Category Archive for: komentaryo

komentaryo

The noise of 2016: lessons for 2017

It could’ve been the fact that it was election year, but there was little reprieve from noise generated by social media all of 2016. It was like we turned a corner and didn’t know how to turn back.

Probably most distressing is that so many have fallen into the trap of celebrating Facebook likes and shares, equating this with relevant engagement, and insisting that this is “critical mass” and “public opinion.” Fake news sites are built on this premise, asserting relevance by producing un-sourced and un-bylined articles about issues that pro-government Facebook pages, personal and otherwise, are talking about.

These sites are of course shared with abandon, sold as a statement against the biases of mainstream media, and yet so obviously skewed to serve only the President and the government, like they can do no wrong. The push back of mainstream media and its supporters is just as noisy, asserting a moral high ground and insisting on policing the public, invoking protection from “hate” and “lies.” (more…)

komentaryo

Andanar, VP Leni, De Lima: Taking the public for fools

The aftermath of Vice President Leni Robredo’s resignation from President Duterte’s cabinet has proven to me – yet again! – that the strategy at this point of those in power, and I mean government and its Dutertrolls who believe the President is infallible, as well as the Liberal Party and its Daang Matuwid fanatics who believe the Vice President is santa-incarnate, is really only to make fools of the public.

The power struggle is real. And because none of those who are part of the struggle are in the least bit transparent, what is being revealed in all the confusion is the fact that there is little concern about what’s happening on the ground, and no sense at all of the bigger picture.

Basta sila mag-aaway, bahala na ang bayan sumalo ng kaguluhan. (more…)

komentaryo

Protest culture VS troll discourse

When otherwise intelligent individuals become trolls, putting down the protests that have been happening from Luneta to the People Power Monument, Manila to Quezon City, and across the county, I tell anyone who asks me about these put-downs: well, we must be doing something right, yeah?

Because imagine the amount of time these people waste. They have to look for photos that will prove what they want to say about a rally they did not attend. They cull from the hundreds of photos of the rally, the ones that will prove what they want to say: these kids know not what they’re doing, Mocha apologizes. Duterte devotees are suddenly dependent on mainstream media which they’ve lambasted all this time, using it as source for who was at the rally, and what happened there.

Imagine the identity crisis these trolls go through: shifting from being pro-Duterte to being pro-Marcos and back, wondering how exactly those who are pro-Duterte could be anti-Duterte-alliance-with-the-Marcoses, and just unable to grapple with the fact that the discourse of pro- and anti- does not capture at all what is a more complex task of learning and engagement, within and outside these protests (more…)

komentaryo

No color, no politico, no party

It seems important to tell this story: I have been to enough rallies in my life, mostly as student in the State U, and then as a teacher in AdMU. I would join – as my politics would dictate – the rallies of the militant left throughout the Ramos, Erap, and GMA administrations, from State of the Nation Addresses (SONAs) to anti-Erap rallies, EDSA Dos to GMA’s Declaration of a State of National Emergency via Proclamation 1017.

During PNoy’s presidency, I went to organizational meetings for that huge anti-pork barrel rally at the Luneta. I went as an individual, representing no one but myself. At that point I was already an independent writer, maintaining this column and my blog, and there I was, with people who were only Facebook contacts, and whose politics would otherwise clash with mine. (more…)

komentaryo

From misinformation to confusion: Dysfunctional communications

Probably the worst thing about the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) as run by Secretary Martin Andanar is that it has dared ask Congress for a bigger 2017 budget.

This, despite the fact that it has no communications plan, no strategy for information dissemination, and on a most basic level, does not even have one working, credible, well-developed official government website, four months in.

Instead it’s working off three different Facebook pages – all of which do not cost a single cent – which are all generally devoid of the important information we need about government. Why should we spend more on this office that does nothing but make things worse: through its silences, and even given its articulations.

It might be said that all those who criticize government are temperamental brats. And yes, I’m taking that out of context. (more…)