Honest paycheck isn’t treason
In a culture that loves to cancel first and ask questions later, we owe it to basic fairness to wait for actual proof before torching a man’s reputation over a job he already left.
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In a culture that loves to cancel first and ask questions later, we owe it to basic fairness to wait for actual proof before torching a man’s reputation over a job he already left.
Mang Tony has been fixing cars for 15 years. Five years ago, he accepted a Chinese company’s offer of three times his salary to work in a vehicle factory. Does that make him a traitor? Or does it make him a father trying to send his kids to school?
I thought about Mang Tony when I read the 3 August accusations (https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BKVzNxhnT/?mibextid=wwXIfr) on a Facebook page “West Philippine Sea” against former Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Martin Andanar.
Sec. Martin worked as a news anchor for China Global Television Network (CGTN) in Beijing.
Freezing the timeline, he held that specific role for one year, from 2023 to 2024. Yet critics talk as if he’s still broadcasting pro-China rants every night. That brief stint, they claim, makes him a “voice of propaganda” and proof he’s no longer loyal to the Philippines.
The FB post argument says he worked for the Philippine government for six years. He knows the communication strategies, the country’s national secrets. Then he spent a year in Beijing, getting paid by the Chinese state. So, he must be working against us.
It sounds convincing until you actually think it through. The problem with that logic is it assumes that every Filipino who works for a foreign company is somehow a traitor. It assumes that professionals can’t have integrity and that earning an honest paycheck from an international employer is automatically an act of betrayal.
They’re just people trying to feed their families. The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes any Filipino working for a foreign company is automatically compromised. Thousands of our countrymen work for Chinese corporations. Thousands more work for American ones.
Are our nurses in London disloyal? Our engineers in Dubai selling out the nation? Our teachers in Japan forgetting they’re Filipino? They are professionals earning honest wages in a globalized world.
I get the concerns about CGTN being state-controlled media. We have disagreements about the West Philippine Sea. The optics are uncomfortable, but let’s separate biased feelings from baseless character assassination.
First, Sec. Martin was a news anchor, not a diplomat or general. He read scripts for 12 months. Every state broadcaster pushes a national narrative — Voice of America does it, the BBC does it, PTV and CGTN do it too. That is the nature of the job and doesn’t make every anchor a spy, especially one whose contract lasted a year.
Second, the accusation about “funding pro-China disinformation” remains just an allegation. No evidence has been shown publicly, no charges have been filed, and no investigation has been concluded. In a culture that loves to cancel first and ask questions later, we owe it to basic fairness to wait for actual proof before torching a man’s reputation over a job he already left.
Most importantly, Sec. Martin, who also spent close to two decades in Philippine broadcast journalism, has the right to earn a living and the right to use his skills abroad — the same right we grant every overseas Filipino worker. A one-year contract in Beijing does not erase his citizenship or his six years of public service.
If a Chinese news anchor got hired by ABS-CBN for a year, would we call that a Chinese victory? The double standard is obvious.
We celebrate Filipino talent when it’s recognized globally — our nurses, seafarers, engineers, and other OFWs. We call them modern-day heroes. But when that talent is in media, and it’s in a country we have tensions with, suddenly a 365-day gig is betrayal?
People make complex choices. They balance duty to country with duty to family. They sign contracts that sometimes last a year and sometimes decades. Neither timeline determines patriotism because the world is not a spy thriller where every career move is either heroism or betrayal. It is messy, gray, and full of practical compromises.
Reading the vitriol against Sec. Martin, I do not see a traitor. I see a professional who made a calculated career shift for 12 months and moved on. I see a father and a former public servant navigating the same global marketplace our OFWs do every single day.
If we are genuinely worried about foreign influence, we should focus on strengthening our own institutions and invest in making them stronger and more competitive. It is easy to blame Sec. Martin for taking a job abroad. It is harder to build a country where our best talents never feel the need to look elsewhere.
Mang Tony still works in that Chinese car factory. He still sends his kids to school. He still loves his country and cheers for the Philippines in basketball games. He’s not a traitor, just a man grinding for a paycheck.
Sec. Martin anchored the news in Beijing for one year. He has moved on, and perhaps it is time we do the same.
