digging digong

this is my 3rd attempt since his monday presscon to finish a post on president-elect duterte.  i keep getting overtaken by events – the thursday presscon was a zinger, too, and so was the friday decision to stop with the presscons for the nonce, and what about that saturday night thanksgiving speech, oh my gods.

it’s been a week and on facebook ay nanggagalaiti pa rin ang journalist circles over duterte seeming to make excuses for the journalist killings instead of saying … umm, whatever they wanted him to say, i guess, like something pnoy would say, or gma, in their politically correct ways and words that signify nothing really, because the killings went on anyway under their watch.

in a facebook message exchange with jojo abinales, the professor in hawaii who hails from mindanao, he brought up digong’s statements re journalists and thinks that maybe the prez-elect was actually referring more to broadcast journalists, not the writers.

Sa probinsya they are the pundits. So no wonder he cited Jun Pala who was a broadcaster who threatened people, could easily be paid. Kasi I doubt if he reads the newspapers or even Interaksyon or Rappler. But he listens to talk radio like all Chico de Calle … You may have to listen to talk radio for a while. The Tulfo types. Now put that in a Davao context. … Have you listened to his TV show Mula sa masa Tungo sa masa? Some of it is in YouTube. It is hilarious. I think he believes the journalists are like his interviewer in that show. One question lang and he then rants and raves.

yes, that weekly tv show worked for davao, the mayor sharing the latest, speaking his truth, from long immersion in politics, taking the time to explain, even if not in a linear or logical manner because he likes to suddenly backtrack for some history or go sideways for some synchronicity or flash forward for some prophetic promise, and then he’s back to the present, or not.  it works for me, too.  i am loving this exposure, finally, to the mindanao state of mind and to bisaya / dabawenyo the language and culture.

meanwhile, pinag-uusapan pa rin, the alleged pambabastos ni duterte sa isang lady reporter nang  kanya itong sinipulan sa monday presscon.  digong defended the whistling on thursday: “whistling is not a sexual thing,” sabi niya.   actually it is.  that kind of whistle at a woman springs from human sexuality, the male-female dynamic that keeps humanity multiplying, although i would concede, nay, insist, that whistling is the least offensive of sexual signals, and can even be pleasing to the target.  ask any man, woman, lgbt who has been whistled at in a friendly setting.  in my youth it was taken as a compliment, with good humor, because there is no real threat, with apologies to the feminists, lol.  mas problema talaga ang reaction ng asawa o boyfriend o tatay o bro, who tend to go macho and patriarchal and  get offended for their woman and feel the need to speak up to defend her honor.  but was her honor sullied at all?  i don’t think so.  to her credit, she handled it all rather well, cool na cool nga.  but yeah, maybe it’s just me and my sexually liberated (kuno) aging hippie self, haha.

i didn’t vote for duterte but i certainly respect the incontrovertible win of this rogue mayor from mindanao who dares challenge the church and the oligarchs and the drug lords that have long ruled our lives (and  look where we are now).  so his putanginas don’t bother me – kagalit-galit naman talaga ang sitwasyon.  no filter, no holds barred, no hypocrisy, is good, even if it takes getting used to.  ang nakaka-tense, yung death threats, but then again drug lords do deserve death for dealing deadly drugs.

media peeps just have to be better prepared to ask follow-ups immediately, right then and there, for the sanity of us all, instead of being rendered speechless by the unexpected from digong and then raising a howl later, like losers.  and yes to a communications team that would, for starters, go on damage-control mode right after a presscon, answering questions, explaining contexts, whatever, until media peeps get the hang, beyond soundbites, of the new prez, or until digong metamorphoses, as he threatens, into a different version of himself once he is president.  or maybe he was joking?  abangan.