Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

Escalate, Raze, Trigger, Exhaust: Dealing with Duterte propaganda (2)

Dividing critics and conquering criticism, undoing democracy in all ways possible, tagging and attacking the Left is but the first half of Duterte’s propaganda strategy. Yes, this same one that we are unable to contend with, unable to wrap our heads around, even as it is what we need to capture and figure out for us to even move forward. Here, the ERTE, to the first part’s DUT.

Escalate Attacks. As with everything Duterte propaganda does, this is not just about what’s happening discursively on social and mainstream media, but also what is happening on the ground. With the Left, it is clear and present danger: during the campaign season alone, senior citizen peace consultants were arrested on fake charges, activists sleeping on buses were shot dead, farmers and peasants were killed in their homes, youth campaigners were disappeared only to be surfaced with fake charges to their names. The killings have continued from Mindanao to Negros, across Lumad and farmer communities; workers’ picketlines have been violently dispersed; students and teachers are threatened with police presence in schools. Activist leaders are put in fictional matrices and their credibility ruined with petty issues blown out of proportion.

The crisis really is that the Duterte public know little of how the Left works, and whoever is in charge of this  attack propaganda strategy has been able to hit it where it could hurt. The first step was to declare communism as a form of terrorism — as said by Duterte is so many ways — which effectively vilified even just the fact of believing in the communist ideology. “Komunista!” as a pejorative was created and massively propagated, something that we see not just on social media, but actually feel on the ground. And at a time when facts don’t matter, and proper conversations are not had, whatever responses the Left has come out with just have not worked at balancing out the negative propaganda. There is after all no discussion to be had, no proper conversation possible, when the only response is: “Komunista ka!”

It’s a conversation-ender that translates to the reckless endangerment of all critics and activists who are dismissed to be nothing more but terrorist. Sure, many of us don’t believe this propaganda. But we do not matter. This is for Duterte’s base. And as far as that base is concerned, this checks all the boxes: Tatay Digong is correct, Tatay Digong is cleaning up the Philippines, Tatay Digong will be protected at all costs.    (more…)

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Divide, Undo, Tag: Dealing with Duterte propaganda (1)

At the Ibong Adorno launch of Kult 3, there was a panel discussion with different organizations on the various ways in which they have dealt with the Duterte government’s consistent and constant attacks on the people and on nation’s institutions. The issues and ways were expectedly diverse, from using platforms to engage with issues of urban poor displacement, immersion and publishing focused on marginalized sectors and workers’ and farmers’ rights, from alternative media work to organizing cultural workers towards more critical resistance work.

I was the only one who carried my name as individual, although I was tagged as someone who has maintained CurrentsPH (on Facebook) since 2017, which originally was to be a website (a beta version is still up here). But as I said in the introduction to my quick talk, it took only the first year of Duterte to realize that there is little value in talking facts and doing timelines at a time when the truth doesn’t matter and no one is spending time fleshing out issues — or even talking issues, really.

The battle in fact is one that’s about propaganda. We are faced with a well-strategized Duterte propaganda program, one that we have been unable to even make a dent on, one that we have been unable to win against, the past three years. I’ve talked about this often enough with friends and peers, and when I’m asked how to beat it, my answer is simple: first we admit we’re in over our heads.

These are strange, difficult, confusing, exhausting times, and the old tools don’t work in exactly the same way. We are weakened by this Duterte machinery, manipulated to forget bigger pictures as we are made to contend with the smaller but real attacks against us. How to move forward? One, admit our weaknesses; two, understand this propaganda strategy; so that three, we can actually figure out how to beat it.

Here, an effort at doing numbers 1 and 2.  (more…)

komentaryo

#SONA2019: Unpacking Duterte’s propaganda strategy

It’s a ruse. At the State of the Nation Address of Rodrigo Duterte last Monday, there was silence about charter change. Not even a peep about federalism, nothing at all about easing of economic provisions in the current 1987 Constitution. This is as deathly a silence as we can get from Duterte — and we all know he thinks nothing of murder.

This is why we should talk about the SONA, and not just in isolation, but in relation to the bigger picture that is Duterte’s propaganda strategy. That is after all what keeps him winning. It is what keeps him in this position of power.  And we need to get our shit together about this propaganda if we are to even make a dent against it.

Of course three years in and we now know that Duterte propaganda strategy #1 is: use the President’s big mouth to distract the public. But from what? And given this knowledge, what do we do next other than raise our fists in anger?  (more…)

kultura

Portrait of a pro-Duterte cultural worker; or how to be director of #SONA2019

Step 1. Say Yes. The money’s good, and in the age of disinformation and press releases, you can always get away with saying you’re doing it for free — the President’s propagandists will ensure that the President’s base (the 80% that approve of him according to surveys!) will believe you, and that’s all that matters. Of course you’d be stupid to do this shit for free. There is a price for the kind of shaming you know you’ll get, the raised eyebrows from your peers, the way history will judge you. No one will take it against you that you took on government raket; but history will judge you harshly for wanting to put this icon of this dark times in a good light. You need to get paid for this. And well.

Step 2. Embrace Denial. Duterte is not responsible for the thousands dead in the drug war. He is not responsible for the forced evacuation of the Lumad communities in the name of big business wanting to take over their ancestral lands. He is not responsible for the worsening poverty. He is not responsible for the killings of farmers and peasants. He is not responsible for the state of the nation where democracy is discredited, criticism is a crime, and activists are deemed terrorists.

The propagandists are paid to embrace denial. You are, too.

(more…)

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George Ty’s estate, Ramon Ang’s airport, Dennis Uy’s city, Ayala’s casino: Duterte sides with the wealthy

You know how Duterte propaganda has lived off this idea that he is angry at the rich? That he is against the elite? That he is against their abusive ways, and anti-people policies? This is how refusing to give the Lopezes of ABS-CBN their franchise is justified; this is how the Prietos of the Philippine Daily Inquirer lost their power. This also sustains the idea that Duterte is pro-poor, para sa masa, si Tatay Digong kakampi ng mahihirap na Pilipino.

We have of course disproven this, regardless of what his base believes. He himself has admitted that majority of those killed in his drug war are poor — because the rich addicts are using other drugs anyway, and the wealthy who run the cartels, the drug manufacturing, the drug imports, he has no power to jail them.

But there’s an even more obvious, more blatant, display of Duterte siding with the rich: and it’s in his utter silence about issues that involve his oligarch, taipan, crony allies. Let us count the ways, shall we?  (more…)