Tag Archives: propaganda

komentaryo

Mocha and the end of troll discourse

If there’s anything the past week has revealed it’s the slow death of troll discourse. It’s entirely possible the social media armies aren’t being paid enough, but it’s also possible that we just have ceased to be afraid of being bullied online. The latter is my more optimistic perspective, because it’s been a year after all, and now more than ever, this government’s strategies of silencing and skewing discourse have been exposed to be nothing more than bad communications and terrible damage control.

The only reason it requires mention at this point in fact, is the existence of one Mocha Uson, whose behavior has not evolved from being rabid Duterte supporter during the campaign to being a government employee whose salary is being paid for by public funds. The latter behooves us all to critique her and her actions — as we should all government officials, especially when they continue to be a source not just of falsity and hate, but also — and more importantly — the most terrible kind of propaganda that justifies the killings of thousands.  (more…)

komentaryo

Truth, fake news, propaganda

It was only a matter of time: after Malacañang watched its followers discredit media on the basis of the superficially discussed notion of “bias,” it then allowed for the proliferation of fake news.

Of course when we speak of that now, a year into Duterte’s government, it has become clear that it also means government officials who have so benefited from the manner in which media has been put into question, that they don’t even feel the need to retract their statements anymore. From Andanar insinuating Senate media were paid to cover Lascañas, to Ubial insisting she didn’t say there were 59 Marawi evacuees who have died, and every other questionable statement from the President to the Justice Secretary in between, we have watched government officials utter shameless denials, instead of the more honorable admission of having committed mistakes, having spread false information, and issuing retractions of previous statements.

This is no surprise when one considers that this appeals to government supporters on social media. And when your basis for public opinion is social media (see last column), why would you care about right and wrong, fake and real, news? (more…)

komentaryo

A year of anti-information

A year into this President, and after the epic failure that is this Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), I am now beginning to think that contrary to what we would like to believe, maybe what we’ve seen to be a crisis in communications IS the communications strategy.

After all, look at Martin Andanar, utterly silent, getting away with releasing badly-written, ill-conceptualized pro-Martial Law videos, being paid for the bad work of all the divisions he is in charge of – from PTV4 to RTVM, the Philippine News Agency and all other Presidential and Malacañang websites. Look at the official Facebook page of Andanar’s Assistant Secretary and find that half of her posts are marked as fake news pages by the fantastic Fakeblok app of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP).

Look at us, getting used to this state of affairs, including the utter lack of credible and relevant information coming from government, save for shameless and questionable numbers that contradict what we know is happening on the ground, and official statements that are denied altogether even with multiple witnesses, even when we all heard what they said, even when there are recordings all over the place. (more…)

kultura

Death of culture (3): Lizaso’s vision for stagnation

The shameless conservatism in Nick Lizaso’s press release about his plans and vision for the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), is ironic when one considers that we have a President who questions Catholicism and dogmatism time and again, and who insists on his freedom of speech – if not his freedom to offend – over and over.

President Duterte unilaterally installed Lizaso as CCP head. But even the President himself would not pass the rules and regulations that Lizaso is set to make for culture, given how he considers this “mission to be almost Pentecostal for it is all about Apostolate for Art and Culture.”

Yes, to the cultish feels of Lizaso’s statements. And yes, he will go so far as to push for censorship, because he has done it before. As member of the CCP Board in 2011, Lizaso stood for the closure of the exhibit Kulo at the CCP Gallery because of Mideo Cruz’s work “Poleteismo,” a critique of conservative ideologies such as Catholicism, which mainstream media had spun into a controversy. Conservatives filed a case against Cruz and the CCP Board – except for Lizaso, because he had stood for the closure of the exhibit. (more…)

komentaryo

Out of control

Someone should tell the President to stop talking, and for his communications team to take control. Because the crisis in Marawi has revealed that he is preconditioned, at the worst time, to say the worst things.

It doesn’t matter if he’s here to begin with, or he’s arriving from a foreign trip. It doesn’t even matter that he has heard the public outcry against the Martial Law declaration, the fears that have been in the newspapers, on social media, out on the streets. He says what he wants. No one stops him.

Right there is why he is the worst leader to have at a time like this. There is no sense of control. No sense of order. There is no sense that he knows what he’s doing. And it gets worse. (more…)