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.
It doesn’t matter if Malacañang doesn’t care for your existence. It doesn’t matter if the DILG, the PNP ignore you and let you be. What we know for sure is that once Duterte’s social media actors signal a red-tag, soon after, the NTF-ELCAC will act on it. What we know for sure is that just as mainstream media gave you the opportunity at virality, so it will choose any kind of content that it can earn from through clicks and shares and likes—even if it’s the same person who threatens you. Virality after all is how media was complicit in the Duterte win of 2016, and this is how media makes money. Just as the feel-good story of pantries is a moneymaking story, so is the ugly ending that is now familiar for us in Duterte country. There is propaganda for everyone.
What we know for sure is that no matter how seemingly absurd or laughable something is to us, it is fodder for anti-activist, anti-criticism, climate-of-fear content. What it becomes is an opportunity for the NTF-ELCAC and Duterte himself to strengthen their base and its belief that criticism is a bad thing, and it can come in any form, including a pantry. What we know for sure is that in this battle of echo chambers, the Duterte one wins because it is clear in its goals, focused in its vision, and knows to look at the bigger picture.
We are not so lucky.
On this side, the pantry was a divide: is it socialism or not? Is it people power? Is it protest? Is it political? Is it not? It didn’t matter that the slogan it carried was a Marxist one. Repeated without a clear(er) political stance, it appeared as nothing more but a frame, maybe a request, most importantly: a gaze. We are watching the poor take what they “need,” we are telling them to not take too much.
Without a clear stand, the pantry’s meaning was easy to disperse, and dispense with, take on as part of anyone’s propaganda. Government claimed it: it’s the bayanihan spirit, Malacañang said; it’s not a condemnation of government, some Senators said; we are grateful for the pantries because government cannot do this alone, another official said. This could be done because there was no powerful enough stance attached to the pantry as concept; lost as the power of the slogan was to so many. There is no bigger proof of the (anti-)political stance that dominated this relief effort than the majority of pantry creators themselves, all of whom might use the same slogan, but too many of whom were more concerned about how to “control” the poor for whom the goods are, how to raise funds beyond what the immediate community could offer, and how God would see them all through.
And so the pantry became a distraction: without forcing its iterations to carry a clear political stance against government negligence and incompetence, against hunger and need, it became a charity project, augmenting government response with no clear critique of its failures, “helping out” government when that is the last thing it deserves. In the same way that a feel-good narrative is what dominated the discourse on the pantry, so it was that what dominated the discourse on it was what was palatable for mainstream media and government: this is bayanihan, this is what being Filipino is about. Let’s not forget: look at the poor and how they can be generous, too, even poor fisherfolk and hungry farmers are giving away their (non-existent) “surplus.”
The risk as such is two-fold. Put a placard and raise a fist, and you will be red-tagged. De-politicize the exercise and let every ideology and romanticism run with it, your work can be used by government for its own gains, whether as a way to take credit for it, or as a way to create anti-criticism and anti-activist propaganda. Yes, relief work and survival operations shouldn’t even be risky business. But this is where we are, and we only heighten the risk when we deny the state of affairs.
Probably the question one can process is what those risks are like for us, who are middle class, who are not activists, who are not part of activist organizations, but who have become politicized the past year (if not the past five years) under Duterte. Our fears are totally valid, and with basis. But when the red-tagging is absurd, when it is obviously a strategy to scare us into stopping what we do, or to threaten us about engaging with organizations tagged as red, how high of a risk is there for us, and is there space for us to actually push back in a way that those who are in real danger cannot?
The past year, the middle class has been able to create this space for itself, and navigate it well: under the radar, quietly, in the conversations we build, on platforms that are still beyond virality and algorithms, we are fashioning compassion into powerful acts of circumvention. But this is a conscious decision to skip the part where we get embroiled in the noise of social media and the click-bait culture of mainstream media. It’s a deliberate decision to stay under the radar, because the twin-goals of addressing urgent needs and building solidarity and communities-of-care across social classes, are more important. It’s about managing the risks, sensing the opportunities for engagement, not making enemies of our communities, and building solidarity that is about the diversity of actions that are based on the same state of the nation, and leading towards the same goals of holding government accountable and winning 2022.
Because here’s another thing we know for sure: this is a propaganda war. One we’ve lost the past five years, one that we need to start doing battle with. If we must learn anything from Duterte and his propaganda all year, it’s that anything and everything can and will be used against us. If we must learn anything, it’s that notions of “unity” around a dispersed, depoliticized, and divided concept of a pantry is really nothing more than mimicry borne of virality, which has transformed into distraction: how long have we not talked about Covid numbers, a healthcare system in shambles, the lack of vaccines, China’s invasion of our waters, news of military unrest, and Duterte Resign—the things that truly matter? And what kind of content have we given Duterte propaganda while we were feeling good about something that at its core is a violence against the people, the barefaced proof of this government’s refusal to address this pandemic?
The risks exist for all of us. But there is space for the middle and privileged classes to push back, navigate these times, and do things differently, which is what many have done the past year, with no media mileage, no virality. This space is real and pregnant with possibility, and it is one where a question like “Do you have communist affiliations?” need not be seen as a dirty question. Instead it can be seen as part of the risks we take when we engage in issues of nation, demand accountability from government, and live in this climate of fear. Instead it can be seen as an opportunity to ask more questions, discuss activism as we now are redefining it, and talk issues.
This doesn’t erase or invalidate any of our fears. Instead it talks about that fear and ties it to the bigger state of the nation, the fact that this kind of violent, negligent, corrupt, incompetent governance has to end, and we cannot wait until 2022. The task is bound to believing that we, who have built organizations and formations from scratch, who have inched our way into political advocacy work, who are building unities around common issues and goals, do have the power to take on this government in ways that are ours. Unity should be easy at this point, because Duterte makes it easy for us. But this means extricating ourselves from the sheen of virality, the predisposition towards riding on the coattails of what sells for mainstream media, and the political divide on this side that has deepened the past five years.
It means always asking ourselves: what are the risks that we, in this particular moment, from this particular place of privilege, can take? But more importantly: who are we taking these risks for? Towards what end?
And finally: How do we make sure that it doesn’t serve instead those we critique? How do we ensure that our weapons are not used against us?
Because just as we imagine that it is easy to navigate these times, given this space, what we forget is that it is exactly that ease that has allowed for disinformation, falsity, and Duterte propaganda to prosper the past five years. And unless we ourselves decide to complicate our engagement, then we serve only the well-funded, well-oiled machinery that isn’t ours. ***