komentaryo – 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…)

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…)

While political pundits in mainstream media claim that Sara Duterte’s resignation from the Marcos Cabinet was expected, it is important to speak of its timing. After all, on and for social media and digital platforms, everything is content, and major announcements like this one is fuel for mass drops and mileage. Over in the other country that is the Marcos-Duterte Tiktok algorithm, this resignation was not only expected, they were ready for it.

Since two days ago, the VP has taken over the algorithm like it’s nobody’s business, unseating the dominance of the Roque-MrSupranational memes, the West Philippine Sea content, and the usual Marcos-activities-based content. Considering that we had just come from Independence Day celebrations and the President continues to travel the country to distribute all sorts of assistance himself, there is usually enough content that sustains him. But Sara’s army has been pretty solid, churning out content that drowns out everybody else. Unsurprisingly, this includes a bunch of SMNI and SMNI-related accounts, solid Duterte accounts, and even accounts with low mileage, but which have been mass dropping support-Sara videos.

And when I say they were “ready” for it, I do also mean that the content has been making connections the mainstream cannot even begin to talk about. For example, highlighting the fact that it was also on June 19 two years ago when Sara had taken her oath as Vice President, which allows them to spin her resignation as an act that brings her back to the position she had won—the one that proves the love and support of “the people”—and not the position(s) that were given to her by the President turned non-ally. There also seems to be massive content that quickly drew the line between her and the President, not just ending the Uniteam illusion, but also championing the Sara side of it, the one that was green, the one that was about the eagle.

As with the Marcos legacy campaign of 2022, there is much here that harks back to the Duterte father’s 2016 campaign, with content declaring in so many words that change is finally coming, because Inday Sara is now free from her cabinet positions, now on a clean break from the administration. This means a major change for “the opposition”—a label that the Duterte propagandists claim is theirs. Tied to content that came from the last Maisug rally in Pampanga, where the older Duterte declared that they were not wanting to take down the Marcos government; and where the younger Duterte mayor insisted that all they were asking for was that the President “listen to the majority”—referring of course to themselves; the declaration of a stronger “opposition” now that the Vice President is free to be opposition, has become a very seamless narrative.

(more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

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