Category: blogs

Vlogging, blogging, and Mareng Winnie

It did not surprise when lawyer-vlogger Trixie Cruz Angeles was appointed communications chief & press secretary by the president-elect. Much less did it perturb when she announced that her priority is to push for the accreditation of vloggers so they can cover presidential briefings and events along with mainstream media.

Malinaw naman na malaki ang kontribusyon ng vloggers tulad nina Mocha Uson, Atty. Trixie, Thinking Pinoy, at Sass [For the Motherland], to name a few, hindi lang sa pag-defend sa Duterte admin in the last 6 years, gayon din ang naging papel nila (minus Uson) sa pagkapanalo ni Marcos Jr. nung May 9 – halos walang patid ang kanilang pagtugon, pag-dispute, sa mga paratang na ill-gotten wealth, unpaid taxes, atbp. na ibinato sa mga Marcos noong kampanya.

And to be clear – since mainstream media peeps don’t seem to realize this – vlogging is not at all like blogging or journalism.  Blogging and journalism entail the writing of a text, whether commentary or reportage, feature article or gossip column.

Vlogging is live (long ī) commentary in front of a video camera, usually accessible on Facebook or YouTube, the vlogger addressing directly his/her viewers | followers, as in a conversation, explaining issues, responding to questions, in easy informal Tagalog, if not Taglish.

Vlogging is very different from what broadcast journalists Alvin Elchico and Doris Bigornia, halimbawa, do on SRO | DZMM nightly (except weekends) where they call on resource persons and viewers to articulate the different sides of an issue—as in, pa-objective, putting forward opinions other than their own.

The vlogger, in contrast,  quotes | cites only data and viewpoints that support his/her take on a matter—as in, very subective, putting forward only his/her own feelings | opinions, purely in support | defense of the actions and policies of his/her principal/s.

Propaganda, indeed, but then, kung tutuosin, mainstream media | accredited journalists have their biases and sacred cows, too. These days, the anti-Marcos among them serve mostly the Establishment that seeks only to preserve the status quo, i.e., the existing state of affairs (before RRD and BBM), sorry na lang ang mga poor na parami nang parami ang bilang at pahirap nang pahirap ang buhay (even back in GMA’s and PNoy’s terms, correct me if I’m wrong).

Pero more immediately, ang totoong hamon sa mga anti-Marcos in mainstream media is to stop whining about the influence and reach of pro-Marcos vloggers and to start vlogging, too: Level up, do live commentary, some focusing on disputing the lies and distortions re martial law and EDSA with documented data, others on offering alternative opinions | takes re the new President’s pronouncements and policies, again, based on data.

Samantala, I love it that Mareng Winnie Monsod, after her Get Real column was “discontinued” by Inquirer, has started blogging @marengwinniemonsod.ph. Check out her take on Marcos Jr.’s inaugural speech: False Claims, Inaccurate Statements, and Exaggerations.

She could take it a step further and also start vlogging — much like what she was doing in Bawal ang Pasaway kay Mareng Winnie for GMA TV in pre-pandemic times.  A vlog where she interviews Sec Trixie on why | how she changed her mind about the Marcoses would be a blockbuster for sure!

dengue, dengvaxia, #DengGate

ke naturukan (ka o) ang anak mo o hindi ng dengvaxia, kailangang mag-ingat, at maging mapag-bantay at alerto sa kalagayan ng ating paligid, gayon din sa mga senyales ng dengue.

MAG-INGAT SA LAMOK.  hindi lahat ng lamok ay nagdadala ng dengue virus pero mahirap sabihin kung alin, samakatuwid, matakot sa lahat ng lamok, ke sa araw o sa gabi nangangagat.

tiyakin na sa paligid ng bahay ay WALANG MGA GAMIT NA WALANG TAKIP — LATA, BOTE, MASETERA, GULONG, BARADONG ALULOD atbp. — KUNG SAAN MAY NAIIPONG TUBIG-ULAN NANG MATAGALAN (stagnant water)  sapagkat diyan mismo namumugad at nanganganak ang mga lamok na may dalang dengue.

4 years old ang panganay ko (in 1977) nang umuwi ito galing pre-school na may sinat.  lagnat-laki lang sana, dasal ko.  baka tempra lang ok na.  on the second, third day of fever (38+) dinala ko na siya sa pediatrician na nag-prescribe lang ng mas malakas na anti-lagnat (di ko na maalala ang name, gifaril yata).  over the next day, tumataas pa rin ang lagnat, tumapak na sa 39+, isinusuka ang gamot, at bahagya ko nang mapainom ng tubig o mapakain, kaya’t itinakbo na namin sa ospital.

isang tingin ng ER residents sa inner fold ng braso niya, kung saan meron na palang red rashes — gangga-tuldok ng karayom bawat isa — alam na nila.  H-fever pa ang tawag sa dengue noon.  agad siyang kinabitan ng suwero, kinunan ng dugo, at agad rin nalamang bagsak na ang bilang ng kanyang blood platelets — ito yung sangkap ng dugo na tinatawag ring “blood clot cell” — pag bumagsak ito dahil sa dengue virus, naaapekto ang mga daluyan ng dugo, una na ang maliliit na capillaries, at nagli-leak ang dugo.  mga tatlo o apat na bag of blood platelets ang naisalin bago nag-normal ang kanyang platelet count.

so, talaga, feel ko ang mga nanggagalaiting ama’t ina ng mga batang naturukan ng dengvaxia.

DENGVAXIA #DengGate

i must confess, rj nieto aka thinking pinoy who has been blogging about #DengGate is a facebook friend, mula pa nuong may 13 (day 4 since the may 9 2016 elections).  i had just posted here excerpts from teddy locsin’s Elections over, but not the count — right smack nuong nagkakainitan sa bilangan:  duterte was very out front but the vp race was still up for grabs (in a manner of speaking), and there was a hue and cry over dubious smartmatic antics.  teddy boy, already pro-duterte, was saying, let’s wait for the official count; if you think there were any peculiarities or irregularities in the counting, then file a protest with comelec.

the comment thread is mostly my exchange with boom buencamino who agreed with teddy boy, but when i brought up  smartmatic’s antics he shared a couple of links, one on the ñ, and one to thinking pinoy‘s BBM vs. Leni: Forget Math, Hash Code is the Smoking Gun.

which is to say that i didn’t think twice about accepting nieto’s friend request.  TP was still in pa neutral-objective mode, i thought, even if barely, but he seemed to be well-informed and it didn’t hurt to keep abreast of whatever he was sharing.

soon after i clicked confirm, he sent a me a private message:

I am a big fan. ThinkingPinoy here.

me: thanks! but are you sure you’re not mistaking me for my daughter katrina?

Ohhh. I thought you’re katrina.  Yeah, I am her fan. We do not agree on a million issues, but I admire her…

a lot of water under the bridge later, and TP is now duterte’s Big Blogger, with an ear behind certain closed doors and enviable access, it would seem, to every nook niche and cranny, including the cordon-sanitaired, and you wonder who his major sponsor/s is / are (alanpeter, is datyu? bonggo, is datyu?) and while na-hide ko na siya from my newsfeed — na-turn off ako when he became brazenly, arrogantly, pro-duterte and nawala na yung attempt, kahit kuno, at objectivity — now and then i still visit his wall and blog, especially since he started blogging about dengvaxia #DengGate.

feb 7 he posted DOH and Sanofi’s Secret: Dengvaxia ®) may cause multiple organ failure.  feb 9 he posted this on his fb wall:

THE DENGVAXIA SCANDAL IN TEN SIMPLE STEPS

Let me explain part of the Dengvaxia Scandal in very simple and concise terms.

1. In December 2015, Sanofi Pasteur submitted a registration application to the Food and Drug Administration Philippines, where it said right then and there that Dengvaxia may cause, among others, nerve damage, multi-organ failure, worsened dengue symptoms. Sanofi also said in the application that Dengvaxia has limited efficacy, and provides waning protection over time.

2. Common sense dictates that long-term trials should have been done to reasonably confirm or debunk those risks BEFORE mass vaccination. None were conducted. Worse, FDA DID NOT include nerve damage (neurotrophism) and multi-organ failure (viscerotropism) in the list of side effects on Dengvaxia’s product label, so the public had no way of knowing about them.

3. Instead of conducting a long-term trial, say, through a limited mass-market release, Department of Health (Philippines) Sec. Dr. Janette Loreto-Garin decided to inject it to ONE MILLION kids, with her succeeding to inject close to 500,000 before she stepped down. She was actually already actively working on buying it WAY BEFORE it was approved by the FDA.

4. Garin and co. were able to bypass the limited long-term trial requirement because DoH Usec Kenneth Hartigan-Go made long-term post-marketing trials OPTIONAL when he was still FDA head. Hartigan-Go was part of the Zuellig network before and after his government stint. Zuellig Pharma Philippines is Dengvaxia’s exclusive distributor in the country. According to a leaked email, Hartigan-Go even offered to modify government regulations to ease Dengvaxia’s entry into the country.

5. Despite full knowledge and admission of the potential serious side effects of Dengvaxia, neither DoH nor Sanofi informed parents about this prior to inoculation.

6. Phase 3 trials ended in September 2017 and Sanofi CONFIRMED ONE of the suspected side effects: that Dengvaxia worsens Dengue symptoms for recipients who’ve never had dengue. They announced this through the 29 November 2017 Sanofi Press Release.

7. Parent of kids who died after receiving Dengvaxia started to reach out to the Public Attorney’s Office PAO, so PAO chief Atty. Persida Acosta started investigating.

8. PAO’s Forensics head Doctor-Attorney Erwin Erfe, with the help of Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center pathologists, conducted autopsies and tissue tests on the victims. Aside from discovering possible signs of severe dengue, they also discovered possible signs of viscerotropism or multi-organ failure.

9. In short, PAO and Co. appear to be confirming NOT ONLY ONE BUT TWO of the side effects. That is, it appears that PAO may have accidentally discovered Dengvaxia may indeed cause multi-organ failure, aside from worsening dengue symptoms, something that’s OVER AND ABOVE what’s stated in Sanofi’s press release.

10. And what has Sanofi done about it so far? They went on a media blitz to discredit PAO, with Zuellig Family Foundation trustee and former DoH Sec Esperanza Cabral as their head cheerleader, and with a large number of doctors from the Philippine General Hospital — who are indebted to Sanofi or Zuellig in one way or another — as her back-up dancers.

And that’s the simple version of the Dengvaxia Scandal.

i leave it to DOH apologists, garin cohorts in particular, to dispute or belie any of nieto’s sequence of events.  regrettably, TP doesn’t cover two important points (off the top of my head):

one, palusot ni garin.  when pressed about why she went ahead with the mass vaccination program despite warnings by experts re sero-negatives, garin claimed with a straight face na, batay sa DOH studies, karamihan (90%) ng pilipino ay tinamaan na ng dengue at least once.  isa lang daw sa sampu (1 out of 10) ang hindi pa nagkaka-dengue.  samakatuwid, sa estima at expert opinion nila sa DOH, mas maraming pilipino, 9 out of 10, ang mabebenepisyuhan ng dengvaxia kaysa masasaktan.

ang problema, walang naniwala sa statistics na iyan, at nang hingian sila ng kopya ng DOH studies ay wala namang maipakita si garin at kanyang mga alipores.  sabi naman ng kabilang kampo, mas malamang na 50 % lang kasi ang nagka-dengue na, pero duda pa rin ako.  puwedeng ngang 50 % pero sa mga lugar lang na madalas tamaan at mataas ang incidence ng dengue, at hindi sa buong kapuluan at hindi buong taon; may pagka-seasonal ang dengue, correct me if i’m wrong.

sagot ng DOH, maaaring nagka-dengue ka na, pero mild lang, hindi mo alam na dengue na pala iyon.  ang problema, wala naman talagang monitoring system ang DOH, therefore, wala naman talagang datos.  based pala on non-existent studies.  figments of the compromised doctor’s imagination, LOL.

two, dedma kay ubial at duque.   TP unabashedly ignores what happened when duterte took over, how sec ubial wanted to stop the mass inoculation but certain HOR and Commission on Appointments members prevailed upon her to continue the program, or else.

as i said in an earlier post, the dengvaxia fiasco squarely straddles two administrations, and it would seem that, as usual, DOH’s compromised docs and peeps are circling the wagons, this time with old-hand sec duque in the lead, kind of.  alas.

and so like TP, i’m with PAO on this, and awaiting anxiously the official results of the autopsies.

waiting for cocoy, what about sotto, calling out grace

sometime during the senate hearing on fake news by the committee on public info and mass media last wednesday, i said on my facebook wall that i found the talk refreshing, it was good to see and hear edwin lacierda, abigail valte, and manolo quezon, nakaka-miss ang intelligent discourse. (public status. 13 likes.)  we kinda took it for granted back in pre-duterte days.

not that the trio said much, except to deny that they were responsible in any way for the anonymous dilawan blog silent no more or that its webmaster was once part of pNoy’s comms team — though cocoy dayao wasn’t around to confirm the denial, so correct me if i heard wrong — and to demand that rj nieto prove his allegations, produce evidence, that mar roxas was responsible for the nasaan-ang-pangulo anti-pNoy campaign in the time of mamasapano.  nag-buckle lang si lacierda on the question of whether he is part (or something like that) of silent no more, and justifiably, because does one become a part of silent no more when one “likes” and / or shares the link of any of its blog posts on facebook?

smart of cocoy dayao not to show up.  but he should show up next time or he might have to go into hiding and then be tracked down by the cops a la ronnie dayan, ewww.  that would be so uncool.  cool would be if he came to the next hearing with bells and whistles, including a hotshot IT lawyer.  i expect that he would refuse (even in an executive session) to name his clients, i.e., the writer/s and / or owners of silent no more (and other anonymous blogs under his admin) on grounds of confidentiality.  it would be a test case on a citizen’s right to anonymity and privacy.

it would be interesting to see how sotto, and other feeling-aggrieved senators, will deal with that.  sotto, in particular, who was tagged a rapist in the controversial seven-sens post (6,600 likes, 2066 shares, 780 comments) has reason to cry LIBEL!  but then that would mean opening himself up to questions re the pepsi paloma rape case back in 1982.  under oath he would be crazy to insist that no rape happened as he has claimed in recent years.  the rape hit the front pages just 35 years ago.  marami kaming adults na noon na buhay pa ngayon, and we remember what a scandal it was, and we still marvel at how they managed to get away with it, dared brazen it out, the show must go on, eat bulaga!  no fake news that.

and because dayao was a no-show, napagtuunan tuloy ng oras at pansin at puna si mocha uson, duterte’s social media muse (5 million followers), at si rj nieto aka thinking pinoy (700K followers) who is second only to mocha when it comes to bashing dilawans and others critical of duterte, imagining scenarios based on iffy data, yet whom committee chair grace poe couldn’t praise enough for his “neutrality” and “excellent research,” never mind the times that nieto has had to issue “errata” dahil nagkamali, tao lang daw.  argh.  i’ve been blogging 10 years now and i don’t remember ever having to issue an erratum.

anyway, the next morning, on my fb newsfeed, a u.p. prof was wishing for the likes of recto, laurel, salonga and santiago in the chamber; the discourse would have been so radically different daw. (for fb friends only. 142 likes and counting.)  hmm.  miriam too?  “I lied!” was one of her favorite punchlines.

pero recto, laurel, salonga, oo naman, except what’s the point in wishing for better, based on a romanticized past, when there’s work to do confronting what is, now, and looking to the future.  roby alampay, tony la viña, and florin hilbay were outstanding.

as for senator poe, she can redeem herself by pushing through with the committee’s promise to plug legal loopholes that allow bloggers earning undeclared income from advertisements to avoid payment of taxes.  and senator nancy binay is right, tax also the so-called “influencers” promoting products and services on their social media accounts, said to be an underground billion (peso) industry.  better late than never.

Draconian measure

By Bong Austero

On the same week that people of a certain age went into reflection mode to remember the horrors that befell this country 40 years ago, the President of the Republic signed the Cybercrime Prevention Law.

On the same week that people swore “never again” as they relived the dark years of the dictatorship when citizens were denied civil liberties—when freedom of expression was reduced to a theoretical concept that people pined for because speaking about or criticizing the excesses of government could mean summary execution or detention—the electronic version of martial law went into effect in the country.

How did this happen in a country that is supposed to be a bastion of democracy and at a time when the prevailing order rose to power on the strength of its much avowed defense of civil liberties?

The law sneaked through both houses of Congress surreptitiously.

Netizens and civil rights activists were caught flatfooted —they, along with everyone else in this country, simply woke up middle of last week to learn that their right to privacy has been whittled down. Worse, one can now be charged with a crime called electronic libel, which carries a penalty more onerous than ordinary libel. Under our current penal code, a writer, editor, or publisher who is found guilty of ordinary libel could be meted out a jail term of six months and one day to four years and two months. Thanks to the new cybercrime law, anyone who makes a comment in Facebook or Twitter or on a blog that is deemed libelous could be jailed for a minimum of six years and one day up to 12 years. This makes the person ineligible for parole since the minimum penalty is beyond six months. The proponents of the new law have made sure that anyone who would be convicted of the crime of electronic libel would have to serve a jail term.

This happened under the reign of the son of the mother of democracy in this country.

I am at a loss as to how something like the cybercrime law could be passed into law given this administration’s supposed staunch commitment to upholding civil liberties. The President is supposed to be surrounded by people who know better when it comes to these matters—there are quite a number of cabinet secretaries who are active netizens; for instance, Secretary Ricky Carandang and Undersecretary Manolo Quezon used to be very active bloggers. Most Cabinet members use Facebook and Twitter a lot. In fact, this government has practically endorsed the use of social networking sites as a means for citizens to get updated on government advisories during calamities and disasters.

There is also the matter of the law being impractical. Do we really want our justice system to be saddled by cases spurned by commentaries in blogs and social networking sites including the frivolous and trivial? Do we really have the means to prosecute everyone who commits electronic libel? If even just a fraction of Filipinos who think Vicente Sotto is unfit to become senator decides to deliberately commit mass electronic libel by maligning the senator in social networking sites, do we have enough resources to make millions accountable? What is the point of having a law if it cannot be implemented anyway?

The timing of the signing of the bill sucks. I don’t think that the senators who voted in favor of the bill did so out of fear that what happened to Sotto would also happen to them. Still, you can’t stop people from speculating that the two events are related.

I agree that there should be a means to police malicious and immature commentary in the Internet. I agree that there are far too many people who seem to treat social networking sites as nothing more but repository of their personal rants and complaints. But we don’t need to hold a gun against everyone’s temple just to make a point. The cybercrime law is just too draconian a response to a relatively minor social problem.

I have been informed that certain civil rights advocates will take the issue to court. I support this move. We must not allow what happened 40 years ago to happen again in this country.