Will somebody please call for Franco Debono’s resignation
I apologise for bringing up the subject of this freak again, but this time it really is news, and more insight into his unbelievable tackiness and absence of boundaries and common decency.
I know that lots of people think nothing of such crass behaviour, because it is perfectly normal and acceptable to them. They might even do the same thing themselves.
But I don’t speak for them. I speak for the remaining minority who are sick to the back teeth of having to take this kind of thing for granted and be told to live with it.
I hope The Times are now going to ring Franco Debono and ask him why he behaved like some street-corner gossip, just as they ring him every two seconds for his opinion on everything else.
At 3.29pm I received a mass text message from Malta Today on my mobile phone, telling me that Peter Serracino Inglott “has passed away” (trust them to use a totally naff euphemism instead of ‘died’).
At 3.40pm I logged on to their website to see what in hell’s name they were on about, only to find out that their original report, written at around 2.30pm, had been corrected at 3.17pm – before they sent out the message saying he had died – to say that he hadn’t died, after all.
It turns out that Franco Debono received a message from a friend telling him that Serracino Inglott had died. Without checking out the gossip to see whether it was true, and despite it being absolutely not his place to do so, Debono immediately told the parliamentary affairs committee in which he was sitting at the time (because you know, he carries on reading his texts even while in session). They didn’t check it out either and held a one-minute silence for him.
Then Franco rang Malta Today and the BLETHERING IDIOTS, despite having already been bitten by him in this fashion, reported the fictitious death without checking through official sources – like the family.
Of course, the proper thing to do in these situations is to wait for the family’s announcement. It is TOTALLY INCORRECT BY ANY STANDARD to announce a person’s death (let alone a death which hasn’t happened) before the family does so, unless that death occurs in a very public tragedy. And even then, the police do not release the names of the dead before the family have been informed.
I must say that Franco Debono and Malta Today make a great team.
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Here’s the updated Malta Today version.
National Monday 12 March 2012 – 14:34
MP REGRETS PREMATURE ANNOUNCEMENT
Parliamentary committee chairman prematurely announces passing away of former University rector, who is in critical condition.
Jurgen Balzan/Updated at 3:17pm.
The death of Peter Serracino Inglott, 76, was inadvertently announced during a meeting of the parliamentary committee for the recodification of laws by Nationalist MP Franco Debono.
But despite the one-minute silence held in committee for the former rector of the University of Malta, Serracino Inglott’s brother has denied his death. Family sources have told MaltaToday that Serracino Inglott is in a critical condition.
Prayers were called for the philosophy professor who is in critical condition in hospital after being admitted last month.
A one-minute silence was observed in the parliamentary committee on the re-codification of laws, chaired by Franco Debono, who announced the passing away of the respected intellectual.
Franco Debono told MaltaToday that he was erroneously informed of Serracino Inglott’s death after recieving an SMS from a person who is very close to Serracino Inglott and made the immediate announcement “out of deep respect for the man.” Debono added that he regrets any inconvenience he might have caused.
Peter Serracino Inglott was born in 1936 and studied at Oxford University. He worked as an academic for most of his life and was also an influential figure within the Nationalist Party, especially under the helm of Eddie Fenech Adami, to whom he was a close advisor.
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Incredible! He doesn’t just need to resign. He needs a strait-jacket.
Like, like, like.
It couldn’t be more symptomatic of the individual, as for the journalists in that outfit, it’s their zenith.
I can’t take hearing about this man again and i join in on your call for his resignation, though he does not seem to care about all those people who signed a petition for his resignation.
After failing to cause the premature death of the government, Franco’s into announcing premature deaths of people.
Is someone going to be held accountable for causing this grave inconvenience through his irresponsibility and lack of ethics? Will he practise what he preaches?
Franco Debono: on an attention-seeking quest since Form 2.
(on a more serious tone, my prayers go to Fr. Peter and his family, and wish him a complete recovery)
Even Claudette on her PBS afternoon programme Sellili made the blunder by announcing his death. Who ever passed on the message to her did not even bother reading the Times on line which had announced the family request for prayers twenty minutes before.
Irid jerfa salib kulhadd, imma ahjar jerfa salibu. Ma jgibx wahda tajba.
This guy is a real plonker. Won’t he just shut up.
For a start, Peter Serracino Inglott is not a “philosophy professor” but a philosopher. Ghax bil-Malti, heqq, trid tkun Profs. Mela Profs ta’ xi haga.
Secondly, he is not in “critical condition”, in the same way that someone with a terminal disease declines slowly but surely. Critical condition would be when death is touch and go, but recovery is still possible.
Thirdly, Franco Debono is the living embodiment of the Siculo-Maltese Wanker, with a capital W.
L-ilbies ma jaghmilx nies.
What an idiot!
I am still wondering why no one within the PN has asked for his resignation. And what happened to the famous petition?
Dr. Debono jaf kif jaghmel il-frejjeg imma ma nahsibx illi din wahda minnhom. Jekk vera kienet persuna mill-qrib hafna li wasslitlu l-messagg, ma tistennix li ser jiddubita mill-genwinita’ tieghu.
I’ll bet that one-minute silence was very long for Dr Franco Debono.
Oh my God, I’m having an out of body experience.
Oh what a circus, oh what a show……
Another knee-jerk symptom of his knee-jerk disease……with the emphasis on “jerk”.
Another case of Franco jumping the gun. Kif jghid il-Malti il-qattusa ghaggelija friegh ghomja taghmel. Franco thinks he is too smart, too fast and too furious in relation to everyone else to keep up with him.
One-minute silence for someone who is still alive? Franco, ma tithajjarx taghmel many hours of silence int?
Vera bniedem responsabbli u tal-affari tieghu jekk kull informazzjoni li jircievi minn ghand shabu jaqbad u jaghmilha fatta u jxandarha ma’ kullhadd.
Gonzi jaf vera x’inhu jaghmel biex qatt ma’ lahqu ministru. Dan ghadu tifel. Bir-ragun jiftahar bir-rizulatati tal-Form 2.
Which reminds me of Mark Twain reading his own premature obituary in a newspaper remarking wryly that the report of his death was somewhat exaggerated.
Malta needs more people like Fr Peter Serracino Inglott.
I wish Peter Serracino Inglott a fast recovery.
It’s not just Franco Debono who has to “regret any incovenience”.
The staff of Maltatoday are even more guilty because they were the ones who spread the false information and, being a newspaper, their mistake is worse.
How many “news stories” does Maltatoday publish without having checked them?
Have you read The Sunday Times of Malta’s editorial/leading article about Franco’s ‘attack’ on Mark Anthony Falzon, for a column he wrote for that newspaper?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120311/editorial/Politicians-serving-who-.410554
Did you read Stephen Calleja’s piece, about when Stephen’s father was suffering from a heart attack?
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=141062
Not to mention Daphne’s article:
\http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=141091
Yet newspapers continue to ‘feed’ these monsters which they created.
I pray for Fr. Peter, who quietly, and without any fanfare, did so much for Malta – unlike Dr. Debono, who apparently cannot go to the bathroom without announcing it to the world.
Jekk f’Malta illum ghad fadal ftit nies sura, ghandna ghax nirringrazzjaw lil Fr. Peter, u lil ftit ohra bhalu.
Shouldn’t his mobile be switched off during the Parliamentary Committee meetings? But then wait a bit, he’s got one of those phones…
And I bet it wasn’t a minute’s silence because he didn’t switch off his mobile. He probably doesn’t know how to.
Minn dejjem kien jghaggel it-tifel …