Raising the level of discourse

METHINKS the biggest losers this election season will be politicos who hired trolls to either promote them or slander their opponents — like in the 2016 national elections — and ultimately, the voting public.

I admit I was among the netizens who were dumbstruck by the attack of the trolls in 2016. It was something new. People were actually silenced by the bullying of trolls.

However, more and more people, actual social media users, are getting back at the trolls. As I have observed in some city-based Facebook groups, people are directly calling out trolls.

I based this observation on the threads of local group “Bantay Kagay-an.” I have been a member of the group even when it was called “Bangon Kagay-an.” It sprang up as a direct response to the devastation of Typhoon Sendong.

I must say first that it is unfortunate that this group has become a cesspool of trolls and its owner has not been forthright with his group members. The group is supposed to be an independent group.

The owner is running for a seat in the city council. He filed for a mayoral position but withdrew and posted a statement of sorts on his reason for his withdrawal to the mayoral race. He said he was waiving his candidacy to a person who supposedly bedazzled him in a brief encounter at a hotel lobby.

In its declaration of group rules, Sec. C: Values and Principles #2, it states that members must “be fair and balanced (in contrast to lap-dogging or doing a PR for somebody).” A cursory scan of the group posts now will show that it has since broken this rule.

The group page is being held hostage by a troll named “Jose Ma. Guerrero.” Since the filing of certificates of candidacy, this troll has regularly and consistently posted slanderous statements against the incumbent administration while bolstering how immaculately clean its principal is.

The funny thing is, real users are openly commenting against the troll’s ad hominem and non sequitur posts. Before, it was unthinkable that you would berate a troll online considering they are masked in anonymity. I guess real social media users have had enough of the toxic discourse if you call it that.

Other Facebook groups are even worse. Case in point is the group called “Ang Baruganan.” If you scan the posts in the group page, you will realize that no real users are commenting or posting on the page. It has been completely taken over by the trolls of all candidates of the city and the province.

It seemed that raising the level of public discourse is becoming less likely on social media. We have to face the reality that it is a practice in futility to be debating with a person cloaked in anonymity. There is no accountability and responsibility with what they post on social media.

Fortunately, my editor-in-chief thought of something that will benefit the electorate. He decided to give all the local political parties a space in the opinion pages of this paper — one day for every group each week. He named it “100% Politics.” This new sub-section within this paper’s opinion pages aims to raise the level of issue-based and fact-based public discourse on matters of politics and governance while the competing political groups keep with good taste and propriety, things that have been lost and which many people no longer value in other public discussion social media groups recently.

All the political groups have agreed and picked a day for their group columns. “100% Politics” started yesterday with city administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. writing for the incumbent administration (as expected, of course). In the coming days, we, the electorate, would witness a battle of ideas sans ad hominems and non-sequiturs.

The political groups should be able to present their respective development plans and reform agenda. They will have to convince the voting public who deserves to be supported and why the other groups are less deserving.

In the end, the voting public will benefit from this healthy but highly competitive public discourse.

Pushing back

“WITH all three of us working together, truth does not stand a chance!” reads RJ “Thinking Pinoy” Nieto’s social media post, referring to the rest of the triumvirate, Margaux “Mocha” Uson and Sass Rogando “For the motherland” Sassot.

We are fighting back.

Together with other traditional news media organizations, we are going to fight back. We are not taking crap from anybody’s troll, bot, or an actual person but misinformed or just plain stupid and ignorant, anymore. Worse, are their handlers, most of whom used to work with traditional news media organizations.

I have personally witnessed some former colleagues in the industry who went from calling for an end to impunity and extrajudicial killings to shouting “delawan obosen, bias medias, and fake news” at every news article that doesn’t support the narrative they have set for themselves. (Shouting online is manifested in an all-caps post.) They who have allowed themselves to be trapped in a circular argument and embraced false dichotomies.

They bash news media for being biased. (Yes, there’s supposed to be “ed” after the word.) It is as if these people didn’t know the dynamics in a newsroom. I find it ludicrous that a former station manager of a regional newsgroup of a national TV network rant and lose his cool on his Facebook wall over news that his former station aired that debunked a lie his tatay said.

This is almost always the case, by the way. If a certain news item does not conform to the President’s ridiculous claims, then it must be “fake news.” If you argue against this administration, then you must be a dilawan or bayaran.

I confess that I did nothing to stop or at least, call out the rumormongers on social media. I was indifferent about it. I thought all the lies would just die out when confronted with the truth. But that didn’t happen and the people ought to know the real situation of what is happening to the country.

Last week, I heard some pretty compelling figures that convinced me, finally, to fight this lie-laden rhetoric online.

As of April, this year, there are 69 million Filipinos who are active social media users. Hootsuite has ranked the Philippines as the number one social media users who stay online at close to four hours each day. What is alarming is that the purveyors of fake news have a great number of following which, in turn, creates echo chambers. Unwitting users confuse echo chambers as an approbation of the distorted views of reality they post online.

It used to be that trolls, bots, and real accounts post misinformation or outright disinformation online. Now, referring to the quote above, they just declared war against the truth.

I, for one, cannot take it anymore. I didn’t cultivate my journalistic career just to upped by lying SOBs.

This paper has joined other traditional news media organizations in the fight against disinformation. We will debunk every lie posted online especially on social media networks. If my editor-in-chief and I fought the proliferation of disinformation individually, now entire news organizations will collectively fight back.

Enough is enough. We will resist the lies.

Liberate your smartphones

“Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale.” -Strange Days (1995)

IT has been two full weeks since I unplugged my smartphone from the matrix of Mark Zuckerberg. I have deleted all Zuckerberg owned apps from my smartphone.

Now, I use my smartphone how it’s meant to be — for calls and SMS. Well, it would be hypocritical of me not to mention that I also use my smartphone as a calculator, for audio and video recording, and camera. However, I am now exclusively surfing the Internet, and accessing my social media accounts on my laptop.

It has been liberating.

The UK incorporated multinational auditing and consulting company, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, monitor on mobile usage behavior revealed that at least 80 percent of Indonesians and Filipinos would have checked their phones within 15 minutes of waking up.

Having social media apps on your smartphone has altered the way we interact with our loved ones. I saw how intrusive it has been to our family time. I wanted to delete the apps even before the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal hogged the headlines.

But like most Filipinos, I was simply hooked on it.

A virtual friend — meaning, we haven’t met personally, only on Facebook — asked me last month what would it be like to disengage from social media platforms. I answered that it wouldn’t really change anything except that we’ll have to talk face to face next time without it.

However, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was the last straw. When I discussed it with my real-time friends, most of them were not concerned at the slightest.

They said they were not concerned because they are careful with what they post. What they don’t get is that it is a continuing process. It doesn’t matter if you have been conscientious in what you do share on your Facebook wall. The app mines your account for data anyway. By the way, it also mines the data of all the friends on your account.

According to Avaaz, an Internet rights group, there have been 1,175,870 Filipinos whose data have been breached in the wake of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook, itself, admitted that the Philippines had the second most number of accounts compromised in the data breach scandal.

Let’s go to the next best thing to texting. Since the Philippines has been the texting capital of the world, Facebook Messenger took the country by storm. You didn’t even need load because Zuckerberg has made a free data platform.

However, do you think your chats on Facebook Messenger are private? Last Thursday, Facebook confirmed that its staff uses automated tools to scan Messenger chats for malware links and child porn images. A Facebook moderator can review any messages that are flagged by users or the automated systems they have put in place.

Apparently, the reason why Zuckerberg can allow Facebook to be free is that its users are the product. The users’ data are the commodity. That may not sound much to you but in the hands of political manipulators and “thought leaders,” it is a gold mine.

You are responsible for what you post, that’s a given. However, if your user data are mined, these companies can have your virtual profile. They will know what usually do in a day, what brand of coffee you prefer, what bank you trust, and many other personal details of your life.

I am not quitting Facebook. I just took it off my smartphone so Zuckerberg couldn’t sell my and my friends’ user data to the highest bidder. But before I did that, I downloaded the data I’ve shared with Facebook since I joined it.

What I got was the history of everything I’ve done on Facebook, such as likes and comments on posts, use of apps and searches. The download also contained my profile, messages, list of friends, ads I’ve clicked on, and IP addresses I’ve used to connect to Facebook.

I must tell you, the download gave me a pretty good picture — a scary one at that— of what Facebook has on me.

I have since deleted all the contact details of my friends on my Facebook account. I can only hope my friends would do the same with my contact details on their Facebook accounts.

Now, because I have to reboot my laptop every time I access Facebook, my mornings are ultimately better. I pay more attention to real-time conversations. I don’t stumble or step into people’s toes in the street anymore.

Try it. It’s liberating.

Letter for Myles

MYLES Albasin, the Cagayanon who was arrested on illegal firearms possession charge along with five others in Mabinay, Negros Oriental, turned 21 late last month.

Friends and relatives gathered here to celebrate her birthday. I would like to share a letter from one of her godmother in lieu of my regular My Wit’s End this week.

Felany Opiso-Williams is a godmother of Myles. She is now an accountant at Santa Clara County, California. She used to be a proofreader on one of the local daily newspapers in the city. Read on:

Dear Myles,

My kids think things work at the press of a button. Like most kids in the US, they don’t have a concept of what is a struggle. If you ask, they’ll say it’s homework.

At the water cooler at work, we Asian mothers worry that our kids don’t have survival skills. Our kids don’t even know how to cook rice, a must for us Asians. Will they survive living on their own in college? And what if God forbid war happens and pushing buttons don’t work? What if the microwave doesn’t work? The dishwasher? Or the washer and dryer? Will the future be safe enough for our kids to have a family of their own and a happy life?

One mom took her children back to China for a visit and her son said: “Don’t take me back here. It’s too hot! Why do we come here anyway?” It’s the same pattern for the other kids. “Why come here? It’s too poor, I don’t like it here.”

As a mom of action, I decided we’re going to spend this summer in the Philippines and my kids will learn how to cook rice using firewood and eat fish and vegetables instead of Panda Express takeout. I told them they are going to do a third world integration so they will learn the difference between a first world problem and a third world problem.

Then came the shocking news that my godchild, an activist integrating with peasant farmers in the Visayas, was caught by the Philippine military in a fake encounter, branded a terrorist and would have been shot in the vagina as ordered by a foul-mouthed misogynist who unfortunately happens to be the Philippine president, if not for media presence.

I could talk about the dichotomy in Philippine politics and its socioeconomic environment but that would be a very long soliloquy indeed. At least, picture shanties next to American style malls. Suffice to say to live in that place, in that culture, would be challenging for any person with liberal democratic ideals.

Ironically, that environment also fires youthful idealism. And I’ll say this in terms that my kids can understand: That environment challenges the youth to want to be superheroes. There is a reason why superhero movies make billions at the box office. Who doesn’t want to be Wonder Woman or Super Girl?  Or Katniss Everdeen? Youth activism is practically a rite of passage in the Philippines.

Unfortunately, while youth survivors in Florida, marching on Capitol Hill, were praised for their “incisive thinking and passion,” and considered “beautiful specimens of ideas and insightfulness,” by American novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson who number former president Barack Obama among her fans, there is no such praise for the idealistic youth in the Philippines.

As a mother, I refuse to fail my children. I left the Philippines in my youth because it failed me. While I’m not surprised at the disturbing turn of events, I’m angry that after all these years, democratic ideals still struggle to take root in Philippine society. I’m angry at those who were given the public’s trust who then respond with viciousness instead of with a call for unity. And a public who, too often, surrender rational thought to divisive diatribe. Sadly, the Philippines has a degenerate form of democracy.

As a mother, I worry about my children and, more immediately, my godchild. Youth survivors in Florida chose to fight. Youth’s default. My godchild chose to do the same and be a voice for the poor. Oh to be young and unafraid!

Myles, we may be your absentee godmothers but please know we love you, we think of you,  we pray for you, and we are here to support you. No matter what everybody else says, you have the right to choose your path to follow. If you decide to choose a different path later in life, that is your right, too. But nobody, and I mean NOBODY on this Earth, has the right to play God and extinguish your light! While we are watching things unfold at your end, know that we are capable of taking action at our end. Remember, hell hath no fury like a mother defending her cub!

We may have angry tears in our eyes, but we do not cower! You, my child, are a reflection of who we were, of hopes long gone and dimmed, hopes we left behind for a better life somewhere else, but festering and unresolved. When they dehumanize you, our souls writhe in fury! You are our godchild! You are ours!

With so much love,

Your Ninang Felany

Pleasing personality

“We just say something as if it really makes sense. Like ‘legally drunk,’ leave the guy alone officer, he’s legally drunk.” – George Carlin, Jamming in New York

LET us discuss the recent ordinance our city council unanimously voted on which has sent lawyers reeling in laughter for its vagueness and subjectivity.

Yes, I’m referring to City Ordinance 2018-18 authored by Councilor Edna Dahino.

For those who have been hiding under a rock, it is an ordinance that authorizes social workers and police to accost adults who are with a minor or minors if these adults exude a “reasonable genuine suspicion” that they are trafficking the children they’re accompanying.

Dahino’s “reasonable genuine suspicion” reminds me of other phrases we have been using but haven’t exactly realized that these sound ludicrous, vague, and does not really define anything.

Worse, we haven’t really examined these phrases at all. We just use them to mean something when it does not.

When you define an act, you determine the essential quality, determine the nature of, or show the form or outline of the act.

It’s like when the police recently announced that this Holy Week they will be on “triple alert.” To me, it sounded ludicrous. Alert is a condition of heightened watchfulness and prepared for any eventuality. There are no levels of alertness. If you are not alert, you are lethargic. You cannot be twice as an alert — why will the officers give their personnel five cups of coffee every hour or a dose of amphetamine for them to be “triple alert?”

Then there’s the cliché “with pleasing personality.” You see it every time there is a job opening at any mall, store, private offices. It is usually one of the requirements when you apply for a job. The sexist part of it is that it seems to be applicable only to the female applicants. It makes you think, to whom should they exude this “pleasing personality,” the employers?

If this ridiculous job requirement is to be believed, then how come I barely see any salesgirl with a “pleasing personality.” We shop at Gaisano Mall, and my ex-girlfriend and I only see scowling sales representatives all the time — if they are not scowling, they are sporting that nonchalant-slightly bored-slightly annoyed look.

Going back to Dahino’s ordinance, like, did you know that this ordinance was shelved at least twice? When this ordinance came to my attention, I did not know why the councilors voted to defer it back to the drawing board twice. At least, now we know why.

A little birdie told me that Dahino was on a verge of throwing a fit if her pet ordinance would be deferred for the third time. Well, methinks that should not be the primary reason to approve an ordinance.

Even the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office is in a conundrum on how to implement it, exactly. For the sake of argument, what would they do to the person they hold for exuding a “reasonable genuine suspicion” of being a child trafficker? Will they institute “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which is legalese for torture?

I have observed that people use extra words in phrases to sound important when it is not.

It is not bad to be passionate about fighting criminality, especially this despicable crime of trafficking children. However, when you are crafting laws, you should be precise, logical or at least sensible.

I remember during my Task Force Macajalar days, lawyer Manuel Ravanera gave us, paralegals, a crash course on laws. He said in crafting a law, it should be objective so it will not be open to a deluge of interpretations, and it should be logical and sensible, like, you do not need to craft a law governing gravity because with or without that written law, gravity will still exist.

Why am I so up in arms about this ordinance, you ask?

Well, I’m bald and I sport a full beard. I hit the genetic jackpot of being a “suspicious-looking character.” I worry about stereotyping.

I hope this vague ordinance gets vetoed or at the least sent back to the drawing board again.

Don’t worry, councilor, third or fourth time is a charm.

Kill lists

IF THERE'S one thing we ought to know by now is that this administration is spectacularly bad at making lists.

Remember Digong Dada’s list of judges, mayors, police officials who were supposedly involved in the proliferation of illegal drugs in the country? To help you jog up your memory, he presented the list of more than 150 names to media last Aug. 7. The list included a judge who has been dead since 2008.

Let’s not forget Digong Dada’s drug matrices. He had the Marawi drug matrix and the matrix on the drug network operating in the country. Among those named in the top rung of that matrix were Peter Co, Peter Lim, and Herbert Colangco.

These lords, except for Colangco, will be exonerated. The country’s very own Department of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II chalked it up to “weak evidence.” Even the self-confessed drug trafficker Kerwin Espinosa was also off the hook. Yes, the guy who testified in front of the senators that he made at least P40 million to P50 million a year dealing drugs.

What does their exoneration tell us? It confirms our suspicion that Digong Dada’s war on drugs is really just a killing spree of those who are in the lowest rung of the drug syndicate ladder while those on top enjoy the “assumption of innocence until proven otherwise.”

Currently pegged at the tens of thousands, if that’s not a killing spree I don’t know what is. Let’s use this administration’s list of killings lest I’ll be branded as a purveyor of “fake news.”

In the Presidential Communications Operations Office’s accomplishment report, under the section “fight against drugs,” some 3,967 people were killed in anti-drugs operations and 16,355 homicide cases under investigation from July 2016 to Sept. 30 last year. That’s 20,322 persons killed.

With that disappointing denouement of the drug list, Aguirre submits yet another list  — a list of people the government wants to be branded as “terrorists.”

Filed Feb. 21 before the Regional Trial Court Branch 19 in Manila, Aguirre submitted a 55-page petition, 21 pages of which consists of the actual list of names. The petition seeks to have the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army declared as “terrorist and outlawed organizations, associations and/or group of persons” under the Human Security Act of 2007.

Like their drug list before, this administration has also listed people who have long departed this realm (read: dead). In a Bulatlat.com report, at least eight persons in the list have long been dead while two others have been missing for years.

It even listed Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples in the list of supposed Maoist groups. This administration sure has a weird way of cozying up to the International Criminal Court, huh?

Why should this list be relevant to us, here, in Mindanao? Well, it should be because of the 657 people listed, some 364 are from Mindanao. Here’s the scary part, of the 364 people listed, some 162 names are aliases. Let that sink in for awhile.

Anybody and I mean anybody who unfortunately falls from grace with Digong Dada could just as easily be branded as one of those 162 aliases in the list.

Mindanews quoted Lt. Col. Emmanuel Garcia, chief of the Public Affairs Office of the Armed Forces as estimating the strength of the NPA, as of last year, at 3,700 armed guerrillas.

It would be safe to assume that Aguirre lists the “brains” of the so-called terrorist movement in the Philippines with 3,700-foot soldier strong to carry out its terrorist acts. Then, why haven’t we witnessed at least one “terrorist attack” each week since this administration started? One would think that many “brains” could have expelled this administration by now.

This list, like all the other lists of this administration in the past, is nothing but another veritable kill list. This administration’s lust for blood wasn’t sated enough with the ongoing killing spree under the pretext of a drug war, it has now created another kill list. Pfft.

Free Myles!

“It’s hard to fight for my life when I feel that my life is not a life. It’s existence. Existence is not enough for me.” -Hector Garcia, Jr.

UNLIKE most of the tito and tita of Myles Albasin, who have expressed support on social media platforms, I was not a student activist. I have also not been a member of the College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines or the Anakbayan.

Some of them I have even mocked when I was studying in high school and college at Xavier University. They would form protest pickets in front of the main campus, rallying against increases in tuition and other school fees. My standard reply then was that nobody forced them to enroll at Xavier. They could always enroll in public schools.

That is the reason why I sort of understand those who join the bandwagon of hate speech against her and her family when the closest you have been to a farm or farm animal is at KFC or MacDonald’s. It is easy to join the vilification campaign against the likes of Myles when most of your concerns involve a small circle (read: domestic).

She decided to put to practice what she learned in school. She certainly does not deserve to be bashed online for what she did like nobody bashed you for posting photos of your super expensive meal when most people in the hinterlands haven’t even seen what a burger is.

Most of the hate post on Myles are anchored on why supposedly “wasted” the free education she got from UP. So let’s go back to the point of the supposed free education in public schools and state colleges and universities. I also thought it was. After sending all of my kids to public schools, I have realized it isn’t free at all. The Republic’s budget for education, year in, year out, can attest to that fact.

Social media platforms have made it easier for people to encapsulate their lives, ergo, the ease in objectifying people. On social media, it is easy to forget that the people who have been subjected to vilification campaigns like you also have mothers, fathers, relatives, and friends.

As I see it, Myles just had a wider lens on Philippine society. She can’t help it that she has been trained how to think and not what to think. Her concerns are not only defined within the confines of her immediate family. Wouldn’t you want your child to be as unselfish as Myles? I would.

I may not understand Myle’s decision to immerse herself in the lives of the marginalized farmers in Negros Oriental but it is hers. I respect that and she and her family, most certainly, does not deserve to be vilified on social media.

Of opinion and judgment

“Salvation is offered, redemption indeed is promised at a low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.” -Christopher Hitchens to Tony Blair, Munk Debate 2011

AS you may have caught on from reading My Wit’s End, I will keep on coming back to the theme of organized religion and belief systems. It is not so much that I hate religion, it is more in the fact that it keeps people from evolving to their potentials. It is a self-limiting crutch.

A fortnight ago, I had a weird philosophical night of discussion and merlot with fellow columnist Rhona Canoy. Among the many things we talked about was the subject of truths, specifically on the subjectivity of truths.

Of course, Rhona and I were on the opposite sides of the fence on this one. Well, truth be told, I held on my definition of truth until she gave her Yoda-ish logic on the subject matter.

I told her right away that there shouldn’t be versions of any truth. I pointed out to gravity or gravitation as an example of a truth. You cannot possibly argue your way around that truth. It’s not like you can debate away gravity’s attraction to you from all other objects, from atoms to photons, from planets and stars.

She debunked my argument by simply saying that gravity is a scientific law. Laws of physics are hardly debatable after all. Unless, of course, you’re from another plane of the multiverse that we’re all in.

For the purpose of our debate that night, she added, truths are based on the perspective of the observer. Perspective, meaning, it depends on the upbringing and all the biases formed during the formative years. This includes how we are taught how or what to think.

I realized that I inadvertently confused truths to facts. My bad. So, I chose to shut up and listen to what Rhona had to say on “social” truths.

She gave a simple exercise to point this out. She held out her glass of merlot and asked me if we are in agreement that she is, in fact, holding out a glass of merlot. The answer is yes, I agreed. However, I couldn’t be positively sure that what she was looking at from where she was sitting was the same exact thing I was looking at from where I was sitting. Ergo, the void for interpretations of the truth that she was holding a glass of merlot.

The truth that we were talking now is actually malleable.

So, after I picked up my jaw from the floor, I likened this understanding to the difference between opinions and judgments.

All netizens on social media platforms also confuse the two, all the time. We treat opinions and judgments as one and the same. It is not.

On one hand, opinions actually reserve a room for doubt. That is because the observers spew out opinions on any given subject based on the facts they have gathered. So given the limitations of an observer’s access to facts, the observers tend to be open for corrections or realignment to their observations which they present as opinions.

Opinions, although based on facts, are malleable because no can really gather all the facts. Opinions, however, open avenues for discussion because the recipient might have some facts that the observer has left out or was not privy to.

On the other hand, judgments are rigid. Although judgments are also based on facts, there is another variable at play in formulating these. How they were raised to nurture age-old biases also comes into play. In this way, judgments are like the belief systems people have. It may not be supported by hard facts but you grew with it anyway.

Judgment is an opinion hardened by hubris.

I, too, am guilty of this. As I’ve told Rhona that night, I have always kept an open mind and reserve judgment, and so I form opinions. However, it is that hubris that sometimes makes me think of rebuttals while other persons are still presenting their opinions. That is a behavioral tic that I consciously want to wean out from.

After two bottles of merlot, we came to an agreement that critical thinking is key to evolving from our biases and rigid perspectives.

Critical thinking in the sense that one should realize where the observer is coming from. The peripherals in that observer’s life that made them form opinions and judgments. Critical thinking, to me then, is not just limited to scrutinizing the facts on which the judgment is based on but also their perspectives why they formed these.

So, the next time you come across a person with judgments, instead of shutting them out or bashing them, try your earnest to understand where they’re coming from. Take solace in the thought that nobody can really “judge” you into accepting other people’s opinions.