JEERS TO BusinessMirror for a column that reeked of inaccuracy and malice. Butch del Castillo’s Nov. 17 column was also a display of discrimination against people with special needs.

Del Castillo pondered on uncorroborated allegations that Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is autistic ( “What, pray tell, is autism?”). The allegation emerged from Ernesto Maceda’s column in The Daily Tribune published Nov. 10, stating “ Two days later, the Manila Standard Today published a report that Sen. Aquino almost “blew his top” when asked if he was the major national candidate described in Maceda’s column (“Aquino cries foul over raising of autism issue”).

Del Castillo said Aquino’s reaction “only succeeded in giving the impression that the actual state of his neurological development has been a closely guarded family secret over the past 45 years.”

His accounts of Aquino as a child showed Del Castillo’s lack of knowledge on the difference between hyperactivity (also known as attention deficit hyperactive disorder) and autism. He equated the two when he said that “Autistic individuals in general have limited attention spans,” when these are two different conditions.

Hyperactivity is a behavioral disorder characterized by short attention span while autism is a neurodevelopment disorder. Individuals with autism have narrowed, focused attention and are slow in shifting focus.

Citing an unnamed source, Del Castillo recounted an incident where a “hyperactive” Aquino was supposedly mangled by the family’s dog, a Doberman, when he was three years old. Aquino’s youngest sister, Kris Aquino-Yap, allegedly saved him from the dog. This, however, is quite impossible as Kris is eleven years younger than Aquino and had not been born when he was three. As Raisa Robles pointed out in her blog, “Noynoy was born February 8, 1960 and Kris was born February 14, 1971. So when Kris saved Noynoy from the Doberman she was what —- a mote in God’s eye? “(http://raissarobles.com/ )

With the way autism was handled, the column encouraged disapproval of people with special needs when the allegation is supposed to be a disadvantage to a presidential candidate. In the words of Dan Mariano, columnist for The Manila Times, this only “revealed their ignorance of the disorder, which should inspire, not ridicule, (but) understanding and compassion for those it actually afflicts”. (“Slander against Noynoy betrays panic”, Nov. 16)