AI FB video a Sara parody?

This article today takes the liberty of reviewing an AI-generated FB video. In making this review, I, actually, take the off-tangent nature of this column to a rather extreme angle. This scripted courtroom drama reel is titled "State Fined Him $14,000 for Planting Too Many Trees on His Own Land". I initially thought that this video was produced to tickle our funny bones. But believe me, as I viewed it the second time, I felt that it is as serious as the “No Joke, No Joke” reported grave threats of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio.

The reel showed a person who admitted to having planted 3,000 trees in his own 12-acre property which he came upon as an open field. He used his own money and clearly there was no “confidential” fund involved. It was not difficult for me to relate myself to this person in the FB video because I also planted more than a thousand trees in my comparably much-smaller property located in a mountain barangay. Yes, using my own money and no AICS nor Tupad government budgets, I have grown these trees since more than a decade ago. Presently, birds have begun to perch on the branches and the air there is better than how the air-conditioner cools my law office. The person in the internet reel, though, was not identified such that there appeared to be a gap in the story. To complete our virtual connection, I will call him Czar.

A government inspector, according to the video, found out that Czar did not obtain a government permission to make such tree-planting. I do not know if there is such a Philippine law of the same nature as to punish a person for using his money to plant trees in his own land although I am certain that if Czar were a high-ranking Filipino official and he used government funds for disallowable activities, he would be flagged down by the COA. It appeared in the reel that in the resulting forest birds literally frolicked and fresh and clean air was generated. In fact, the forest somehow altered the nature and that was precisely the planter’s supposed legal infraction. Funny?

No, it was not really funny. Well, to an absurd extent, it could be irksomely funny for ordinary mortals like me. The truth, though, was that it was embarrassing for Czar to be hailed to court for doing something, like investigating rebels, which was not his job but which the government was supposed to do. Or worse still, it was embarrassing for the government and its officials for committing the snafu.

When a case was thus brought before the courts, someone who I assumed was the “prosecutor” cited the law which Czar accordingly violated.

The gentleman who appeared in the proceedings on behalf of government pressed for the imposition of a hefty fine of $14,000. The judge was not convinced and dismissed the case. The judge even said that Czar deserved to be rewarded!

My review of this FB video transported me to the impeachment trial of our second-highest government official. The prosecutors here seem to cite clearly the law and their pieces of evidence appear to show the relevant damning facts. While the defense’ turn is not yet at hand, there are few senator-judges who, in my mind, appear fixated to do what the judge in the FB reel did. I hope that whoever is the content creator who produced this FB video is not showing a parody of the Carpio case.