Katrina Stuart Santiago

The first time I saw Paolo Roxas on my Duterte-Marcos Tiktok algorithm was in December 2024. It seemed apolotical enough: the older brother arriving to the hugs and joy of siblings Pepe and Pilar. It was only then that I realized that this tall moreno was in fact Mar Roxas’s son. Soon enough it was clear that he was running for public office, and not because there was any campaign slogans or ayuda content—as I have seen in much of this Tiktok algo since mid-2024. Instead there he was, going around the community, speaking in the vernacular to manangs and manongs, playing with kids, throwing some high fives around. On Christmas there was some dancing, and recently, a video of him singing Top Of The World in a karindera. On Valentine’s there were the default jokes and content about love.

Across this whole time, no sloganeering, no early campaigning. Just content of Paolo walking riding a motorbike with a squad of bikers, or having fun with the community, and of course some videos with the special participation of Pepe and Pilar.

It was only last night when I realized that despite seeing Roxas content often enough, I actually don’t know what he’s running for. And while campaign strategists might say this is a bad thing, a failure of the campaign; I think it’s a welcome change from the same content from majority of politicians on this algorithm: trend-dancing (from Janette Garin to Bong Revilla, Bam Aquino to Kiko Pangilinan, Isko Moreno etal—Imee Marcos has been doing it since late 2023), giving out ayuda from ampaw (Isko Moreno) to appliances (Vilma Santos / Luis Manzano), to bigas (that woman fighting it out with Vico Sotto in Pasig), to anyone at all who campaigns with Speaker Romualdez—who looks like corruption personified.

This is a tiny fraction of what is on this algorithm every day. It really is a display of the utter shamelessness with which politicians mount their campaigns. And it’s easy to know what the majority of content is, because when Paolo Roxas comes on, and his content is devoid of all these things, it just stands out.

That, and the fact that he is obviously not his father’s son. There is a charm here that his father could not even begin to muster, a connection with community that is not about looking down on them.

Recently, I saw a photograph of Pres. Manuel Roxas on a Philippines Free Press cover, and I thought: he looks familiar. I meant Paolo. The charm is there, too. Must’ve skipped a generation?

It is telling that my next thought is: well, at least someone will give Sandro, Baste, etal a run for their money. ***

The thing with six years of a fascist leadership like Duterte’s, built on fragile masculinity and misogyny and violent rhetoric and male chauvinism is that it changes us culturally. Women and the LGBTQIA+ community are more sensitive, and therefore angrier, and rightfully so. We are also exhausted.

But the men. Oh the men.

It’s one thing to have had to deal with the likes of Banat By and Jeffrey Celis during Duterte years and the first years or so of Marcos governance when SMNI continued to give them a platform. It’s another thing altogether to find that even men who should know better, ones who claim they are better, media personalities even, can use exactly the same tone and tenor, the arrogance, the same machismo, as that which the six years of Duterte had enabled and encouraged.

And of course this could only surface at scale when they are talking about a woman like Sara Duterte. Because there is nothing like a woman in rage to get men frothing at the mouth. (more…)

Still breathing a sigh of relief. At least that’s me, half the time, three years in.

Having shifted quite easily from campaigning heavily against a Marcos return in 2022, to watching BBM perform his Presidential becoming, it was only a matter of time before I realized I had eased into this new status quo with a voice in the back of my head: thank heavens it’s not another version of Duterte. At least not a fascist of the same scale, at least not going off the rails at midnight press cons, at least not falling back on threats and fear mongering to justify violent anti-people government policies, at least not shameless and disgusting in all the worst ways populists across the world are.

Yes, BBM is still a Marcos, yes. And yes, he is still not taking responsibility for the murder of citizens and the plunder of national coffers during his father’s time, yes.

But.

This Marcos is not a Duterte. Not so far. (more…)

It would be in the middle of El-Nido-Palawan-nowhere, in the archeological site of Ille Cave, as it would be under the scorching sun on the untouched beach of Calitang, that I would find myself sitting with Dr. Victor Paz, archeologist.

It was not a conventional meeting. I had nothing planned on a trip alone to El Nido, save for some quiet time and plenty of reading. But it was difficult to say no to visiting an archeological site few have gone to and even fewer have written about. That I stayed – a night and two days more than I thought I would in any camp – is really because of Sir Vic.

Which is not to say that he talked me into it, as he would at the end of each day say: “You’re staying for tomorrow ha, Katrina.” Not a question, not an order, but a statement of fact. You wouldn’t know to say no.

It isn’t because Sir Vic is not one to compromise. In the course of talking to him I found that this was a man who has lived enough to know compromise like the back of his hand. It was refreshing really, to find Sir Vic to be that rare breed of academic who knows his limitations as someone who works at the University of the Philippines, and as an archeologist in the context of a nation that might not know what that even means.

He says it at some point in the interview, as we were talking about community engagement in archeological sites like Ille: “We always go against the default thinking that is merely about looking for treasure.”

But that’s getting ahead of this story.

(more…)

If there’s anything six years of Duterte taught us, it’s that a government can survive simply on propaganda, especially one that surprises the populace with its utter kabastusan, its impropriety, where soundbites are all mainstream and social media need to ensure that news cycles keep moving and that they keep and grow their audience.

Now, under a Marcos Jr. leadership, the Duterte propaganda machinery is still at its best, doing what it knows to do: get attention. They know that it doesn’t matter if it’s considered as “good” or “bad”—all that matters is that they take over newsfeeds across our platforms.

Here is where we realize that while algorithms dictate what we see on every platform, i.e., Facebook, X, Tiktok, YouTube, etc., when all those algorithms actually show the same thing, then someone did their jobs right.

And as far as one can tell, it’s the Dutertes that have the power to cross over the different platforms, with as little as a soundbite during an otherwise random ambush interview with the media.

But here’s the other thing with Duterte propaganda: it is relentless. It cares very little about those of us who are critical of that family, or who think them despicable. Certainly it cares little about delivering actual data and facts about what it was like living under that misogynist, sexist, violent leadership. In fact, what it does consistently now is to highlight how much better Duterte years were than the past two years under Marcos. It doesn’t matter that this is untrue in terms of basic human rights, vicious rhetoric, ethical governance, compassionate leadership. All that matters is that they are repeating at scale this propaganda that Duterte was the best, across various platforms.

So close to the SONA though, and now with the rift-made-public between the President and Vice President, it’s also become crystal clear that we are as much players in this two-player game even as we seem to be outside of it. (more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

How are we under this Marcos presidency?

Victor Paz, archaeologist