Tag Archives: ABS-CBN Franchise

komentaryo

The propaganda war: Lessons from the ABS-CBN closure

It’s been a year since the ABS-CBN leadership decided to sign off. This was probably it’s only power move throughout the four years that Duterte had vilified them every chance he got, even when he had Gina Lopez as DENR Secretary, and even when ABS had paid up whatever it owed in taxes, and returned the cash the President insisted they owed him for an advertisement that didn’t air during the 2016 presidential campaign. And yes, this was an important power move, considering that all of us were witness to how its main commentators tried their hardest to bite their tongues on live free radio, and how news coverage was less about delivering the news as it was also about making sure not to step on too many toes.

To be fair, this wasn’t just the state of ABS-CBN news and public affairs under Duterte, as it is the state of mainstream media that has the widest coverage across social classes. In a country where a majority are not reading anything written in English, and a majority of those online are on free data, it should be pretty clear by now that for all the hashtags we can get to trend, and all the “unities” we think we’re doing here, we are in an echo chamber like no other. And no, we’re not winning anything in these echo chambers.

Just like we couldn’t win the battle to keep ABS-CBN on air.

(more…)

komentaryo

The battle for thought

A couple of days before Christmas, on probably the only time I’ve driven down the stretch of EDSA-Northbound since the March 2020 lockdown, I saw huge tarpaulins hanging on flyovers and walkways obviously released by the Duterte government. In small font on top of the tarp, it said Communist Party of the Philippines and at center it crossed out the number 52. Both of these are secondary to the declaration, in larger font, for us to “Disown and Junk Marxism-Leninism-Maoism” (Itakwil at Ibasura Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo).

I remember pointing it out to my younger sestra—a former student—riding with me in the car, to which she cheekily replied: “Ha? How do we takwil class inequality and struggle?” or something to that effect.

It was then that it became clear to me that while this government will insist it is only after “the communists” and “the Left,” it is in fact lying through its teeth. What it fears is not the insurgency or the number of people who might decide to go to the mountains and join the armed struggle. Its real fear is that as more of us see how incompetent and violent this Duterte government is, we might start thinking differently about governance and politics, focused as we become on class inequality, injustice, and rights violations, and the kind of systemic corruption in government that has brought us to this point of crises. (more…)