Switching scripts

“You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” — Bob Marley, Get up, Stand up

THEY are back! After the troll brigade’s deafening silence since the 2019 novel coronavirus hit the country, they have been unleashed to social media platforms again. The gap can only be surmised that it took their handlers a long time to gather their wit’s after #oustduterte trended on Twitter Philippines for at least three consecutive days.

They are in panic mode. The mindless horde of selfish individuals is back, indeed. They’d rather an epidemic spread in the country than question the lackadaisical approach of this administration.

The first script that hit social media platforms was a call for compassion, humanity, and not to discriminate against the Chinese people who are in the country. For context, this was when countries, including ground zero Wuhan in China, were busy banning arrivals into their respective ports of entry.

While in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte took his sweet time. He did not even face his constituents, choosing Sen. Christopher Lawrence Go to face the people instead. Go said the President will be meeting with health officials and specialists this week — at least a fortnight since our health department declared that there is a foreigner who tested positive to nCov.

Here is one of the first tweets and Facebook posts that were flagged by many of the country’s mature netizens as duplicates or copy-paste posts:

“Hey, I was walking on the street to find a public vehicle when a Chinese man approached me na parang hiyang-hiya. Pansin kong iniiwasan din siya ng mga tao. Masyado pa siyang mailap tas di makatingin sa’kin, tinanong ko na kasi parang di niya talaga kaya magsalita. ‘yes? you speak Bisaya, Tagalog or English?’ tas parang nabuhayan siya na may kumausap sa kanya pero ramdam mo yung paglayo niya ng kusa. ‘ not sick… not sick..’ nagpapanik pa siya ng kunti tapos sabi niya. ‘ first time here… the driver angry… drop me here and said… I can walk the Poblacion area…. I just wanna know the direction?’ parang naiiyak pa siya, it’s not his efforts in speaking to be understood that broke my heart but knowing the fact that the driver lied to him. Kung lalakarin mo kasi yung lugar na binanggit niya mula dun sa kinaroroonan namin is aabutin ka ng ilang oras. I mean I know na may iba satin na galit sa kanila dahil nga sa virus na yan but being this rude and cruel. It’s breaking me. You can’t be mean to someone just because of their race.”

Later on during over the weekend, another version of the copy-paste posts that drew laughter because it is becoming apparent that these 200 or so accounts have been using the very same script. If you don’t believe me, you can always Google these “scripts” to find out for yourselves.

“I’m sad. We have Chinese neighbors sa condo, and just now may nakasabay kaming lalaki (Chinese) with 2 kids. Sila dapat ‘yong nauna dun sa elevator. But when he saw us (Filipinos) behind him, umatras siya with his kids at nagpahuli. Hindi sila sumabay. I heard the kids asked their dad why, but he just shushed them. Kasakit man sa heart. Let’s pray for each other’s good health, regardless of race. This is not a time to blame and discriminate. P.S. Nobody knows the feels more than those who saw the sadness in the man’s eyes. Yes, don’t forget PRECAUTIONS. But don’t be so overwhelmed by that and set aside COMPASSION. HUMANITY, as you say.”

The script quoted above got me thinking: How gigantic could this condominium be to have 200 tenants saying they encountered this “Chinese” neighbor right before they rode the building’s elevator?

First, the call for the government to ban arrivals, specifically those coming from ground zero of the outbreak, is not a racist move. As we have seen from other countries, they didn’t see it as a diplomatic slight. This is because their governments know they are accountable first to their constituents and the international community, second.

Like, did this President mince words against an American ambassador before? Now, that was an outrage.

By Sunday, however, another script circulated. This time it was more subtle than the first two scripts. The trolls’ handlers now switched their tact to “better late than never” approach. This was because earlier that day, Duterte had already ordered a “temporary” ban on arrivals coming from China and its territories — at least a week since Wuhan locked down. By this time, a cruiser ship full of Chinese tourists had docked on our shores and a plane-full of Chinese had landed in Davao City.

For me, the “better late than never” excuse is only good news when you mean a menstruation period. To a woman, it means she isn’t having an unplanned pregnancy — pardon the pun.

Second, most of the countries that have declared having visitors who have contracted the virus are members of the so-called G8. These are first world countries — meaning, unlike ours, their governments have not slashed the budgets for public health spending.

I have only two words for whoever is behind these scripts to hide the incompetence of this administration — amateur hour. You can’t expect people to believe you when you’ve used this approach in 2016. Pfft.