Thinking Pinoy

Sass Rogando Sasot's first post about a leaked OVP email, followed by my article, “#OustDuterte: Inside Leni Robredo's international propaganda machinery”, is what launched the #LeniLeaks scandal. Since then, the #LeniLeaks scandal has gotten so big, it took on a life of its own.

Administration officials have issued various warnings to various oppositionists. Oppositionists have issued various denials and alibis. And as for netizens... Ugh, where do I even start?

I think that after five days of nonstop bickering, it's time to put things back into perspective. Why? Because almost everybody is talking about the wrong issue, almost everybody is attacking a strawman.

Let's get started.

#LeniLeaks Origins

The #LeniLeaks issue started with Sass Rogando Sasot's discovery of a forwarded email published in the Global Filipino Diaspora Council (GFDC) Yahoo! group message board. In the GFDC board message, former Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) chair Imelda “Mely” Nicolas published an email from a certain “Pete Silva”, an email that contained instructions from the OVP.

I am sorry to burst the bubble of conspiracy theorists, but the GFDC is NOT some clandestine organization, as it has been mentioned several times in news articles and press releases in the past. In 2014, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas described GFDC as “the first global network of overseas Filipinos from 25 countries [CFO],” and the said organization has been visible in mainstream news for a long time [Star, ABS].

Yes, GFDC is an established worldwide network of overseas Filipinos, a network led by several people who happen to wield a disproportionate amount of influence given their economic, social, and political backgrounds, several people who staunchly support the oppositionist Liberal Party, and who staunchly criticize the administration.

According to the leaked emails, the GDFC believes in the following assumptions:

that the Marcoses are evil
that Duterte is evil
that Leni is (or can be) an awesome leader

Now, let me clarify two things.

First, on “Disproportionate Influence”

I used the term “disproportionate influence” because GFDC's anti-Administration, pro-Leni, anti-Marcos leaders, who happen to be filthy rich or incredibly powerful or both (e.g. Loida Nicolas-Lewis), claim to be the voice of overseas Filipinos[MB] at large, even if they are not. For one, Duterte and losing VP candidate Marcos overwhelmingly won in the May 2016 Overseas Voting. Marcos, in fact, got almost twice as many votes as Robredo [Inq].

So who does GDFC represent? Apparently, GDFC's board's own interests.

And how many members does the GFDC board have? Sixty-two.

Ergo, disproportionate.

Second, on Criticism and Free Speech

Criticizing the administration is a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech. My issue, however, is what GFDC leaders can do if their statements fall on deaf ears. You see, unlike the vast majority of Filipinos, GFDC leaders have the influence and finances to make things happen.

I think this is best described through an analogy: imagine you have a gossipmonger neighbor who's spreading a particularly disparaging rumor about you.

If you're a regular minimum-wage earner, the best you can do is to confront that gossipmonger and possibly give him a whack or two and that's it. You have neither the time nor the money to file a libel or slander case. But if you're rich and powerful...

You get the drift.

Why call it #LeniLeaks?

That is exactly the point why I TANGENTIALLY discussed the #OustDuterte issue. The problem, however, is that National Media – and even the government – decided to focus on the ouster issue at large instead of the central topic, which is a the VP undermining the government through a propaganda machinery that, at least partially, benefits from public funds.

Yes, the central issue is the existence of a well-oiled, well-funded, well-organized propaganda machinery, led by no less than the Office of the Vice-president.

And where did we discover its existence? The Leaked OVP email.

Hence, #Lenileaks.

And for those who don't read a lot, #LeniLeaks is a portmanteau of “Leni Robredo”, our alleged vice-president, and “Wikileaks”, a (in)famous whistleblower site.

And this issue is what the Office of the Vice-president continually evades, similar to how single women evade issues like unwanted pregnancies.

But how did the email imply the existence of a “propaganda machinery”?

Well, let's look at the email first.

The OVP Socmed Email

Pete Silva's email, as forwarded by Mely Nicolas and supposedly from the Office of the Vice-president's social media arm, contains a set of detailed instructions on how to do damage control in the aftermath of the #NasaanSiLeni controversy, i.e. the PR nightmare that followed VP Leni Robredo's decision to go on a US vacation despite having known that a super typhoon was about to hit her hometown.

To refresh your memory, the said OVP email reads:

--------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Facebook
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2017 at 12:05 AM
Subject: New message from Pete Silva
To: Imelda Nicolas

Pete Silva
Pete Silva 11:35pm Jan 3
FROM OVP SOCMED:

Good morning!

Pro BBM/Duterte groups and influencers have launched simultaneous attacks on VP Leni starting 12 midnight today (Please check Maharlika, Sass, and Mr. Riyoh).

Here are some of the issues that need immediate response from our communities:

1. Late visit for the victims of Typhoon Nina + VP Leni’s “rehab is slow” statement.
-The attacks from their camp:
A. Everything she’s doing now is too late and just for a PR Spin.
B. VP Leni has no right to say the rehab is slow because she was not even there.
C. PRRD has visited way before she did.

-The Responses:
A. VP Leni has always been on top of things. The team was mobilized even before Typhoon Nina hit. She has organized and mobilized private efforts to donate for Bicol, Marinduque, Batangas, and Mindoro.
B. She does not have the mandate and financial capacity to do this, but she has made sure that efforts are consolidated and communicated the needs of the victims to the donors.
C. The dissatisfaction with VP Leni does not come from Bikolanos.It comes from troll influencers (Mocha, Sass, Thinking Pinoy) who NEVER organized or mobilized efforts to help out the typhoon victims.
C. VP Leni cannot shoulder everything. The national government (and other agencies eg DSWD) is the one who needs to step up.
D. Rehabilitation is different from relief operations. It needs building houses, electrification, and making sure that sources of livelihood pre-typhoon are working. We need to call out the national government on this, and take the offensive against their camp for having a simplistic view of the problem.
E. Compare the Duterte and the Robredo visit in Bicol. Digong just gave a speech for the “ceremonial giving of donations”. He did not go to the far flung areas to know their concerns. He never interacted with his constituents. He went there with the media only because he needs to be seen there. VP Leni, on the other hand, visited far flung areas and met with the people. She is on ground zero.

2. The BBM Camp has released several memes to have a “show of force”. Their messaging is to make their memes viral to make it appear like more people voted for BBM as the real VP.

Our attack:
-Flip the memes and show unflattering pictures with controversies of BBM and use their “the real VP” narrative. (suggestions: Cocaine addict, fake diploma, did not graduate college, Sandro is stupid – not even from Oxford which they are claiming)
-Call out BBM and ask where he was during Typhoon Nina (he was in Balesin! ITO BA ANG REAL VP???).
-Use the photos of BBM supporters during the Luneta rally and/or Duterte youth during the Marcos burial rally. The messaging should be: they’re numerous online, but they never deliver the real bodies needed when the battle is offline. They are a fake and paid army.

We would also like to request you and your communities to coordinate with us whenever a new campaign is launched for them and/or against her. You are a very crucial ally in protecting the truth, democracy, and the real mandate of the people. Let us continue fighting the good fight.
--------- End of Message ---------

A post with identical content also exists on the Facebook page “EDUCATORS FOR LENI ROBREDO” [FB].

Now, what does this email mean?

Leni's Propaganda Machine

The leaked OVP email shows several things, including:

[1] The OVP itself actively instructs its supporters on how to deal with anti-Leni criticisms.

[2] The OVP is not above disparaging the national government and even private persons, just to save its own neck, in light of the statements, “We need to call out the national government on this, and take the offensive against their camp for having a simplistic view of the problem.” and “Sandro is stupid.”).

[3] The OVP uses alibis that are not backed by data, in light of the statement, “ The dissatisfaction with VP Leni does not come from Bikolanos”

[4] The OVP's use of irrelevant and pathetic alibis, such as setting the expectation that losing VP candidate Bongbong Marcos has some sort of legal responsibility to do the same things required from the OVP.

[5] The OVP has this notion their social media critics' supposed inability to set up relief efforts somehow puts OVP and its critics on equal footing.

The list goes on and on, and I think this can best be discussed in a follow-up article.

Regardless, I believe that it's clear at this point that #LeniLeaks primarily focuses on the suggestion that OVP possesses a well-organized, well-funded black propaganda machinery, something that the OVP has failed to deny so far.

But for a “Propaganda Machinery” to exist, two elements are necessary:

[1] A propaganda leader

[2] A vast network of loyalists to support and follow that leader

The existence of the first element – the propaganda leader – is already clear after the leaked email: it's the Office of the Vice-president. Even if there are other propaganda leaders, what's clear is that Vice-president Leni Robredo, who operates using public funds, is one of them.

The second element, however, remains to be shown, and that is where the rest of the Global Filipino Diaspora Council Yahoo! Group board messages come in.

As explained in a previous article, GFDC is a group whose members are highly influential, considerably wealthy, or both. I am not exactly sure if GFDC is the OVP's sole “propaganda disseminator”, but I am certain that it is one.

The anti-Duterte media blitzes of the past several weeks? GFDC has a hand in that.

The November 30 anti-burial rally? GFDC also has a hand in that.

And they even want to use the Marcos Burial Issue as a springboard for bigger anti-duterte demonstrations.

But what if GFDC doesn't get what they want? Will they just go home and cry, or will they use their vast resources to shift the tides?

And that is why I called upon the help of Malacanang to investigate this possible angle.

Again, an ouster plot is possible, but not certain, and that's why the National Security Council needs to look into it.

What's far more certain, however, is corruption in the Office of the Vice-president, as it appears to be using people on public payroll to manage an anti-government propaganda machine.

Authenticity and Admissions

Now, some would argue that the GFDC page could have been totally made up, but I have dealt with that issue in the follow-up article, “#LeniLeaks: Sec. Raffy Alunan's Challenge and Mainstream Media's Reluctance.”

Oh! And OVP Spokesperson Georgina Hernandez admitted the group's existence when she said, "The so-called leaked information came from a public Yahoo group account which means that there is transparency in this information [Star]."
Yes, the lame-brained OVP spokesperson basically admitted that messages posted on the GFDC message boards were for public consumption, but that forces me to ask two questions:

FIRST: If GFDC Yahoo groups were supposed to be transparent, then why is the GFDC message board hidden now?

The #LeniLeaks scandal seem to have caught the OVP by surprise. OVP was so unprepared that it had no time to coordinate PR damage control messaging with its stakeholders.

SECOND: Does Hernandez' admission also mean that the OVP intended the Pete Silva email for public consumption?

I do not think so, as that would imply stupidity of intergalactic proportions on the VP's part. The OVP telling its followers to call Sandro Marcos “bobo”? That goes totally contrary to LP's attempt at turning Leni into Our Lady of Naga.

Epilogue

This bears repeating: #LeniLeaks focuses on corruption in the OVP, with a potential ouster plot on the side.

If a congressional investigation in aid of legislation is to be conducted, I recommend that it be about potential reforms in
laws governing public accountability of government officials, especially since I predict that VP Leni will disown the unethical actions of her social media employees, similar to how Mar Roxas and Noynoy Aquino threw command responsibility out of the window after the Mamasapano Debacle.

As for the ouster plot, I'll leave that to the National Security Council. Yes, a case of sedition against GFDC is weak, but the fact remains that the emails suggests a tendency of GFDC members, with all their money and influence, to go that route.

Are we clear now?[ThinkingPinoy]

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Two weeks ago, I published “Inside Leni Robredo's international propaganda machinery”. The article featured emails published in the Yahoo! Group Global Filipino Diaspora Council (GFDC), a civil society group led by billionaire lobbyist Loida Nicolas-Lewis, her sister and former Commission on Filipinos Overseas chief Imelda Nicolas, and a several other extremely influential members of the Overseas Filipino community.

In that article, two basic things were shown:

First, that the Office of the Vice-president (OVP) actively controls its side of the ongoing propaganda war, as shown a forwarded email-directive supposedly sent by a certain Pete Silva.

Second, that the OVP is supported by a network of influential and wealthy individuals – including the powerful Nicolas Sisters – who disseminate, promote, and/or implement these email-directives.

The article quickly went viral in a few hours as it garnered hundreds of thousands of hits and tens of thousands of social media shares.

Yes, it became a full-blown scandal.

Reaction Times

Vice-president Leni Robredo's office reacted just like how it did during the #NasaanSiLeni (#WhereisLeni) scandal of the preceding week [TP: Pregnancy Doctor], where it took the office several days to issue a clarificatory statement.

Truth be told, I was not totally surprised by the glacial pace at which Robredo's PR Team works because one of my contacts in the Senate, who used to be aligned to Liberal Party (LP), explained to me that the standard operating procedure of many PR operators is to let the issue simmer for two to three days before issuing counter-statement.

The problem, however, is that social media doesn't sleep.

This SOP, while generally considered effective in the era of TV, radio, and print, doesn't work in the era of the internet, an era where people have access to content on demand.

What's worse, the OVP's silence was further accentuated by mainstream media's failure to pick up the story right away. For two full days, not a single mainstream outlet wrote anything about it. Whatever mainstream's reasons are, this deafening silence only managed to magnify the OVP incompetence, whether real or perceived.

Let me borrow the words of Robredo benefactor and billionaire lobbyist Loida Nicolas-Lewis [Yahoo]:

(It) doesn’t have to be true, (it) just needs to look like that.

But mainstream eventually picked it up, and how they treated the #LeniLeaks issue was nothing short of fascinating, and let me cite the most prominent ones.

Inquirer's Oscar Franklin Tan

In his column, the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Oscar Franklin Tan called the #LeniLeaks issue a “bizarre nonstory”, as he focused on the ouster plot angle of my original article [Inq]. Tan has a penchant for writing Inquirer articles with clickbait titles, but this one was particularly sneaky.

Specifically, Tan wasted no time citing Mocha Uson as a reference, despite the fact that it was my statements that he attempted to rebut. And how was I cited in his column? I was called “one”.
Why did he do that? Well, if he said “Thinking Pinoy”, his readers would have visited my website. They would have seen that the issue is not the ouster plot per se, but Leni Robredo's shady propaganda email.

Imagine this: if Tan mentioned “Thinking Pinoy”, his readers would have discovered that Leni Robredo told her followers to “flip the memes and show unflattering pictures of BBM (Bongbong Marcos)”, that Robredo suggested that her followers use issues such as “coccaine addict”, “fake diploma”, and “Sandro is stupid.”

The problem: the OVP email was #LeniLeaks' central topic and NOT the ouster plot.

But of course, the ouster plot is easier to rebut, but the OVP email isn't, so why don't we just mention Mocha Uson and her alone?

I guess Tan can't find an alibi for Pete Silva's OVP email.

Rappler and Tony La Vina

College sorority blog and Liberal Party apologist [Rappler] also published a rebuttal, where it cited three loopholes in my original article, namely:

First, that there’s a call for Duterte’s resignation, but not a move for his ouster.

On the first point, Former Ateneo School of Government Dean Tony La Vina is right when said that calling “for the President’s resignation is a free political exercise.” The problem, however, is that he conveniently forgot to mention that the ouster plot is NOT the central topic of my article. Instead, it's the OVP email from Pete Silva.

Second, that Robredo and Lewis deny meeting in the US over the holidays, with Robredo claiming that the last time they met was in the first half of 2016.

On the second point, Robredo's denial works only if she told the truth. But as De La Salle Professor Antonio Contreras pointed out, Robredo and Lewis met at an Overseas Filipino event held in August 2016, where Robredo was the keynote speaker while Lewis was a panelist [NYConsulate].

Yes, Robredo lies.

Third, that there is no connection between Pete Silva and the OVP so far.

On the third point, I would concede that a connection between Pete Silva has yet to be established. But for the sake of argument and in consideration of the damning contents of that email, isn't it incumbent upon the vice-president to [1] deny that the email came from her office and [2] at least offer to investigate this email?
Not long after #LeniLeaks erupted, Robredo cried foul over her disinvitation from Malacanang's Vin d'Honneur, saying that “If they are mad at me, so be it. But they should have given my office a little respect [Inq].” Yes, Robredo wants her office to be respected, but she's fine with not denying the email and with Pete Silva using her office's name to propagate black propaganda?

And just like the Inquirer, Rappler conveniently forgot to cite the source of #LeniLeaks. That's just like telling their audience that something is wrong, without telling them exactly what that “something” is.

What is Rappler so afraid of? Surely, an unknown blogger is no match for Her Majesty Maria Ressa and her scales.

Anyway, let's go to the third and final article. I saved the best for last.

Businessworld's Greg Macabenta

I can smell the fear among mainstream media men, but I found one dissenter who was brave enough to mention Thinking Pinoy: Businessworld's Greg Macabenta [BW].

The problem? Macabenta is not very smart and, to say the least, hyper.

Macabenta's first twenty-or-so paragraphs were basically rants in the form of ad hominems, where he suggested that I was in the business of fear-mongering, so I skipped that part. After all, Macabenta already successfully made himself look like an idiot without my help.Suffice it to say, the first half of the article was mostly “pambalot sa tinapa”. What's interesting, however, was everything that followed next.

Midway through the article, Macabenta acknowledged meeting with GFDC's members in Atty. Rodis' residence, something that my original blog post never mentioned. And his article went round and round this admission.

I do not know if Macabenta has been sniffing glue, but it appears that he was rebutting a Thinking Pinoy article that he never read.

Macabenta wrote, “Neither David nor Pimentel was at the Rodis residence. But I was. And so was Loida Nicolas-Lewis. And so were many other prominent Filipino Americans...”

Alright, so Loida's GFDC is alive and kicking, that's what I can deduce from this admission. But then, GFDC is not the focal point the original article, instead, it's Pete Silva's OVP email. But the ouster plot is easier to tackle, right?

Betrayal of public trust

Just like Inquirer's Tan, Macabenta chose to fixate on the ouster plot, not the fact that the OVP may have committed a grievous ethical breach by using government funds to undermine the government.

The discovery of the email-directive was solid. It's a solid story. It's just that these mainstream outlets hate citing social media blogs like mine because they are afraid of making us look more legitimate, and they're too proud to even paraphrase our discoveries.

Too bad we don't need mainstream media's validation anymore.

Pete Silva's email that was supposedly from the OVP and was forwarded by no less than CFO Chair Imelda Nicolas is the most important discovery in the #LeniLeaks emails. And did I mention that that email that also happen to have been published in pro-Leni pages Silent No More and Educators for Leni Robredo, on the same day that Nicolas received it?

Today is the 22nd of January, or almost two weeks since the #LeniLeaks controversy blew up. As of this article's writing, the OVP has neither denied the authenticity of the email nor offered to investigate the matter.

Did Tan, Rappler, and Macabenta – members of the mainstream media – find this detail so trivial, or are they just running out of excuses for Our Lady of Naga? Yes, mainstream media's half-assed treatment of the #LeniLeaks issue serves only to validate their personal political biases.

Too bad everybody knows about #LeniLeaks already. If there's one thing that I realized during this whole #LeniLeaks saga, it's that the Filipino People hardly need mainstream media anymore.

Public Trust on Mainstream media

The public doesn't trust mainstream media anymore, and social media is starting to take over.

As of January 2016, 74 percent of the 48 million Filipinos on Facebook are over 19 years old [WeAreSocial], that's about 35 million voters who get their first taste of the latest news on Facebook, and we expect more voters to join the platform as the internet penetrates an even larger part of the populace. The remaining 26%, who are aged 13 to 18, will reach voting age by 2022. That is, by the next presidential elections, around 48 million will be online.

What is my point?

More than just exposing the duplicity of Vice-president Leni Robredo, #LeniLeaks showed us that mainstream media has finally lost its monopoly in information. With social media, the regular Filipino can be directly informed about the latest developments in the national scene.

If Duterte's continually stellar satisfaction ratings [Sunstar] despite mainstream media's anti-Duterte barrage is to imply something, that would be the reality that most Filipinos have started to trust social media players more than their mainstream counterparts, as the strongest social media players right now – Mocha Uson, Sass Sasot, and ThinkingPinoy – are largely pro-Duterte.

The Future of Mainstream Media

Mainstream media, of course, will not necessarily die. But I am pretty damn sure that it will just become a shadow of its former self.

Mainstream media vs social media will be like Kodak vs digital photography.

In 2016, we were witness to one of the most aggressive mainstream media ad campaigns of the presidential candidates. Despite the billions that Roxas, Poe, and Binay spent on ads, it was Duterte – who spent the least – who won the polls [TP: SOCE].

Yes, it appears that pol ads have lost their once-mythical efficacy, and I expect that trend to continue in future, as more and more people ditch mainstream media for online platforms.

I think that by this point, most politicians have realized that expensive TV, radio, and print ads are not as effective as they were in the past, and I believe that in response, they will start recalibrating their campaign strategies in recognition of this development.

The “2022 election wars” shall be fought online. Mainstream media companies, whose incomes rely heavily on political ads, are bound to suffer. That is, the news arms of mainstream media companies will most likely downsize in the not-too-distant future.

Ah, writing about mainstream media people losing their jobs will be fun! [TP]

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I have less than two hours to write this article. But it's just a rebuttal for a Rappler article, so two hours is all I need.

Rappler Rants

In “Inside Martin Andanar's man cave", butthurt college sorority blogger Chay Hofilena, with help from fellow college sorority bloggers Paige Occenola and Pia Ranada, brazenly accused PCOO Sec. Martin Andanar of using taxpayers' money to fund bloggers Sass Rogando Sasot and me, Thinking Pinoy.

Hofilena clearly attempted to disparage major social media players like Sasot and I for the benefit of “journalists”, whatever Rappler's definition of “journalism” is.

And Hofilena failed.

Miserably.

Let me address Hofilena's points one by one.

Hofilena's B.S.

Hofilena wrote:

Early on, after Duterte won as president, the first thing that Andanar asked the Malacañang Press Corps (MPC) officers was if bloggers like "Thinking Pinoy" could be accredited as members of the press corps. Clear about the distinction between the role of the press and that of pro-Duterte bloggers, the officers said no.

Chay, what exactly is the role of the press and what does it mean to be a pro-Duterte blogger? For you to be able to call me a pro-Duterte blogger, you must have read the 200-or-so articles I wrote in the past year.

Are you a closet ThinkingPinoy fan? I am seriously flattered.

To refresh your memory, I have castigated Duterte for his rape joke, scathingly criticized the PCOO, exposed the dirt involved in the the Senate Presidency power tussle between Senators Cayetano and Pimentel, humiliated Pimentel for his indecision, and even went as far as calling out the massively popular PNP Chief Bato dela Rosa for his ill-timed Las Vegas trip.

Does that make me a Duterte apologist? Supporting an administration is different from being an administration apologist. Using your logic, Rappler would be Robredo apologist.

And trust me, at this time, being a Duterte apologist is way, way better than being an apologist for Leni Robredo.

Moreover, who exactly is MPC to define the role of the press?

Which constitutional body accorded MPC that right?

Gandang-ganda sa sarili? Ganern?

Social Media beats Mainstream

Darling, MPC membership is a privilege and not a right, and you might have forgotten that Malacanang has the final say on who gets into MPC and who does not, and Malacanang simply exercised prudence when they chose to adopt MPC's decision on the matter.

And I agreed with Malacanang, not because you said no, but because despite my exclusion from MPC, I have been kicking mainstream media's ass for the past year. Just imagine my delight when I learned how to use Facebook Page Insights and discovered that mainstream media has lost its monopoly on information.

Today, even without MPC membership, my engagement figures have exceeded Rappler's and Inquirer's figures COMBINED.

Actually, TP > CNN + Rappler + Inquirer, but I like CNN Philippines.

So please, stop trying to make it sound like I am itching to get into MPC.

MPC has lost credibility, the same reason why you got your panties in a bunch right now.

The tables have turned, Ms. Hofilena, social media has taken over the task of shaping public discourse.

Truth be told, it's the same reason why I was initially apprehensive to write a rebuttal, as I do not want to give you publicity.

Today, it's mainstream that needs publicity from social media, and not the other way around.

Stop deluding yourself.

Iayon ng arte sa ganda.

Taxpayers' Money

Hofilena wrote:

An apologist of the President and a public official who gets paid by taxpayers’ money, Andanar is embarking on a dangerous path of propaganda and media control... Palace insiders said that, starting September 2016, money was released to “groups” that had maintained an online presence in support of the President. The same insiders said some of these groups are identified with Andanar.

Again, here we go with Rappler's all-too-familiar anonymous source, a device that Rappler has all-too-often used to justify its rants.

You see, Miss Hofilena, a writer can use anonymous sources only if the writer possesses enough credibility in the eyes of the populace, something that everyone in Rappler sorely lacks.

And you're a Rapplerrette, just in case you forgot.

And you seriously believe that Rappler still has that credibility?

After Paterno Esmaquel publicly humiliated a Rappler reader, after Pia Ranada editorialized an article despite the requisite neuron count, after Ressa launched a four-part rant with nothing but anonymous sources?
Seriously, Hofilena, get a grip: your ego gets in the way of your logic. Face the reality that the public sees you as self-entitled, self-absorbed assholes.

Have you not learned about what happened to Pia Ranada not too long ago?

Darling, heto ang kape, at nang kabahan ka naman.

Malacanang's “Attack dogs”

Hofilena wrote:

Through his resurrected Martin’s Mancave – with “Lifecast” attached to the brand to give the podcast a new name on Facebook – the Cabinet secretary provides the two bloggers with a platform and grants them legitimacy, both as attack dogs out to intimidate journalists and as sources of alarmist information.

Bloggers like Sass and I have gone past the phase where we still need to gain legitimacy.

If Rappler, with its self-proclaimed supremacy in Social Media, just knew how to use analytics, it's easy to see that the public already sees us as more credible than you are.

Just look at the performance of your social media posts during the past several months.

There's one word that best describes it: “nilalangaw”.

Hofilena wrote:

This shrewd artificial online boost spread like wild fire the message about the supposed plot to oust Duterte. It rattled the social media sphere of Duterte followers and generated a lot of anger about the supposed grand conspiracy.

May nalalaman ka pang shrewd online boost. Ungas, mas malaki engagement ko kahit walang boost na yan. Wag kang ilusyonada.

This is exactly the problem. The article I wrote, if you just bothered to actually read it, shows that #LeniLeaks is mainly about the OVP propaganda email and not the ouster plot.

Which part of the title “Inside Leni's Propaganda Machine” did you fail to understand, or are you too stupid to even attempt to understand it?

And “intimidate journalists”?

If you feel so secure about yourselves, you wouldn't be intimidated by “insignificant” bloggers like me. Did I threaten you with anything illegal?

Such as a sissy.

All I said was that I will be reporting Pia Ranada's every move. Is accountability too much for the Fourth Estate?

Wow, Chay, mas manipis pa ang balat mo kaysa kay Michael Jackson!

MPC's Singapore “shopping”

Hofilena wrote:

He reported that only he and a handful of others were at a hotel lobby in Singapore waiting to ambush-interview officials. However, this is not how the media works and gathers news. Journalists do not base their stories solely on officialdom but countless other sources, depending on issues they are pursuing and monitoring. Ambush-interviews likewise do not yield the best of stories because officials tend to give answers on the fly.

This is the stupidest thing Hofilena said in the entire article.

Chay, tell me, who were the “multiple sources” that Pia Ranada was so busy interviewing that she wasn't able to spare even a minute in Shangri-La Singapore's Hotel Lobby?

Does Pia think those sources are more authoritative than cabinet secretaries themselves?

Who did Pia Ranada interview, the security guard in Lucky Plaza Mall?

Tell me, what did Pia Ranada do in Singapore during the times when she wasn't attending a press conference? I yearn to know.

Honestly, there's a part of me that screams:

"Lintik ka Pia, sana iniwan ka na lang ni Duterte sa kanal noong campaign period."

“Boosts and Failure”

Hofilena then went on to cite analytics data that – Lo and Behold! – are NOT independently veriable by third parties. Hofilena showed a graph showing Facebook interest on the #LeniLeaks issue, a graph that's customed-made by Rappler.

Kumbaga, ganda lang Rappler ang puhunan ng mga data na 'yon.

Ang problema? Hindi naman kagandahan ang Rappler.

You still don't get it, Chay. Publishing unverifiable data requires credibility, something that Rappler lacks, something that you lack.

Hofilena then tried to attack the “newsworthiness” of #LeniLeaks by showing that the public is not interested in it. This raises two issues:

FIRST, newsworthiness isn't gauged by the number of people who read the article. Go back to journalism school Chay.

Is popularity the main criterion upon which Rappler decides which gets published and which does not? Is this the same reason why Ryan Macasaet, along with another Cebu-based correspondent, resigned from Rappler?

And if it is, e bakit nilalangaw pa rin ang mga posts niyo sa Facebook?

SECOND, you accuse Andanar of manipulating public discourse, yet you conveniently forgot the fact that #LeniLeaks is about the OVP manipulating public discourse.

So does that qualify you as a Liberal Party apologist?

And by the way, have you answered the question “Who's Pete Silva?”

Here you go lambasting Andanar for allegedly supporting bloggers like me, but you turn a blind eye on Your Lady of Naga for manipulating social media?

Tangina Chay, 'wag na tayong maglokohan dito. Nagmamaang-maangan kayo dito. Sige, pwede niyo ipilit na hindi ito newsworthy, pero wag kayong magtaka kung bakit sinasagasaan lang ng ThinkingPinoy ang Facebook performance niyo.

Tapos, ang kapal pa ng mukha at kaliskis ni Maria Ressa na magbigay ng Social Media seminars, e ang tatanga niyo sa social media.

Chai further wrote:

For Andanar, whether in Malacañang or in his man cave, the distinction between journalists and bloggers, as well as news and propaganda, are all a blur.

Here we go again.

Ms. Hofilena, there is no distinction between journalists and bloggers, and in its absence, you're not the authority to define it.

Show me books that distinguish the two. There aren't any.

Miss Hofilena, here's a NEWS FLASH: Rappler is NOT God's Gift to Journalism. Paige, Pia, and you, are NOT God's Gift to Journalism. Truth be told, you three are a disgrace to it.

Journalist's Ethics

And now that you have raised the issue of money exhanging hands, despite having no solid proof of it, can the public start calling your articles “Fake News”?

Rapplerettes claim to be journalists, but their ethics go directly against Journalists' Code.

FIRST, Rappler used a graphic showing Facebook stats without issuing the appropriate disclaimers, in total contravention with the Philippine Press Institute's (PPI) Journalist's Code of Ethics (JCE) which states:

In using scientific polls, the sample size and the margin of error should be disclosed.

• In using non-scientific surveys, the manner in which they were taken and their limitations should be clearly explained in print. Merely labeling a survey as “non-scientific” is not sufficient.

• Surveys that do not meet minimal scientific standards of validity and reliability should not be identified as polls, nor should they be portrayed in language suitable to scientific polls.

• Great caution should be used in employing non-scientific polls to address substantial questions of public policy or to describe the popularity or approval rating of public officials or public actions.
Since you love citing anonymous sources, let me cite one of mine.

SECOND, Rappler, just like what it did in the anti-Duterte P. Guevarra article, chronically fails to get both sides of the story, in total contravention with the PPI JCE which states:

All efforts must be exerted to make stories fair, accurate and balanced. Getting the other side is a must, especially for the most sensitive and critical stories. The other side must run on the first take of the story and not any day later.

A Malacanang insider informed me that Pia Ranada requested for an accounting of PCOO's expenses in during the Singapore and Beijing State Visits which, unsurprisingly, are the two state visits that I covered. The insider said Ranada requested it last week and per FOI guidelines, it should take about three weeks for PCOO to comply.

Despite that, Ranada still failed to inform Hofilena that PCOO's reply is still pending, and even if she did inform Holifena, the latter failed to mention that PCOO has yet to reply to their accusation.

Madaling-madali na ba kayo kasi palugi na nang palugi ang Rappler?

THIRD, Rappler gauges newsworthiness through popularity, and not through its effects on public interest, in contravention with the PPI JCE which states:

Public importance. The expected news story should be of such public interest that its news value clearly outweighs the damage to trust and credibility that might result from the use of deception.

Now, which part of “Leni emails her supporters specific details on counter-propaganda” does Hofilena fail to understand?

Ay! Wait, college sorority blog nga lang pala kayo. Sorry naman.

Funding Issues: TP vs Rappler

I am about to finish this writing this article and at I feel really terrible at this point.

Why? Because Hofilena's article is so crappy it doesn't even deserve a rebuttal.

Syet, nagpa-manicure na lang sana ako.

Rappler calling me a paid hack is the worst thing Rappler can do to itself. I, ThinkingPinoy, have over 400,000 followers, followers who have helped sustain me financially, followers who donate their hard-earned money to help me cover as many events of public interest as I can.

My almost-half-a-million readers will not be very happy.

And now that Hofilena has mentioned money, has she forgotten that Rappler is funded by foreigners, in violation of the Philippines' foreign ownership laws? Maybe it's time for a Senate Investigation on something that REALLY matters.

Chay, assuming without conceding that I am funded by taxpayers's money, are you saying that the Filipino public, 84 percent of which are satisfied with Duterte, will find a foreign-funded sorority more acceptable than a locally-funded blog?

I do not think so.

Now, will my followers accept Rappler's accusation that Malacanang sustains my blog instead of them?

I think not.

So Rappler, I suggest that you tell your Facebook moderators that they will have to work overtime.

They will have hundreds of thousands of people to ban.

And Chai, I have one last question for you:

Who is Pete Silva?

Tanga. Oo, tanga ka. Kasimpleng tanong, di mo masagot.

Rappler, you are a college sorority blog. Nothing more. Deal with it.

Let me challenge Rappler and MPC:

Let MPC's best representative debate with me on FB Live. and I'll make him eat his shit.

And no, I will not proofread this article anymore. It's not worth the time. [ThinkingPinoy]

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Last week, butthurt college sorority blogger Chay Hofileña, with help from fellow college sorority bloggers Paige Tinola and ”SPO4” Pia Rañada-Robles, accused Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Sec. Martin Andanar of having political bloggers Sass Rogando Sasot and ThinkingPinoy (TP) on PCOO’s payroll [Rap], essentially showing that Malacañang is doing something similar to the Office of the Vice-president’s (OVP) direct manipulation of Robredo-aligned netizens [TP: #LeniLeaks].

The “investigative” piece was based solely on one anonymous insider source, and Rappler took no effort in getting the side of the accused prior to the article’s publication.

In response, I wrote a scathing rebuttal last week [TP: Hofileñas Delusions]. In that article, I showed how Hofileña’s piece qualifies as a college sorority blog post at best.

With that said, let me, ThinkingPinoy, show Hofileña how a real investigative piece looks like.

Now, what should I write about?

I was thinking of an appropriate topic then I remembered that Hofileña, in her college sorority blog post, conveniently assumed that Malacañang funds dominant Duterte-aligned social media personalities Sasot and TP then argued that it’s unethical.

So why don’t I talk about Rappler’s finances?

Let’s do that.

Rappler’s SEC Documents

Despite having launched in January 2012, Rappler Inc. started pre-operations in 2011, so I acquired its Audited Financial Statements (AFS) for the fiscal years ending in [2011], [2012], [2013], [2014], and [2015].

DEFINITION: A Financial Statement (FS) is a summary report that shows how a firm has used the funds entrusted to it by its stockholders (shareholders) and lenders, and what is its current financial position. An Audited Financial Statement is an FS that has been audited by an independent accountant.

I have also acquired Rappler Inc.’s [2016 General Information Sheet] (GIS).

DEFINITION: A General Information Sheet (GIS) provides information about a company’s basic information, including SEC registration details,

Rappler Inc.’s 2016 AFS still isn’t available because it has yet to be filed.

Moreover, I also acquired Rappler Holdings Corporation’s [2016 GIS], along with its AFS for the years [2015] and [2014].

Rappler Holdings Corporation is Rappler Inc.’s parent company.

The process of acquiring Rappler’s docs would’ve been tedious, but I was lucky enough to get in touch with a few SEC people who hate Rappler’s juvenile guts, so I got the documents in a jiffy.
For easy reference, here are links to Rappler’s Documents:

Rappler Inc

Rappler Holdings

Let’s start.

What is “Rappler”?

In its 2015 AFS, Rappler Inc said its “primary purpose is to develop and sell news, information, social network services through various delivery formats,” and that it is a subsidiary of Rappler Holdings. That is, Rappler Inc is the company that directly owns and controls the website Rappler.com, so it’s also the employer of college sorority bloggers Chay Hofileña, Paige Tinola, and “SPO4” Pia Rañada-Robles.
Now, a quick look at the Rappler’s latest 2016 GIS shows that it used the Industry Classification “Other Monetary Intermediation”, despite describing itself as a news company.

According to The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Rev. 4 [UN, p. 216]:

6419 Other monetary intermediation

This class includes the receiving of deposits and/or close substitutes for deposits and extending of credit or lending funds. The granting of credit can take a variety of forms, such as loans, mortgages, credit cards etc.

What financial service does Rappler Inc provide, 5-6?

Now, a closer look at Rappler's 2016GIS Page 1-A shows that the nature of its business is "Property Investment and Development"!

What the f*ck?

Rappler’s chosen classification raised suspicion from my end because an appropriate industry classification is available to begin with, particularly [UN, p. 207]:

5813 Publishing of newspapers, journals and periodicals

This class includes publishing of newspapers, including advertising newspapers; publishing of periodicals and other journals, including publishing of radio and television schedules. Publishing can be done in print or electronic form, including on the Internet.

Or if Rappler will argue that it isn’t a newspaper, then it can still use “5819 Other Publishing Activities”.

But why did Rappler, despite having been pretending to be a news outfit since January 2012, still choose to be classified as “Other Financial Intermediation”?

Something sounds fishy, right?

I think the Securities and Exchange Commission needs to summon Rappler’s accountants and its external auditor.

But what exactly is so scary about being legally considered as a news (i.e. mass media) company?

The answer lies in the constitution.

Constitutional Restrictions on Mass Media

Article XVI, Section 11 (1), of the 1987 Constitution states:

The ownership and management of mass media shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or to corporations, cooperatives or associations, wholly-owned and managed by such citizens.

The rationale? Foreign ownership of mass media companies allows foreign entities to influence the shaping of public opinion. That’s bad, especially if the foreign entity has more financial muscle than the Philippine Government itself. Yes, this is an issue of national sovereignty and national security.

Just imagine China or the US owning ABS-CBN or Inquirer. Wouldn't that freak you out?

Exactly.That’s why the constitution requires mass media companies to be 100 percent Filipino-owned.

And that is what Rappler is not.

In May 2015, Rappler proudly announced that it received investments from Malaysia-based North Base Media (NBM), which traces its roots to billionaire George Soros [Rap]. More on that later.

Six months later, Rappler also proudly announced that it received investments from the US-based Omidyar Network (ON) [Rap], whose owner is known to have destabilized foreign governments. More on that later.

Yes, two of Rappler’s investors are foreign entities, which gives rise to two questions: Is Rappler considered “mass media”? And If so, did Rappler violate the constitution by receiving foreign funding?

Is Rappler Mass Media?

Opinion No. 24 s. 1986 of the Department of Justice (DoJ) states [ChanRobles]:

The term ‘mass media’ in the Constitution refers to any medium of communication, a newspaper, radio, motion pictures, television, designed to reach the masses and that tends to set standards, ideals and aims of the masses.

That is, internet-based news outfits, or at least those who declare themselves as one, are considered mass media.

Yes, Rappler Inc is a mass media company, so how does Rappler get away with getting foreign funding?

Both of Rappler’s press releases cited in the previous section mention a certain financial instrument called “Philippine Depositary Receipts”.

In its 2013 Stock Market Outlook Report, RCBC Securities stated:

Philippine Depositary ReceiptIssued by a company facing foreign ownership restriction, such as a media company, in order to allow foreigners to invest tin the company. A PDR is an evidence of ownership of a foreign/foreign based entity in a Philippine corporation.

In short, PDRs allow foreigners to skirt foreign ownership restrictions. Obviously, PDRs, which Rappler uses, are tools to cheat the constitution. Anyone who disagrees should take a drug test.

Rappler’s Creative Accounting

Rappler enjoyed its biggest capital infusion in 2015, where it received a whopping P170 million from the issuance of stocks per 2015 AFS.

In theory, and without the existence of PDRs, the new capital stock should have been issued to Omidyar and North Base, but of course, the law prohibits that.

Instead, the additional stocks were given to Rappler Inc.’s parent company Rappler Holdings, who now owns 98.84% of the news outfit per Rappler Inc’s 2016 GIS.

This can only be possible if Rappler holdings issued P170 million in PDRs to Omidyar, North Base, and possibly, some other investor.

But why did I insert “some other investor”?

Three highly-placed sources – a cabinet official, a veteran journalist, and a long-time congressman – told me that businessman Manny V. Pangilinan helps keep Rappler afloat, the same Manny V. Pangilinan whose interests triggered the South China Sea dispute [TP: Yasay’s Face].

And here lies another problem:

Rappler Holdings gave Rappler Inc P170 million, but Rappler Holdings 2016 GIS shows that is just a company worth less than P12 million! Moreover, despite Rappler Holdings being the majority owner of Rappler Inc, it did not declare the latter as a subsidiary, in contravention with SEC regulations.

How could a P12 million company with a reported 2014 income of just 355 pesos (yes, just 355) and a 2015 reported income of just P13,188 have P170 million to give away?

It's as if P170 million came out of thin air!

It could only mean one thing: through financing activities, i.e. issuance of capital stocks or availment of loans. Rappler Holdings reported neither in 2015.

Magical! SEC Chair Teresita Herbosa, I think some people in Estancia need to do some explaining.

But we’re not done yet.

The Foreign Funders

Rappler funder Omidyar Network owner Pierre Omidyar co-funded Ukraine revolution groups with US government [Kyiv].

That’s one red flag, but there’s more.

North Base Media and Omidyar Network have one common denominator: the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.

In 2015, [TechinAsia] reported:

“NBM is a fund for independent journalism founded by three prominent journalists: Marcus Brauchli…; Sasa Vucinic, founder and former head of the Soros-backed Media Development Investment Fund; and Stuart Karle...”

Meanwhile, Soros is one of Omidyar Network’s venture partners in India [Omidyar].

And who is Soros? Here’s a short description.

Soros is a Hungarian-American billionaire who made his money by betting massively against the British Pound in the 1990s, causing a massive currency crisis in the UK [Investopedia]. He’s also convicted of insider trading in the US [NYTimes].

Soros, a major Hillary Clinton donor, has also funded Media Matters, founded by David Brock, who operates on behalf of Clinton in several dubious capacities—like running the Correct the Record SuperPAC, which hires Internet trolls to spread pro-Clinton ideologies on the Internet [Observer].

Alright, so two of Rappler’s funders have strong links to destabilizers… Perfect!

And you know what Rappler is doing to the current Philippine Government, of course.

But wait, there’s more!

Rappler’s Financials

ON’s and NBM’s respective decisions to invest in Rappler could have been defensible if Rappler was financially viable. That is, ON and NBM could have argued that Rappler is a legitimate financial investment, that Rappler is financially viable.

But that isn’t the case.

Throughout its history, Rappler relied primarily on capital infusions to keep itself afloat. Based on its financial statements from 2011 to 2015, Rappler’s has posted multi-million peso net losses year after year.

Based on Rappler's AFS from 2011 to 2015.

Rappler, in its five years of operations, was NEVER profitable. So why would two investment-savvy foreigners risk their money on a company that never made real money?

Is there a reason other than money?

But it gets worse: juxtaposing these Net Loss figures to their cash assets at the end of the year tells a grimmer story.

As we can see, the net loss of any given year has always been greater than the cash held at the start of the year. That is, it is imperative for Rappler’s owners to RAISE CAPITAL EVERY YEAR in anticipation of the massive financial hemorrhages it chronically suffers. That is, acquiring new capital is the primary reason why Rappler still managed to stay afloat since its inception.

As you can see, Rappler continues to get capital infusions every year, despite the monumental losses it posts yearly. So why do people continue to fund in it? Do Rappler’s investors care little about whether then can recuperate their investments?

Imagine that Rappler is your own sari-sari store. Your store loses more than it earns and you have to shell out money from your own call center salary to restock the store every day. Imagine you’ve been doing this since 2011. Now, how would you convince your friend to invest in your store when your friend knows it’s a money drain?

Well, Rappler’s sari-sari store managed to do it.

Does Maria Ressa ask would-be investors, "Open-minded ka ba?"?

This defies logic under normal circumstances, but the circumstances are anything but normal.

Rappler’s funders are two government destabilizers. Now why did these financially savvy destabilizers give Rappler money? For profit? For financial returns?

I don’t think so.

Rappler is dying, and funding from two foreigners with links to government destabilizers is what keeps it alive, so let me ask this:

Whose interests are Maria Ressa, Chay Hofileña, Paige Tinola, and SPO4 Pia Rañada serving?

[ThinkingPinoy]

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A close friend and I hung out for dinner with former National Youth Commissioner and former MTRCB Board Member Michael “Mike” Acebedo Lopez last week. Unsurprisingly, what started out as a small talk quickly shifted to conversation on politics, a conversation that is as juicy as it gets.

He said then Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, in a desperate attempt to salvage his presidential ambitions, engaged in a multi-million PR campaign against then President Aquino, a campaign aimed at pinning all the blame on Aquino.

These kinds of stories, my friends, is what I live for.

But first, I think it’s important to give you a short background on the Mamasapano Clash.

Mamasapano 101

The 25 January 2015 Mamasapano Clash was a bloody confrontation between the PNP Special Action Forces (SAF) and the BIFF-MILF. Intended to kill or capture Malaysian terrorist Marwan, the clash led to the deaths of 44 SAF policemen, arguably a steep price to pay for the death of just one terrorist.

A bungled operation, the Mamasapano Clash was made more controversial by the fact that it was headed by Aquino and then PNP Chief Alan Purisima, who was suspended from service at the time. Interior Secretary Roxas, who had authority over the PNP, was reportedly not notified of the operation.

For oppositionists, the Mamasapano Clash became the symbol of incompetence of the Aquino Administration, with a sitting president opting to delegate authority to a suspended general and totally disregarding the Interior Secretary, despite the latter’s authority over the police.

Yes, Aquino left Roxas was out in the cold, making the latter appear inutile in the eyes of the general public.

And with a little over a year before the May 2016 Elections, Roxas’ much-delayed presidential ambitions have suddenly become under threat.

The dejected Roxas, who stepped aside in 2010 to allow Aquino to be the Liberal Party presidential bet, suddenly faced the prospect of having to delay his presidential hopes for another six years, given the massively negative PR fallout of the Mamasapano clash.

Now, let’s go back to Mike’s story.

Aquino vs Roxas vs Aquino

The lifeless bodies of the slain SAF44 were transported back to Manila in the morning of 29 January 2016. Present to honor the slain policemen were former President Ramos, then Vice President Binay, and top officials of the military and the police. Aquino, who was widely being blamed for the incident, was conspicuously absent in the arrival ceremony, having opted to attend the inauguration of a Mitsubishi Plant in Laguna.

And here’s where Lopez’s story begins.

Lopez said a publicist-friend, a well-known figure in the political PR industry, contacted him later that afternoon.

The publicist-friend, who’s fully aware of Lopez’s chronic disdain for the Aquinos, asked Lopez for help in coming up with a list of anti-Aquino Twitter hashtags relating to the Mamasapano Clash, for use in a PR campaign to be launched at 6:00 PM of the same day.

“That lady knows how I feel about PNoy,” Lopez said.

Lopez said he vividly remembers all the events of that day because it was also when his mother was rushed to the hospital because of a medical emergency.
Lopez said he asked her about the purpose behind the request.

According to Lopez, she said Roxas’ DILG Chief of Staff Tomasito Villarin commissioned her to launch a PR campaign aimed at pinning the blame over Mamasapano onto Aquino, with the hope of minimizing the bad publicity that Villarin’s principal, DILG Sec. Roxas, would receive.

Lopez obliged and shortly thereafter, he sent the publicist-friend a list of 10 to 15 anti-Aquino hashtags.

The publicist-friend used one of the Twitter hashtags Lopez made.

The Twitter hashtag? #NasaanAngPangulo. (#WhereisthePresident).

#NasaanAngPangulo

Lopez said the anti-Aquino black propaganda campaign, instigated and funded by the Roxas camp, was launched later at 6:00 PM.

Lopez said his publicist-friend maintains a fleet of major social media influencers with hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers, enabling the latter to manipulate Twitter trending topics to her clients’ favor.

The hashtag quickly trended worldwide, creating over 500 million impressions, and with major evening newscasts TV Patrol, 24 Oras, and Bandila reporting about it later that night.

Lopez said since then, his publicist-friend’s PR firm reused this amazingly successful hashtag every time Aquino went missing in the middle of a crisis.

Lopez declined to name this publicist-friend, although he said she’s very well known in political circles, and that she’s popular for being one of the glitziest PR operators in the country.

Truth be told, Lopez didn’t have to name her, as Lopez has provided me with enough information to find out who she is.

And that’s what I did. But first, I had to make sure that Lopez isn’t just making this all up.

Senyora Santibañez

Lopez said his publicist-friend pool of influencers include social media superstar Senyora, formerly known as Senyora Santibañez, the same Senyora whose Facebook Page was recently unpublished.

Incidentally, I know who Senyora is in real life, so I asked her about it.

Yes, THIS Senyora.

Senyora said she used to work with the PR firm that handled #NasaanAngPangulo, although she has cut ties with the company not long after that, citing the publicist’s habit of shortchanging her social media influencers.

Senyora admitted that she was asked to help trend #NasaanAngPangulo, although she wasn’t able to focus on it because she was busy with school work at the time, so she wasn’t compensated for the project.

Senyora is 21 years old as of this article’s writing, and she was still in college when she was contacted regarding #NasaanAngPangulo.
Many major social media influencers make money through native ad placements, or advertisements that follow the influencer’s general theme so that followers will find it harder to distinguish it from regular postings.

For example, Senyora can crack a joke about corned beef, mentioning a particular brand of corned beef in the process. That brand’s manufacturer, through the PR firm, will then pay Senyora thousands of pesos for mentioning the brand. The problem, however, is that the PR firm handling #NasaanAngPangulo has a history of giving compensation in kind, and whose value is a lot lower that the going rate.

To cut the long story short, Senyora basically corroborated Lopez’s claim that the latter’s publicist-friend handled #NasaanAngPangulo.

At this point, I am inclined to believe Lopez’s story, but I am not done yet.

Let me ask the question: Who is Lopez’s publicist-friend?

ThinkingPinoy investigates.

Scouring ThinkingPinoy’s Network

One of the things Lopez said was that his publicist-friend was a tattle-tale, i.e. she finds it difficult to keep her mouth shut. That is, she took ownership of the #NasaanAngPangulo hashtag project and in defiance of common sense, used it sales presentations to other political camps.I have gained an invaluable network of political contacts over the past year and half, so I contacted each of them. I specifically asked:

“Has any PR firm ever shown you a sales presentation using #NasaanAngPangulo?”.

Two camps said yes, and one of them even provided me a copy of the excel file that the PR firm gave them as part of the sales presentation.

The filename was “CaseStudy2015.xls”, and you can download it here.

Examining the Excel file

Of course, there’s always the possibility that an excel file has been tampered with, if not totally fabricated. However, after right-clicking on the file’s icon and selecting “Properties”, and navigating to the “Details” tab, the following information was diplayed:

Let me re-type some of the information shown in the screenshot.

ORIGIN
Last saved by Joyce Ramirez
Program name Microsoft Macintosh Excel
Content Created 7/10/2011 6:49 PM
Date Last Saved 08/02/2015 2:41 PM

“Content Created” refers to when the file first existed. The original file could’ve been an old excel spreadsheet template used for a new data set, so it won’t matter. What’s more important, however, is the “Date Last Saved” field, which indicates that it was last saved on 02 August 2015, or about seven months after #NasaanAngPangulo trended worldwide.

Sounds just about right.

I created a copy of the same file and attempted to modify its document properties using MSExcel, but Excel does not allow changing “Joyce Ramirez” and the dates.

In short, I have good reason to believe that the file is authentic, and that it was originally created using the computer of a certain "Joyce Ramirez".

I asked Senyora if that PR firm lady is Joyce Ramirez.

Senyora said yes.

Who exactly is Joyce Ramirez

Based on her LinkedIn Profile:

Joyce A. Ramirez is the Lead Publicist of PR ASIA Worldwide - a leading entertainment PR and creative communications agency that works with a diverse roster of clients ranging from A-list global stars to content creators to consumer technology companies...

Meanwhile, based on PR Asia Worldwide’s LinkedIn Company Profile:

PR ASIA WORLDWIDE is the Philippines' leading ENTERTAINMENT and CELEBRITY PR agency. Founded by International Publicist Joyce A. Ramirez in 2004, the agency now represents some of the biggest brands in the world…

According to the company website’s about page:

PR Asia Worldwide (PR ASIA) is a leading publicity network with main headquarters located in Manila, Philippines with an international booking office in Los Angeles, California. The agency, recognized across Southeast Asia as the leading digital PR agency in the Philippines and one of the most popular PR firms in the region, is consistently recognized for its worldwide trending campaigns and unique, original executions.

Senyora confirmed that this is the same high profile publicist Joyce Ramirez that double-crossed her. The two political camps I contacted earlier also confirmed it’s her who delivered the presentation.

Meanwhile, Lopez refused to confirm that this is the same publicist friend, although his rather shocked facial expression gave it away.

What the Excel Sheet says

A look inside the excel file shows the title “CASE STUDY: #NasaanAngPangulo (2015)”.

The spreadsheet is divided into seven columns, namely:

1. MEDIA OUTLET, or where the PR material was published
2. SECTION, or the section of the media outlet where the material was published
3. CATEGORY, which is either “Public Affairs” or “Opinion”
4. COVERAGE, which can be TV, Online, Radio, or Print
5. PR VALUE, or the return on investment
6. TIME, or the airtime allotted for the PR material in cases of TV or Radio broadcasts
7. ONLINE LINKS, or references to help the prospective client verify the claim

According to the spreadsheet, the #NasaanAngPangulo project's Ron is US$2.45 million which, at the time, was equivalent to Php 107.8 million. A snapshot of a section of the spreadsheet is shown below:

First on the list is “INTERXN 1800H ACTIVATION”. INTERXN is Ramirez’s network of social media influencers, while 1800H refers to the time of the campaign’s activation, i.e. 6:00 PM.

Afterwards, it was then picked up by mainstream media.

On the list were major newscasts of from the Big 3 TV networks. Also the list were DZMM, Yahoo Philippines, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Abante Tonite, Pep Ph, Spot.Ph, Canadian Inquirer, FHM Online, Manila Standard Today, Philippine Star, Abante Online, Online, Global Voices, Tempo Online, Inquirer.Net, Philippine Star, Asian Journal, Philippine Star, Tempo, and ANC News, among others.

The spreadsheet is unclear about the methodology behind the PR value estimate.

However, by the sheer size of the list, I have reason to believe that at least some of employees of the abovementioned organizations benefitted from Ramirez’s financial machinations.

Regardless of the fine print, I believe it’s safe to deduce that the Roxas Camp’s black propaganda against then President Aquino, despite its astronomic cost, was very effective in hammering the message that Aquino is to blame.

That is, it’s clear that as #NasaanAngPangulo entered public consciousness, Mar’s task of fending of criticism against him became much, much easier… So what did Roxas do while this PR campaign was being rolled out?

After initially denying any knowledge of the Mamasapano operation before it took place, Roxas backtracked in February 2015 when he said that he knew of the operation and texted PNoy about it to which the latter replied, “Thank you.”

Why? Because Ramirez is already taking care of it?

Questions, Questions, Questions

These discoveries led me to ask the following questions:

First, just how desperate was Mar Roxas to become president?

While Ramirez supposedly claimed that Roxas right hand man Tom Villarin was her contact person, there is no way Villarin, who hails from LP-aligned partylist Akbayan, could have funded that operation. That is, Mar, the scion of a one of the richest families in the country, must have provided the money, right?

Is Mar so desperate to become president that he doesn’t mind throwing delicadeza out the window? Mar screamed, “Ituloy ang Daang Matuwid!,” in May 2016… so what exactly did he mean with “Daang Matuwid”? Surely, spending millions of pesos in destroying a close ally via black propaganda isn’t “Daang Matuwid,” right?

Second, up to what extent can mainstream media be manipulated?

I think it’s pretty clear that Ramirez’ operation is aimed at manipulating public discourse, and that mainstream media fell prey to it. So, just how many times have the public been manipulated? SURELY, this is not the only project of this kind.

Is this the same technique used in the recent anti-Duterte media blitzes? Just how much have these anti-Duterte media blitzes cost the opposition so far?

It’s interesting to note that mainstream media has been on the offensive against bloggers, accusing the latter of lack of accountability and irresponsible reporting. This is despite the fact that they themselves fall prey to fake, manipulated news.

Third, how much does Leni Robredo know about this?

A person who wants to lead the country must, at the least, be cognizant of the internal struggles of her own political party. Surely, Leni Robredo, being the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party, should have known about this. Did she choose to run for VP even if she knew that her running mate, Roxas, was a backstabbing bitch?

Did Leni Robredo accept the VP nomination without batting an eyelash, or was she totally clueless about this issue, just like most other issues facing the country today?

Epilogue

The English author and satirist Douglas Adams once wrote:

“It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

And boy! I’m so glad that Mar didn’t make it but then, I cannot help but ask:

If Robredo supporters are hell bent on replacing Duterte with Robredo, are they basically amenable to the idea that they will be putting back to power the Liberal Party, whose own members betray each other?

And lastly, a President Leni Robredo means she gets to appoint a new VP from the senate.

Are Robredo supporters amenable to a VP Hontiveros, de Lima, Trillanes, or, God Forbid, Drilon?

And how certain are Robredo supporters that her appointed vice president will not stab her in the back, similar to how Mar Roxas backstabbed Aquino… with a hundred-million-peso knife?

Power should only be given to men who want it least.

Surely, that person is neither Roxas nor Robredo. [ThinkingPinoy]

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Data Security and the Internet really isn't the Liberal Party's strongest suit.

In “Is Sen. Alan Peter Cajetan a PH citizen?”, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Rodel Rodis, a US-based immigration attorney, cast aspersions on Senator Alan Peter Cayetano by questioning his citizenship.

Rodis prefaced his story by mentioning a Wikipedia article listing “former United States citizens who relinquished their nationality”, a list that contains Alan Peter Cayetano.

Yes, a lawyer-journalist citing Wikipedia. Yes, I know. Yes.

Rodis then went on to write:

“As a child of a Philippine citizen father and a US citizen mother, Alan Peter was born as a citizen of both countries but, by the age of 21, he had to choose one or the other, and he chose US citizenship.”

Rodis also claimed that the results of Cayetano’s 2007 citizenship case lodged at the Comelec is unknown.

Rodis rambled throughout the article, even citing the presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe’s COMELEC Case and also Yasay’s tiff with the Commission on Appointments.

He went on and on without even consulting Cayetano… or even Google.

Google is a friend

A quick Google search shows that Comelec junked Capco’s case in 2007.

Speaking on behalf of the Comelec en banc, then-Chairman Benjamin Abalos said, “We’ve finally decided to put an end to the citizenship issue of Congressman Cayetano affirming the resolution of the second division, meaning he is a natural-born Filipino. [GMA]"

At this point, I think it’s pretty clear that the issue has been settled.
Capco’s choice not to raise the issue to the Supreme Court is Capco’s problem, not Cayetano’s.

I will not argue anymore about Cayetano’s citizenship as I believe that Cayetano has clearly explained it in a statement published several hours after the Inquirer article’s release [Cayetano].

What’s more interesting, I believe, is what happened behind the scenes.

Wikipedia and Disruptive Editing

Any self-respecting journalist, let alone a lawyer-journalist, refrains from citing Wikipedia as a source for the simple reason that Wikipedia is prone to “disruptive editing”.

Wikipedia’s user manual defines Disruptive Editing as “a pattern of editing that disrupts progress toward improving an article or building the encyclopedia.”

For example, a Wikipedia article you’ve read just now can be totally different from the same Wikipedia article you’ll read tomorrow.

And disruptive editing – if not outright vandalism— is what exactly happened to the page that Rodis cited.

Let me explain that in a bit. Here’s where it gets really fun!
To help guard against disruptive editing, each Wikipedia article has a “View History” tab, which allows readers to check the article’s edit history, and that’s what I did to the Wikipedia article “List of former United States citizens who relinquished their nationality”.

Was the article edited recently?

The timestamps on each Wikipedia edit use the UTC+0 time zone. Meanwhile, Inquirer uses Manila’s time zone (UTC+8).

UTC+8 is 8 hours ahead of UTC+0, so that Rodis’ Inquirer article,which was published at 1:21 AM of 16 March 2017 (UTC+8), was published at 1721 hrs (5:21 PM) of 15 March 2017 (UTC+0).

Now, here’s a screencap of the recent changes in the Wikipedia article:

The latest edit is by RMS125A, a Wikipedia moderator, so there should be nothing fishy about that.

What’s interesting, instead, are the next two edits by a certain “202.78.90.129”.

The Two Controversial Edits

You can edit Wikipedia articles without logging into an account. However, the system uses logs your IP address and shows it as your username. Clearly, those two edits were done by an amateur.

The first edit, shown below, was at 2030 hrs of March 15, where “Alan Peter Cayetano” was replaced with “Ebenezer Ramos Bonbon”. It appears that this was a typo error on the Amateur editor’s part, as he immediately edited it three minutes later.

The second edit was at 2033 hrs of March 15. This edit was much more extensive, as the editor virtually deleted everything about Cayetano, including all the reference links.Now, why would someone delete the write-up about Cayetano?

Based on the time stamps, both edits were performed about 5 hours AFTER the publication of Rodis' Inquirer article.

A closer look at the deleted sections show that one of the references cited is a GMA News article indicating that the Comelec junked the case filed by Capco against Cayetano. Yes, that amateur editor, whoever he is, tried to save Rodis’ article, because leaving the Wikipedia article as it is would make Rodis’ Inquirer article fall flat on its face.

Yes, the amateur editor really needed to delete the reference links because the same Wikipedia article that Rodis cited would have been enough to debunk Rodis' own article.

Rodis the "Lawyer"

But wait! How could something as simple as that slip Atty. Rodis’ eye?

Judging from reviews written by his former clients, Rodis is a crappy lawyer. Rodis' Avvo reviews indicate that he's "unprofessional", "awful", a "nightmare" and "just horrible" [Avvo].

Avvo is an online legal marketplace where users can post reviews of their experiences with lawyers.

One of Rodis' client reviews, written in 2014, reads [Avvo]:

"Rodel Rodis represented my family in a trust dispute, and came across as unprofessional in his correspondence, and significantly incredibly unknowledgeable regarding trust laws and litigation. He was embarrassing in his representation."

Another 2013 review reads [Avvo]:

“I had nightmare with this guy. Not responsive, nor responsible, and on top of these bad qualities, he does not catch up with current immigration law. It was often the case he could not answer my questions without looking at internet. Don't risk your life with this guy.”

Is this the same reason why Rodis reportedly closed down his San Francisco offices [Yelp]? That is, he got so many negative Yelp reviews that he either (1) closed his Yelp page or (2) closed down his San Francisco office altogether?

But there’s one question that we haven’t answered yet…

Who’s that amateur editor?

So far, we know two things:

1. That the editor mistakenly typed “Ebenezer Ramos Bonbon” into the article [Wiki]
2. That the editor’s IP address is 202.78.90.129

I tried to geolocate 202.78.90.129 and the online tool [IPLocation] yielded a (latitude, longitude) pair of (14.6627, 121.0328) which, in turn, translates to somewhere in Project 6, Quezon City [LatLong].

Internet service providers in the Philippines typically use dynamic IP addresses, so that a connected computer’s IP address may change over time. However, it would be safe to say that that that amateur editor was located somewhere in Northern Metro Manila when he edited the Wikipedia article.

So we have our first clue: he’s somewhere north of Metro Manila.

Now, a quick google search using “Ebenezer Ramos Bonbon CV” yields, well, the CV we’re looking for [Scribd].

In particular, I found out that based on his 2011 CV, Mr. Bonbon lived in Northern Metro Manila.

A closer look at the CV shows that Bonbon is closely affiliated with Akbayan Youth. Bonbon must be very close to Akbayan because he even chose Akbayan Youth’s then international secretary, Prof. Adonis Elumbre, as a character reference.

Based on these data, I have a reasonable suspicion that the amateur editor is actually Mr. Bonbon.

After all, electronic data security is not the opposition’s strongest suit, as shown in #LeniLeaks, where LP-aligned Global Filipino Diaspora Council were so careless that they unwittingly made their confidential email conversations available for public consumption.

But wait, Akbayan?

Yes, it’s Akbayan, the same political party with strong links with VP Leni Robredo’s Liberal Party. Senator Risa Hontiveros, an LP stalwart, is from Akbayan. The same goes with UP Professor Sylvia Claudio, the Rapplerette who penned the satirical article “10 Reasons I’m now a Dutertian”.

Yes, Akbayan and LP are practically the same.

Yes, it appears that an Akbayan member may have tried to cover up Rodis’ blunder to keep Rodis’ poorly-written and poorly-researched article viable for a longer period.

With that said, it’s logical to ask the following questions:

Is it really Bonbon who edited the article and if so, is he a part of Robredo’s “Army of Truth”?

For one, Rodis is part of the Diaspora Council, so that makes him part of Robredo's international propaganda machine, so does Ebenezer Bonbon work under Pete Silva?

And the plot thickens! [ThinkingPinoy]

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It appears that Leni Robredo can look forward to several sleepless nights while on her South African escapade with Fafa Bolet next week.

In retaliation to Leni Robredo's controversial UN/DRCNet video and Trillanes' Duterte impeachment complaint, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez first mentioned his plans to impeach Robredo on 17 March 2017 [ABS]. Alvarez's stance wasn't very definitive at that time, until his word war with Robredo escalated on 20 March 2017 [ABS].

Yes, on that day, the prospect of a Robredo impeachment trial – and subsequent removal – has become oh so real.

How did LP react?

Prior to Alvarez' March 20 anti-Robredo remarks, LP was largely silent about the Duterte's impeachment case, essentially leaving all the acoustic tasks to Trillanes, its de facto attack dog. However, after Alvarez demonstrated his resolve on the 20th, LP's rhetorical strategy changed.

On 21 March 2017, Deputy Speaker Miro Quimbo, an LP stalwart, declared that House LP's will not support Trillanes' anti-Duterte impeachment complaint. Quimbo knows that his statement this is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, considering that a vast majority of LP's members have bolted to PDP-Laban to form a supermajority in as early as June last year [TP: Plan “B”].

And what does it symbolize?

The Liberal Party essentially says that they want a truce vis-a-vis impeachment. They know that the numbers are not in their favor.

Then the picture got even clearer two days later.

On 23 March 2017, Vice-president Leni Robredo, LP's chairperson, said,“Impeachment whether against the President or me would put a halt to the things Congress should focus on. It is going to be very divisive in our country. It won’t be good in the long run [Inq].”

Why the sudden opposition to impeachment after Alvarez floated the idea of a counter-attack? Because LP knows that the the administration have the numbers in congress, the crucial numbers that it painfully does not have.
LP, or at least that part of LP that still supports Robredo, is deathly scared of losing the vice-presidency, and this fear arising from the lack of numbers is best evidenced by a statement from no less than Robredo legal counsel Barry Gutierrez.

Gutierrez said yesterday, “I would still like to believe that when members of congress vote, they do so with that in mind... Otherwise, if you say—even if it's practically true—if you cynically say it's just numbers... [Star]”

Yes, Gutierrez acknowledged that there's a pretty good chance that Leni will be impeached by the Lower House.

But wait, what impeachment complaints are we talking about?

Impeachment Complaints and Duterte's Opposition

At least two impeachment complaints will have been filed before May 4th, or the start of the next congressional session: one from Atty. Oliver Lozano [Star], and another from the group of lawyers and academics [Inq].

We can dismiss Oliver Lozano's complaint because he's just a “serial filer”, i.e. he files these just for the sake of filing and, sources say, with little regard to the substance of the complaints. Case in point: he has filed impeachment complaints against every president after Marcos, none of which got past the House Justice Committee.

There's also a pretty good chance that House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez will file the third impeachment complaint [TV5].
Upon his arrival from a State Visit to Myanmar and Thailand, President Rodrigo “Daddy D” Duterte has made his position on the matter clear: he doesn't want Leni impeached.

“Look, we just had an election. Guys, lay off. Stop it. You can do other things but do not tinker with the structure of government. I will not countenance (support) it,” Duterte said [CNN].

Despite this pronouncement, Speaker Alvarez decided to defy the President when he said in Filipino, ”I respect the President's statement. We may agree with him on many issues, but this time, we disagree with him [Star].”

Ano ba talaga, Daddy D?

At first glance, I think many Filipinos received mixed signals from the Duterte Administration. On one hand is Duterte's opposition to Leni's impeachment, and on the other is Alvarez' open defiance to the president's wishes, i.e. Alvarez wants Leni impeached.

Okay, hold on one second.

From Lower to Upper

Duterte said he doesn't want Leni impeached, but one of his men – DILG Assistant Secretary for Plans and Programs Epimaco Densing [DILG] – was actually part of the panel of lawyers and academics in yesterday's press Impeach-Leni conference [TV5].

Well, that says something.

Yes, one of the President's men is supporting one of the sets of impeachment complaints. Either Densing is a rogue bureaucrat, or a part of Duterte wants Leni removed, despite the other part calling for the preservation of the status quo.

Whatever the case may be, the Alvarez-led Lower House supermajority [Star] makes one thing clear: Articles of Impeachment will most probably be transmitted to the Senate in as early as May 4th, that day when the Lower House resumes its regular session. Yes, at the rate things are going, an impeachment trial is almost certain, and it's just a matter of time before it commences.

With that said, I think it's important for you, the reader, to have a better idea of the political scenarios that may ensue post-transmittal because unfortunately, the situation is not as simple as “Let's kick Leni out then business as usual.”

No. It's not that simple. Let me explain the why and the how.

Another Numbers Game in the Senate

Let's assume that the one of the impeachment complaints (or a consolidated complaint) will be transmitted to the Senate as Article of Impeachment.

The Senate will form an impeachment court after it receives the Articles of Impeachment from the the House of Representatives. The constitution says the Chief Justice will preside if the one on trial is the President [Gov] but it's the vice-president on trial this time, so Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel will preside.

OFFTOPIC: That's kinda unfortunate. It would have been fun if it's Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno. Her EQ is so low, her biases will surely show, exposing her to public scrutiny.

Historically, the impeachment trial commences a month after the transmittal. Assuming that the complainants manage to get 100 votes (the required one-third equals 99 votes then let's just add 1 as insurance) right away, the transmittal will be on May 4th (start of congressional session), so we can expect an impeachment trial to commence on or before mid-June. We can also expect the impeachment trial to last for at least two months.

Let's skip the impeachment hearings for now and zoom to the “day of reckoning, or the day the senator-judges cast their votes.

A conviction requires a two-thirds majority vote from the Senate [Const]. With 24 senator-judges, that means 16 “convict” votes are required to remove Robredo. There are sixteen non-LP senators in the generally pro-Administration Senate Majority, 2 LP senators in the majority (Recto and Villanueva), and six in the minority (De Lima, Aquino, Pangilinan, Hontiveros, Trillanes, and Drilon).

At this point, we shall modestly assume that all minority senators, plus the other two LP senators, will vote “acquit”.

This is a precarious situation, as we will never know if one of the 16 senator-judges from the majority will vote “convict”, or if some of them will suddenly decide to vote “acquit”.

For one, majority Senator JV Ejercito expressed his opposition to both Duterte's and Robredo's impeachment, saying that “impeachment processes are both destructive and divisive [Gov]”, suggesting that he may vote to acquit Robredo should a trial ensue. That brings down the maximum number of “convict” votes to just 15, one short of a two-thirds majority.

However, Ejercito is just a first-time senator whose term ends in 2019 [Gov], i.e. he's up for re-election in 2019. What political gain will there be for him if he acquits Robredo?

Ejercito voting to acquit Robredo would be political suicide, although it's up to the Filipino public to make him realize it at the soonest. The same goes for the other re-electionist majority senators... and there's a lot of them.

Yes, the prosecution has the opportunity, but it faces a tough road ahead.

Potential “Temporary Allies”

However, senate sources told me that there's a chance that Senators Ralph Recto and Joel Villanueva, despite still being part of the minority Liberal Party, may be convinced to vote “convict”.

My senate sources told me that Recto is unhappy with the Liberal Party since the time former Pres. Aquino vetoed his bills (e.g. the January 2016 SSS Pension Hike Law) in the previous congress. The same source told me that Recto has become an LP pariah, as he was not even invited by other LP senators during their June-July discussions about who will become the Senate President.

Remember the time when administration-aligned Senator Manny Pacquiao recently chose to nominate Recto as Senate Pro-tempore [GMA] after the majority ousted LP Senators from their chairmanships? Yes, that's a clue.

Meanwhile, Senator Joel Villanueva has always had bad blood with Senator Leila de Lima, who recommended the filing of graft charges against the former when the latter was still Justice Secretary [Star].

Yes, Villanueva and Recto, with a little “prodding” from administration party PDP-Laban, may vote “convict”, bolt LP and join PDP or some other party.

After all, despite their being in LP, they still chose to remain in the Senate majority.

Fewer than 23 Senator-judges?

Senator Leila de Lima, however, is currently in detention and I see no reason how she will be freed in the next three months, so it's safe to assume that she will not be a senator-judge, considering that Trillanes was not allowed to participate in sessions of the 15th Congress (2007 to 2010) prior to his 2010 pardon, courtesy of then-President Noynoy Aquino.

With that said, there will be at most 23 senators who will decide on the case. Two-thirds of 23 is 15.33, so a conviction will still require 16 votes, as 15 votes is less than two-thirds.

Note, however, that I still used the term “at most” because...

...there's a catch, a very interesting catch.

Senator Antonio “Sundalong Kanin” Trillanes is known to be Edgar Matobato's protector, with the latter being in his custody up to now [TV5]. Thus, it's theoretically easy for the prosecution to argue Trillanes' lack of partiality and have him forcibly disqualified as a senator-judge under Sec 1, Rule 137 of the Rules of Court [AM].

Of course, he could voluntary inhibit but his reputation for arrogance makes that scenario unlikely. So yes, he has to be forcibly removed as a senator-judge.

Assuming that Trillanes does not participate by forcible disqualification, that leaves us with 22 Senator-judges, two-thirds of which is 14.67, so that a two-thirds majority vote will just be 15.

A 15-vote requirement to convict gives the sixteen-person senate majority (plus the two LP wildcards) provides the pro-impeachment side lots of wiggle room, i.e. it makes Robredo's removal much more likely.

Now, another source – one of the lawyers preparing the impeachment complaints – also told me that they can even potentially asked for the forcible disqualification of Franklin Drilon, after the lawyer claimed that they have evidence showing that Drilon helped fund or organize anti-Duterte black propaganda.

If Drilon will be disqualified as a senator-judge, that brings down the total number of judges to just 21, making a two-thirds majority vote equal to just 14, providing the pro-impeachment clique even stronger, though I doubt that the prosecution will push it this far because it may erode the legitimacy of the prospective impeachment court... although desperate times may call for desperate measures. Who knows?

Whichever the case, I think it's safe to say at this point that the odds are stacked against Leni Robredo, that a conviction is, at the least, slightly more likely than an acquittal.

TP's Takeaways

Let me summarize what I have discussed.

FIRST, Alvarez' fury and the Duterte-aligned supermajority makest Leni impeachment in the Lower House almost certain, i.e. a Senate Impeachment Trial is extremely likely.

SECOND, there are sixteen senators in the Duterte-aligned Senate majority, exactly the number required to convict Robredo. There's a risk however, that some of these majority senators like Ejercito may acquit Robredo, so it's still gonna be a tough task ahead for the prosecutors with this kind of setup.

THIRD, minority senators Recto and Villanueva, both disgruntled with LP, may convict Robredo if given the right deal by Duterte-aligned forces, so that total number of potential convict votes is 18.

FOURTH, the prosecution may move to disqualify Trillanes. With De Lima unable to participate due to detention, the total number of senator-judges is 22, so that only 15 votes are required for a two-thirds majority conviction. That provides more wiggle room for the prosecution because they can get a conviction even if three of the 18 senators choose to acquit Robredo.

Note, however, that two high-profile attorneys I consulted have differing opinions on the issue of inhibition/disqualification of senator judges. The first one said senator-judges may be forcibly disqualified, while the other argues that only voluntary inhibitions are possible per precedent.

Hence, the feasibility of this #ByeByeTrillanes scenario is still in question.

FIFTH, the prosecution may also move to disqualify Drilon, though unlikely. If the prosecution decides to push it this far, this brings the total number of senator-judges down to 21, so that only 14 votes are required for a two-thirds majority conviction. Yes, this will become very easy for the prosecution, although it brings with it the risk of irreparably eroding the credibility of the impeachment court.

Hence, even the worst-case scenario in a Robredo Impeachment Trial brings with it the real possibility of a two-thirds majority conviction, and the other scenarios only make the odds better.

Yes, the prospect of a “Private Citizen Leni Robredo” is becoming clearer by the day, and this will probably result into several sleepless nights for VP Leni Robredo and Fafa Bolet as they go on their South African escapade.

Now, it's time to look at the bigger picture:

What are the political risks that Duterte may face during and after Robredo's impeachment trial?

I'll save that for the next article. This one is already running long. [ThinkingPinoy]

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Will Robredo's impeachment backfire on Duterte?

In Friday's “The Impeachment Numbers Game: Will Leni and Bolet enjoy South Africa?”, I explained how the presence of a Lower House supermajority makes the transmittal of Articles of Impeachment against Vice-president Leni Robredo almost certain. I also explained how the prosecution, in a prospective Robredo impeachment trial, has pretty decent chances of getting a two-thirds majority conviction, as 18 out of the 24 sitting senators belong to the majority.

I have explained several other things in the same article, but the gist of the entire thing is this:

Vice-president Leni Robredo is facing a very real threat to her hold on power.

On the other hand, we all know that an impeachment complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte will not prosper for three reasons:

First, Duterte enjoys the support of the supermajority and the House Speaker, so that the transmittal of anti-Duterte Articles of Impeachment will require a congressional coup, something that typically spineless congressmen are incapable of.

Second, even if a senate trial were to ensue, Duterte enjoys the support of the 18-member senate majority bloc. Moreover, at least 9 senators will certainly acquit Duterte: (1) Cayetano, Duterte's 2016 running mate; (2) Pimentel, (3) Zubiri and (4) Pacquiao, the Mindanawons; (5) Gordon and (6) Lacson have been generally supportive of Duterte and vocal about it; (7) Villar, whose son [TP: Mark Villar] is Duterte's Public Works Secretary; (8) Ejercito, whose father Erap strongly supports Duterte; and; (9) Binay, whose father, ex-VP Jojo Binay, hates the Liberal Party's guts, and the last thing she'd want is another LP presidency.

Thus, a two-thirds conviction against Duterte is impossible.

Third, Duterte is currently a very popular president, and his removal will inevitably result into mass unrest. Imagine a repeat of Duterte's Miting de Avance but with an angry mob this time.

In short, vis-a-vis the impeachment complaints against the two highest-ranking officials in the land, Duterte is certainly safe, while Robredo is certainly in great danger of losing her post.

I think it's safe to say that Duterte will not be impeached, so let's focus on the Robredo impeachment issue.

Public Clamor for Robredo's Impeachment

According to WeAreSocial's Digital in 2017 Global Review [WaS 2017], the Philippines experienced an astounding 25% growth (12 million new users) in number of social media users compared to the past year. There are 60 million Filipinos active on Facebook right now, compared to about 48 million a year ago [WaS 2016], or an increase of about 12 million users.
With a national population of a little over 100 million, approximately 60 percent of the country use Facebook and with ease of access, Facebook has become the primary battleground of political discourse...and VP Robredo is being clobbered in it round-the-clock. For example, a quick look at the most popular political pages can be depressing from the Robredo camp's vantage point:

The Facebook Insights snapshot shown above, taken on 26 March 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC+8, lists the analytics data of the most popular pages of each political camp based on likes and engagements.

The anti-Robredo pages in the list are Thinking Pinoy, Mocha Uson Blog, and For the Motherland – Sass Rogando Sasot. Meanwhile, the pro-Robredo pages in the list are Leni Robredo's official page, Friend of VP Leni, Juan Nationalist, Silent No More, and Superficial Gazette.

Note that I did not include pro-Robredo pages with negligible engagement rates, i.e. those with below 100 thousand. And for brevity, I also didn't include other major anti-Robredo pages like Lapu-lapu, Duterte Today, Mindanation, and Crabbler.

Partidahan na natin, kumbaga.

The combined engagement rates of all five major pro-Robredo pages is less than 800 thousand, while the combined engagement rates of the three major anti-Robredo pages is around 4.4 million.

Suffice it to say, if Facebook were to be used as a gauge of public clamor for Robredo's removal, then yes, Filipinos want Robredo ousted.

Now, Robredo die-hards may argue that, despite the enormous disparity between the pro- and anti-Robredo stats, all of these numbers are just, as a self-proclaimed veteran journalist puts it, “manufactured noise”.

So let's check the other signs

Crowdsourced Funding for #PalitBise

A couple of weeks ago, pro-Duterte musician Jimmy Bondoc and company thought of organizing a mass demonstration in support of President Duterte who, at the time, was besieged by an impeachment complaint lodged by Trillanes-aligned Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano.

Bondoc named the April 2 event “Palit Bise: Suporta sa Presidente”, which roughly translates to “Replace the Vice(-president): Support for the President”.

Okay, I think you know what that means... then Bondoc did something unprecedented: he turned to crowdfunding to finance the event, arguing that the demonstration must not involve the support (or present) of any traditional politician.
On the evening of 20 March 2017, Bondoc launched a crowdfunding campaign for #PalitBise with a goal amount of US$20,000, or roughly Php 1 million. Bondoc said the amount will be used to pay for the sound system, security, and other miscellaneous expenses of what is anticipated to be a massive event.

Bondoc's call for donations was shared by OFW groups, Duterte-aligned social media pages, and private citizens.

In just three days, crowdsourced donations reached a total of US$45,640.49 [GavaGives] or about Php 2.3 million, exceeding the goal by over 128 percent.

There are more than 1079 givers but due to numerous DDoS attacks on the website caused a bug on the counter.

Save for a couple or so donations of $1,000, all other contributions were very small at around $30.

Let's take a look at the messages from some of the donors:

Graze Sequerra, who donated $4, wrote:

This is the first time nationalism gets (sic) through me. For the Motherland! And for my support for PRRD – nasa likod mo lang kami (we stand behind you). #ImpeachLeni #PalitBise

Sherry Mae Embay, who donated $20, wrote:

Bilang ordinaryong Pilipino, ako'y naninindigan upang ipaglaban ang kinabukasan ng bayan ko at ng magiging anak ko.
TRANSLATION: As an ordinary Filipino, I am taking a stand to fight for the future of my country and my would-be children.)

Alma Tahil, who donated $38.40, wrote:

Para sa mga walang boses at mahihirap at para sa ating mahal na Pangulo... President Duterte kayo lang ang pag-asa ng bayan natin. Kaya [kahit] konting barya na maiambag ko, makakatulong na to protect our president para maipatuloy niya ang kanyang [gawain] para sa mahihi[rap]

TRANSLATION: For the voiceless and the destitute and for our beloved President... President Duterte, you're our country's last hope. So even if I can contribute only a small amount, I hope this will help protect you so you can continue your work for the poor.

All the other donors shared similar sentiments: support for the president and contempt for the vice-president.

The April 2 #PalitBise rally will be first crowdfunded mass demonstration in Philippine History.

Now, what does that say about the public's stance on the Robredo Impeachment Issue?

Risks with Impeaching Robredo

A turnout of at least 100,000 warm bodies in Luneta in the April 2nd #PalitBise Rally will galvanize the notion that there is indeed public clamor for Robredo's removal. A turnout of 200,000 can even sway some anti-impeachment senators' opinions. And finally, a turnout of 500,000 or more can make Robredo's removal practically inevitable.

But the issue is not as simple as taking away the vice-presidency from Our Lady of Naga, as Robredo's international propaganda machinery can spin this prospective removal to their favor.

Actually, Robredo's counter-attack has already commenced.In a speech in Dagupan yesterday, Robredo said, “The leadership journey [on which] I have embarked has brought me much persecution. There are so many lies being bandied around. And social media has been the frontier to disguise lies as true (sic) [Inq]”

Robredo has started painting herself as the martyr persecuted by the powerful Duterte administration. With the help of the Liberal Party's massive financial war chest, she has the option to repeatedly hammer this notion ad nauseam to the international community for the duration of a potentially months-long impeachment trial.

And I think I forgot to mention that LP's funds for international PR is likely to receive a boost next week, when Leni flies to South Africa to meet the international Liberal Democrats (LibDem), thanks to LP's German LibDem financier Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom) [Freiheit].

Yes, the potential side-effect of removing Robredo is the reinforcement of Duterte's international image as a ruthless despot.

Uh, oh!

Countering Robredo's Counter-attack

Robredo's counter-attack looks promising, but it is by no means fool-proof. For pro-impeachment forces to counter this counter-attack, a two-pronged solution is necessary:

First, Duterte should distance himself from the impeachment issue as much as possible.

This allows him to wash his hands by arguing, during and after the impeachment process, that Robredo's removal is purely the work of the People and that he had nothing to do with it.

Second, the Filipino People should visibly and massively show its support for Robredo's removal.

The best rebuttal to Robredo's and Varona's prospective “manufactured noise” spin is a photo that looks similar to this:

Duterte's May 2016 campaign rally at Quirino Grandstand, Luneta

Duterte, so far, has been doing his part – the first prong – through the following acts:

[1] On 23 March, Duterte told his supporters to stop any attempt at impeaching Robredo [TV5].

[2] A day later, he asked Robredo to sit next to him during the PNPA graduation ceremony [GMA].

[3] Yesterday, Malacanang confirmed that Duterte invited the Robredo family to dinner in the palace [ABS].

Thus, the ball is already in the people's court, i.e. it's time for the Filipino People to do its part: the second prong.

If you want Robredo to be removed with minimal side effects, I highly suggest that you join the 02 April #PalitBise: Suporta sa Presidente mass demonstration in Luneta, and continue to voice your opinions on the streets and in social media for the duration of the impeachment trial.

Remember that Article II, Section 1 of the Philippine Constitution states [Gov]:

“The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.”

With that said, don't you think it's time for us to have a say on who stays in power and who does not?

If Vice-president Leni Gerona viuda de Robredo y querida de Banal will go, then she will have to go for good .[ThinkingPinoy]

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How newswriters spin good news about the country to make the country look bad.

I was browsing through my news feed when I stumbled upon a recently published ABS-CBN News article entitled, “Fitch affirms PH investment grade score under Duterte”.

The article's first line reads:

“Fitch Ratings... affirmed its investment grade rating with a positive outlook on the Philippines, citing sustained economic growth momentum under President Rodrigo Duterte.”

Fitch evaluates sovereign credit ratings every six months, so the the last Fitch press release was on September 2016, covering the last three months of Pres. Aquino's term and the first three months of Duterte's.

Hence, I was immediately delighted because this is the first six-month evaluation period that's fully within Duterte's presidential term.

But then, the same ABS-CBN News article stated:

“However, 'weak governance standards,' a narrow revenue base and per capita income and human development that are below the median for economies with similar ratings constrain the Philippines' score, Fitch said.”

Yes, ABS-CBN said the credit rating agency cited the country's “weak governance standards”, and it even used quotation marks to emphasize the point.

That line saddened me, of course, as it seems to not-so-subtly reference the alleged 7000 body count from the War on Narcopolitics, which originated from Rappler's 7000-EJK hoax.

Then, I wondered, “Did Fitch really say 'weak governance standards'?”

So I went to Fitch's site to check the press release for myself.

Parang may karga na naman 'tong article e.

Fitch's Official Press Release

I went to Fitch.com and checked the official press release entitled, “Fitch Affirms the Philippines at 'BBB-'; Outlook Positive”.

The paragraph where that line was lifted from reads:

“The ratings remain constrained by relatively weak governance standards, a narrow government revenue base, and levels of per capita income and human development that are below the 'BBB' median.”

Thus, I cannot help but ask:

Why did ABS-CBN emphasize “weak government standards” through quotation marks, while quoting the other factors – verbatim – without quotation marks, and why did it leave the crucial adverb “relatively”?

As you can see from the Fitch press release, “weak governance standards” was listed alongside the other factors without any clear distinction on which is more important than the other. ABS-CBN newswriters, however, not-so-subtly emphasized it as if Fitch declared that it's the most serious constraint.
Moreover, the adverb “relatively” is crucial in painting a clear picture of what Fitch said about the Philippine governance, a crucial adverb that ABS-CBN news decided to drop.

Relatively, which means ”in relation, comparison, or proportion to something else” is crucial because it clarifies whether Philippine Governance is weak as it is, or if it is weak compared to other similar sovereign states.

Think of it this way...

According to "Forbes Philippines 50 Richest", the three richest Filipinos individuals are Henry Sy ($13.7b), John Gokongwei ($6.8b), and Lucio Tan ($4.9b), and rounding up the list are Juliette Romualdez ($155m), Michael Romero ($150m), and Luis Virata ($145m).

Thus, among this group of 50 richest Filipinos, Virata is relatively poor, as the other 49 on the list posted higher respective net worths. Clearly, Virata is by no means destitute, i.e. Virata was labelled “poor” only because everyone else in the list were richer.
And the same thing applies to the Fitch press release. Fitch said the Philippines suffers from “relatively weak governance standards”, a description that Fitch also used for Malaysia [Straits]. Surely, Malaysia, despite its domestic problems, is nowhere near being failed state.

Pero syempre, ABS-CBN writers and editors will just reply, "EH, BASTA!"

Semantic nitpicking?

Interestingly, reports by its local rivals Businessworld, BusinessMirror and GMA News didn't forget to quote “relatively”.

ABS-CBN's failure to quote “relatively” and its choice of emphasizing “weak governance standards” could have been easily attributed to innocent typographical errors and not from the news writer's biases, if not for the fact that the same article stated:

A "deterioration" in governance standards and political instability could cause a downgrade of the positive outlook to stable, Fitch said.

Kung hindi pa ba naman halatang ipinupukpok sa atin 'yan, ewan ko na lang.Moreover, ABS-CBN all-too-conveniently forgot to quote the part where Fitch said:

“The president's election campaign focused on improving law and order and promoting social justice, and he has maintained those priorities since taking office. Macroeconomic performance has remained strong despite the increase in incidents of violence associated with the administration's campaign against the illegal drug trade while domestic political stability has been maintained.“

Yes, despite the alleged increase in violence, Fitch still said the Philippines enjoys domestic political stability... and ABS-CBN didn't report that.

SIDE NOTE: Alan Peter Cayetano

Malacanang insiders informed me that Fitch representatives interviewed local officials recently, in preparation for their March 2017 report.

The same person told me that Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez told Fitch that they must interview Senator Alan Peter Cayetano before they leave for Hong Kong. According to my source, Dominguez told Fitch that even if Cayetano is not an economist, he's the best person to talk to when it comes to the War on Narcopolitics.

Suffice it to say, Cayetano might just have helped improve our economic prospects despite the negative propaganda from the opposition, including fake statistics from the Vice-president Leni Robredo.

Intentionally Negative Wording?

ABS-CBN's drama doesn't end there.

I checked Fitch's September 2016 statement about Philippine Sovereign credit, which said the Philippines had a BBB- credit rating with a stable outlook [Star]. Thus, it can be said that the country's credit rating has shown signs of improvement after six months as the March 2017 press release said we now have a BBB- credit rating with a POSITIVE outlook.

Despite this, ABS-CBN not only failed to mention that development in the article's title, but also in the article's body.

Curiously, during the last time Fitch changed our outlook from “stable” to “positive” in 2015 under the Aquino presidency, ABS-CBN optimistically titled its article,”PH seen to get credit rating upgrade from Fitch”.

Would it kill ABS-CBN's news writer to use an equally optimistic title, or
Would ABS-CBN news editors kill that writer if he did, or most importantly,
Would ABS-CBN's owners kill its news department if it did?

I don't know if it's just me, but the the writer's inclination to cite only the negative parts of this report suggest an agenda.

All of these is Duterte's fault: he is not an Aquino. #Sarcasm. For one, PNoy-era DBP wrote off P1.6 billion in Lopez loans [Inq], and Duterte is clearly unwilling to extend ABS-CBN a similar favor.

At this rate, maybe Duterte should really let ABS-CBN's franchise automatically expire in 2020.

Despite these heavily-spun articles, mainstream media men still wonder why they consistently receive major ass-whooping in social media.

Oh, wait! Varona insists that all uproar in social media is just "manufactured noise".

Sige 'teh, ikaw na. [ThinkingPinoy]

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When Duterte said Filipinos aren’t inherently good in math, I think he was referring to Rappler's employees.

In September 2016, Rappler published Michael Bueza’s “IN NUMBERS: The Philippines''war on drugs’”, which supposedly serves as a tally of the deaths resulting from President Rody Duterte’s War on Drugs. Bueza has updated the list 75 times since September 2016, with the latest version (the 75th update) dated 07 April 2017.

On the 75th update, Bueza, citing “revised PNP data”, came up with a total of 7,080 casualties by combining 2,555; 3,603; and 922, which are the deaths from police operations, DUIs, and concluded investigations, respectively.

Rappler’s tally has so far been used by various international news agencies as the basis for the death toll of Duterte’s War on Drugs. It has been quoted by major organizations such as the [Financial Times, [Newsweek, the [Guardian, and even the [New York Times, and it has also been used as the basis for a [Human Rights Watch] report and a [European Parliament] resolution.

And most importantly, Vice-president Leni Robredo herself used this figure in a video address shown in a UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs side event, the same video that was featured on [Time] Magazine last month.

Yes, that’s how oft-cited Rappler’s article is, so let’s ask a simple question that few mainstream journalists chronically fail to ask:

Is 7080 deaths an accurate body count?

Rappler vs Tiglao

In his 20 March 2017 column, Ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao accused Rappler of having “misled… the World”, as he wrote:

The Rappler report is so patently wrong, I can only attribute it not to stupidity but to malice. It included 4,525 ‘deaths under investigation or investigation concluded’ as killings related to the anti-drug war – which they aren’t!”

Bueza’s simple and straightforward methodology uses the following formula:

T = P + D + C

where, T = total number of people killed in War on Drugs; P = suspected drug personalities killed in police operations; D = victims in cases of deaths under investigation (DUI); and C = victims in cases where investigation has concluded

And herein lies the problem: it appears to be a classic case not only of bad Math, but also of bad terminology.

Rappler’s and Bueza’s Collective Confusion

The Rappler article did not provide any precise definition of any of the equation’s variables, and that’s something that me, who is darned good in High School Math, find problematic.

Moreover, I do not understand how Rappler categorized all DUIs as drug-related. How would they know they’re all drug-related if an investigation is still ongoing in the first place?

And lastly, everyone suddenly use Bueza’s 7000 figure to describe the number of extrajudicial killings and summary executions, despite the fact that at least some of those killings must have been conducted in legitimate police operations.
This is just messed up! How many were lawfully killed during police operations? Did the PNP say all DUIs are drug-related? How many DUIs have been confirmed as drug-related? How many drug-related deaths are there in total?

Let me quote something that’s often attributed to genius physicist Albert Einstein[QI]:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

In Rappler’s case, Bueza's formula is not only problematic, but also oversimplified.

The rest of mainstream media had almost a year to clear things up, but they appear to enjoy a willful ignorance on the matter. Some influential organizations have already called for economic sanctions against the Philippines, yet local mainstream media insists on displaying an appalling level of negligence reminiscent of the Malacañang Press Corps’ legendary indolence.

So why don’t I, ThinkingPinoy, sort it out myself?

Ironing out the definitions

But first, let’s be clear about the definition of “extrajudicial killings and summary executions”

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano was right when he cited former President Benigno Aquino III’s Administrative Order 35 to show the problematic definition of “extra-judicial killings“ [Star].

There is no standard international definition of the term “extrajudicial killings”. Quoting Ballesteros of the [Manila Times], even “UN bodies have interchangeably used the terms ‘extrajudicial execution,’ ‘summary execution’ and ‘arbitrary execution’ to refer to intentional murders of crime suspects by law enforcers.”
Hence, to ensure that you and I are on the same page, let’s adopt the most common definition adopted the most vocal critics of the Duterte Administration – the Liberal Party-led Political Opposition. That is, for the purpose of this article, our preliminary definition shall be:

An extrajudicial killing is the drug-related killing of a person by governmental authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process.

This is, a working definition, but I feel that it’s incomplete, as it precludes unknown vigilante groups that the opposition alleges to have committed drug-related killings with the State’s imprimatur. Thus, we shall revise the definition into:

An "extrajudicial killing or summary execution" shall be defined as the drug-related killing of a person by governmental authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process, or by civilians with the explicit approval of the State.

“Drug-related killings” shall be defined as homicides where the suspect, the victim, or the suspect’s motive has a history of, or is connected to, illegal drugs.

This shall be the the definition used for the rest of this article.

Let’s get the numbers, shall we?

PNP speaks

Instead of speculating, I decided to go to Camp Crame and ask the Public Information Office of the Philippine National Police (PNP-PIO) about it. A couple of days ago, I visited PNP-PIO and interviewed Police S/Supt. Dionardo “Caloy” Carlos, the PNP‘s official spokesperson.

Asked to confirm Rappler’s 7,080 drug war body count, Carlos said:

The media reports over 7,000 extrajudicial killings and/or summary executions, that’s their description, but we only have 6,011 homicide cases recorded from 01 July 2016 to 24 March 2017. These (homicide cases are) formerly (called) DUIs, or deaths under investigation.

Carlos essentially meant that 7,000 EJKs and summary executions is impossible because there are only 6,011 documented homicides under investigation to begin with. That is, the total number of EJKs and summary executions, if any, should be less than 6,011.To further elucidate his point, Carlos said

So, all killings that occurred while we're implementing the campaign vs drugs are classified as Deaths Under Investigation. but we don't necessarily say they're all drug-related, that's why they're under investigation.

Asked if drug-related deaths are just a subset of DUIs, Carlos said:

Yes. Now, we are determining which ones are really connected to the anti-drug campaign and which ones are regular crimes.

Asked on how many of the DUIs have been confirmed as drug-related, Carlos said:

Among these 6,011 homicides, we have determined that there are only 1,398 cases that are drug-related, so it’s automatically wrong to say that there have been over 7,000 EJKs or summary executions that they attribute to the campaign versus illegal drugs… There are names of victims, suspects, places, and not just numerical data.

Carlos said there are 1,398 confirmed drug-related homicides, but these killings have yet to be proven to be state-sanctioned.

To clarify the 1,398 confirmed drug-related homicides, Carlos said:

These are not necessarily deaths resulting from EJKs or summary executions. There are many possible motives. And among these 6,011 homicide cases, we so far determined that only 1,398 are drug-related.”

In reference to Rappler’s tally, Carlos said:

It’s wrong to say that all 6,011 are EJKs or summary killings (executions) because the circumstances surrounding each of the 6,011 deaths differ. The motives vary.”

I told Carlos that if there are 1,398 confirmed drug-related homicides among the 6,011 DUIs, that leaves us 4,613 DUIs that are still unaccounted for, to which he replied:

Aside from the 1398 (confirmed drug-related deaths), we also have 828 resolved cases but the motives are different, not connected to illegal drugs... (The motives are) fights over parcels of land, personal grudges, atrocities of armed leftists, love triangles, (etc.) ... We still have (around) 3700 cases that are still under investigation.

Subtracting 1,398 drug-related and 828 non-drug-related deaths from the 6,011 DUIs yields 3,785 DUIs with pending investigations.

Over 7,000 killed in Drug War?

I compiled the numbers Carlos provided and they’re shown in the following table:

In line with our definition of EJKs and summary executions, the oft-repeated statement “over 7,000 EJKs and summary executions in Duterte’s Drug War”, which would have included all 6,011 DUIs per Bueza’s formula, is incorrect.

First, the 828 deaths that are not related to drugs are obviously not part of the War on Drugs.

Second, the 1398 drug-related deaths may be EJKs or summary executions, but it is still unclear if the killings were state-sanctioned.

Third, the remaining 3,785 DUIs are still being investigated upon, so it is still unknown if they’re related to drugs or not.

Thus, how can we say that these 6,011 are EJKs or summary executions when the essential elements of such a crime have yet to be proven?

In short, Rappler’s article that features Bueza’s calculations provide, at best, an upper limit of potential EJKs and summary executions, and not the actual number of EJKs and summary executions.

But that makes Rappler’s oft-cited article meaningless, which is best explained through an analogy:

I am technically correct when I say, “I have, at most, a million fingers” is technically correct because I have ten fingers and ten is less than one million. But is that statement meaningful? Does it help others get a better idea of how many fingers I have?

Rappler did the same thing. Rappler basically showed that there are, at most, 7,080 extrajudicial killings and summary executions, even if the actual number of proven extrajudicial killings, so far is a lot, lot lower.

Less than or equal to two

How many EJKs and summary killings in the Philippines so far? Less than or equal to two.

So far, there are only two clear candidates of EJKs and summary executions: that of Korean national Jee Ick-Joo and that of Mayor Rolando Espinosa.

According to Carlos, Jee Ick-Joo’s murder was found out to be a classic robbery-extortion case that’s unrelated to drugs, with the culprits using the War on Drugs only as a camouflage.

Again: Jee Ick-Joo’s murder is not part of the War on Drugs.
Meanwhile, warrants of arrest have been issued for the suspects in Espinosa’s murder [Star], and the 19 suspects – all of them policemen – have surrendered [Star]. Their cases are still being heard in the local courts so under the presumption of innocence, they are still considered innocent until proven guilty.

For argument’s sake, however, let’s assume that the Espinosa slay is indeed an EJK or summary execution, then let me ask:

Does one clear case of EJK or summary execution warrant the international outrage against the Philippine Government today?
Does it warrant the imposition of economic sanctions that can destroy millions of Filipino lives?
Why did Rappler say that the PNP gave a 7,080 EJK or summary execution body count even if the PNP clearly didn’t do so?

Rappler’s Willful Negligence?

Asked on what the PNP has done to correct Rappler’s monumental error, Carlos said:

When we saw it after the first three months of the Duterte Administration, we wrote to Rappler so they can correct it… They did nothing.

Asked about the date of that letter, Carlos said:

September 2016.

Carlos said Rappler’s news desk did not just ignore PNP’s letter, it even had the temerity to update that badly written article SEVENTY-FIVE TIMES.

Asked on what corrections they requested from Rappler, Carlos said:

We saw that the Rappler article shows different figures, and they claim the data comes from the PNP. (We avoid incidents like these) that’s why we have an analysis portion every time we release information, so you can’t just make up an interpretation of the numbers given. So Rappler didn’t… we didn’t receive a reply pertaining to (the September 2016 letter).

Asked on what other measures PNP takes to avoid confusions like these, Carlos said:

Whenever I give them updates, I myself insert an accompanying note stating ‘Deaths Under Investigation are not automatically extrajudicial killings and these are crimes of murder and/or homicide that are still being investigated on.’

Carlos was referring to regular updates given to journalists covering the Camp Crame Beat.

Camp Crame is the central headquarters of the Philippine National Police.

Seemingly exasperated over Rappler’s chronic non-action, Carlos added:

How can they say differently when clearly, every time that I release the data, we put something like that (a note) there? It's more like questioning and playing with the use of words. They interpret it differently (from) the intention of the one that crafted the policy.

Bewildered by Rappler’s logic, Carlos said:

If that's how (Rappler) sees it, then all crimes in 2016 before Duterte took office and in 2015 under a different leadership... ...so all of those are EJKs, going by their interpretation.”

Presumption of Regularity

According to Carlos, 2,694 deaths resulted from legitimate police operations as of 05 April 2017, but they can neither be counted as extrajudicial killings nor summary executions because they were committed in the course of legitimate law enforcement operations.

Killings committed in the course of law enforcement operations are considered as justifiable homicides on the ground of self-defense, in accordance with President Rodrigo Duterte’s oft-repeated directive:

“Only if your life is in danger and the criminal is armed and hostile, shoot him [TP: Deaths].”

Duterte’s directive is in line with established law enforcement practices. For example, the directive merely resonated T.F. Martin and L.L. Priar’s 1955 paper “Police Techniques in Gun Fights”, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology [Martin & Priar 1955, p. 401], which states:

Shoot only when life is in danger or a vicious felon cannot be apprehended. In case of an escaping felon, shoot as a last resort and when all means of apprehension have failed. In case of a firearm assault against the police, always shoot to kill.

Now, critics of Duterte’s War on Drugs may argue that some of the 2,694 deaths must be extrajudicial killings or summary executions. However, the legal principle of presumption of regularity applies.

Presumption of regularity is a principle applied in evidentiary evaluation that transactions made in the normal course of business are assumed to have been conducted in the usual manner unless there is evidence to prove otherwise [US Legal].

That is, this globally-recognized legal principle implies that the 2,694 deaths are justifiable homicides, unless the critics manage to prove otherwise.

The problem, however, is that these critics never even attempted to file a single case against any policeman. The judiciary has shown a history of openly defying the Chief Executive [TP: Duterte vs Sereno], so these critics cannot claim unwillingness of the courts to hear these cases.

In the absence of evidence showing abuse of authority on the PNP’s part, all these 2,694 deaths, except possibly for the death of Mayor Rolando Espinosa, are considered lawful.

So how many EJKs or summary executions are there?

One, at most, so far.

Why the international rage?

Despite the lack of evidence, relying solely on Duterte’s fiery rhetoric, and without fully consulting the PNP, the opposition, led by vice-president Leni Robredo, propagated the grossly inaccurate death toll figure that “genius” Rappler employee Michael Bueza “computed”.

Michael Bueza, the same “genius” who not-so-subtly insinuated that Bilibid inmates could not have contributed to Senator Leila de Lima’s campaign because they’re not on the contributor list.

None of the contributors to the senator's 2016 campaign have been mentioned by the witnesses in the congressional inquiries on the reported drug trade inside Bilibid [Rappler].

Bueza is seriously a piece of work, along with his overlords Maria Ressa, Glenda Gloria, and Chay Hofileña, who allowed the publication of the article and its SEVENTY-FIVE updates.

This is the problem when a local news outfit is funded by foreigners. They need not care about customer feedback, because no matter how much they hemorrhage money, they still got lots in store. Screw accountability, screw dismal social media performance: all Rappler needs is good Search Engine Optimization and it can spread its fake news far and wide [TP: SPO4 Pia].

What's more worrisome is that NOBODY in mainstream media, except for the Manila Times, bothered to investigate this journalistic monstrosity.

God invented lightning for a reason. Let me just leave it at that. [ThinkingPinoy]

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Social media is arguably one of the biggest factors behind President Rodrigo Duterte’s surprise win in the May 2016 elections and his continuing popularity almost a year into his term. Despite the chronically slanted coverage of oligarch-owned mainstream news outfits, Duterte still enjoys sky-high ratings that exceeds even those of former President Aquino and his “Cory Magic”.

But Social Media is not enough.

[FEATURED: Switzerland-based OFWs stage a demonstration in support of the Duterte Government earlier this month.]

The Domestic Public Relations War

Clearly, Facebook has become the primary battleground for local political discourse, and Duterte-aligned social media influencers collectively enjoy higher engagement rates than those of the opposition combined [TP: Mosquito Press].

For example, oppositionist Liberal Party (LP) Senator Bam Aquino attributed VP Leni Robredo plunging net satisfaction scores to “black propaganda”. Whether Anti-Robredo news’ is “black propaganda” or an inconvenient truth depends on which side of the political spectrum one belongs. However, one thing is clear: the propaganda war against Robredo is waged largely on Facebook, and it is extremely effective.

Suffice it to say, Duterte, his communications team, and independent Duterte-aligned social media influencers, have managed to cement his grip on popularity, at least for the foreseeable future. That is, I have good reason to believe the that local Public Relations battle has already been won, and the task of maintaining Duterte’s satisfaction ratings is just a matter of keeping the current supporter base within the fold.

This is the same reason why I, ThinkingPinoy, do not publish posts as often as I did a year ago.

Just look at what the opposition did to Lascañas: instead of pushing for more local coverage, he was flown out of the country and has started to wreak PR havoc overseas.

Sans any well-founded corruption issue against Duterte that may pop up in the future, Duterte will enjoy popular support until the end of his term, the same popular support that enables him to be as decisive as he is right now.

But the international PR situation is not as rosy.

Duterte vs the World

The international community’s opinion of the president can use some improvement, to say the least.

Let me state it more bluntly:

Thanks to overwhelmingly negative international media coverage, and his chronically acerbic language, most Westerners think he’s a mass murderer, with some believing that his administration is the reincarnation of the Third Reich.

I have extensively discussed the summary execution issue in "Duterte's War on Narcopolitics and Rappler's Bad Math," where I demonstrated how the oft-cited death toll statistic of 7,000 is the result of mangled definitions or worse, malice on the part of the reporter.

However, quoting part of an email from LP-aligned billionaire lobbyist Loida Nicolas-Lewis:

"(It) doesn't have to be true. (It) just needs to look like that.”

And that's exactly what happened.

In January, for example, the European Parliament has threatened to revoke our GSP+ status [Star], which will raise tariffs on our exports. But this pales in comparison to what happened just a few months before.

Late last year, US President Obama used sharp rhetoric to denounced what he perceived as Duterte-instigated human rights violations. At the rate they’re going, a Democrat win in the 2016 US National Elections might have resulted into intervention [TP: Goldberg]. Luckily for us, the Republican Trump won, allaying immediate fears of local political observers [TP: Good for PH].
Western Governments, which are mostly democratic like that of the Philippines, are composed of political animals who generally act in accordance with public opinion. The European Parliament in itself is amoral, and it derives its “morality” from what the general public has to say. The United States Congress generally works the same way, though I can safely say that it has less of conscience than Europe.

Europeans have an extremely negative opinion of Duterte, thanks to its media giants that have close ties with LP and Philippine mainstream media. Yes, the same Philippine mainstream media owned by the same abusive oligarchs that Duterte is desperately trying to rein in.

Take for example, the time when Senator Leila de Lima sent an aide to speak against the Philippine Government in the Human Rights International Forum in Geneva, and all we had as a defense is a passionate Filipina OFW:

I sincerely laud her passion and patriotism, but the fact remains that we have a better chance at being heard if the speaker has the imprimatur of the National Government. As a matter of fact, that Filipina's heartfelt statements fell onto deaf ears, as UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, the same exact person that the Filipina was addressing, ignored her plea and continued disparaging the Philippine Government right after the event.

But I am digressing.

Time is of the essence

At this rate, it may only be a matter of time before we lose our GSP+ status. And worse, given Trump’s catastrophic unpopularity further exacerbated by launching airstrikes on Syria, it may only be a matter of time before he gets impeached and consequently replaced by Vice-president Mike Pence, a known supporter of “humanitarian intervention” [GR].

Humanitarian intervention is a euphemism for the threat or use of force by a state, group of states, or international organization.

While it may be argued that an American-led invasion of an increasingly China-friendly Philippines is unlikely, a Pence presidency brings with it a great likelihood of more subtle, but just as destructive, destabilization efforts against the Duterte Government.But before we go too far, let me make this very clear: Good Public Relations is not the end all and be all of successful diplomacy. It is, however, an integral part of it. And this dilemma is something that the internationally frowned-upon Duterte cannot sweep under the rug anymore.

Besides, I think Duterte owes much to Overseas Filipino Workers, the same OFWs who are suffering from the international PR backlash today.

Just take a look at what his Switzerland-based Filipina had to say:

What can Duterte do?

Admit it or not, Duterte is a Western PR disaster and something has to be done so that international opinion will not translate to increasingly likely economic and military sanctions.

During their incumbency, Duterte’s predecessors had a solution for this: they have been known to hire influential international PR firms, or what I personally call “deodorants and sanitizers”.
President Aquino hired in 2010 an unnamed public relations firm for his US State Visit [Star]. Meanwhile, President Arroyo in 2002 hired Burson-Marsteller "to enhance the global image of the Philippines" especially in the eyes of "decision-makers from both government and private sectors [Star]."

The problem, however, is that Duterte seems put Public Relations at the end of his list of priorities. A cabinet secretary recently told me, “The president thinks PR is important, but he’d rather spend the money on infrastructure and food security, because he thinks they’re more important.”

I cannot really blame Duterte for his disinclination in spending government funds on PR. The Philippines, despite having one of the biggest economies on the planet, is still very poor. The pie is large but the number of people who’ll share the pie is so much larger.

The cost of hiring a PR company

A senior member of the Philippine Diplomatic Corps, who shall not be identified for lack of authority to speak on the matter, told me that they cost around US$3 million annually on the average.

Actually, Arroyo took it to the next level in 2007, as the beleaguered president allegedly hired influential US lobby firm Covington and Burling for US$ 50 million.

In fairness to Duterte, I believe that for now, his PR nightmare is not as bad as Arroyo’s in 2007. International Law scholar Paula Defensor-Knack herself explained that an ICC investigation is unlikely to lift off. Well, at least for now. Regardless, Duterte been espousal of austerity in public spending since his first day in Malacañang makes it extremely unlikely, even for his most trusted men, to convince him of doing what Aquino and Arroyo did. And even if he wanted to, Duterte will find it difficult to rival the drug-fueled pockets of the Liberal Party [TP: Jesse Robredo].

Even I would cringe at that kind of price tag: only LP drug lords will be okay with that!

But Duterte is the Patron Saint of Striking a Compromise and of Finding the Middle Ground.

His stance against corruption, drugs, and criminality are non-negotiables, and I am happy about that. However, his stance on other issues, especially those that he admittedly isn’t very good at, can be negotiated.

Take, for example, the Php 2,000 SSS pension hike issue:

His three populist cabinet members – Agrarian Reform Sec. Mariano, Social Welfare Sec. Taguiwalo, and NAPC Chair Maza – were totally for it. Meanwhile, his three economic managers – Finance Sec. Dominguez, Budget Sec. Diokno, and NEDA Chief Pernia – were reportedly against raising pensions by P2,000, arguing that doing so would drastically shorten the SSS fund’s actuarial life.

Duterte met them halfway: he approved a Php 1,000 pension hike [Inq].

Now, what’s the halfway mark on the PR issue?

A Public Relations Compromise

To President Duterte and his men, I offer a compromise:

Please reinstate the Press Attaché position in major embassies.

From what I’ve learned through my friends in the Diplomatic Corps, Philippine embassies and consulates used to have press attachés that served as the single point of contact for media inquiries from their host state.

With access to press attachés in their home country, foreign media organizations can get first-hand information about the issues they cover, instead of having to tap to their Philippine correspondents, who are mostly stringers whose primary employment is with Philippines’ Big Media.

And we know what Big Media thinks of the president [TP: Media’s Ego], especially after his recents tirades against ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

Stringers are correspondents who are not on the regular staff of a news organization, especially one retained on a part-time basis to report on events in a particular place [Reuters].

Press attachés can also serve a lot of other purposes that I’d rather not mention in this article in the interest of National Security. If the higher-ups want to know more, they can contact me and I’d be more than willing to share my thoughts.

Overworked Ambassadors

Unfortunately, President Cory Aquino, upon assumption of her duties, decided to eliminate the press attaché position in our diplomatic roster, so we have not had a single full-time press attaché since 1986.

While some camps would say that ambassadors and consul generals can take over the press-related responsibilities, the fact of the matter is that almost every major embassy we have abroad suffers from serious personnel shortages. For one, I know of a few diplomatic missions where the head even has to occasionally man the embassy’s windows. That’s how bad the situation is.

Consuls and ambassadors are just too overworked as it is, and a dedicated press attaché is necessary to fill the gap, at least in terms of handling the country’s image overseas.

It’s safe to say that Duterte enjoys a certain degree of popularity in Asia while the South American and African States are already busy with domestic affairs, so we ned not reinstate press attachés in those three continents for now. Thus, we are left with the two continents to deal with: Europe and North America.

To cut on costs, my friends and I think that we can start with two key cities in the United States and two key cities in the European Union, i.e. we will open up only four press attaché positions for the meantime and see if it works.

How much would each press attaché cost? I bet it's just a small fraction of the US$ 3 million price tag I mentioned earlier.

With that said, having a press attaché is not a PR panacea but it will, at the least, help cushion the negative publicity overseas. With press attachés, international media outfits will have no excuse for not getting the government’s official side in every story. With press attachés, international media outfits will not have to source information from local stringers whose loyalties lie on their oligarchic employers.

Will the cost of having four press attachés outweigh potential losses from losing our GSP+ status? I think not, and don’t even get me started on the American Front.

Mr. President, the local PR battle has been won. It’s time to look beyond our borders. [ThinkingPinoy].

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And this story has something to do with the termination of Peter Tiu Laviña. AWESOME!

President Rodrigo Duterte’s termination of Undersecretary Maia Halmen Valdez sent shockwaves throughout the country [Inq]. One of the most trusted aides of Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco, the Boholanon was the third to go onto the chopping block, after Irrigation Chief Peter Tiu Laviña [Star] and Interior Secretary Mike Sueño [Star].

Citing his uncompromising stance against corruption, Duterte fired Valdez after the latter usurped the powers of her superior after she extended the National Food Authority’s rice importation deadline, a task that’s supposed to have been solely in the power of the NFA Administrator subject to the approval of the President [Inq].

Duterte, from the very start, prohibited rice importation during harvest season, as the massive influx of cheap imported rice at this time causes prices to fall drastically, hurting the livelihood of Filipino farmers.

Usec. Maia Halmen Valdez

Was Valdez just a tad too overzealous, or is there a reason behind what she did?

After asking around, it appears that the sacked undersecretary’s father has much to gain from Valdez’s moves.

The Power Structure

But before that, it’s essential for the reader to gain a basic understanding of the underlying power structure, i.e. who-does-who.

At the top of the food chain is President Duterte, and right below him is Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco. For unknown reasons and via Executive Order No. 1 [Gov], Duterte delegated the oversight of some twelve agencies to Evasco.
Sec. Evasco chairs these twelve agencies ex officio, or by virtue of his appointment. Of course, Evasco is just one man, so it’s virtually impossible for him to attend all the board meetings of all his agencies. As a remedy, he made Pres. Duterte appoint undersecretaries, undersecretaries who help him in overseeing the agencies’ operations.

The three Evasco-led agencies relevant to this article are:

National Food Authority (NFA)
Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA/Philcoa), and
National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

And here’s where Undersecretary Valdez comes in.

Acting as a de facto executive assistant, Valdez is presumably close to Evasco. Palace insiders and I are not exactly privy to Valdez and Evasco’s shared background. However, she has to be someone whom Evasco trusts very well.

That is, Evasco chose Valdez despite [Palapos 2014]:

She was merely a political affairs officer for a Zamboanga congressman. A relatively minor post, a sudden appointment as undersecretary is a big leap.
The Zamboanga congressman she worked for was Isagani Amatong, a member of the Liberal Party.

As an undersecretary, Valdez oversaw NFA, NIA, and PCA, acting as de facto Chairperson, being Evasco’s representative in these three agencies.

Ricenomics 101

To begin, the reader has to have a working understanding of Philippine “Ricenomics”, which focuses mainly on controlling the country’s rice supply.

Rice shortages are common in the Philippines [Onofre 2008], and these are addressed through two mechanisms [RiceHQ].

FIRST is Government-to-Government (G2G) procurement, or the Philippine Government directly enters into a contract with a foreign government that has excess rice to export.

SECOND is the “Minimum Access Volume (MAV) Program”, which allows private importers to import rice with lower tariffs.

DEFINITION: TARIFF

Tariffs are taxes levied on imports, mainly as a source of government income, and also as a means to protect a local industry. Raising tariffs makes imports more expensive, allowing locally produced equivalents more competitive. Meanwhile, lowering tariffs makes imports more affordable for Filipino consumers.

MAV quotas are set yearly, with the NFA tasked with the issuance of importation permits to private rice importers… and MAV is where corruption begins.

Now that that's out of the way, it's time for the writer to teach you corruption.

Minimum Access Volume Program

NFA's2016 MAV Program sets our importation limit at about 800,000 metric tons [NFA], and NFA sources telling the writer that the agency issued 193 permits to different private companies.

Now, NFA sources informed the writer that NFA officials from the past administration, in exchange for issuing rice importation permits, receive about Php 10 million in bribes per permit. With 193 permits issued last year, this translates to a total of around Php 1.93 billion in dirty money.

Whoever received that would have been a very, very wealthy (and corrupt) man.

The bribes make business sense, as rice imported through MAV costs US$ 400 per metric ton on the average, so that 800,000 metric tons of imported rice costs US$320 million, or about Php 16 billion if converted with US$ to Php at 1:50.

Clearly, Php 16 billion dwarfs Php 2 billion.

Even Rappler's Michael Bueza, who sucks in math, should know that [TP: Rappler's EJK Math].

Inefficient Rice Traders

Rice importers are businessmen, so they need to make the most out of the bribes they’ve paid. Unfortunately, many of them are inefficient so they weren’t able to maximize their respective rice importation limits before the importation deadline expired on 28 February 2017 [NFA].

Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco (L) and President Rodrigo Duterte (RO+)

Specifically, NFA sources said these permit holders managed to import only 580,000 metric tons, or just 80 percent of the MAV limit.

To address this issue, Usec Maia Valdez, without Sec. Evasco’s signature and without consulting President Duterte, attempted to extend the deadline to June 2017 [NFA]. Valdez essentially usurped Evasco’s authority and violated Duterte’s directive that no rice shall be imported during harvest season, which starts in May 2017.

And that is why Duterte terminated Valdez. But why did Duterte prohibit rice imports during the local harvest season?

That is what will be explained next.

Duterte: No to Rice Imports for now

Basically, Duterte wants to prevent another Kidapawan Massacre, when the farmers got so poor and so hungry because of the drought that they protested until they got murdered by the Aquino Government.

Kidapawan Carnage: When negotiations broke down
Policeman: Naga-appeal kami sa inyo na itong area [ay lisanin niyo na].

Negotiator: Instead of [you] appealing to us, we should appeal to the governor, na ibigay na ang hinihingi [na bigas] ng mga magsasaka. Sa governor kayo mag-appeal, hindi sa mga raliyista. Hindi sa mga biktima.

(Farmers refused to disperse. SWAT team started opening fire on the farmers.)

#BigasHindiBala #DaangMatuwid #StopLumadKillings #Poe2016 #Duterte2016 #Binay2016 #RoxasRobredo #Roxas2016 #Halalan2016 #PHVote #BilangPilipino
Posted by Thinking Pinoy - RJ Nieto on Friday, April 1, 2016

Duterte wants to help poor farmers earn a decent living, so his decision against rice importation during harvest season means local traders will need to buy at higher prices, to the benefit of the farmers.

Duterte’s policy may translate to higher costs on the part of the average consumer, but this is market socialism at work, this is income redistribution. That is, Filipinos with better-paying jobs pay more to help poor farmers who earn so little.

Truth be told, almost any job pays better than farming.Valdez’s unilateral decision to extend MAV means rice traders can still import rice during the harvest season at approximately P17 per kilogram. This means local farmers will have to compete with rice imports, forcing them to sell their produce at costs lower than what would have been if MAV was ended in February.

It’s simple supply-and-demand.

What’s worse, the Department of Agriculture expect a bumper crop in May [Star]. That is, poor farmers generally expect a very plentiful harvest, which means they can use this season’s income not only to offset losses in the previous years due to El Niño, but also as insurance against future adversities.

With Valdez’s decision, another Kidapawan Massacre [TP: Roxas Speechwriter] during the next El Niño is not unlikely.

Maia’s Defense

The article has so far focused on MAV, and has largely left out Government-to-Government (G2G) rice importation contracts, and here’s where G2G comes in.

“In their desperate attempt to convince the President to resort to G2G, the Agriculture Secretary, who has been meddling on the functions and affairs of the OCS, and the NFA administrator have made it appear as if there is a shortage of rice in the country, causing alarm and possible upward movement in the prices of commercial rice,” Valdez said in a statement [MS].

Valdez accused Piñol and Aquino of pushing for G2G, which she said will raise rice prices.

G2G imports, however, are stored by NFA and for sale only in cases when there is a shortage, real or artificial, with the latter caused by hoarders or speculators. Otherwise they are not for commerce, as they are provided to government agencies dealing with calamities [NFA].

In short, G2G rice imports are emergency stocks provided to government agencies, such as local government units, during calamities. They are not readily introduced into the local market, so they largely do not affect rice prices.

So her defense falls flat on its face. Valdez probably knows this, but why does she insist on it?

Personal gain [NFA], and that shall be elaborated in the next section.

Why did Valdez do what she did?

Valdez’s illegal order to extend MAV could have been attributed to excessive dedication, something that, despite being illegal, could be considered admirable on a certain level. However, sources from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) disagree.

NBI sources said Valdez is under investigation for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019) and the Code of Conduct for Public Officials (RA 6713). The sources said they received reports that Valdez received bribes from rice importers who have yet to fully utilize their respective allocated quotas.

In short, Valdez allegedly received bribes so corrupt rice importers can make more money, to the detriment of poor Filipino rice farmers.

But wait, there’s more!

The same NBI sources informed the writer that they are investigating Valdez for allegedly colluding with her father who shall benefit from MAV’s extension after NBI received reports that he has links with rice smuggling.

Usec Maia Halmen Valdez’s father Halleck Valdez [BCC] is the customs collector at the Port of Zamboanga [Ports].

With MAV, all that a rice smuggler has to do is “fix” rice importation documents. For example, a rice smuggler can opt to pay taxes on just half of the rice shipments and, in collusion with a customs collector, import the other half tariff-free.

But without MAV, rice importation is downright illegal, so it makes their smuggling more difficult, as our ports cannot accept even a single grain of rice.

Assuming the elder Valdez has smuggling links, he stands to gain from MAV’s extension.

But that means every corrupt customs collector in the country will benefit from MAV’s extension too, so did the younger Valdez receive bribes from officials of other ports?

And the reader is probably already very familiar with how much Duterte hates rice smugglers.

NFA Administrator Jason Aquino earlier released a 27 February 2017 letter to the NBI requesting the to investigate the attempted MAV extension's links with unscrupulous rice traders engaged in smuggling [NFA].

Aquino did not explicitly mention Valdez in the said letter.

The Peter Tiu Laviña Angle

Valdez is just an undersecretary, yet she appears to exercise an incommensurate level of influence in the bureaucracy. The writer has reason to believe that Sec. Evasco, her principal, has no history of corruption. However, the fact remains that Evasco trusts her more than most.

But trust is a very relative word, so it’s important to gauge how much of Evasco’s trust Valdez enjoys.

Sources from the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) explained how much influence Valdez has on Evasco.

FIRST, Valdez allegedly conspired with several power players inside the bureaucracy to get NIA Administrator Peter Tiu Laviña fired by finding ways to show that the latter condones corrupt practices of NIA officials. Laviña was essentially terminated because the NIA officials under him are corrupt.

Going by that logic, Duterte should be impeached because there are corrupt public servants under him. That doesn’t sound right, but it happened anyway, allegedly thanks to Valdez’s machinations.

SECOND, Valdez allegedly convinced Evasco to the suspend PCA Administrator Avelino Andal.

“There’s an alleged illegal collection of P1.50 per board foot of lumber in Basilan by Andal’s trusted employees. We also received sworn statements stating that he is the mastermind of such scheme,” Valdez told the Philippine Star [Star] in March.

PCA sources rejected Valdez’s claim and said Andal actually issued an order to investigate erring PCA employees. However, Valdez allegedly found ways to link Andal with the illegal acts of his subordinates.

Yes, it appears that Evasco highly trusts Valdez, who later appears to be less savory than expected.

Is this how Valdez expected to get away with the illegal MAV extension?

As to whether Evasco is complicit in Valdez’s alleged acts or not, neither the writer nor his sources know, although Evasco’s alleged dislike for NFA Administrator Jason Aquino (not related to the Cojuangco-Aquinos) helped Maia’s cause.

Truth be told, Evasco even threatened to resign as NFA chairman over the MAV issue if Duterte doesn't fire Aquino [Evasco]. The problem, however, is that he remains NFA chair as long as he's still Cabinet Secretary by virtue of EO 1, so he can leave NFA only if he resigns from the cabinet.

Evasco, however, did not tender his resignation as Cabinet Secretary.

More importantly, did Valdez deceive Evasco? It's anybody's guess.

But Evasco appears so convinced that he even granted several exclusives to a college sorority blog [Rappler], even going as far as calling the Palace "a snake pit" [Rappler].

Oh, well.

Finale

Rice traders, especially those involved in rice smuggling, stand to benefit the most from Valdez’s decision to extend the MAV program. And with MAV’s extension, poor farmers, like those in Mindanao, will earn a lot less than they would if MAV was allowed to expire.

Valdez’s decision, in short, lends truth to the saying:

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

With Valdez’s decision, the poor Kidapawan farmers will be just as poor as they were last year, the same year they begged for food and were given bullets instead.

Will there be another Kidapawan Massacre if Usec Valdez stays?

Thankfully, she’s already fired. [ThinkingPinoy]

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A former PR operator who now likes to be called a veteran journalist, Miss Manufactured Noise (not her real name) went to a university and asked her barely adult audience whether they’ve heard about certain popular Facebook pages or not. After hearing less than half of them raised their hands, she then went on to conclude that all the buzz generated by these Facebook pages were just, as she calls it, “manufactured noise”.

As an owner of a Facebook Page with considerable following, I saw her observation as less of a critique of people like me and more of a psychological projection, if not a desperate cry for attention. Because Miss MN, who accuses us of "manufactured noise", admitted to having a long history of manufacturing noise herself.

Bubby Dacer

Several weeks ago, I published a post with a line that reads:

Miss ‘Veteran Journalist’, natatandaan mo pa ba si 'Bubby Dacer'?

In response, Miss Mainstream Journalist wrote an incommensurately lengthy post to explain to the public how she turned down several major deals while she was still working for Dacer, saying that there are lines she wouldn’t cross.
Miss Mainstream Journalist was the former right hand person of slain Public Relations (PR) consultant Bubby Dacer, who was known as one of the most influential spin doctors in the 1990s. He allegedly handled Public Relations (PR) work for powerful politicians and ultra-rich businessmen… until he suddenly disappeared and was later found dead in 2001.

I was still a teenager when Dacer died, and I never really understood why there was so much coverage about him afterwards. Back then, I didn’t understand why there’s so much interest on this fellow. Truth be told, the resolution of his case has been, for the longest time, the concern of a tiny subset of the sociopolitical elite.

That is, until today.

Disclaimer

From this point, I am forced to hide the identity of all my first-hand sources. The local PR establishment is relatively small and people know each other. Given the amount of money that changes hands regularly, mentioning their names can almost surely get them in major trouble, if not killed.

Moreover, note that this is not some demolition job against Miss Manufactured Noise. If her website’s negligible monthly traffic is an indicator, she’s already past her “journalistic” heydays. There’s no need to demolish her career: it’s more convenient for me to just let it die a natural death.

However, I felt that her story is relevant to help explain what’s going on in the government today. In short, I will use her story as my Exhibit “A”.

If you’re a TP reader who only reads TP articles that are replete with citations, then this is not the article for you. I promise that the next one will be. But for this one, I can’t.

If you’re good with that, let’s go.

The Seedy PR World

Miss MN’s de facto reply to my March 21 post consisted of a list of projects that she supposedly turned down, essentially claiming that she still has some sort of moral fiber in her. Her defensiveness, however, is indicative of one basic fact: that PR work is dirty, that PR work isn’t something that one can’t openly brag about.
Last week, a veteran journalist told me that he found it surprising that mainstream accepted Miss Mainstream Journalist despite her PR past, as hardcore journos typically maintain a condescending attitude towards PR-people-turned-journalists. However, the same person said this is probably because she allegedly had many mainstream journalists on her payroll in the past, so that kind of attitude didn’t apply to her.

But what, exactly is PR?

In 2011, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) crowdsourced a definition for PR [PRSA]:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

With this definition, PR is basically about deodorizing a company’s image, and that’s what most PR and advertising companies do. The same applies to the Philippine context, as most PR and advertising companies here stick to preparing press releases and making sure they’re broadcast or published through Mass Media. That is, most PR firms’ activities are above-board.

But Bubby Dacer wasn’t just another PR guy.

A high-profile lawyer told me that Bubby Dacer walked the extra mile: he was one of the first professional publicists to do black ops – for a fee. For the right price, he’s willing to destroy the reputation of anyone or anybody… and this is presumably why Miss Mainstream Journalist got so riled up over the mention of his name and of her name in the same sentence.

Yes, Miss Mainstream Journalist said in her post that she turned down three projects, including that of a former first lady. Let’s concede to that, but how other projects did she not turn down?

I think this can best be explained by a letter from one of my readers.

MN’s HQ: The Manila Hotel

Let me publish here a letter from a reader who happen to have stumbled upon my March 21 post. I have redacted some parts of the letter to protect the reader’s identity.

(I have just) read your Facebook post about **********, a.k.a. Ms. Manufactured Noise.

I can personally confirm and validate the claims of your source about her and Bubby Dacer. She is the wingman of Bubby Dacer during his PR firm's heydays back in the mid-90s. Imagine, they had their offices in Manila Hotel then. I think you were just in your short pants then.

I used to deal a lot with her as the point person of Dacer every time we have a press release to publish as I was the Corporate Communications Officer then of **********, the ********** in **********.

She was Bubby's operator to the media. She pays off the media contacts to publish our press releases and she then shows proof of publication to us afterwards. Their firm also handles the black ops PR for our company back then and Bubby Dacer is getting a monthly retainer of P** million for that. That is on top of expenses after every press release is published. That's a lot of money back in 19** to 19** you know.

If Miss Mainstream Journalist was so transparent about her work under Dacer, then why won’t she name her clients that paid her and her boss to do black ops?Journalists paid by PR firms to write twisted stories are real. Miss MN, actually, knows quite a few, because she paid them herself, and handsomely at that, right?

At this point, I think the reader has pretty good idea of how black ops PR works. Thus, it’s time to explain how it’s relevant to the status quo.

Corruption in Journalism

Asked in June 2016 about media deaths, Duterte said [CNN]:

“You know why they are killed? Most of them are on the take…”

Mainstream media reported that line as if it’s something so foreign to them, despite that fact that many of them are, or have been, “on the take.”

Ten months later, not even a single news outfit has released even a single expose about even a single corrupt journalist. Actually, media companies generally do not pursue stories against other media companies and when they do, they frame the stories in the form of someone-said-this-about-that, instead of hard hitting investigative reports with documentary evidence and the whole nine yards.

The reason, I believe, is simple: Mutually-Assured Destruction.

Miss MN, for example, is known to be fiercely protective whenever mainstream media is criticized on social media, even in times when the mainstream media outfit – or the mainstream media man – is clearly in the wrong.

Well, what are the risks of doing otherwise? Imagine Miss Mainstream Journalist agreeing to a criticism against Journalist X or media outfit Y. Given Bubby Dacer’s scale of operations, there’s bound to be someone sympathetic to X or Y who would croak about Miss MN’s previous black ops work.

On the flip side, I have written in a previous section that mainstream “wholeheartedly” accepted ex-PR person Miss Mainstream Journalist because many of them owe Mainstream Journalist a “debt of gratitude”. And besides, Miss Mainstream Journalist likely has enough ammunition to destroy most journalists who get in her way.

Yeah, if one croaks, then the other croaks too. Hence, zero exposés.

But we’re not done yet.

The Duterte EJK Saga

Everybody knows that the single biggest criticism against the Duterte Administration is the alleged thousands of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) committed by his administration.

At first, the EJK Bible was the Inquirer’s Kill List: it was the most oft-cited article when someone talks about EJKs. The problem, however, is that by September, the list’s growth has someone slowed down, and what little transparency in methodology it had led keen observers to notice its damning flaws [TP: Illogicalities]. For one, some of the people it listed turned out to be alive.

Despite its monumental flaws, it was the go-to reference for any critic of the Duterte administration. That is, until college sorority blog Rappler came along.

Overeager to steal the limelight, Rappler came up with its own tally. No, it was not even a list: it was just a tally that Rappler employee Michael Bueza claims as official data from the PNP, something that PNP spokesperson Dionardo Carlos vehemently denied [TP: Bad Math]. For one, over half of the total in Bueza’s list comprise of deaths under investigation, which means that their link to the the narco-trade have yet to be established.

These two lists have served – or have been serving – as the justification for many an article against the Duterte Administration, despite the fact that these two lists, especially Bueza’s, are essentially fake news.

Despite this, we have been witness to several coordinated media blitzes in the past several months, with journalist Krizette Chu observing two: one on 09 December 2016, and another on 30 December 2016.

The timing of these two blitzes is nothing short of interesting, as it suggests (costly) attempts at PR damage control.

The first blitz was right after VP Leni Robredo resigned from the cabinet [CNN], while the other was in the heat of the #NasaanSiLeni controversy, or when Robredo flew to the US for a family vacation despite the knowledge that a supertyphoon is about to hit her hometown [TP: Thief in the Night].

And don’t even get me started at mainstream media’s general unwillingness to publish stories that are (1) unfavorable to the Liberal Party [TP: LeniLeaks] or (2) favorable to the Duterte Administration.

Internet “empowered” PR firms

Corruption in journalism is as old as the journalism profession itself, the practice of PR companies paying journalists to write heavily spun – if not outrightly false – stories is already a given.

What’s more interesting, however, is the magnitude at which they do it right now.

The advent of affordable high-speed internet and the rise of social media has exposed mainstream news outfits to unprecedented levels of competition. With the digital shift, many publications have shut down while those that remain suffer dwindling readerships.

Worse, websites do not generate as much revenue, and publishers are struggling to reconcile meager income with bloated operating expenses.

The best example would be Rappler.com, or the college sorority blog that’s pretending to be a news outfit. Since its 2011 launch, Rappler has posted total comprehensive losses of Php 162 million, and it has yet to turn a profit in any single fiscal year [TP: Bankrupt].

Despite this, Rappler keeps on going, and going, and going, with massive yearly capital infusions keeping it afloat, capital infusions that do not make financial sense until…

Have you seen a single Rappler blog post that openly criticized Leni Robredo? Exactly.

This is aside from the fact that journalism as a profession doesn’t pay well: I know of several veteran journalists who are worried about how they will send their kids to college. That's how little journalists get paid.

For every financially struggling journalist, the temptation to accept money from PR firms is real.

Thankfully, many journalists refused to join the dark side, but more of them do.

A Global Trend

I think this is the best time to quote Aphorism 46 of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil [Quora]:

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

The public’s growing distrust of mainstream media is not endemic to the Philippines. It is a global trend, and it is this same kind of distrust that propelled Donald Trump to the US presidency [DenverPost].

When I was in San Francisco in February, I had the honor of having a lengthy conversation with a senior member of the Philippine diplomatic corps. We talked about this seemingly one-sided view of the Duterte Administration in the international scene, and this is what the diplomat told me:

“Western traditional media is financially dying. Media companies have become even more reliant than ever on funding from PR firms for them to stay solvent. These Western news organizations do not really care about the Philippines: it’s culture is so foreign and for many, it’s just as far as way as Mars. But why do American papers fixate on everything Duterte does? It’s simple: because writing about him pays the bills. Now, as to who pays the PR bills, I have a few in mind.”

Well, after the two anti-Duterte December media blitzes that all-too-coincidentally happened right after Robredo-centered controversies, I think I have a pretty good idea where part of the funding comes from. Note that I used the word “part of the funding” because aside from political parties, the funding may also come from foreign government.

Take for example the case of Ukrainian TV.

Rappler and Omidyar

Last year, Kenneth Rapoza of [Forbes] wrote:

The best way to raise funds for a media project in Ukraine? Go full-bore anti-Russia to easily woo North American and European governments to give you money.

The article said the funders of Ukrainian Hromadske.TV include the GOVERNMENTS of Canada, the Netherlands, United States, Switzerland, Swede, Germany, and the European Union.

Interestingly, the same Forbes article mentioned the Omidyar Network in the same paragraph where it mentioned funding agencies of the seven governments listed above. Yes, the same Omidyar Network that has reportedly, in cooperation with the US government, helped fund the Ukrainian Revolution, i.e. the overthrow of the Ukrainian Government [Pando].

And why is it interesting for Filipinos? Because Omidyar is one of Rappler’s funders [Omidyar].

You see, intervention by foreign powers are the exact reason why the constitution prohibits foreign ownership of local media… except that some media companies, like Salim-owned TV5 and Philippine Star, know how to circumvent this constitutional provision.

And Rappler is just as guilty as the MVP-owned companies, after it accepted money from the same Omidyar Network mentioned above.

Countering PR Spin

How can we counter international PR spin when hiring PR companies is very expensive?

President Gloria was accused in 2007 of hiring Covington & Burling LLP, a hyper-influential US PR firm, for a US$ 50-million, six-month contract for pro-administration PR in the US, although then-Senator Mar Roxas said the contract may be for “something more, perhaps like getting the US Defense and Military establishment to soften resistance to a new strain of Martial Law [Roxas] .”

PR companies, however, may cost a lot less than that. But for a poor country like the Philippines, even one percent of that amount is a lot of money. Hence, we unfortunately are incapable of fighting fire (bad PR) with fire (Good PR), for the simple reason that the president is unwilling to spend that much on it.

And no, open letters to mainstream media will not work. Quoting Upton Sinclair:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it!

At this point, I think the best course of action, given financial constraints, is the reintroduction of the Press Attaché in key diplomatic missions. I extensively discussed this in last week’s article “Duterte vs the World: it's time to review our international PR strategy“.

But let me be clear on this, press attachés cannot realistically reverse the tide of international opinion. However, it can, at least, ensure that international media agencies, while writing anti-Administration stories, will have no good reason not to get the Duterte government’s side of story.

And on a final note, your feeling that there’s some sort of media conspiracy against Duterte is not totally unfounded. Miss Mainstream Journalist is evidence that corruption in journalism existed during her time, and there are more Miss MN’s who are active in the country and elsewhere today.

I am personally unable to see any definitive solution to the problems that people like Miss Mainstream Journalist cause, but I hope that through this article, you’ve gained a better understanding of the challenges we are facing today

You see, the first step towards a solution is understanding the problem, and here it is. [ThinkingPinoy]

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Earlier today, Manila Standard (MS) published “Lopez scored for charcoal making plan”. Let's fact-check it.
NOTE: This article was published on 02 May 2017.

Here's a rundown of the article’s contents.

Airboard Co. owner Manuel Galvez, a critic of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez, accused the latter of awarding a P9 billion charcoal making contract to BioChar, a company owned by Environment Usec. Philip Camara.
Lopez issued DENR Administrative Order 2017-05, which orders all DENR offices to implement the BioChar project.
Camara drafted the DENR A.O., where he was designated as head of the Biochar program.
The “Biochar” mentioned in the DENR A.O. is not even a technology.
That the contract is a clear case of Graft and Corruption.
Camara has resigned on April 7 per the Civil Service Commission’s ruling that he was unqualified to become a Usec.
Lopez said Biochar is has 52 known green uses, but Galvez challenged Lopez’ claims, arguing that he has yet to see a study showing Biochar helps mitigate climate change.

To sum it up, the major issues against Lopez are:

That the biochar referred to in DENR AO 2017-05 is not even a technology.
That there are no studies that suggests biochar mitigates climate change.
That biochar, in reality, is a company owned by former DENR Usec. Camara.
That Lopez committed graft and corruption by awarding a multi-billion peso contract to Camara’s Biochar.

Let’s fact-check Galvez’s claims.

1: “Biochar is not even a technology”

According to [DENR AO 2017-05], entitled “Guidelines for the Implementation of the Biochar Program”:

Biochar – a form of charcoal that is produced by exposing organic waste matter to heat in a low-oxygen environment. It can be used for a range of [sustainable] applications…

The DENR AO used Biochar.org as its reference for that definition. I admit that the site has a questionable reputation, as it appears to be a news aggregator about everything related to biochar, not some website by a well-known organization.

Thus, we ask, “Is biochar a real technology?”

According to Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources [WSU-CSANR] on its article entitled “Biochar (Pyrolisis)”:

Pyrolysis is the thermo-chemical conversion of dry organic materials (i.e. woody wastes) into bio-oil, syngas, and biochar. Biochar is being promoted for its potential to improve soil properties, fertility and carbon sequestration in soil while also producing renewable energy.

Yes, biochar is a legitimate technology, as DENR’s definition sufficiently matches WSU’s, and there are many other university websites who use a definition similar to DENR’s [Google].

2: Biochar positive and climate change

Galvez claimed that he has yet to see studies suggesting that biochar mitigates climate change, so I scoured the internet for such, and I have found several studies that corroborates DENR’s position.

In his journal article “Bio-energy in the Black”, Lehmann wrote [Lehmann 2007]:

Three environmental benefits (of biochar are): (1) mitigation of climate change, (2) improvement of soils, and (3) reduction of environmental pollution.

Professor Johannes Lehmann is a multi-awarded Professor in Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences Section [Cornell].
Aside from Lehmann, the many reputable studies also suggest biochar’s positive role in climate change, such as:

Sohi et Al. (2009). Biochar, climate change and soil: A review to guide future research. CSIRO Land and Water Science Report. Retrieved from [Google Scholar].
Swanson, J. (2013). Climate-Change Mitigation Potential of Biochar: A Review and Framework for Carbon Accounting. Duke University - Nicholas School of the Environment. Retrieved from [Duke University e-Library ].
Winsley, P. (2007). Biochar and bioenergy production for climate change mitigation. New Zealand Science Review. Vol 64. Retrieved from [Penn State U Citeseerx].

A simple [Google] search provides more scholarly articles showing biochar’s ability to help mitigate climate change. In short, biochar’s potential for mitigating climate change is well-established.

Yes, biochar helps mitigate climate change.

3: USec. Camara owns a company named “Biochar”.

DENR USec. Camara is the founder and CEO of the Philippine Biochar Association (PBiA). He is also the co-Founder and Chief Agriculturist of the Sambali Beach Farm, a demonstration farm for a sustainable biochar-based technology [ResponsibleBusiness].

The PBiA, in itself, is not a for-profit organization, as it merely serves as a facilitator of biochar companies all over the country [PBIA]. Meanwhile, Camara’s Sambali Beach Farm is more of a small-to-medium scale organic farm with a resort on the side [SBF FB], and judging from the photos of the place, it is unlikely that this company can perform a biochar program on a massive scale [SBF IG].I have searched online for any newly-formed, large scale, local biochar company, under Camara, and there aren’t any [Google].

Basically, Galvez appears to be referring to PBiA, an association of biochar companies that, in itself, does not directly participate in biochar production. Instead, PBiA’s member-companies who do.

4: Lopez awarded Camara a P9-billion biochar contract

DENR USec for Field Operations Philip Camara indeed spearheaded the issuance of the February 2017 DENR AO, as shown by his signature at the end of the said document. However, Section 10 states that the order becomes effective only after it has been published in a newspaper, which happened only on 04 April 2017 [DENR].

Meanwhile, the Civil Service Commission, citing ineligibility, ordered Camara’s dismissal from service on 05 April 2017 [BW], which Camara considered effective and final on 07 April 2017 [DENR].

Thus, if a P9-billion biochar contract was indeed issued, two things are clear: (1) that it was issued after 04 April 2017, and (2) Camara is probably out of it, as he was fired immediately after the AO was considered effective.

Of course, that isn’t enough, so we ask the following question:

Did Lopez really issue a P9-billion biochar contract and if so, to whom?

DENR on Biochar

I contacted DENR Usec Marlo Mendoza earlier today to ask for answers. Mendoza is DENR's officer-in-charge for Field Operations, i.e. Camara’s replacement.

Mendoza categorically denied the existence of any P9-billion biochar contract.

He said:

There is no concession with Philip Camara. Camara has been (advocating) the use of biochar for how many years already. Biochar is a technology: it is not a brand.

Mendoza explained that DENR’s biochar project is under the National Greening Program, so awarding a P9-billion contract is impossible. He said:

Our budget for the National Greening Program is just P6.9 billion, and that’s for the entire program.

Mendoza further stated that funding for DENR’s biochar program is small. He said:

We allocated only P150,000 per people’s organization for use in buying equipment and supplies, capacity building, and training, and there’s an expected specific output.

Asked on how many people’s organizations have been award DENR contracts, Mendoza said:

Right now, a generous estimate would be 10 to 20 people’s organizations.

Assuming 20 have been awarded contracts, that would amount to only P3 million pesos, a far cry from the alleged P9 billion contract.

Mendoza clarified that all of these people's organizations are small groups. None of them has the capacity for large-scale biochar production, which would have been necessary to perform a P9 billion biochar production contract.

In short, the alleged contract in the MS article does not exist.

The claims in the MS article are hogwash, and I respectfully encourage Ms. Herrera to perform due diligence before publishing articles. A simple call to DENR would have clarified the issue, a call that she regrettably failed to place [ThinkingPinoy].

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Earlier today, Manila Standard (MS) published “Lopez scored for charcoal making plan”. Let's fact-check it.

Here's a rundown of the article’s contents.

Airboard Co. owner Manuel Galvez, a critic of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez, accused the latter of awarding a P9 billion charcoal making contract to BioChar, a company owned by Environment Usec. Philip Camara.
Lopez issued DENR Administrative Order 2017-05, which orders all DENR offices to implement the BioChar project.
Camara drafted the DENR A.O., where he was designated as head of the Biochar program.
The “Biochar” mentioned in the DENR A.O. is not even a technology.
That the contract is a clear case of Graft and Corruption.
Camara has resigned on April 7 per the Civil Service Commission’s ruling that he was unqualified to become a Usec.
Lopez said Biochar is has 52 known green uses, but Galvez challenged Lopez’ claims, arguing that he has yet to see a study showing Biochar helps mitigate climate change.

To sum it up, the major issues against Lopez are:

That the biochar referred to in DENR AO 2017-05 is not even a technology.
That there are no studies that suggests biochar mitigates climate change.
That biochar, in reality, is a company owned by former DENR Usec. Camara.
That Lopez committed graft and corruption by awarding a multi-billion peso contract to Camara’s Biochar.

Let’s fact-check Galvez’s claims.

1: “Biochar is not even a technology”

According to [DENR AO 2017-05], entitled “Guidelines for the Implementation of the Biochar Program”:

Biochar – a form of charcoal that is produced by exposing organic waste matter to heat in a low-oxygen environment. It can be used for a range of [sustainable] applications…

According to Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources [WSU-CSANR] on its article entitled “Biochar (Pyrolisis)”:

Pyrolysis is the thermo-chemical conversion of dry organic materials (i.e. woody wastes) into bio-oil, syngas, and biochar. Biochar is being promoted for its potential to improve soil properties, fertility and carbon sequestration in soil while also producing renewable energy.

Yes, biochar is a legitimate technology, as DENR’s definition sufficiently matches WSU’s, and there are many other university websites who use a definition similar to DENR’s [Google].

2: Biochar positive and climate change

Three environmental benefits (of biochar are): (1) mitigation of climate change, (2) improvement of soils, and (3) reduction of environmental pollution.

Sohi et Al. (2009). Biochar, climate change and soil: A review to guide future research. CSIRO Land and Water Science Report. Retrieved from [Google Scholar].
Swanson, J. (2013). Climate-Change Mitigation Potential of Biochar: A Review and Framework for Carbon Accounting. Duke University - Nicholas School of the Environment. Retrieved from [Duke University e-Library ].
Winsley, P. (2007). Biochar and bioenergy production for climate change mitigation. New Zealand Science Review. Vol 64. Retrieved from [Penn State U Citeseerx].

Yes, biochar helps mitigate climate change.

3: USec. Camara owns a company named “Biochar”.

4: Lopez awarded Camara a P9-billion biochar contract

Did Lopez really issue a P9-billion biochar contract and if so, to whom?

DENR on Biochar

There is no concession with Philip Camara. Camara has been (advocating) the use of biochar for how many years already. Biochar is a technology: it is not a brand.

Mendoza explained that DENR’s biochar project is under the National Greening Program, so awarding a P9-billion contract is impossible. He said:

Our budget for the National Greening Program is just P6.9 billion, and that’s for the entire program.

Mendoza further stated that funding for DENR’s biochar program is small. He said:

We allocated only P150,000 per people’s organization for use in buying equipment and supplies, capacity building, and training, and there’s an expected specific output.

Asked on how many people’s organizations have been award DENR contracts, Mendoza said:

Right now, a generous estimate would be 10 to 20 people’s organizations.

Assuming 20 have been awarded contracts, that would amount to only P3 million pesos, a far cry from the alleged P9 billion contract.

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Duterte's Alleged San Juan Property (Courtesy: Rappler)

[UPDATED 19 May 2017] Rappler's 19 May 2017 article "How Duterte's wealth in 1st 6 months compares with Aquino's" is basically a one-thousand-word essay accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of amassing ill-gotten wealth while Rappler conveniently ignores publicly available facts.

In that article, Ressa's minion Michael Bueza, the same guy who murdered PNP's crime stats, said compared changes in Duterte's SALN to that of Aquino.

Aside from the really, really bad math, I cannot for the life of me understand why such an analysis is even relevant when Duterte himself said recently that the P3-million jump in his net worth is from amount ABS-CBN owes him after the latter did not air his campaign ads [GMA].

But what's most striking in the entire tinapa-wrapper of an article is the mention of a certain alleged Duterte-owned San Juan property, which Rappler has extensively, though amateurishly, discussed in the May 2016 article "Rodrigo Duterte's 386 P. Guevarra Property"

Let me quote that part of May 19 article:

Curiously, not declared in all of his SALNs was a property in 386 P. Guevara Street in San Juan City. Duterte reportedly bought the said townhouse for his son Sebastian in 2001, when the President was then Davao City congressman.

You see, I have already definitively debunked this theory last year, and let me show you what I wrote back then .

Geez, Rapplerettes never learn.

That San Juan Townhouse

Journalists are expected to provide evidence to back their claims and to take every step possible to minimize the risk of misunderstanding information. This is the same reason why news articles are separated from opinion-editorial pieces. News articles from trustworthy sources should contain solid evidence from both sides and should contain little to no speculation.

Let's analyze this particular Rappler article and see if it passes those standards.

According to the 04 May 2016 Rappler article entitled “Rodrigo Duterte's 386 P. Guevarra property”:

Duterte and co-accountholder Sara, his daughter, used 386 P. Guevarra St as the home address for the BPI Julia Vargas account. P Guevarra is a street in the Municipality of San Juan in Metro Manila, so let’s call this property the “San Juan House”
Duterte’s San Juan House property was not included in his current and past SALNs.
A source had confirmed that Duterte had indeed it sometime between 1998 to 2001 for P 1.5 million.
Property was registered under Sebastian’s name. He turned 18 in 2006.
2012 SALN Guidelines require SALN declarations shall include the properties, liabilities, business interests, and financial connections "of the declarant, his/her spouse and unmarried children below 18 years of age living in his/her household."
Though Sebastian was probably still being supported by his father from 2001 to 2005, he was living away and was not part of his father’s household then. Rappler speculates this allowed Duterte to exclude the property in his SALNs.
Is he off the hook, his critics are asking.

SALN Guidelines

Now, let’s analyze.

ThinkingPinoy questions Rappler’s use of 2012 SALN Guidelines to dictate what should be done on SALNs from 2004 to 2006. This is because the 1987 Constitution itself prohibits the creation of ex post facto laws [Article III, Sec. 22].

This is a little disturbing because new SALN forms were issued in 2011 [PCIJ], and the next revision was in 2013, in response to the loopholes found during the late CJ Corona’s impeachment trial [Rappler].

In short, Rappler based the 2006 requirements on guidelines that may have applied only to the years 2011 and 2012. To make matter worse, SALN guidelines were also changed in 2008 [GMA].

Two strikes for Rappler.

That’s some shoddy research on Rappler’s part.

Age of Majority

Rappler said the 386 P Guevarra property should have been in Duterte’s pre-2007 SALNs, as Sebastian turned 18 only in 2006. But is that claim correct?

ThinkingPinoy researched Sebastian’s current age. It turned out to be 28 years as of 30 April 2016 [Inquirer]. This implies that his actual birthdate is between 01 May 1987 and 30 April 1988. But we do not need to know his actual birthdate: we only need to know if he was born on or before 31 December (I’ll tell you why later).

Let’s take a look at this Instagram photo posted on 02 November 2015 by his sister Sara Duterte:

As we can see, the first comment shows his sister Sara greeting him a happy birthday, implying that his birthday was around November 2. Recalling that his birthday falls between 01 May 1987 and 30 April 1988, we can infer that he was born in 1987.

Thus, he turned 18 sometime between mid-October 2005 and mid-November 2005. After all, it would have been absurd for his sister, who lives in the same city, to greet him too early or too late.

That is, Sebastian turned 18 before 31 December 2005. Now, SALN requires information on the time of filing, so Duterte’s 2006 SALN can exclude the P Guevarra home.

Rappler has no copies of SALNs filed prior to 2004, so Rappler should have evaluated SALNs from 2004 and 2005 only, and not 2006.

After all, three counts of SALN under-declaration is worse than two.

Strike three for Rappler.

Now, looking at the 2004 and 2005 SALNs, it is clear that the San Juan House was not included, and this leads us to the next question…

Custody of Minor

Rappler itself reported that Duterte’s ex-wife Elizabeth Zimmerman filed for annulment in 1998, with the petition granted two years later in 2000 [Rappler].

Duterte never showed up in annulment hearings, though he was required to undergo a psych test, where he was found to be an antisocial narcissist [Rappler].

As a side note and before you get any crazy ideas, let’s make it clear that these findings are unreliable if used to gauge his actual personality. Why? Because if I want to divorce my wife, I will show the psychologist behaviour that will elicit the most apocalyptic diagnosis. The worse the diagnosis, the better, just want to get the whole thing over with.

For the annulment court, antisocial narcissism was enough.

At this point, we know Duterte was annulled in 2000, and with that court decision comes the determination of who gets child custody. Now, Sebastian was no more than 13 at that time. Adding the fact that the courts believe his dad is an antisocial narcissist, what are the odds that Duterte will be granted custody of a minor?

Evidence suggests that Elizabeth was given custody of Sebastian in 2000, or 2001 at the latest.

Of course, ThinkingPinoy concedes that custody could still have been given to Duterte, but Rappler should have mentioned that, as they claim to have the court documents in the first place [Rappler].

That's strike four.

And just to make sure all bases are covered, some would argue that Sebastian attended high school in Davao while Zimmerman stayed in Manila in the middle of the annulment proceedings. However, the fact that Zimmerman still got to run in 2001 Davao Local Elections is proof that she still resided in Davao City post-annulment.

In the article in question, Rappler admitted that “Sebastian… was living away and was not part of his father’s household then.”

However, a trusting reader will most likely interpret this as “living in the San Juan House” as opposed to living in Davao, implying that Duterte skirted SALN guidelines to make him look cooler.

But with the presence of a better explanation (Zimmerman has custody), that wording proves to be woefully inadequate.

In short, Rappler’s twist on geography as basis SALN exclusion is suboptimal, to say the least.

Rappler strikes five times.

Ownership of Property and Bank Addresses

A source close to the Duterte family informed me that Sebastian acquired the property in June 2001 using his mother Elizabeth Zimmerman’s funds.

Now, the Duterte-Zimmerman annulment was in 2000, with Sebastian under Zimmerman’s custody. Adding Rappler's admission that Sebastian was "living away" from Duterte, the old man cannot consider Sebastian to be part of his household.

Moreover, the San Juan property was bought using Zimmerman’s funds post-annulment, so it cannot be argued that it was Duterte’s riches that made it possible.

Assuming Duterte will be indicted for violating RA 6713 governing SALNs [DOLE], that would be more of a technicality than something caused by presence of an intention to amass ill-gotten wealth.

That’s just stupid.

Rappler, that’s strike six.

San Juan as Address on Bank Account

Now, Rappler based their speculations on Duterte’s SALNs from 2004 to 2006. Despite ThinkingPinoy’s demonstration in previous section that the 2006 SALN is inapplicable, let’s just move forward with Rappler’s assumptions. Sige, partidahan na.

Based on his estimated birthday in the previous section, Sebastian was still 14 in 2001, so he should still be in high school at least up to 2002. Sebastian attended the Ateneo de Davao High School [Inquirer], so Zimmerman, who has custody over him, should also be residing in Davao City. Thus, neither Sebastian nor Zimmerman resided in the San Juan House.

Pinahiram kaya kay Duterte yung bahay?

Duterte was congressman from June 1998 to June 2001:those were the years when he presumably resided in Metro Manila. Adding the fact that the property was purchased on 13 June 2001 or about 2 weeks before his congressional term ends. That’s also more than a month and a half after the 2001 Davao Local Elections where Duterte (again) won the mayoralty.

What are the odds that Duterte lived there at all?

Nil. Zilch. Zero.

Let’s recap:

Sebastian owns the San Juan house bought by Zimmerman. Sebastian was still a minor.
Zimmerman had custody over Sebastian.
Duterte never lived in that San Juan house.
The ink on Zimmerman and Duterte’s 2000 annulment papers haven’t dried yet.

The best explanation would be that he used that address out of convenience, as Sara Zimmerman Duterte, the co-holder, would likely be given access to the property.

Rappler, that’s strike seven.

Why did TP bother to go through all this?

ThinkingPinoy does not expect every journalist to be as meticulous as he is. However, a basic tenet of journalistic ethics is incorporating both sides of the story in every piece of work (except for opinion pieces). That’s what Rappler didn’t do.

In the article “Rodrigo Duterte's 386 P. Guevarra Property”, Rappler published an article based solely on a leaked (and potentially illegally obtained) document and it didn’t bother to contact Duterte to ask for his side.

Whether Rappler’s alibi is lack of resources (which TP doubts, as TP lacks even more resources), or lack of IQ, the fact remains that their possible overzealousness to be at pace with their peers has made them forget crucial ethical considerations.

If Rappler just bothered to spare ten minutes to call the Duterte camp, it would not have made so many egregious errors in this article.

And Rappler, that’s strike eight.

And you still wonder why Dutertards and Dutertrolls are so fiercely defensive? (TP)

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After its disastrous coverage of the Resorts World tragedy, Maria Ressa's EQ and IQ are on full display as she desperately does PR damage control for Rappler, her baby project.

In January 2017, college sorority blog Rappler libeled Sass Sasot, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar, and me, RJ Nieto a.k.a. ThinkingPinoy. Written by Rapplerettes Chay Hofilena, “SPO4” Pia Ranada-Robles, and Paige whatshername, the article “Inside Martin Andanar’s Mancave” accuses Sasot and I of accepting bribes from Andanar [Rappler].

Knowing full well that the article is nothing but hogwash, I wrote a rebuttal a day later, where I essentially asked why Rappler’s editorial team allowed the publication of an article that cites an anonymous source without even asking for our side, in total contravention to established guidelines in journalistic ethics [TP: Chay’s Delusions].

As it turns out, one of the article’s writers, “SPO4” Pia Ranada-Robles, has a pending Freedom of Information request lodged on 19 January 2017, about a week before the article’s publication. Entitled “List of PCOO expenses, delegation for President Duterte's Singapore and China visits”. Specifically, Ranada requested, among others [FoI]:

[The] List of names of the entire PCOO delegation to the Singapore and China trips, including consultants or bloggers who PCOO arranged to join the trips… The list of expenses should include expenses for consultants who rendered services for the PCOO during these trips. They should include exact amounts spent on specific expenses.

PCOO approved SPO4’s request fifteen workings days later on 09 February 2017, in accordance with the FoI executive order’s implementing rules and regulations [FoI].

It’s bad enough that Rappler never bothered to wait for the document, but what makes matters worse is that the document, which Ranada-Robles herself requested, showed that NOT A SINGLE CENT OF PUBLIC MONEY WAS PAID TO SASOT AND ME.

PCOO approved SPO4 Ranada's FoI request

That is, aside from citing nothing but anonymous source and despite official documents pointing to the contrary, Rappler defamed Andanar, Sasot, and I, with a deliberate and reckless disregard for the truthfulness for their claims.

What is Fake News?

An operational definition of “Fake News” can be culled from from the [Merriam-Webster] article “The Real Story of Fake News”. From that article, we can deduce:

Fake news refers to a spurious story which is seen as damaging to an agency, entity, or person.

Now, did you know that Ranada-Robles very conveniently forgot to report the results of her January FoI request? That makes Rappler’s “Inside Martin Andanar’s Mancave” fake news, for the reason that SPO4 insists on peddling its lies despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

Four months later, Ranada-Robles and the Rapplerettes still fail to rectify the error. Just last week, I chanced upon Ranada-Robles as she was strolling in Moscow during Pres. Duterte’s Official Visit to Russia, an event that we’re both covering.I approached her and asked, “Hi Pia! Kailan mo ako iinterviewhin? (Hi Pia, when will you interview me?,” to which she replied, “Kailan ka na hindi magiging fake news? (When will you stop being fake news [sic]?)”.

Yes, my friends, that’s how deluded Maria Ressa’s Rapplerettes are. And if delusion had a face, it would look like this:

SPO4 Ranada-Robles, Chay Hofileña, and Paige whatshername, seem to have “learned from the best”: Her Royal Highness Maria Ressa, Rappler’s Ultimate Fake News Generator.

Ressa and the Resorts World Manila Attack

Not content with feloniously leaking classified diplomatic communications, Maria Ressa very recently engaged in fearmongering that is not unlikely to have increased the death toll in the 02 June 2017 attack on Resorts World Manila (RWM), which claimed the lives of 22 RWM guests and RWM 13 employees [CNN], all of whom reportedly died from asphyxiation.

At 2:15 a.m. of 02 June 2017, or just a couple of hours from when the attacker started the onslaught, Rappler reported that ISIS claims responsibility for the RWM attack.
It’s bad enough that Rappler prematurely released dubious information, but what made it even worse is the article title’s wording.

The original title, “ISIS claims responsibility for Resorts World Manila Casino Attack”, failed to reflect the fact that the “ISIS claim” was just an opinion from a person from the other side of the planet. The title made it appear that Rappler itself saw ISIS claim the attack, even if it’s just Rita Katz who said they did [TP]. The article’s title was later changed, rather sneakily, into “ISIS 'Filipino operative' behind Resorts World Manila attack – SITE”.

Rappler's original article title

In the article, Rappler cited Agence France Press who cited Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group who cited an anonymous "Marawi Contact". By virtue of a single anonymous source, despite the information being double hearsay, and despite ISIS’ tendency to claim responsibility for tragedies that they have nothing to do with, Rappler decided that it’s in the public’s best interest to tag the ongoing RWM tragedy as a terrorist attack, despite the risks it entails on those still stranded inside the RWM building.
A Quick Timeline

How could Rappler’s sloppy and premature reporting have affected the RWM situation?

Well, let’s briefly chronicle the first several events.

At 12:07 a.m., the RWM attacker arrived at the premises. He entered the RWM building a few minutes later then fired a few warning shots, which prompted an evacuation and a call for police back up [GMA].
At 1:10 a.m., the first exchange of gunfire occurred [GMA].
At 1:37 a.m., a fire alert was issued [CNN].
At 1:46 a.m., the assailant made his way to the 5th floor, where he forcibly entered a room. He went out once to burn linen along the hallway [GMA].
At 2:02 a.m., RWM was put on lockdown [CNN], which is an emergency measure in which people are temporarily prevented from entering or leaving the building [MW]
At 2:15 a.m., Rappler published the abomination “ISIS claims responsibility for Resorts World Manila casino attack”, and it was the first (and only) local news site that reported such.

Ok, let me stop right there.

Consequences of sloppy journalism

RWM was put on lockdown at 2:02 a.m., so it’s impossible for anyone to get out of the building.

We have here a lone gunman rampaging through the gigantic RWM building, so it’s safe to say that many in the building were still unaware of the situation. If I were inside RWM, locked-down, and clueless, the logical thing to do would be to whip out my smartphone and check for news on social media.

Through news outlets with social media presence, all everyone knew at 2:13 a.m. was that an attack is ongoing. Nobody knew how many attackers there were and where they are. Yes, there have been social media posts insinuating that it’s a terrorist attack, but no major news outlet has confirmed that claim.
Everyone in the world wanted to know what’s going on. Then at 2:15, Rappler publishes a “ISIS claims responsibility for Resorts World Manila Casino Attack”. Being the first mainstream news article that “shed more light” onto the issue, the article quickly went viral. As of today, it has been shared over 24,000 times on Facebook alone.

Smoke is already spreading inside the building by 2:30 a.m., or almost an hour after the fire alert, as Rappler legitimized rumors of a terrorist attack.

Thus, a person stranded inside will be made to choose between

Finding a way to exit the building but risk being shot at by terrorists, or
Staying wherever they are but risk death from asphyxiation

How likely is it that some of the 35 chose the latter? That, we may never know.

What’s clear, however, is that Rappler would have served the public better, especially those locked inside the building, some of whom died, if it just chose to shut up.

But we all know Rappler, a.k.a. God’s Gift to Journalism, didn’t do so.

Ressa on the Defensive

After receiving so much flak for Rappler’s mind boggling overeagerness, Rappler overlord Maria Ressa went on PR damage control mode with the article “Terrorism and ISIS at Resorts World attack?”, published on 03 June 2017 at 12:44 a.m, or a day after the RWM incident.

The extremely lengthy article, basically an appeal to authority, shows Ressa explaining her marvelous and gasp-inducing expertise in reporting about terrorism. The problem, however, is that Ressa’s highly speculative piece banks solely on the gunman’s decision to commit suicide instead of running away with the chips.

The police has denied any terrorist angle in the RWM tragedy [CNN].

Not content with being humiliated once yesterday, Ressa felt another damage-control article was in order.

At 2:35 p.m. of the same day, Ressa published “Casino targeted with suicide attack because it’s ‘haram’ – ISIS”, where she reported that a certain “Semion Almujaheed”, who claims to belong to ISIS, said in a pro-ISIS chat group that the police is doing a cover-up.

Rappler quoted Almujaheed as saying, “The police is covering up… It’s not the soldiers of khilafah (caliphate) because they don’t want to be foolish in the media briefing earlier this morning (Friday, June 2).”

Wow! Khilafah! Such a big word! Sounds legit! #sarcasm

That “Semion Almujaheed” Guy

The problem, however, is that Ressa herself does not know who this guy is, as she decribed “Semion Almujaheed” as “the account that provides daily updates on pro-ISIS channels of the ongoing battles in Marawi.”

Yes, Maria is not even sure about who or what Semion is!

Is he Semion Almujaheed?

I searched for webpages about “Semion Almujaheed” [Star, Google] and I discovered that he was non-existent prior to the 23 May 2017 Marawi Clash. That is, not a single news article mentioned that name, until it magically popped up in that purportedly pro-ISIS chatroom last week.

So Maria Ressa basically believes in the word of people she just met? And assuming that Almujaheed’s updates on Marawi is accurate, isn’t it possible that Almujaheed is just some low-level insurgent with a passion for Whatsapp? How does his week-long existence definitively establish his knowledge of what’s going on in Metro Manila, which is almost 1500 kilometers away from Marawi City?

Rappler’s quality control standards for its sources appear to be as low as its quality standards for its employees.

Let me cut this long story short: Maria Ressa barely knows who Almujaheed is, yet she trusts his word more than common sense, let alone official sources.

Brilliant! But this gets more comedic.

Maria Ressa’s “Perhaps”

In the same article, Ressa said Almujaheed gave the attacker his first public identity: “Abu Khair al Luzonee” or Khair from Luzon, perhaps a signal that the Mindanao-based group has now attracted members in Luzon.

Again, Maria is engaging in speculation. Where does she get her articles? From a crystal ball?

Obviously, that is not the attacker’s real name, as it has been established that the attacker is Jessie Carlos, a former government employee with serious money problems and a more serious gambling addiction [CNN]. The attacker’s parents even successfully identified the body and said it was that of their son [CNN].

Jessie Carlos doesnt look "khair" to me.

But let’s entertain Ressa’s fantasies for few moments.

Again, the name is “Abu Khair al Luzonee” which Ressa translated to “Khair from Luzon”. But Khair is a Quranic name that means “noble, admirable and praiseworthy.” So how can someone with serious money problems brought about by his addiction to gambling – which is “haram (forbidden)” in Islam – be in any way “noble, admirable and praiseworthy”?

It seems Ressa was stupid enough to get hoodwinked. But wait, there’s more!

At 12:01 p.m., Rappler itself reported the name of the suspect (Jessie Carlos), this article was published a full two-and-a-half hours BEFORE Ressa reported that “Khair from Luzon”!

Didn’t anyone from Rappler’s editorial tell Ressa that they already know it’s Jessie, or was Ressa already foaming so much in the mouth that nobody dared go near her?

Ah, Maria Ressa. You may have had an Ivy League education, but it doesn’t show.

My friends, Rappler has officially cemented its reputation as a fake news site, and Maria Ressa and her Rapperettes as fake journalists.

P.S. I didn't proofread this article anymore: neither Rappler nor Ressa deserve that. [ThinkingPinoy]

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In a statement published earlier today, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned this writer, R.J. Nieto who goes by the nom de plume ThinkingPinoy, “for endangering a journalist” because of “a mistaken accusation” [NUJP].

NUJP issued this statement of condemnation without contacting me, which I find ironic because the Second National Congress of the NUJP itself adopted and endorsed the Principles and Premises on the Press in 1991. Specifically, the 1991 document enjoins media practitioners to comply with the 1966 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which includes the right to a fair trial [UN].

But we are talking about NUJP, where five of its nine board members are from Inquirer and ABS-CBN, so I sincerely am unsurprised.

Regardless, to clarify the issue, let me give you a chronology of what transpired in the ongoing TP-Aznar saga.

Aznar and NUJP

According to NUJP, I “accused Aznar of posting real time photos of soldiers battling the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups in Marawi City, thereby possibly giving away their positions and endangering their lives.”

NUJP, despite being filled with “professional journalists”, got the accusation wrong. The material-in-question was a video clip and not just a photo.

On a June 16 Facebook post, I wrote:

"NYtimes/Inq photographer Jes Aznar posts live updates from Marawi, revealing the positions of government snipers to any terrorist with a smartphone. Tang ina, tanggalin niyo yang idiota na yan dyan! (H*ly sh*t, get that idiot out of there!)”

Aznar uploaded that video with the original caption: “Flushing out an enemy sniper. In the middle of fighting in #Marawi #Philippines…”, without stating the time it was taken.

A screenshot of Aznar's original video post, before he edited the caption.

Now, tell me Mr. Aznar, how would “in the middle of fighting” be construed?

In one of the chat threads on his Facebook account and before issuing any formal statement, Aznar said the video was taken over three weeks ago and it was a late post. He was vague about the exact time it was taken, and the exact time it was uploaded.
Aznar then attempted to tamper with the evidence by surreptitiously editing his Instagram post, adding the hashtag “#lateupload”, among others.

Aznar inserted "Not a live feed #latepost" after being called out.

I also called this out so Aznar, again, edited the caption to include the term “EDIT:”.

FINALLY.

Good. He thought he’d get away with it.

Now, is a video taken just less than five hours before posting qualify as a “#latepost”?

I do not think so.

Aznar’s defense

The main point of contention in NUJP’s statement is that Aznar’s claim that the video wasn’t a live feed. However, when a regular citizen like me says “live update”, I meant information about an event that is posted on, or immediately after, the event. Both Aznar and NUJP used the phrase “Live Feed”, a term that I never used.

NUJP and Aznar can attempt to take refuge on semantic nitpicking all they want, but what’s clear is that available information clearly shows that the video was posted just a few hours after it was taken.

Aznar then issued a lengthier, seemingly more formal reply.

In a June 17 post, Aznar wrote, “The post is a screengrab of my Instagram post in Marawi more than three weeks ago, then [ThinkingPinoy claimed] it as a live feed of a military maneuver.”

Aznar then went on to threaten me with a lawsuit, a lawsuit that I will gladly welcome with a countersuit.

Aznar's June 17 Threat

NUJP's Extra-passionate Condemnation

I find it interesting that NUJP wrote this condemnation with a passion, and I think I know the reason why.

In his post, Aznar clarified that he works neither for the Philippine Daily Inquirer nor the New York Times, although he admitted that his works are regularly published in the New York Times. Note, however, that an Inquirer article with his name on the byline exists [Inq]. I guess the more appropriate term, vis-à-vis Aznar’s relationship with the Inquirer, is “worked”.
With that said, it’s interesting to point out that four out of the nine NUJP board members, along with its president, are from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aznar’s former business associates.

NUJP's president and four of its nine board members are from the Inquirer. Inquirer is affiliated with the New York Times.

Moreover, Inquirer is affiliated with Aznar's primary business associate New York Times, as the Inquirer republishes NY Times articles through its subdomain "newyorktimes.inquirer.net".

Well, "protect your own", right? Mr. Aznar, it's the same banana.

“Soldiers out of the area” means nothing

Aznar claims to be a professional photojournalist, so it’s safe to say that he went to Marawi with a mobile internet service ready. Surely, no self-respecting journalist will go to a war zone then look for a SIM card seller there.

Aznar’s first ever Instagram post [IG] about Marawi was also on May 25th, suggesting that he arrived in the area on May 25th. Moreover, another Instagram photo of his shows a soldier in the same background and captioned “This was taken… as I arrive near ground zero”.

This was taken three weeks ago, as I arrive near ground zero of the fighting between government troops and the Maute group who has taken control over the city armed with high-powered guns and RPGs. Snipers firing on our position. Fighting is still ongoing as of today. #philippines #mindanao #marawi #photojournalism #everydayphilippines #everydayeverywhere #terror #battle
A post shared by JES AZNAR (@jeszmann) on Jun 14, 2017 at 7:06pm PDT

Yes, he arrived in Marawi on May 25th.

Aznar’s controversial video was posted at 6:13 AM UTC, which translates to 2:13 PM Manila. Judging by the amount of sunlight in the video, along with the length of the shadows outside the structure, the photo must have been taken around noon of that day, i.e. between 9:00 AM and 2:13 PM.

In short, Aznar posted that video that was less than five hours old when it was uploaded. It was just the second day of fighting, and enemies are all over the place, so that Armed Forces personnel could not have gotten too far from where the video was taken.

The Issues

Aznar uploaded two videos, with the second video, uploaded at 3:21 PM Manila based on its metadata, shown below:

Street by street. House by house #Marawi #martiallaw #mindanao #philippines #photojournalism #terror #isis EDIT: NOT A LIVE FEED #latepost
A post shared by JES AZNAR (@jeszmann) on May 25, 2017 at 12:21am PDT

Now, let me raise a few issues connected with Aznar’s videos.

First, any Maute Group member with a smartphone and mobile internet can discover Aznar’s videos and easily pinpoint the area where there’s military presence, given the former’s uncanny familiarity with Marawi’s geography. The Maute members engaged in the firefight won’t have to worry about contacting their headquarters. Why? Because Aznar already did it for them. Now, what if they sent reinforcements in response to this information?

Surely, a group that managed to smuggle mind-boggling amounts of military equipment knows how to use Instagram. Marawi is part of the terrorist group ISIS, and ISIS has been known in as early as 2015 to use this platform [TheVerge].

Second, the video provides information about the military’s entry points. Now that it has been revealed to the enemy, will the AFP be able to use that entry point again? This forces the AFP to either (a) look for new alternative entry points or (2) be content with one less entry point. In short, Aznar’s video could have made the AFP’s mission tougher than it should be.

Third, and I think this is self-evident given the previous point: AFP snipers cannot use that spot anymore, leaving AFP with fewer sniping spots. Again, Aznar’s video could have made the AFP’s mission tougher than it should be. Is it in the interest of the public to make the AFPs odds of winning the war slimmer by any measure?

Lastly, the previous two posts assume that the AFP was able to discover the video shortly after it was uploaded. But what if it did not? That is, who among those soldiers featured in the video are still alive? Or more importantly, how many soldiers could have been injured or killed because of the information in the videos?

And these are just off the top of my head. How much more for military tacticians with the requisite training and more up-to-date information on the ground?Yes, the operative word here is “could” and “may”, and NUJP and Aznar can argue all day that their posts are unlikely to have caused any of the ones mentioned above.

In fact, NUJP said Aznar “said that he only had good intentions in posting the photo on his Facebook social media account, such as showing the public how active the government troops were in quelling the Maute and Abu Sayyaf.”

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The decision on what’s OK and what’s not OK is neither for NUJP nor for Aznar to make: it’s for the AFP’s.

But Aznar decided to post that video clip anyway, with so many hashtags that are reminiscent of social media users who crave for attention.

Aznar and the Victim Card

After his lengthy passive-aggressive I-am-the-victim-here reply, I issued a counter-statement that quickly went viral [TP]. The post has garnered over 11,000 reactions, has been shared over 4900 times, and has reached over a million Facebook users.

In that statement, I advised Aznar to get out of Mindanao as soon as possible, as the AFP, empowered by the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, may opt to arrest him for violating their May 24th instruction for civilians to "refrain from posting in social media information that would exacerbate the situation [EDGE]."

After all, if I were an AFP general, I’d rather detain a reporter than risk both his life and my men by letting the reporter freely take full advantage of his idiocy.

I ended the counter-statement with the following:

“Yes, this is unsolicited advice from someone you called an idiot. That is how kind I am. Isipin mo nga, di ko na kinuwento yung binenta mong video sa NYtimes last year. Pero sige, humala ka pa, and I'll make you a household name. (Imagine, I didn’t even tell people about the video you sold to New York Times last year. But continue with your antics, and I’ll make you a household name). Yes, Jes, that's fear you're feeling right now. That is fear.”

I checked all my posts about Aznar and this is the only threat I issued. I do not understand how this threat could be construed as illegal, especially since I exercised restraint on my part by not divulging information that could make him one of the most hated persons in the country.

So how, exactly, did I “endanger” Aznar’s life? Is it because of the flak he got from netizens, the deluge of criticisms that forced him to turn off commenting on both his Instagram and Facebook profiles?

No, I did not "endanger" Aznar's life. I simply bruised his ego. Big time.

Aznar, the war correspondent

Aznar, after receiving so many negative comments, set his post to private and started deleting most, if not all of them, then put the privacy settings back to “public”. Despite that cowardice, I agree that there have been comments on his thread, posted by other netizens, that involve threats.

I do not condone illegal behavior, especially if it involves the issuances of threats to life and to national security. That’s the exact reason why I was livid when I reacted to Aznar’s post, as his video could have unnecessarily put the lives of our brave soldiers at greater risk. That’s also the reason why I called out Rappler when it endangered national security by leaking confidential information when I was covering Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano’s press conference in Moscow, Russia.

However, how people react to to information is not within my control, and I believe it's infantile for both Aznar and NUJP (a.k.a. “Inquirer”) to blame me for the actions of other people.

Truth be told, if Aznar exercised some humility in his statements and refrained from blatantly displaying arrogance and self-entitlement, the public would've responded very differently, perhaps even favorably.

The problem, however, is he did not, as shown below:

Now, common sense dictates a blatant show of arrogance against someone with over 500,000 followers will probably result in those 500,000 feeling a sense of revulsion against you. That is human nature, you idiot, so don't come to your NUJP overlord crying for help, because that won't change the situation.

Besides, Mr. Aznar, sans the death threats, I do not personally care about you or your well-being. That's your problem.

It's the well-being of our brave soldiers that I truly care about. You know, the ones whose success really counts.

But let's make it simpler:

The safety of our soldiers is more important than your ego.

Aznar takes pride in his self-proclaimed bravery, being a war correspondent in the Marawi Siege. Thus, I do not understand how Aznar, who takes pride in dodging live bullets, could be intimidated by social media comments which, as one ex-PR lady puts it, is just “manufactured noise”.

I expect a seasoned war correspondent to be tougher than that: the Filipino People deserve better than just the likes of Aznar.

Photojournalists do their work best when behind the camera. Stay behind it. Pabida ka kasi masyado.

To make matters more comical, Aznar even cried for help from NUJP. Why comical? Because he asked for help from an organization that has already lost its credibility [TP: NUJP Officers], and has a very weak following.

NUJP has fewer than 10,000 followers for crying out loud!

The Threat

Since we’re at it, let me restate the only “threat” that I issued against Aznar:

“Pero sige, humala ka pa, and I'll make you a household name. (Imagine, I didn’t even tell people about the video you sold to New York Times last year. But continue with your antics, and I’ll make you a household name)”

Let’s me do just that.

On 14 September, self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato testified in the senate that he was part of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s alledged “Davao Death Squads” [Yahoo]. Those who watched the senate hearing questioned Matobato’s credibility after he claimed, among others, to have killed someone in a “McDonald’s Hotel”, a non-existent place.

Less than 24 hours after that testimony, the New York Times published a video interview, featuring Matobato as he tells an interview basically the same things he told the senate. The problem, however, is that the statements he said here are inconsistent with the ones he said in the senate hearing.

For example, Matobato told the Senate he killed four of Speaker Nograles’ bodyguards. But in the NY Times video, he said he killed five.

The New York Times’ failure to vet the problematic source is a problem in itself, but what’s more alarming is the timing of the video’s publication.

On a post, De La Salle University Professor Antonio Contreras said, “See. This is a concerted effort. Barely a day after his testimony, a ready video-taped interview, with translations and subtitles are already available.”

Now, who shot that video and sold it to NY Times? Jes Aznar.

Aznar, the sellout

Have we heard Aznar speaking out about the inconsistencies in Matobato’s testimony? Despite his involvement in the international demolition of the Philippines’ reputation, the answer is No.

What’s worse, Aznar sold the video to a foreign newspaper, which opened the Philippines to foreign interference even before the senate hearing, which should be proper venue.

Aznar has also provided the New York Times with most of the unflattering photos it used in its coverage of the Duterte Administration.

New York Times reporter for Southeast Asia Richard Paddock has written the most about the administration, and most, if not all of his articles, contain material bought from Aznar [Google].

Surely, Aznar could not have simply emailed them the photos and left the NY Times writers to their own devices. As a photojournalist, he must have given NY Times the “context” behind each and every photo he sold them.

So, let me ask, what kind of “context” has Aznar been feeding Paddock? Surely, fairer “contexts” would’ve resulted in a less slanted articles from Paddock. Is Aznar actively espousing the destabilization of this government in the name of ambition?

Mr. Aznar, I have more information here. Do you seriously want to go that route?

I have bigger fish to fry, Mr. Aznar, so stop crying.

And NUJP, please. No one listens to you anymore. If you simply resort to trial by publicity, I am pretty confident that your audience is smaller than you would like to believe.

File a lawsuit, any of you. Make this worth my while.

Aznar, you're probably a hero to your 13 followers. But for the vast majority of Filipinos, you are not.

[ThinkingPinoy]

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Usec. Egco, the Filipino People shall not allow the Presidential Task Force on Media Security to become a tool of the Media Cartel.

Earlier today, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) released a June 22 press statement saying mainstream media (Big Media) “raised concern over security (sic) of Jes Aznar, who has been covering the ongoing conflict in Marawi.”

The PTFoMS press release [TP: PTFoMS statement] essentially parroted the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines’ hyper-partisan statement of condemnation against ThinkingPinoy, a statement that the latter has conclusively addressed in a June 20 ThinkingPinoy article “TP: NUJP’s Condemnation: Jes Aznar, Marawi Siege, and Matobato”.
The PTFoMS, however, went even further when it said:

“To debunk rumors and fake news, the Philippine National Police, a member of the Task Force, said it has not served a warrant of arrest to Aznar.”

What the hell is Big Media talking about? Nobody said there’s a warrant against Aznar.

The Imaginary Demonic Strawman

Big Media essentially created a demon by misrepresenting my statements, which was that the Armed Forces has the option to arrest Aznar for endangering our troops in Marawi. It’s one thing to say that the AFP has the option, and it’s a totally different thing to say that the AFP will indeed exercise it.

The problem, however, is that PR-operators-turned-journalists, such as Bubby Dacer protégé Inday Espina-Varona [FB: Varona], echoed this imaginary accusation as if it’s some Bible Truth.

To make matters worse, PTFoMS Usec. Joel Egco, a presidential appointee and former president of the National Press Club [MT], allowed himself to be used as the exorcist of this imaginary demon, as I pointed this out in a strongly-worded June 22 statement addressed to Usec. Egco [TP: Egco].

The PTFoMS essentially allowed itself to be used by Big Media to forward its desperate agenda of de-legitimizing independent social media publishers like me, at a time when Big Media companies continue to lose influence as their social media engagement figures continue to dwindle [TP: Media Wars; Facebook Insights].

Published using the agency’s official letterhead, the PTFoMS statement is curiously unsigned, which is uncharacteristic of official press statements from the government.

There’s something fishy going on.

Who issues PTFoMS statements?

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security exists by virtue of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Administrative Order No. 1, entitled “Creating the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media” [GovPH].

According to A.O. 1, Section 5:

SECTION 5. The Presidential Task Force Spokesperson. The Secretary of the PCOO alone shall be authorized to make public statements on matters concerning the activities of the Presidential Task Force. Unless otherwise ordered by the Secretary of the PCOO, the Executive Director may also make public pronouncements but only on matters related to the administrative functions of the Presidential Task Force.

A.O. 1 Sec. 5 categorically states that PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar ALONE is allowed by law to issue public statements, save for administrative functions. However, the June 22 PTFoMS press statement is not about an administrative function.
The problem, however, is that it is not in Sec. Andanar’s character to issue such kinds of statements, so it appears that somebody may have usurped the PCOO secretary’s authority.

In response to an inquiry on the matter, Sec. Andanar said:

“For the record… I was not aware about Usec. Egco's press release… (and)… There was no one from PCOO during the deliberation of Egco et. Al.”

Situations like these are precisely the reason why AO 1 Sec. 5 exists. Every press statement that the PCOO releases goes through a meticulous vetting and approval process to make sure that it is in consonance with the directives of the President.

However, it appears that one or a few overeager people inside PTFoMS wants to take over Andanar’s responsibilities, something that is not only unethical, but also illegal.

Egco does a Pontius Pilate

The bigger problem? AO 1, plus the statement’s styling, makes it appear that it was Andanar who issued the statement, which is NOT the case.

Alright, it’s time to contact Egco.

I contacted Usec. Egco to clarify the matter. Present in the conversation was a social media officer (SMO) of the PCOO, so if Egco disputes any of the following quotes, that SMO can confirm if they're true or simply made up.

Egco: Two nights ago, dinala ng NUJP sa Task Force ‘yung tungkol kay Aznar. Finorward ko kay (PCOO Asec) yung complaint ng NUJP… talagang ire-raise nila. You know what I did? Ayan, nakikita ni (SMO) ha? Sabi ko kay (PCOO Asec), puwede nating gawin is hindi tamaan si TP.

I reminded Usec. Egco of AO 1 Sec 5 then said that any statement from the Task Force shall be construed as coming from Sec. Andanar.

TP: Let’s not kid ourselves. Hindi man ako pinangalan dito, ako pinatatamaan nito. At ngayong binasa ng readers ko ang statement, alam nilang ako ‘yon. So ang tanong lang po, sir, inallow ba kayo ni Secretary Andanar na i-publish ito?

Egco: RJ, I’d like to clarify. Eto ha… please believe me and you can verify from sources… not a single period, not a single dot (in the statement was from me).

Egco goes full Pontius Pilate

TP: So let me ask you sir. You consulted with NPC, NUJP, lahat na ‘yon. Why did you not consult me?

Egco: It was a meeting. Noong pinag-uusapan yung kay Aznar, I was outside. Noong pumasok ako, sabi ko, ‘Ano na ‘yung agenda?’… It was not my decision.
TP: So whose decision was it to publish the statement?

Egco: It was the decision of the entire body, RJ… You have to be there in the meeting to (fully appreciate the facts)… There’s an urgency, according to them.

TP: Then why didn’t you call me? I’m awake 19 hours a day.

Egco: RJ, please, ganito ha, trust me…

TP: Eh sir, you cannot say that I should just trust you. Let’s talk professionally here… What’s clear here is that... it was referring to the issue that I have with NUJP. My article two days ago reached one million hits. (Practically) the entire Philippines knows about it.

Egco: Actually, ako mismo, hindi ko nakita ang post ni Aznar, hindi ko nakita ‘yung banatan niyo o yung ah… reaction mo ‘don. Believe me, hindi.

TP: So why did you allow this to be published e wala pala sa inyo lahat ng info?

Egco: Decision ‘yon ng body… If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to do that. If you’re going to ask me, ako siyempre, ayoko. Alright? But I have to ask the body, it’s a collective decision... to issue the statement na walang sisisihin…

I begged to differ, and I started reading to him the PTFoMS press statement, then he interjected.
Egco: Sabi nila (the press), there are memes with a picture daw ni Jes Aznar at nakalagay “Maute Supporter” coming from many… mga ganon... kako hindi ko nakikita but kung ganoong kadelikado… If he needs police protection, I’ll provide it.

I searched both [Twitter] and [Facebook] for such memes.

NONE WENT VIRAL. Yes, the PTFoMS essentially condemned social media even if the evidence is imaginary.

Egco exculpates Andanar

Egco: Sabi nila, ‘Hindi, yung mga threats ng mga… oo e… nung mga netizens, no? Not you! In fact, hindi binanggit ang pangalan mo. Yung mga netizens grabe na… The one who was doing all the talking yesterday was Joe Torres… yung representative ng NPC.

At this point, it appears to me that the mainstream journalists are actually commandeering the PTFoMS meeting, in violation of AO 1 Sec 2, which states that the media organizations serve only as resource persons and observers.

TP: Noong naglabas kayo ng press statement, ang template na ginamit ninyo, nakalagay, Chairman Aguirre, Co-chairman Andanar, Executive Director ikaw po… Hindi po rito sinasabi na ang nagsulat pala nito ay ‘yung mga journalists na yan. Pag nilabas itong statement na ito sir, pangalan ninyo, ni Andanar, at ni Aguirre ang nakasalpak dito.

Egco: Ah, hindi kasi, iyan yung official letterhead ng Task Force… May imprimatur ‘yan ng Task Force, not me.

TP: Eto sir, categorical na lang po. Correct me if I’m wrong. Yes or no lang po. Did Martin allow this?

Egco: He was not there yesterday. Ang represented doon, DoJ was there… So si Sec Martin, ano… Si…

TP: So Sec. Martin is out of this?

Egco: Yes, yes, yes. He is, he is, he is (out of this).

Thus, it’s as clear as day that the PTFoMS issued a statement despite Andanar having the sole authority to issue such.

TP: Saan po bang part ng Administrative Order 1 nag-a-allow ng exceptions to the rule (na si Sec. Martin lang ang puwedeng mag-issue ng mga statements? You see, mainstream media has been screaming, “Rule of Law! Rule of Law!” for the past year, and this is what the Rule of Law dictates. So gusto ko lang po… kailangan ko lang ang enabling law which allows that body to bypass AO 1, to bypass the orders of the President.

Egco: We did not actually bypass SMMA (Andanar)… Of course, andoon ang chair, andoon ang lahat, everybody there, making the policy kasi e… kumbaga, kung ako masusunod, RJ, of course, ayokong mag-release ng kung anu-ano.

Statement released despite Andanar’s absence

TP: So bakit niyo ni-release?

Egco: Iyon kasi ang decision ng body.

TP: Sabihin na natin na powerless kayo sa decision (ng PTFoMS as a whole)… If were to sue someone for violating the Revised Penal Code, should I be suing you, or should I be suing them?

Egco: E I think it’s the decision of the Task Force kasi… Ganito kasi, pag nakita mo yung mga statements ko before, may reference yon if it was my own statement, na ipapaalam ko kay Secretary.TP: Ang issue ko dito, did we follow the law in the issuance of this statement? Kasi we can argue all day about what’s ethical and what’s not e kaya lang, magde-deadlock lang tayo don. So the question boils down to who violated what (law).

Egco: Sa issuance non, dahil decision nga yon ng entire body…

TP: O sige sir, I think I’ve heard your side and I’ll take your word for what it is, and I’ll just do what I can do from my end. Kasi sir, social media publishers are not very happy with what he task force did. So.. ehh.. ganun talaga.

Egco: We will issue a clarificatory ano…

TP: Naku sir, e kumonsulta ka muna kay Sec. Martin… magtu-two counts ka ng (Usurpation of Authority).

Egco and SMO laughed.

TP: E totoo di ba? Magtu-two counts ka.

To clarify the issue, I have lodged an eFoI request for documents revising Administrative Order No. 1 Section 5 [eFoI]. In the request's description, I specifically said:

I would like to request for any document issued after the October 2016 issuance of Administrative Order No. 1 that effectively amends AO 1 Sec. 5, or the clause that reserves solely to the PCOO Secretary the authority to issue non-administrative public statements on behalf of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS).

I would like to know if there are any subsequently-issued law or regulation that enables anyone other than the PCOO Sec. to serve as PTFoMS spokesperson or to execute all or part of the PTFoMS spokesperson's responsibilities as detailed in AO 1 Sec 5.

FoI request for documents revising of AO 1 Sec 5

The Legal Issues

Before I cite potential violations of existing laws, let me state for the record that Egco’s ignorance of Administrative Order No. 1, the exact same document that created his position, is alarming. Should we entrust media security to someone who does not have a clear understanding of what his Executive Director position entails, of what he can and cannot do?

President Duterte, please rethink this particular appointment.

Now, let’s move on to the legal issues. I consulted with my lawyer-friends to analyze the situation, and this is what we have come up with, so far. Note that his is not an exhaustive list of possible violations, but a mere preview of what may happen should anyone pursue legal remedies.

Also note that I have lodged an FoI request for the resolutions issued during the meetings related to the controversial TPFoMS press statement. I also requested for the attendance during those meetings and if possible, the minutes of the meeting that are relevant to the issue at hand [eFoI].

FoI request for PTFoMS documents

So now, let’s go.

1: Grave Abuse of Discretion

The hastily issued PTFoMS’ press statement, in consideration of the surrounding circumstances and the mention of my name in the NUJP complaint from which it was based, is clearly a violation of my constitutional right to due process, a right that every veteran journalist, like Usec and former National Press Club president Egco, should be totally aware of.

As PTFoMS’ executive director, Egco’s tasks include ensuring that all applicable laws, rules, and regulations are followed in everything that PTFoMS does, and that includes ensuring that I, along with all the social media users referred to by the NUJP complaint, be given the benefit of due process.

Egco willfully neglected to even attempt to conduct an investigation into the complaint. Egco willfully decided not to raise this issue during the PTFoMS meeting and thus allowed the PTFoMS to issue a blanket indictment of social media users for an accusation with no supporting evidence.

Egco did not even bother to contact me – or anyone else in Social Media – for the other side of the issue, effectively abridging our right to Free Speech.

This amounts to the administrative violation of Grave Abuse of Discretion [BatasNatin] that may be considered grounds for his dismissal from his government position.

2: Violation of Anti-graft and Corrupt Practices Act

Despite this, Usec. Egco allowed the illegal issuance of the PTFoMS press statement, in violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-graft and Corrupt Practices Act [RA 3019], the relevant part of which reads:

“Causing any undue injury to any party… in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence…”

The issuance of the illegal press statement is meant as an attempt not only to intimidate me and other social media users, but also to cause injury to my reputation when Egco, as the Executive Director of the PTFoMS, demonstrated manifest partiality in favor of the Big Media complainants.

Why manifest partiality?

Because social media publishers, by all means, are also media workers. Thus, it is within the PTFoMS’ mandate to protect social media publishers like me, just like how it protects mainstream journalists. Despite this, Egco decided to side with Big Media, to the detriment of social media publishers like ThinkingPinoy.

I am an independent blogger. But just like mainstream journalists from Big Media, my success relies heavily on the goodwill of people, i.e. my reputation.

Unfortunately, the complainant NUJP, along with Big Media in general, possibly out of insecurity arising from its dwindling influence, has been attacking the reputation of independent publishers like me, as evidenced by NUJP’s injudicious and capricious use of the term “fake news” to refer to the work of independent publishers.

Thus, a rift exists between Big Media, where NUJP belongs, and Independent Media, where I and many other social media publishers identify with. And in this case, Egco demonstrated manifest partiality in favor of the former.

The illegally-issued PTFoMS, in consideration of the surrounding circumstances, caused injury to my reputation. i.e. injury to property, as it has been argued that by legal scholars that reputation may be considered property in virtual economies [Blocher 2009].

Relevant clauses of RA 3019 provides the penalty of imprisonment for 6-15 years and perpetual disqualification from public office for this violation.

3: Usurpation of Authority or Official Functions

Administrative Order No. 1, Section 5, categorically states that PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar has the sole power to issue PTFoMS statements that are not administrative in nature. Despite this, Egco effectively authorized the issuance of a non-administrative June 22 press release, thereby usurping the authority vested to Sec. Andanar and Sec. Andanar alone.

In light of AO 1, the illegally issued press statement, which bears no signatures, shall be construed by the public as a document whose legitimacy emanates from the person authorized to issue it, i.e. Secretary Andanar.

But we all know Andanar had nothing to do with the said document.

That is, Egco allowed the issuance of the press statement, a statement that per AO 1 gives the impression that it was Andanar who issued it, despite the fact that the latter did not.

Egco violated Article 177 of the Revised Penal Code [RPC], the relevant part of which reads:

Art. 177. Usurpation of authority or official functions. — Any person who shall… under pretense of official position, shall perform any act pertaining to any… public officer of the Philippine Government… without being lawfully entitled to do so, shall suffer the penalty of prision correccional in its minimum and medium periods.

Note that Republic Act No. 10 increases Article 177’s penalties to imprisonment for 2 to 10 years [RA 10]

Moreover and despite multiple reminders, Egco admitted to having issued another PTFoMS press release after the one in question, thus constituting a second violation (second count) of the abovementioned law.

I thought it was going to end there, but let me restate Egco’s earlier statement:

“Ganito kasi, pag nakita mo yung mga statements ko before, may reference yon if it was my own statement, na ipapaalam ko kay Secretary.”

The problem in Egco’s defense is that, with or without Andanar’s permission, he still has no authority to issue non-administrative statements. There is no enabling law that allows him to do so. Thus, Egco may have been violated RPC Art 177 multiple times even before this brouhaha happened.

In line with this, I have lodged a Freedom of Information request for the list of all public statements issued by Usec. Egco since he took office in October 2016, where the list should identify which of the statements are administrative in nature, and which are not [eFoI].

Pending FoI request for List of Public Statements issued by Usec. Egco

On a Final Note

This entire hullabaloo is a direct affront to my security as a social media publisher, something that falls totally within the mandate of Egco’s Presidential Task Force on Media Security. That is, aside from lodging administrative and criminal complaints, President Duterte’s Administrative Order No. 1 also entitles me not only to protection from the Task Force on Media Security, but also to lodging a complaint to the Task Force itself.

Hindi ba nakakatawa na ang complaint kong ila-lodge sa Task Force ay laban sa Task Force?
Daddy D, tanggalin mo na ‘yan diyan. Mas maraming mas kwalipikado -- at mas may loyalty -- kaysa kay Usec. Egco.

Kung ang simpleng pagbabasa lang, pag intindi at pakikipagusap sa lahat ng involved ay hindi niya magawa. Kailangan siya palitan at managot sa mga paglabag niya.

So, USec. Egco, are my writings accurate, or should I issue a clarificatory statement just like you did?

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What a small world!

On 25 May 2017, Filipino New York Times photojournalist Jes Aznar posted an Instagram video of Filipino troops in the middle of battle in Marawi City [Video] with the original caption:

“Flushing out an enemy sniper. In the middle of fighting in #Marawi #philippines #photojournalism #mindanao #terror #martiallaw #isis”

I took a screenshot of the Instagram post and I included the following comment [FB]:

“NYtimes/Inq photographer Jes Aznar posts live updates from Marawi, revealing the positions of government snipers to any terrorist with a smartphone. Tang ina, tanggalin niyo yang idiota na yan dyan!”

My post caught the attention of netizens, which resulted into a hailstorm of criticism against Aznar.

In reaction, Aznar has revised the caption several times, and part of the latest iteration reads:

“Flushing out an enemy sniper. In the middle of fighting in #Marawi #philippines #photojournalism #mindanao #terror #martiallaw #isis EDIT: NOT A LIVE FEED #latepost”

Aznar also posted on Facebook that, among other things, threatened me with possible legal action.

I have chronicled much of the exchange between Aznar and I in the article “NUJP’s Condemnation: Jes Aznar, Marawi Siege, and Matobato”, published on 20 June 2017.

Aznar cries for help

Aznar, the guy who claims to be brave enough to cover a war but cowers in fear of social media comments (what a whiny MF!), asked for backup from his mainstream media buddies.

First, there was NUJP’s “condemnation”, which I have thoroughly addressed in “NUJP’s Condemnation: Jes Aznar, Marawi Siege, and Matobato”. In that article, I explained the following:

Aznar claimed that the video was a late upload, despite the video being taken and uploaded on the same day.
I used the term “Live update” and not “Live Feed”, which a layman would define as information posted on or immediately after a subject-event.
NUJP failed to disclose in their condemnation its president, along with four out of its nine board of directors harbor conflicts of interest. They work for the Philippine Daily Inquirer which has a business relationship with the New York Times, Aznar’s premier client.

Second, he sought help from the National Press Club whose former president Joel Egco now heads the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, and I have also thoroughly addressed that in “A Traitor in Malacañang? Media Security Usec. Joel Egco usurps Andanar’s authority”.
And now, for Round Three, Aznar cried for help from Verafiles, an organization that describes itself as “published by veteran Filipino journalists taking a deeper look into current Philippine issues.”

Verafiles “Fact-checks”

Verafiles’ post attempted to debunk the following:

That Aznar’s video post was a live feed.
That the soldiers involved are government snipers.
That there were orders to arrest Aznar.

This is downright pathetic misrepresentation of the original post, which is disappointing, considering that the piece was written by Charmaine Deogracias, supposedly a veteran journalist. Before one does a fact check, one has to make sure that the facts he will check are the ones that are supposed to be checked in the first place.

First, my original Facebook post used the term “Live Update” and not “Live Feed”.
I have already explained this in a previous article and I do not understand why Deogracias, for all her pride in being a veteran journalist, missed it entirely. Moreover, we can argue all day about what “live” means, but for the regular person, “live update” means an update given during or immediately after an event. More on this later.

Second, Verafiles simply nitpicked the definition of government snipers.
Deogracias again went on to define what government snipers mean, essentially saying that the people involved are not snipers because they do not use sniper rifles. Deogracias was again caught up with technicality, as the regular dictionary meaning of a sniper is “someone who shoots at people from a hidden position” [Collins].

Yes, Deogracias may still insist on her jargon on the previous two points, but that’s a pile of B.S. for regular readers because it goes against the principle of readability for journalistic work.

Third, Verafiles essentially claimed thate I said that there were orders to arrest Aznar, even if I didn't.
I am not sure where Deogracias got that info because the only ThinkingPinoy Facebook post that is about arrest is one that reads [FB]:

“Mr. Aznar, let me remind you that Pres. Rody Duterte, on that same day, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao, so you can be arrested anytime - - even without a warrant - - for aiding and abetting the Maute Rebels, whether out of hatred for the administration, or out of sheer stupidity. So I suggest that you board the first flight out before some AFP general orders your arrest because trust me, you will be no hero in the eyes of Filipinos.”

I do not know if the supposed veteran journalist has serious comprehension issues, but it’s clear that I said that the AFP legally has the option to arrest Aznar, and I made sure to say nothing about whether AFP will arrest him or not, as that would be usurpation of the authority of the AFP spokesperson, which can land me in jail for up to 10 years. Miss Deogracias, I am not as stupid as Undersecretary Joel Egco, who repeatedly usurped Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar’s authority to issue press releases.

At this point, I have shown that the list “facts” that Deogracias “checked” are faulty at best, but let’s pretend that everything’s ok so far, and let’s further examine her post.

That cute fact-check article

Deogracias tried to debunk my misrepresented claim of Aznar’s video post being a “live feed” by referring to file metadata, or those hidden pieces of information that are embedded in many computer files. Specifically, she cited that the video clip’s metadata indicates that it was created on 1:19 PM, i.e. the time when the file was transferred to the PC. Along with Aznar’s supposed claim that the actual footage was taken 19 minutes earlier, she immediately concluded that the clip in question was not uploaded until 73 minutes later or at 2:13 PM, or the timestamp on Aznar’s Instagram upload.
This methodology has several flaws.

First, synchronization of clocks.Let me note that Deogracias did not verify the Aznar’s clock is synchronized with Instagram’s clock. That is, she did not verify if 1:19 PM on Aznar’s Macbook is also 1:19 PM on Instagram. That is, Deogracias simply assumed that they were synchronized.

Fine! Like Deogracias, let’s assume that the time setting on Aznar’s devices are not significantly out-of-sync with Instagram’s.

Second, authenticity of metadata.Deogracias took Aznar’s word as if it’s set on stone, even if it’s an established fact that Quicktime Movie metadata can be modified in various ways, one of which is through the QuickTime movie metadata editor. How sure is Deogracias that Aznar didn’t tamper with evidence, especially since Aznar previously and surreptitiously attempted to tamper with evidence before.

Fine! Like Deogracias, let’s pretend that all metadata in Aznar’s files are authentic.

More Metadata

At this point, I think it’s clear that there’s Aznar’s word, there’s mine, and there’s metadata, so let me check who’s lying based on the metadata of Aznar’s own files, evaluated using the following assumptions that Deogracias herself used:

The time setting on Aznar’s devices are not significantly out-of-sync with Instagram’s.
All metadata in each of Aznar’s files are authentic.

Now, let’s recall the background of Aznar’s controversial 17-second video that got mainstream’s media’s panties in a bunch:

Now, let’s take a look at photos that Aznar took during the same event, photos that were uploaded to Getty Images, the stock photo agency that serves as one of Aznar’s monetization platforms.

Specifically, I went to GettyImages and searched for Aznar’s photos dated from 24 May 2017 to 26 May 2017. The search yielded a gallery of images that you can see by clicking here.I took a hard look at the background of Aznar’s Instagram video, then I looked for Aznar’s photos in the Getty Image Gallery with the same background. I found seven images that appears to be taken in the same place as the video. Clicking on a photo creates a popup window where larger version of the photo appears.

The larger photo is watermarked with “Jes Aznar”, “Getty Images”, and its property/image ID.

The image below shows a thumbnail of these seven photos along with a snapshot of Aznar’s Instagram video. I labelled each photo with its corresponding property/image ID.

Deogracias’ article derives much of its supposed legitimacy through its citation of metadata, so I felt it proper to give Deogracias (and Aznar) a taste of their own medicine.

Let’s get some bit of the metadata from the seven Aznar photos I mentioned in the previous section.

To do this, we use the Getty Images API tool.

How to use the Getty Images API Tool

STEP 1: Go to https://api.gettyimages.com/swagger/ui/index#!/images/images_Get and register. After email confirmation, you’ll be given an API key.

STEP 2: Go back to to https://api.gettyimages.com/swagger/ui/index#!/images/images_Get, scroll down to “Images”, then click “Show/Hide”.

STEP 3: Click the bar that says “Get metadata for a single image by supplying one image id”.

STEP 4: Insert or type in the relevant image ID.

STEP 5: In the fields, tick the box for “date_camera_shot”. I’ll tell you why later.

STEP 6: Click “Try it out” and the system should return something like this:

STEP 7: Do these steps for the following image IDs:

688223060
688224482
688224492
688224576
688224580
688224600
688227038

To make it easier for the reader, I created a simple table that shows the image IDs with corresponding metadata.

Translating Metadata to simpler terms

The field “date_camera_shot” is the time that the camera took the photo based on the camera’s internal clock at the moment the photo was taken.

The time notation includes “+00:00” or UTC+00. However, cameras do not really care about time zones, so if you’re in the Philippines and you took a picture with the camera clock at 12 noon, the metadata will show 12:00:00+00:00, even if your actual time zone is +08:00, or UTC+08.

For example, the photo with Image ID 688224470 shows a van whose shadow is directly beneath it, suggesting that was taken at around noon.

Judging from the shadows, Aznar's 25 May 2017 photo with Image ID 688224470 must have been taken at around noon.

True enough, Image ID 688224470’s metadata shows that it was taken on “2017-05-25T11:21:28+00:00”, or at 11:21 AM of 25 May 2017. Moreover, 11:21 AM UTC+00 is equivalent to 7:21 PM Manila, and such a photo could not have been taken at nighttime.

Let’s now simplify the table in the previous section by translating the time stamps to regular AM/PM format.

That is, we now see the times at which each of the seven photos were taken, photos whose backgrounds match that of Aznar’s Instagram video.

And yes, there something going on.

Photo Time Stamps belie Aznar’s claims

Aznar claimed the video, uploaded at 2:13 PM, was taken at around 1:00 PM while the troops, along with Aznar, were on the way out of the area. The problem, however, is that the time stamps of his Getty Images photos suggest otherwise, because they were all taken AFTER 2:00 PM.

Let me repeat: Aznar said they got out of the structure at 1:00 PM, yet there are photos taken after 2:00 that show soldiers present in the same structure. Moreover, these photos were taken by Aznar himself, so he was still in the structure at 2:50 PM, based on the timestamps of the seven photos.

Yes, some soldiers were still in the structure by 2:50 PM based on the timestamps, and Aznar uploaded the controversial video at 2:13 PM, suggesting that the soldiers’ whereabouts were exposed for 37 minutes before the earliest time that they could have gotten out of the structure.

Note that I sued “date_camera_shot”, which refers to the time that Aznar took the photos, NOT the time when he uploaded the photos to his Mac.

Hindi nakakatalino ang Mac, pramis.

TAGALUGIN KO HA?

Sabi ni Aznar, wala na sila doon sa building na hollow blocks na walang palitada ang pader by around 1 PM. Pero bakit may photos na may sundalo sa loob ng building at ang timestamp ay lagpas 2 PM? Meron pa ngang timestamp e 2:50 PM, o 37 minutes matapos i-upload ni Aznar ang video.

What the?!

Possible explanations for the discrepancies

There are two possibilities:

Aznar is lying.
Aznar’s devices are lying, i.e. are set incorrectly.

If Aznar is lying, then the debate is over. On the other hand, if Aznar’s devices are lying, then Verafiles’s “fact check”, which relies heavily on time stamps and gross misrepresentation, falls apart.

Will Verafiles insist that the timestamps on Aznar’s devices are reliable? If so, then that means Aznar lied to his teeth.

Will Verafiles insist that the timestamps on Aznar’s devices are unreliable? If so, then that means Verafiles are filled with amateurs, not veterans.

This is what happens with shoddy investigations, and I am confident that "veteran journalist" Deogracias can do better than this.

I was kidding on that last one.

The "Veterans" in Verafiles

What's most perplexing in this Verafiles article is the shoddy journalism from the supposedly veteran journalist Charmaine Deogracias. A little research, however, provides clues on why Verafiles allowed the publication of garbage likes this.

First, the Trillanes Link.

Verafiles President Ellen Tordesillas has very close ties with Senator Antonio Trillanes' Magdalo Party. Aside from having a close personal and professional relationship with Magdalo hacker Bem Pontejos, Tordesillas was instrumental in the BPI Julia Vargas Scandal, the same scandal where Trillanes accused then-presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte of amassing P211 million in ill-gotten wealth, with the only evidence being a pathetic excel printout.

On the other hand, Jes Aznar was the same person who sold the Matobato video to New York Times, so that means Aznar had access to Matobato PRIOR to the Senate Hearing.

Now, guess who Matobato's handler was? Sonny Trillanes.

Common friends, common interests.

Second, they are not very techie.

Well, Verafiles president isn't very techie to begin with, as I have demonstrated in "Sonny Trillanes and his Hacker-friend". In that article, I showed that Verafiles president Tordesillas knows little about technology (she didn't even have domain privacy for her blog!), so I guess Deogracia's editors are unlikely to notice that Charmaine has been spewing garbage lately.

Third, a history of subversion

The original post I made about the Aznar video was about one simple thing: journalists should know when to get out the way to prevent exposing our soldiers to additional, unnecessary risks. But judging from court records, that's something that Verafiles "fact checker" Charmaine Deogracias disagrees with.

Let's take a look at Deogracias et. Al. vs Sec. Puno et. Al [PCIJ].

In one 2007 morning, Sen. Trillanes and and the Magdalo Group walked out of the Makati City Regional Trial Court, marched toward the nearby Manila Peninsula hotel,took over it and called for the President Arroyo's ouster.

Later in the afternoon, the PNP attempted to serve an arrest warrant against Trillanes. The PNP also demanded that journalists covering the event should leave the hotel right away. Many cleared the premises but Tordesillas and Deogracias, among others, defied the PNP's order.

Smells like obstruction of justice, aside from major ka-epalan, to me. Nevertheless, it appears that Tordesillas, Deogracias and Aznar, are cut from the same cloth.

I would've love to write more about this, I guess I'll stop here.

Magsama-sama na lang silang apat ni Trillanes.

Hindi ko na ipu-proofread. Hindi sulit.

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