CHITO STA. ROMANA (1948-2022)

I never met him personally  but I had known of the Sta. Romana twins, Chito and Nelin, since high school days in St. Scho Manila (HS’66).  I’d see the two, tall and lean in their La Salle uniforms, usually standing by the gate just inside the pergola (where we all waited for our sundô), meeting up (I assumed) with their Kulasa sisters Neni and Chona for the trip home.

In U.P. Diliman when student ferment rose to a pitch in the late ’60s, I would hear Chito’s name mentioned in the same breath as that of Ed Jopson — student leaders from conservative exclusive schools La Salle and Ateneo, who started out as “moderates” compared to the U.P. radicals of Kabataang Makabayan led by Joma Sison, and who were all part of the First Quarter Storm when students protested the guns goons and gold that won Marcos re-election in ’69, and warned about Marcos’s plans for a prohibited third term via a constitutional convention.

But first, Martial Law. In ’76 when Eman Lacaba, poet-turned-armedrebel was reported killed by government forces, and again in ’82 when it was the turn of EdJop (who had turned radical in ‘72), I wondered about Chito. When I heard through the grapevine that he was in China, stranded into exile, I was just glad he was safe. I wondered, too, about Nelin, but there was no one to ask.

I read of Chito’s happy homecoming in 1986, of course. But it was only in 2011, when friend Sylvia Mayuga posted on Facebook an article about her cousin Chito retiring from ABC News | Beijing, that I finally got to ask about Nelin the twin, and Sylvia assured me he was fine, too. It was good to know that both had survived the Marcos years.

In November 2011, I got email from Nelin. He heard daw from Chito that I had asked Sylvia about him on Facebook and we agreed to meet, as it happened, on the 25th of Feb 2012 at Via Mare | EDSA Shang where he treated me and Katrina to lunch. It was like catching up with an old friend (in a past life, for sure).

Then in August 2015  I needed advice. Was it a good time for Katrina to go on a junket to China, not exactly the Philippines’ best friend in PNoy’s time, what with China’s belligerent ways in the West Philippine Sea, reclaiming rocks, harvesting Philippine marine life, driving Filipino fishermen away. We reached out to Chito via Nelin and Facebook.

ME.  I hope you don’t mind but you’re the only China specialist we “know.”  Manila Times, for which Katrina writes a column, wants to send her to China end of the month. Given the latest medyo nakaka-praning statements from Chinese officials, I’m thinking it might not be a good time? It might compromise her, in some way? Attached are two pages of the invite.  [12 Aug 2015]

CHITO.  Hi Angela, the Chinese are evidently stepping [up] their outreach to Philippine media. I have met several Pinoy journalists who have either gone or are going on trips to China upon invitation by the Chinese embassy. All these are part of their public diplomacy campaign to improve their image in the Philippines. If Katrina really feels uneasy about going, then I would advise her to wait until she is up to it.  I think the China invites will keep coming in the months & years to come.

But if she has not been to China & would like to see the “other side of the story,” so to speak, then I think she should accept the invite. Having seen her writings, I actually think she can think & analyze independently and so I would advise that she go ahead with the China visit from the perspective of “knowing the other side & understanding their mindset” so as to better analyze & rebut their propaganda.

Of course I could not resist a tiny rant.

ME.  So now, parang they’re being nice and reaching out to our media, pero tuloytuloy ang pag-challenge sa Pilipinas over the Spratleys?  I wonder if it’s an indication of how pliant they think our media people are. Just thinking out loud.

CHITO. I do agree that the Chinese actions in WPS are unacceptable & will simply trigger a counter-alliance vs them. I usually divide the dispute into 3 dimensions: territorial, maritime & geopolitical. The maritime aspect will hopefully be solved or at least clarified by the Arbitral Tribunal, if at all. The tribunal cannot [resolve] the territorial issue & it will be with us for a fairly long time, while the geopolitical issue (US-Japan vs China) will probably escalate in the foreseeable future. Hence the need to understand the Chinese strategy, their mindset. Which is what I am hoping Katrina will gain from the trip. I have seen others who have returned & become “cheerleaders” for China, which I am confident will not be the case for Katrina. My two cents worth.  [12 August 2015]

On Day 5 of 7, Katrina sent email from Beijing that I forwarded, un-redacted, to Chito and, later, Nelin. As it turned out, she was with a media group mostly older than she, and mostly old hands at the China gig. Posting excerpts here [redacted by her].

KATRINA.  This is their standard junket yata. Parang they’ve been on these trips together often enough, and they were surprised that I was even here. And today, after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the talk with the Asian Affairs head, parang malinaw na rin that they are all anti-US … Feeling nila it’s important that the media is brought to China on trips like this, and China needs to give payola to media to balance out the money that America pays media raw … so that when they go back to the Philippines they can change the perceptions about China, etc. etc. And I’m like: lahat naman sila matatanda na and tainted na by their politics and biases. Too many of them are pro-Bongbong. May tendency rin to put down the Philippines among themselves.  … I want to tell nga the embassy girl na sana, next time, to get younger writers and columnists.

And oh my goodness, did I tell you? They fall asleep right in front of the people we meet with! As in humihilik and all. And P_ almost hit her head on the table as she fell asleep in front of the descendants of that Sultan of Sulu who’s buried in China. … And I get naman the ribbing and joking around. Pero talaga, minsan overboard. And the falling asleep in front of people. I wonder what the Chinese think of that.

Interesting naman that Tomb of the King of Sulu. But I don’t know that that specific moment stands for the kind of China, and the kind of Philippines, we are in the present. Oo nga, it was friendly, he died on his way back to Sulu and is the only foreign leader to be buried in China. And yes, his family members and descendants are Chinese citizens. Pero wala rin namang effort culturally for these descendants to care about the Philippines, or PH-China relations. Parang wala lang. May roots lang na gano’n. Tapos tapos na.  [11 Sept 2015]

CHITO. Thanks a lot, Angela, for sharing, Will keep this account “for my eyes only.” I did see a TV report on ANC by Willard [Cheng] on the Sultan of Sulu’s tomb in China, but didn’t know Katrina was part of the group. Her account of the visit is very interesting, insightful & extremely hilarious! She is right about the need to have younger writers be part of future groups. It must have been quite a scene to behold, to have the “seniors” dozing off & snoring during the briefings! Looking forward to Katrina’s columns & postings when she gets back. [13 Sept 2015]

When Chito was appointed Philippine Ambassador to China in 2016, it felt so right – like it was meant to be. It was where Chito pala was headed all along—from the First Quarter Storm to that first China trip, and exile, and immersion, and a lot of hard work and hard study that eventually made him the news bureau chief and scholar that he was, top of the heap, no less, in China studies and PH-China relations.

JAIME FLOR CRUZ.  Some three years into our forced exile, when Imelda Marcos visited Beijing, we received feelers through her Chinese hosts that she wanted to bring us home. Chito and our group thought the offer through, but quickly figured out the agenda of the dictator’s wife: she would bring us home as political trophies. We rebuffed the offer.

RAISSA ROBLES. [China’s Ambassador to Manila] Huang Xilian noted that Sta. Romana was “among the first Filipinos to visit the new China when he headed the visiting Philippine Youth Delegation in 1971”, after which he spent the next five decades as the country’s long-time resident, first as a student of Mandarin in Beijing, and then as ABC News’ China correspondent for over 20 years, before becoming the Philippine ambassador.

FLOR CRUZ. Chito mastered Mandarin, dived deep into China’s history and kept abreast with its current state of affairs. He made many friends and kept a rolodex of Chinese contacts. He learned how things worked in China—and why. He knew China inside out.

ROBLES. The late envoy played a key role in repairing once-tattered bilateral relations by advocating a more nuanced approach to the Philippines’ neighbour, after the 2016 arbitration ruling nullified Beijing’s claims to nearly all of South China Sea

FLOR CRUZ.  He knew, of course, that no one wanted the posting. “It’s a tough job,” he told me in a chat soon after he became ambassador.

In a last public address on March 5 this year, says Robles, the Ambassador advised the next president to hold firm to Ph’s strategy of engagement with China.

STA. ROMANA. It’s a combination of cooperation as much as possible, and pushback whenever necessary.

In private, John Silva, an old friend from La Salle days, tells of trying to find out how Chito felt about representing a government that’s at times indifferent to Chinese intrusion in Ph waters, and also the weakest of all ASEAN in safeguarding our territorial integrity.

JOHN SILVA.  Chito would reveal a nugget here and there and given Big Brother, the assumed bugging of the embassy, and the provided Chinese chauffeur, his remarks would be in near whispers.

The sum of his revelations were indicative of Chito’s style. He measured his comments so as not to be controversial to the listener. He though affirmed Chinese expansionism and rolled his eyes on the latest gaffes from the homeland, but that’s as much [as] one could expect from a diplomat.

I would have loved to see Chito rolling his eyes… over the latest gaffes once he was back in the homeland. Alas, he has gone ahead, gone too soon.

I wasn’t prepared for the sadness that came over me when I read of his passing. It is nothing, certainly, compared to the grief of Chito’s family and close friends, but grief nonetheless. The only other time I felt this kind of sadness was over the death of PNoy, whom I knew, too, only from afar. PNoy was a good man, he meant well. Chito was a good man, he did well. It’s all about nation.

***

Remembering Chito Sta. Romana by Jaime Flor Cruz
Tributes pour in for late Philippine ambassador hailed as ‘good friend’ of China by Raissa Robles
Remembering Ambassador Chito Sta. Romana by John Silva

On Tiktok, Marcos was winning long before voting ended

Katrina Stuart Santiago

I’ve lived on the Marcos Tiktok algorithm since February this year, a deliberate effort to understand better what was happening on the platform that seems to evade whatever kind of fact-checking, quick responses, and take-downs we see of Marcos content on Facebook. It was easy to get on the algorithm: all content I posted had the most consistent Marcos hashtags; all videos I watched, liked, and saved were pro-Marcos.

Soon enough, the algorithm surfaced what were clear content buckets — a set of digital content categories for any given project. There was standard funny meme content as response to anti-Marcos articles from media, and anti-Marcos statements from celebrities, the Liberal Party, and the Left, where the standard strategy is to dismiss the material as dilawan-Liberal (yellow-Liberal) or terorista (terrorist).

Another bucket focused on disinformation, whether videos of purported crowds at Marcos-Duterte rallies that were so obviously from other events, or criticism of Robredo that builds on the narrative of her as incompetent and unpresidential, one they’ve sustained for six years.

But what surprised was how majority of what went on my feed was of the third bucket that focused primarily on fan content. Here, the Marcos family is re-framed as an aspirational one, re-imagined for a contemporary audience that’s hooked on reality TV and celebrity and influencer culture on social media. Here, Ferdinand and Imelda are called Papa FEM and Mama Meldy, and their children are Manang Imee (older sister Imee), Tita Irene (Aunt Irene), and Bongget (Ferdinand Jr., aka Bongbong).

So named, they are defamiliarized and decontextualized from existing historical accounts of the Marcos regime — its violence, plunder, and corruption. So decontextualized, they are reintroduced and re-contextualized into a present space on Tiktok, where they are a family we aspire to, a wish-fulfillment as they are impossible dream — it’s exactly the same kind of appeal that celebrity lifestyles have on fans, including the push-and-pull between access and distance.

All of these create a completely different universe that’s happening right under our noses, and as we know now, it is a world-building that can affect — and win — elections.

And election day might be the best proof of how separate and distinct this universe is. We woke to election day on May 9, 2022 hearing news of vote counting machine (VCM) malfunctions. We watched our Facebook and Twitter feeds fill up with stories of voters suffering through lines growing longer by the hour, with people leaving and returning to their polling precincts only to find that VCMs had yet to be fixed or replaced. We heard the COMELEC insist that there was nothing irregular about voters being told they should just fill up their ballots and leave it behind for mass feeding into VCMs, never mind that this means voters are unable to ensure their votes are counted.

But election day looked very different over at the Marcos Tiktok algorithm. For one thing, they already had vote counts that started as early as 8:20 a.m., only a little over an hour after the polls opened at 7:00 a.m.

The account @mf posted an image of purported 8:20 AM results spliced with an image of Bongbong Marcos in line to cast his votes. That tally read 504,791 votes for Marcos, and 178,923 votes for Leni Robredo. This was viewed 629,000 times.

@EditsMrcos Araneta had a video slide show of purported election results from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. showing Marcos consistently in the lead across purported results for 11:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m. Posted at 3:00 p.m., this is given the background music of “We Are The Champions,” and the caption claiming that these are CALABARZON numbers. This was viewed 1.6 million times.

There were still four hours to go before polling precincts were to close at 7:00 p.m.

The 6:48PM results would be released by another account @Edgar Calma, with Marcos’s number at 22,259,467, and Robredo’s at 10,425,315. The text warns of brownouts, insinuating that this is how Marcos can be cheated. This was viewed 76,200 times.

As is the nature of the Marcos Tiktok campaign, these types of content appeared over and over across accounts, none of which are influencer in the sense that they are owned by “known” or “(in)famous” people. The same content appeared in different forms, with different music, and diverse captions. Some accounts posted the card showing numbers for an 11:00 a.m. count, where Marcos has over 1.17 million votes and Robredo over 978,000 votes, and simply caption these with variations of “Pray for BBM-Sara.”

Another account that on election day was @BBM?????? and a day after had become @Nantez?????? posted the same card with a deepfake video of the three Spiderman actors dancing to the music of Ghostface Playa that has one line: “Oh Shit.” The account captions the post with: “ez win na guys.” This had been viewed 86,000 times.

The same account also posted a video for the purported count for 3:30 p.m., showing Marcos with 4.88 million votes and Robredo with 3.11 million. The form is exactly the same as the previously mentioned post, but the caption reads: “Update guys. Sana di na magbrownout. HAHAHAHAHA” This one was viewed 1.9 million times.

As is on Tiktok, when you are on an algorithm such as that of the Marcoses’, this type of content is interspersed with fan content videos. For May 9, this meant election day content showing footage of Marcos at the voting precinct, Imelda arriving and being assisted by daughter Irene, and footage of the family waiting to vote, seated at the precinct.

Footage of Irene just shifting in her seat was created as content for account @RIRI, with the music from Shanti Dope’s “Nadarang,” and captioned: “the way she turn her feet.” This has had more than 110,000 views.

Video just showing Imelda arriving with Irene, asking what they are doing today, and Irene responding by putting up her index finger to indicate that they are voting, has garnered 913.8 thousand views. Account @irenemarcossimp captions it: “ang cute na naman ng hand gesture ni irene.”

Footage of Marcos falling in line and feeding his ballot into the VCM posted by @MarcosDuterte???????????? garnered 2.4 million views, and 375.7 thousand likes. The music is Zeus’s “A Thousand Years,” and the caption reads “Lord ibigay muna sa amin itong taong toh! Ang tagal po naming naghintay! ??????????”

On election day, that fan content was interspersed with a fake, baseless electoral count, while voting was still going on. Those on the Marcos-Duterte algorithm would’ve seen this content and arguably been bolstered by the “sure win” they were seeing on their screens — fake as it was. All day, this Marcos algorithm was setting the stage for a win. By the time those unofficial, partial results started being shown on TV, the people on their algorithm were pumped for it, their dream realized long before the count even becomes official.

While it is easy to dismiss this as proof of how disinformation on platforms like Tiktok (and Facebook) have ruined democratic institutions like the elections, the more analytical, important point to be made here is that people made this happen. The platforms are one thing, and certainly could do better at helping control the spread of disinformation; but this has always been about the people who know to use these platforms to serve the interests of those who will pay premium for specific outcomes.

Fan content is interesting because it surfaces actual people, on accounts that have faces on them, using diverse voices, cutting across generations, with different perspectives, all believing in the Marcoses’ inevitable and rightful return to power. It is a particular public that it surfaces, one that we should want to understand and speak to, not dismiss and deem as zombies or victims with no opinion, creativity, or point-of-view.

As with Duterte propagandists the past six years, these are real people who actually believe in Marcos, his family, and all that they now stand for, refashioned and reframed as they are for Tiktok.

And while the communication strategists responsible for the creation of this universe have yet to surface, there is no reason to blame this all on these public actors whose sincerity and agency are difficult to question — even as they are on the other side of the democratic space we all inhabit. What we can do for now is to understand better what the battlefield looks like, so we can finally and really take part in the battle.

Otherwise, this algorithm is also poised to win 2028 for Sara Duterte. They’ve also been churning out content for that the past six months.

“tax reforms” para kanino?

President Duterte will leave behind 40 finished flagship infrastructure projects worth P365.2 billion by the end of his term, such that his economic team wants the succeeding Marcos Jr. administration to prioritize infrastructure development, to be partly funded by another round of tax reforms, under the proposed fiscal consolidation and resource mobilization plan.

That’s from Inquirer‘s “Marcos urged to sustain infra devt., tax reforms“.

Ito ang sagot sa Facebook ng abogadong si Ruben Carranza na dating PCGG commissioner, now with the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), New York.

CARRANZA. … ang “tax reforms” ay pinagandang tawag lang sa pag-taas ng buwis at ang maniningil nito ay pamilyang ayaw magbayad ng buwis. Dapat lang magalit sa kabastusan ng sitwasyon na yan: nagnakaw na ng $10B, hindi nagbabayad ng P23B at ngayon sila pa ang pipiga ng dagdag na buwis sa 110M na Pilipino? [At tandaan na kasama sa magbabayad ng mataas na buwis na yan ang 31M, 14M at lahat ng milyon na hindi man lang botante].

MERON PA AKONG REKLAMO tungkol diyan sa mapaglinlang na “tax reforms.” Sino ba ang may gusto nito (at bakit “reform” ang tawag nila)? Ang may gusto nito ay ang mga dayuhang nagpapautang sa mga ‘developing country’ katulad ng Pilipinas at ang International Monetary Fund o IMF na mas concerned pa na mabayaran ang nagpapautang maski mamatay na sa gutom ang mga sinisingil ng mas mataas na buwis.

“Reform” lang yan para sa mga naninigurong mabayaran sila ng utang at wala silang paki-alam kung ang perang inutang ay ninakaw — ganyang pag-paparaya sa korupsiyon ang ginawa ng IMF (at World Bank) noong panahon ni Marcos Sr. Halimbawa, umabot na sa $18B ang utang ng Pilipinas noong 1981, pero si Marcos Sr, niregalohan pa si Imelda ng apat na building sa New York na ang isa lang ay $71M ang halaga!

FINALLY: ang ganitong style ng pagkakasulat ng mga balita tungkol sa taxes [at] ekonomiya — na para bang mga malalaking kapitalista at ekonomista lang ang magbabasa at maapektuhan ng balitang “tax reforms” — ang nakakapagpalalá ng fake news. Kung hindi mabasa o maintindihan ng ordinaryong botante ang balitang tax increase na disguised as “tax reform,” madaling maipasa ito ng mga gobyernong manloloko. Ang “business news” ay para din dapat sa manggagawa at dapat isulat sa paraang maiintidihan ng mas marami. At ito yung isa pang dahilan kung bakit madaling makapag-kalat ng kasinugalingan si Marcos at Duterte — ang ganitong news reporting tungkol sa ekonomiya na nakakatulong kay Marcos at Duterte para itago ang kanilang pagiging ipokrito sa mga salitang “tax reforms.” cc: [Sino ba ang “business news editor” ng Inquirer?]

Salamat kay Carranza for calling out business news editors and reporters na kung magsulat at magreport tungkol sa “tax reforms” ay walang bahid ng kritisismo–para bagang aprub na aprub sila, gayong pigang-piga na ang nakararaming taxpayers na hindi naman totoong nakikinabang.  Time to level up, guys.

Promises, promises…

CAMPAIGN POST-MORTEM
Ana Marie Pamintuan

To whom much is given, much is expected.

With a majority vote, the incoming president faces high expectations especially among his poorest supporters.

This being the period for giving the benefit of the doubt to whoever wins in our elections, we should wish the victors the best in steering our deeply divided country.

In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte promised to end the drug menace in six months. We all know how that promise fared.

This time, the promise coursed through TikTok and Facebook is to bring down prices of rice (P20 per kilo!) and electricity (Manila Electric Co. rates have just gone down due to a mandated refund). At least the Marcos camp avoided promising lower fuel prices…. READ ON