The 'Klarex' merch drop

WELCOME to Cagayan de Oro City, no longer a local government unit but an exclusive streetwear brand, with Mayor Rolando Uy acting as the lead designer.

It seems he isn't just running a city; he's managing a flagship store.

Every waiting shed, basketball court backboards, relief pack, public service vehicle, and stray hollow block is now a canvas for that signature neon green cursive. 

You’d think City Hall was a marketing agency trying to win a billboard award.

It’s gotten so out of hand that even the Commission on Audit (COA) was forced to act as unwilling fashion critics. In their 2024 annual audit report, COA flagged this aggressive branding a staggering 13 times.

You know your ego has outpaced your governance when state auditors are spending their time counting your autographs instead of just the receipts.

And speaking of receipts, the Department of the Interior and Local Government is currently demanding answers about a heavily delayed P250-million fund downloaded from the Department of Budget Management.

What exactly is the holdup? Are we sitting on a quarter of a billion pesos because City Hall hasn't figured out how to print that green cursive directly onto the cash yet? Why rush massive public funds when the sticker designs for the rollout haven't been finalized?

Photo from City Information Office's official Facebook account

Sabon panglaba ka ba nga kinahanglan dili malupigan ni Brand X? Pagbaton pud og kaulaw, uy!

Let’s clear up the confusion: this is public administration, not a detergent war where you need to aggressively out-market Ariel or Tide at the sari-sari store. Public service is supposed to be about the people, not a city-wide personal calligraphy exhibit.

Let’s remind ourselves of the actual sponsor here: Kwarta sa mga Kagay-anon ang gipangtatakan sa berde nga logo.

Taxpayers are funding city infrastructure, not a 'Klarex' sponsorship deal. It is the political equivalent of buying a gift with your own money, wrapping it yourself, and watching someone else aggressively sign the gift tag in permanent marker.

Public service speaks for itself; it doesn't need a watermark.

If the urge to brand everything is truly that uncontrollable, we might as well just start tattooing that green cursive directly on the taxpayers' foreheads.

At least then the merch would accurately reflect who actually footed the bill. Pfft.

We are not influencers

I didn’t learn how to corner an evasive and shifty politician or dissect a local government budget just to optimize my headlines for an algorithm designed to sell a food supplement or another crypto scam.

Yet, here we are.

The line between a news feed and a digital carnival has been completely blurred, if not deleted altogether.

We are competing for attention with conspiracy theorists, viral stunts, and an endless stream of pure, unadulterated fluff.

If journalism wants to survive this era of algorithmic noise, our superpower cannot be going viral. Our superpower has to be the unapologetic, often unglamorous pursuit of the facts — because when the spectacle ends, the people still need to know who pocketed the city’s budget for infrastructure projects.

Let’s be the adults in the room.

Somehow, newsrooms decided the best way to stay relevant was to act like desperate influencers. We are trading shoe-leather reporting for desk-bound aggregation, regurgitating trending topics, and slapping sensationalist, clickbait headlines on absolute non-stories just to keep our daily metrics from flatlining

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But let’s be brutally honest: trying to out-entertain the entertainment industry doesn't make the press look hip.

It makes us look like a desperate uncle doing a TikTok dance at a wake. Trying to beat social media algorithms at their own game is a fool’s errand that degrades the profession and turns the Fourth Estate into a cheap circus act.

The tech billionaires have designed their platforms so that form is king. Everything must be bite-sized, visually stimulating, and immediately enraging. But look where it has gotten us.

If form is king in their digital fiefdoms, then substance and context must be queen in ours. And historically speaking, queens outlast kings.

Form can never truly defeat substance.

You cannot simply shove flowers into an asshole and start calling it a vase. A polished, highly-produced viral reel of a press conference doesn’t change the underlying fact that the official at the podium is lying through their teeth.

The antidote to this industry-wide brain rot isn’t a savvier social media manager or a better hashtag strategy; it’s a return to gritty, old-fashioned investigative reporting.

It’s time we put the human rights lens back on the camera. Social media ignores the actual marginalized stories because systemic rot and the daily survival of those in the city’s margins don’t naturally trend.

They require reading comprehension and a modicum of empathy — two things the algorithm actively suppresses.

The public doesn’t need another 15-second video summarizing a politician’s idiotic tweet.

They need dogged reporters digging into why city hall’s record-keeping is suspiciously deficient, or why the exact same communities are left to drown every time a storm hits.

We are here to document the real-world body count of bad governance, not to serve up cheap internet brownie points. We are here to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, not to be the internet’s court jesters.

Trust is the only currency journalism actually owns. If we trade it for cheap clicks and fleeting engagement, we will bankrupt ourselves.

Propaganda and fake news thrive in an environment where everything is treated as light entertainment and all information is equally worthless.

If journalism wants to survive, we have to draw a hard line in the sand.

Let the content creators have their ring lights, their viral dances, and their engagement bait. We’ll take the public records, the hard questions, and the unvarnished truth.

Veritas Liberabit Vos.

Of rats and rants

IT’S an open secret that the Cogon Public Market has seen better days — probably days when tartanilyas still ruled our streets. But apparently, pointing out that the place is a biohazard has suddenly become a dangerous proposition.

When Franklin Dagcuta, the president of the Market Vendors Association, raised a red flag linking the market’s grim sanitary state to a case of leptospirosis, he probably expected a mop. Maybe a pressure washer.

Instead, he got a political ultimatum.

City Councilor Enrico Salcedo — Agaw Eric, apparently the Grim Reaper of Speech to his critics — threatened to declare the vendor leader persona non grata unless he publicly apologized.

This serves as a chilling reminder: In the hallowed halls of the City Council, preserving the government’s Facebook aesthetic often takes precedence over actually sweeping the floor.

This begs a critical question for Cagayan de Oro: Has the City Council prioritized reputation management over public safety? Are we protecting the people, or are we protecting the poster?

A tale of two rodents

Let’s get personal. My ex-girlfriend and I once braved the Cogon Public Market “food court” (heavy quotation marks intended).

In the middle of devouring a slab of humba, a furry creature scurried over my foot. I looked down and saw what appeared to be a “spotted squirrel.”

Now, logic dictates that since we were not in a forest, it couldn’t have been a squirrel. It was, in fact, a rat the size of our Persian cat. I mistook the mange-induced bald spots on its back for the markings of the endangered Xerospermophilus perotensis.

I posted this on Facebook as a funny observation about how neglected the market has become.

But in light of recent events, should I issue a public apology to Agaw Eric? Does my review of a rodent require a retraction under threat of legislative exile?

The Councilor’s response to Dagcuta wasn’t to investigate the rats; it was to silence the whistleblower. This isn’t a request for accountability; it is coerced speech.

The Constitutional pushback

Demanding an apology under the threat of sanction forces a citizen to publicly disavow their reality just to avoid a scarlet letter. It implies that criticizing city management comes with a social price tag.

But let’s look at the law, shall we?

For the nth time, persona non grata is a diplomatic term usually reserved for foreign spies or ambassadors who commit major faux pas. But since the City Council loves throwing this phrase around like confetti, here is the reality check:

A City Council resolution cannot “banish” a Filipino citizen. The Supreme Court and the DILG have consistently held that local legislative bodies cannot prevent a Filipino from entering their city. Doing so would violate the Right to Travel and Liberty of Abode.

Sa ato pa, this declaration is legally toothless.

It is a legislative temper tantrum designed to assuage the “bruised” egos of councilors, not to protect the city’s residents. Remember: The councilors are employees of the city. 

We are Cagayan de Oro City, not them.

The chilling effect

The threat is essentially a formal expression of displeasure — a government-issued “unfriend” button.

But here lies the rub: Dagcuta apologized. Why? Because while the law is on his side, the power dynamic is not. He represents vendors who operate at the mercy of the city government.

This wasn’t an apology; it was a hostage video.

Dagcuta shouldn’t have to apologize for describing reality — unless the rats (sized like mid-sized cats) in Cogon Market were the ones offended.

Using a legislative body to censure a private citizen for a comment on public infrastructure is a gross mismatch of power. 

Even if Dagcuta’s medical link to leptospirosis wasn’t scientifically peer-reviewed, since when is being wrong a crime?

A vendor leader — and any citizen — should have the Constitutional right to be wrong without facing political exile.

When the government uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it creates a “chilling effect.” It sends a message to every other Kagay-anon: Do not complain about the smell, do not point out the rats, or you will be next.

The bottom line

Ultimately, this political intramural is a distraction. By focusing on Dagcuta’s “offense,” the narrative shifts away from the actual issue: the market is dirty.

The apology has become more important than the sanitation.

In a democratic space, the feedback loop between the government and the governed is sacred. If pointing out that a market is filthy results in a legislative threat, that feedback loop is broken.

This drama isn’t just about Dagcuta. It is about the fundamental right of any citizen to complain about their city without fear of retribution.

The persona non grata status should be a shield against actual threats to the city — the daylight killings, the crime syndicates, the visiting motorists with noisy mufflers — not a weapon used to smack down critics who just want a cleaner place to buy and eat.