the police endangers lives.

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DEAD GIVE-AWAY: Every week we hear stories of Pinoy travelers, among other aliens, being denied entry into the United States. Those who manage to get in are being given no more than one month (when a stay of six months used to be normal) even if they are carrying long-term, multiple-entry visitor’s visas.

The latest story we heard was about several Filipinos on the same flight who were turned back after they were discovered to have been in the US earlier (they had valid multiple-entry visas) for a one-month stay but who overstayed and later came back.

Upon their latest application for entry, they had to face immigration officers who were unusually intrusive. Going through the visitors’ personal belongings, inspectors found some of them carrying new US driver’s licenses secured during their previous visit of supposedly one month.

That was a give-away. An alien staying for only a month can no longer secure a US license under stricter rules. That they had succeeded in securing licenses apparently confirmed suspicion that they actually overstayed in their previous trip but hid their illegal stay.

Another Pinoy was caught with a US bank passbook whose entries indicated that the period during which he opened his account and made several bank transactions over the counter stretched more than one month. He was unable to refute the presumption that he must have been physically in the US to do those things.

There are more stories, and the main message is: If you have in mind overstaying in the US, don’t try doing it now while all eyes are on incoming aliens. The law itself presumes that all visitors are intending to stay, and that presumption sticks unless you can demolish it by your marshalling of facts, documents and arguments.

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NURSES IN DEMAND: The word from early last year was that many Filipino nurses were losing their jobs as demand for their services declined. Then came the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, and suddenly nurses of all shapes and colors were on call. Many of them now have had to work extra hours.

The job situation for nurses continues to improve. In a story this week by Michael Janofsky, the New York Times reported in a story datelined Reno, Nevada: "With the shortage of nurses growing worse by the year, hospitals are stepping up efforts to fill vacancies by selling themselves through advertisements, job fairs, even highway billboards. They are also trying to lure nurses with flexible hours, ever-larger signing bonuses and other financial incentives."

The American Hospital Association has reported that hospitals around the US have 126,000 vacancies for nurses, or only 12 percent of capacity. The number could triple over the next decade, according to officials.

The American Nurses Association reported that hospital nursing salaries have stayed relatively flat for a decade. The NYT quoted a recent survey by Allied Physicians, an industry employment service, showing that the national average nursing salary was $45,500.

The survey showed that "nurses with graduate degrees, those with specialties like cardiac care and those who work in big-city hospitals can make $60,000 and more, but entry-level salaries in many places remain low, $25,000 to $30,000."

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RECRUITING FRENZY: The NYT added: "The need for nurses has forced many states, especially those with fast-growing populations, like Nevada, Texas and Florida, to spend more for nursing schools and recruitment. In addition, Congress is completing legislation that would generate $136.7 million in new federal spending for scholarships, loan repayments and recruitment grants.

"But stuck on the front lines with understaffed wards are hospitals that have now turned against one another in the biggest recruiting frenzy in more than a decade.

"A popular tool is the sign-on bonus, given when a nurse accepts a job. Hospitals have used them in modest amounts before to shore up needs but not to the levels being offered now. In April, for example, the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, which includes six hospitals, began offering bonuses of $30,000 over three years for nurses with specialized skills. In St. Paul, Regions Hospital has been offering one-time bonuses of $10,000 since March, hiring more than 25 nurses under the program.

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ATTRACTIVE PACKAGES: Other hospitals are luring nurses with large sums in other packages. The NYT reported: "Hospitals in Orange County, Florida, are offering $7,500 toward a down payment for a new home. Last year, the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial V.A. Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, began giving recruits enhanced benefits, with five weeks vacation and a $10,000 scholarship for continuing education.

"Neither of Reno’s largest hospitals, Washoe or St. Mary’s Health Network, offers sign-on bonuses. But Washoe has begun giving current employees a finder’s fee of $1,000 for referring nurses, another $1,000 if the nurse stays six months and $1,000 more if the recruit stays a year."

Quoting a recent survey by the federal Department Health and Human Services, the NYT reported that Nevada, the fastest-growing state, has the lowest nurse-per-person ratio, with 520 nurses for every 100,000 people. Nevada is projected to need 680 new nurses every year for the next eight years.

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MEET ITANIUM: If you’re still crowing about your Pentium 4, pipe down. People in the know are now talking about Itanium, the newest and most powerful microprocessor of Intel Corp. and possibly of the entire industry.

The Itanium being launched by Intel is actually a second-generation 64-bit microprocessor. It’s an improvement on Intel’s previous Itanium that also went by the name McKinley. While the Pentiums addressed 32 bits of information, the Itanium is 64-bit.

Using a standard measure of performance known as the Linpack Benchmark, the Pentium 4-2.5 gigahertz surpassed processors from such companies as NEC, Cray, IBM. and Fujitsu that cost many times as much.

Users in Manila who want to upgrade to Pentium 4 can choose from 1.4 gigahertz (P6,500), 1.5 ghz (P6,950), 1.6 ghz (P7,150)· all the way to 2.0 ghz (P15,600) and 2.2 ghz (P23,000). We have not seen the super 2.5 ghz chip in local stores.

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FRIENDLY WARNING: When buying a Pentium 4, make sure you get the newer version that is smaller but has more pins (478 versus the 423 pins of the earlier Pentium 4s). This means that you will have to get a new motherboard that can take the 478-pin Pentium.

And then – don’t say we did not warn you – to maximize the power of your new toy, you will be under pressure to buy a new ATX case, a faster and bigger hard drive, a faster and sharper video (AGP) card, probably a new flat screen, a new Windows operating system, and a pair of RDRAM (memory) modules which is the fastest they can go and the most expensive (one 256-mb module costs P4,000).

If you have the money and the zest for power, you will likely go for all of that heavy stuff, because it is pointless to put in a Pentum 4 if the rest of your machine is what you have salvaged from your Pentium 3 setup. Your system is as slow as its slowest component.

As for buying "packages" from the malls, we have noticed that they paste on the front of the PC an "Intel inside" sticker to razzle-dazzle the buyer with its Pentium processor. But if you check the rest of the machine, many of its other parts are second rate.

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