media – Katrina Stuart Santiago

The events that unfolded at the Senate grounds on May 13 had me sitting and watching live feeds more than I usually need to: this is both the good and the bad of the present.

Live video feeds are great for credible media coverage that seek to show us what is unfolding, with whatever facts are available at that moment. Even with TV and radio, live coverage will have a particular audience that wants to know what is going on, even if undestanding it usually takes a while, given the multiple things happening beyond what a camera can capture. But media pieces these things together for us, given what information they have, and even as they go and try to get answers to questions that were left hanging — this has always been what credible media has done for the public. (It is also what pseudo-media content creators cannot do, even when they are given access to Malacañang and government events as the Rodrigo Duterte government did.)

Now, the Senators, going live on their Facebook pages — that part’s new, isn’t it? For whatever reason, for this particular incident, the newly-self-installed Duterte Senate majority’s impulse was to go live on their Facebook pages after they hear shots being fired. This is why they cannot fault any of us for wondering about what really happened here. There was nothing normal about Senators going live on Facebook after an incident like this one, as opposed to, say, waiting for security to declare the whole building as safe, step out with dignity from the Office of the Senate President, and tell the people what they know so far about the incident.

Instead, what we got was a particular way of framing the incident. APCayetano’s “the Senate is under attack” and Imee Marcos’s “Senate siege”, while they were in darkness inside the Office of the SP was in stark contrast with the bright lights right outside, in the halls of the Senate, where the Office of the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms and other Senate security simply asked media to move farther away from where the shots were being fired, and the media scrambled to find hiding places while figuring out what was happening. While the Mark Villar said they were “trapped” — we were seeing movement right outside.

The impulse to do a timeline was borne precisely of this stark difference between how the Duterte Senate majority was framing the incident, and what it was we were actually seeing, thanks to credible media practitioners. Because you know what fear looks like, and it is in those members of the media who were experiencing this first hand, with no protections, right at the other end of the hallway where shots were being fired. The Duterte Senators, meanwhile, were framing the gunshots as “an attack” or a “siege” while also bringing into the discussion the articles of impeachment being delivered (the Senate majority were “told” it was being delivered that’s why they were there), the flood control cases (“flood control na naman ba?” asked Imee Marcos), and saying that “some” people were told to leave but they were left there (according to Cayetano, Legarda and the Senate Secretary received warnings about “magkakagulo diyan”; and that their team saw the staff of other minority senators leaving). All those additional … things … just don’t make this purportedly “trapped” majority any more credible than they were on Monday, when they decided to harbour a fugitive-Senator and take over the Senate that was set to receive the Vice President’s Articles of Impeachment. (more…)

What is the size of a controversy? And how is a story magnified, amplified, expanded at this time when anyone at all can manufacture digital noise, generate so much content that it will make it to our newsfeeds despite our algorithmic bubbles?

The Rodrigo Duterte presidency was a grand display of how government propagandists could make mountains out of molehills, be it about the purported achievements of their beloved president, or about his declared political enemies. We now know what it takes to keep any narrative going, where content is constantly and consistently generated to feed it, to repeat what is being said, until it starts moving on its own. Case in point: the criticism against the elite, the label of dilawan, the terrorista-komunista tag, and even, the label bobotante.

This, to me, is how we know for sure that even the worst, most baseless false narratives, when un-addressed and un-dealt with, can and will fester. To the point that there is no curing it—not with the truth, and certainly not with the tools that are familiar.

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It was difficult not to be transfixed, watching pro-Duterte social media personalities in the TriComm hearing respond to questions about things they have said, posted online, screencaps and all.

It was much like that meme called expectation vs reality. The expectation was for a grand display of arrogance, a show of force, from people whose voices and faces inundate political social media algorithms with their brand of incendiary commentary. This expectation is not unfounded: they had already shown a united front by ignoring the first invitations to attend this same inquiry, and they had seemed to quite enjoy the mainstream attention, including the support of people like veteran journalist Vergel Santos who believed, as Duterte social media personalities did, that the invitation in and by itself was a violation of the right to free speech.

The reality though was this: faced with screencaps of the things they’ve said recently on current issues, and questioned about the truth these opinions carry, they were cut down to size. There were raised voices, pleading and whining, and then calm, quiet engagement—and agreement—with the heightened elderly macho emotions of the dominantly male Committee. Apologies, forced and otherwise, were made; fear and harassment were invoked; vlogger tears fell.

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My entry point to Nora Aunor’s icon was borne of the women around me as a child. First my mother, who is a Noranian—the kind that watched her critically-acclaimed films, was happy to hear Nora expanding her repertoire with Richard Merck, even if in 1980 she got the chance to do an interview with the Superstar, and was made to wait for so long and was limited to so few questions, confirming—and writing about—the urban legend that was the Superstar’s diva behavior.

The other woman was my first yaya. I have few memories of her, save for two: she was a lesbian, and she was a Noranian. Mama would buy her all the fan magazines with Nora on the cover, she would watch Nora’s movies on her days-off, and she treated Superstar on RPN 9 like weekly mass she needed to attend. For a stretch, she would constantly re-read these tiny pocketbooks that were Nora’s biographies.

Yet, I was no second-generation Noranian. As I told an audience of Noranians during a forum to discuss President Noynoy Aquino’s refusal to confer her the National Artist Award in 2014, I am of a generation that grew up choosing between the taray of Maricel Soriano and the pa-tweetums of Sharon Cuneta. The taray queen (of course) was my icon.

Now I realize that much of who Maricel (and later on Judy Ann Santos) could be as a popular icon was borne of Nora. The non-conforming, non-people-pleasing, real and truthful, complicated and complex woman, of a different shape, size, and tenor, with diverse inclinations—this was a path paved by Nora.

Growing up with Nora politics

Born in the mid-70s, I grew up knowing Nora Aunor as Superstar. My awareness of her was about the weekly TV show, where she sang, danced, and bantered with Kuya Germs and Jograd dela Torre. This version of her seemed more real, like she was free to be herself here, speaking in her signature quiet Tagalog, humble if not self-deprecating, enjoying the diverse songs she was being made to sing, throwing punchlines with the best of them when needed.

As I grew into socio-political awareness, Nora was a constant. She was Marcos loyalist who in 1986 appeared at the gates of Camp Aguinaldo for the EDSA Revolution, taking part in people power when it was time to kick Marcos out. We know of her loyalty to Erap, sure, as she would have it for FPJ—these are invisible showbiz ties that bind. Yet we also saw Nora cut those ties in 2001at EDSA Dos, when she came and stood with us as we kicked Erap out of office.

Popular politics has always had Nora, which is to say that my sensing of her as Superstar was as much about local pop culture as it was about the socio-political. Nora was one to appear at protests specific to issues, from higher wages for teachers to justice for victims of State violence, as she would endorse a diverse set of political aspirants every election (and even hope to win an election or two herself). This public persona is one that is heavily criticized, judged as being balimbing, with all its inconsistent political convictions.

Yet Nora might have been on to something.

Read the rest on Vera Files.

I do not doubt that there is a whole lot of reasons to continue discussing the impeachment of VP Sara Duterte, specifically whether it is right or wrong that Senate President Chiz Escudero is doings things at his own pace, and whether that puts the whole impeachment at risk and / or risking the possibility of getting an acquittal for VP Sara. I tend to think that SP Escudero is far smarter than all of this. He’s not new to this circus, and certainly has engaged long enough with politics in this country to know not to put even his own political career at risk by a failure to thoughtfully and carefully flesh things out, anticipate outcomes, adjust as things unfold.

And if your biases against Escudero don’t cloud your judgment, he actually made a lot of sense at that February 20 press con, talking about how the Senate, in fact, is taking the necessary steps it can take at this point in time, owing to the fact that the Senate is not in session, and many Senators are busy campaigning either for another term in office, or for other elective positions. He is firm in the refusal to rush the proceedings, or to call a session, and denies either side of the political spectrum to pressure him into doing or saying anything: “I will not dignify nor listen to partisan legal opinions or positions for or against the impeachment of VP Sara.”

At this point in our political discourse, that pretty much gives Escudero the license to ignore everyone. For good or bad, partisanship is the rule these days, not the exception. (more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Category Archive for: media

Superstar High