DR. PETER PHILLIPS, as Minister of Transport and Works, has done and is doing an admirable job in transforming public transportation in the Corporate Area. The JUTC may yet become the highpoint of his political resume; which may explain the zeal with which he rushed to the rescue of his Junior Minister Dean Peart last week.By now Mr. Peart should have learnt the art of the "official denial". It should be proffered almost instantaneously, not five days after what he claimed to be a misinterpretation "constructed" by this newspaper. After all, by his own admission it was he who had detected something amiss with the employment practices of the JUTC and promptly corrected it!
We assume that the bias has now been banished to the Minister's satisfaction and the damage is now under control. But we would caution public figures about knee-jerk denials of media reportage.
A pertinent case is that of Marvin Gunter, chairman of the Caribbean Regional AIDS Network, repudiating this newspaper's report of his presentation to last month's AIDS conference in South Africa on the ground that he had no intention of accusing the church. Yet the title of his presentation read: "Jamaica's Religious Culture and its role in the Accleration of HIV".
