internet – Katrina Stuart Santiago

Only the naive would be surprised by the narrative turn that the community pantries took. We knew it was only a matter of time. After all, we are under a Duterte government that has made it official policy to red-tag anything that has so much as a a raised fist, a placard, a slogan. We are under an NTF-ELCAC and a propaganda machinery that has made its living out of vilifying the Left, activism, and critics the past year or so.

When the appearance of Liza Soberano on a panel by Gabriela is enough to warrant a red-tag, you know the level of absurdity is insane.

Which is why it’s a surprise that the actors in this particular situation seemed so unprepared. And therein lies the real naiveté. Because recent history teaches us to be prepared. Since last year, relief efforts have been vilified by this government. Many experienced being stopped at checkpoints, and at the height of the first lockdown, many were kept from doing anything, including helping get much-needed food to the hungry. In May 2020, the DILG itself announced that all relief efforts needed to get LGU accreditation; at some point last year, there was a memorandum that was spread in our inboxes requiring a PNP permit. We of course remember Teacher Lita and her group in Marikina arrested for continuing with their soup kitchen operations, as we do how a group delivering relief goods to Bulacan were detained. There was also a soup kitchen in Cubao, housing the homeless and hungry, that was shut down for not having permits.

Now layer any effort that highlights government negligence, incompetence, violence with virality, and you level-up that risk. Long before this pandemic, virality was already a key factor in getting Duterte all riled up, and his propaganda flexing its well-funded muscle. Think everything from Silent No More, to Pinoy Ako Blog; think ‘Di Mo Ba Naririnig, to every hashtag that has trended on this side of the political fence.

And when virality has a willing participant, a talking head for media to interview over and over, someone to fashion into “hero,” someone they can use for click-bait content, then this is a win-win: you get mileage and media gets its shares and likes. This makes it “lucrative” for both sides, which is part of why virality is something we have been taught to aspire for, whether you’re a tiktok content creator, an advocacy, or a Duterte supporter.

Now layer this landscape of anti-criticism and predisposition towards virality, with the existence of NTF-ELCAC and a Duterte propaganda machinery, and the kind of success it has had in killing activists, violating rights, discrediting activism, and creating a climate of fear, and you’d be silly not to be afraid. Or careful. (more…)

Let’s call it what it is: desperation.

We are being made to believe by Duterte propagandists that the inclusion of provisions specific to Leila de Lima in the US Appropriations Act for 2020 is a sham. Yes, the same one that Donald Trump signed on December 20 2019. That same one that’s got us all talking about the Magnitsky Act. Someone calls it fake news. Another calls on media to show her where exactly this provision is. So many likes and shares after, and you know this is the kind of irresponsibility that this government has lived off, whether through these purported rogue propagandists or through official agencies like the PCOO and Mocha Uson.

Now in the past two years I’ve ignored these people completely—it’s just not worth it talking to people who have drank the kool-aid. It’s always entertaining though, mostly because it can hold a drop or two of truth. This time though the lapses are so huge, that one can only see it as either a deliberate effort to misinform the Duterte base, and/or get on the good side of Duterte by pointing out that his own people are being dumb. Except that they aren’t. (more…)

I happened upon the case of Nacho Domingo too late. It was Sunday, September 29. I asked a friend who had posted about social media responsibility and online mobs what he was talking about, and he told me to do a Twitter search for his name.

It yielded little, though the few tweets that came up were ones of mourning and condolences, a lot of regret. By later in the day more and more tweets surfaced that were turning defensive: this is about frat culture, they said. The system is to blame for his death, many others said.

The blame game on Twitter seeped through the rest of the week, with some accounts coming out with names of “people who killed Nacho,” which just continued the cycle of blaming and shaming, bullying and mob rule that brought upon us this death to begin with.

I spent the rest of that Sunday and early last week going through Twitter accounts and mining it for information. Facebook was pretty wiped clean, and there wasn’t much to see there. But Twitter, with its 140-character, shoot-from-the-hip demand — so much of what transpired remained there even as many deleted posts. The sadness grew as this process revealed what it must have been like for one person to see this unfold, and not just on Twitter and Facebook, but also, now we know, in his phone’s inbox. (more…)

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…)

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…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Category Archive for: internet

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