Hindsight is 20/20

“Democracy will not reform itself by some hidden or automatic process. It takes citizens to awaken from their inertia, apathy, or fear. No one else will demand change for us.” — Larry Diamond, III Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency

LAST Sunday, I was browsing through my Netflix catalog of documentary movies when I chanced upon “The Great Hack.” It was released in July 2019. It is about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

A private military contractor, SCL Group, was behavioral research and strategic communications company with expertise in influencing mass behavior patterns. The company had been contracted for military and political operations across the globe in the late 1990s, including electioneering in the developing countries throughout the early 2000s.

For the company to move into the US elections, it formed Cambridge Analytica in 2012.

The scandal stems from the illicit harvesting of personal data and was used to create massive campaigns albeit approaching users in a personal manner. However, the mined big data ended up being used to create a huge artificial intelligence that reached the point of the disruption of democratic processes in the countries where they operated.

Facebook entered the picture when Cambridge Analytica bought personal data from the social media platform’s users. But as what we have all witnessed during the televised US Senate inquiry into the matter, Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg denied any complicity. He offered to “look into it.” We haven’t heard since from Zuckerberg after that inquiry.

Allow me to digress, if only to share with you my “eureka” moment in the movie. Again, yes, I may be a voracious reader but I admit I am kind of slow when it comes to technology. Watching the movie, it is easy to get lost with all the technical terms.

My father, Emilio, used to work as a civilian consultant for a certain major general who was assigned at Camp Olivas in San Fernando, Pampanga.

It was the time when Emilio, then a director of the Philippine Information Agency for Northern Mindanao, was named one of the “frozen” regional directors under then-President Corazon Aquino through Executive Order 120, series of 1987.

As far as I can recall, he worked as a “communications specialist” for the major general. I do, however, recall some military jargon he taught me. Yes, I was that kind of kid — a kid who asked a lot of questions outside my sphere of formal education.

I learned from him the terms plausible deniability, low-intensity conflict, psychological operations, credible reality, and other fancy-sounding terms. For this column, I’ll focus on the terms of psychological operations and plausible deniability.

On one hand, psychological operations are operations to “convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals,” as defined by the United States Marine Corps in Fort Bragg.

On the other hand, plausible deniability is defined as “denying responsibility for the actions due to the lack of substantial evidence of direct involvement, allows to shift the blame and to minimize reputational losses while maximizing the result of such actions.” This phrase was coined by the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1960s to withhold information from senior officers to shield them from possible repercussions of their clandestine operations.

From the definitions of the two terms above, it is easy to realize that these are the foundations of great propaganda work.

Propaganda work targets our biases and emotions. With the national elections in 2022, you can bet your sweet “A” that these two military terms will be employed again in what has become a “hybrid communications warfare.”

As a public service, I would like to share with you a checklist in fighting misinformation by Carl Sagan called the “baloney detection.”

a.) Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

b.) Arguments from authority carry little weight— "authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

c.) Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

d.) Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way-station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.

e.) Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course, there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.

f.) If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise)—not just most of them.

g.) Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.

h.) Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle—an electron, say—in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

Let us remember that it was the weaponization of social media platforms that stunned us way back in 2016. Misinformation or its more ubiquitous and infamous term “fake news” target powerful emotions within you — wonder, fear, greed, grief.

It was the weaponization of social media platforms that stunned us way back in 2016. Let us all learn our lesson and start the new decade with a 20/20 vision.

T.G.I.F.

“If a really stupid person becomes senile, how do you know?” -George Carlin

NOT that I didn’t expect it to happen but this administration’s supposedly best and brightest have gone bananas lately. Every single day, the functionaries of Digong Dada seem to be looking for spectacular ways to show how inept they are.

Let’s start with the less despicable to the most abhorrent stunts these schmucks have done. Sorry, too, if you will not find Margaux Uson in this list, my dear readers. I’ve limited this list to people in this administration who I thought knew better or at the very least act like rational human beings. All of these stunts happened within a single week.

After learning that public school teachers have been availing of various loans, even from 5/6 neighborhood loan sharks to make ends meet, Education Secretary Leonor Briones issues Deped Order 55 or the “Revised guidelines on the Implementation of P4,000 Net Home Pay for the Deped Personnel.”

It sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, all this fancy-titled order means is that it will make sure that the outstanding loans the teachers have due for the Government Service Insurance System and the Pag-ibig Fund are being deducted from their salaries.

The department will also “identify measures that will enable teachers to manage their finances.” Here’s a good idea. Why not increase their salaries so they can manage their finances?

But then again, it might do me good not to ask questions to this administration. It has this nasty habit of branding people “kupal” for asking questions that make them uncomfortable.

In its verified Facebook account, the Office of the Presidential Spokesman, a supposed “former page administrator” of theirs posted insults against TV News 5 news reader Lourd de Veyra and Rappler’s Pia Ranada.

Scrambling to do “damage control,” Rene “The Pastor” Abella said the access of the former page administrator who was “no longer connected to with the office” to its official Facebook page has been revoked.

“The said comment does not reflect the official and personal views of the Presidential Spokesperson or his office on the individuals being referred to,” Abella said in probably the lamest statement.

I say lame because Abella didn’t bother to name the person responsible. He did not explain why a person who is supposedly no longer connected to his office could still access to its official social media account.

Abella’s statement even lacked the most basic of statement on faux pas, an apology. For an office that deals with communications, it’s heartbreaking to see them fall flat. The statement was sophomoric at best.

However, none of that is Abella’s problem anymore. He has been replaced.

In what was a literally midnight appointment, Digong Dada announced on Friday that Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque will be the new presidential spokesman.

Roque will have the item of secretary while the bumbling Abella is an undersecretary. When he made the announcement, the President said Roque fits in his Cabinet because they’re both talkative — “medyo malikot ang bunganga namin.”

The midnight appointment raised a lot of eyebrows. Roque who has been known to be a human rights and freedom of expression advocate accepting a post known for its spins and “interpretations” is quite unnerving.

But maybe this is a good thing. After all, Roque has been known to fight tooth and nail for the assertion of human rights.

“By taking up this position, I intend to refocus the attention of the people more towards the fundamental position of the State, and less towards the manner by which such has been declared,” Roque said in his statement on accepting the post.

He stated further: “By accepting this position, I am not condoning the violence surrounding the government’s anti-drug campaign, nor do I intend to further the same.”

However, as fast as you can say “Pinocchio,” Roque’s first statement as presidential spokesman was that the President is not a human rights violator.

Way to go, earning your keep, Sir, using your background in human rights advocacy to deodorize the bloodthirsty administration. Apparently, two wigs are, indeed, better than one.

Let’s wind down this list with the two over-sexed and underlaid minions Salvador Panelo and Martin Andanar.

What can say? These guys are obviously copying their principal’s penchant for “shock” contents in their public engagements. Panelo did it during a Swiss National Public Radio and Television interview and Andanar during his “meet and greet” with Filipinos in London.

Panelo blurted out that he f**ks like an 18-year-old. Then he doubled back to say that he mispronounced the letter “p” and that he meant “pack like an 18-year-old.” This mother of packers even had the gall to accuse the interviewer that by pointing out his gaffe, she had swept aside “the meat of the interview on the rationale of the issues raised against the Duterte presidency.”

Being a Bisaya myself, I know that mispronouncing the letter “p” as “f” is common. I remember a friend who proudly declared he had just been hired by “Pilifin facking korforeyshen” and that he had been hired to “fack faynepols.”

Let’s just give this geezer the benefit of doubt for a second. If he truly meant packing his bags, how then does that connect to the prior statement that he is “better in bed?” So, no, Mr. Panelo. I won’t buy your packing reason.

Another Bisaya in this administration, Andanar, introduced a colorful Bisaya word to the world: “pala-**ot.” He relegated the critiques of this administration as noisy underlaid and bitter people.

So yeah, this government is f***d, alright!

‘Rebolusyon sa inyong baga’

“There is no natural, spontaneous process to prevent destabilizing, inegalitarian forces from prevailing permanently.” – Thomas Piketty, The New Yorker

THIS administration and its minions have been bandying about lately the word “revolution” and its adjective form “revolutionary” like it is some kind of magic wand which will waive away all the horrific transgressions it is committing to the very people who brought them to power.

Please permit me a slight digression before I continue. I’d like to give a shout out to Fr. Brennan, SJ (apologies because for the life of me I can’t remember his first name) for teaching us basic Latin in high school. He taught us that if we learn Latin we could virtually be walking dictionaries.

Now back to the point I was making.

The Middle English word “revolution” is derived from the Latin revolutio which means a turnaround. Merriam Webster defines it as “a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities.”

Dictionary.com defines revolution as “an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.”

In sociology, revolution is “a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence.”

So, there. From the definitions alone, you can pretty much see how unnerving it is to hear people in power spouting such platitude. In the definitions, it is clear that the overthrowing variable is the population or the people governed or the ruled class.

What do this administration’s minions expect? Like, do they honestly believe Digong Dada will overthrow his own bloody rule? especially now that he has tasted intoxicating power, which possibly is only equaled by the dose of Fentanyl he has been taking?

This may come as a shock to you but what actually happened in Edsa 31 years ago was nowhere near a revolution. At best, it was a revolt of the middle class. Look where it has led the Filipino people too. It has dumbed down the collective understanding of what a revolution actually is.

It has been pointed out to me by a kuya-kumpare, no less, that a revolution isn’t necessarily a violent event. Methinks this kind of thinking is revisionist in nature — strongman Marcos’ “green revolution” comes to mind.

But if we revisited the true meaning of the word, how can an overthrow or replacement of an established system be anything peaceful or benign?

You have to realize that the system being replaced or overthrown has people (read: human beings) behind it. Do you honestly believe these people will just up and leave because they will be replaced by another paradigm?

Do you honestly believe that the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs — thanks to the Davao Group — will end and will not happen again once this administration’s version of “revolutionary government” comes to power?

These people have been making a butt-load of money out of this sweet arrangement they have right now. Do you think they will just give this largesse for an altruistic goal of “uniting” the Filipino people?

Revolutions are always ugly, violent, and messy — always. The national democratic revolution that has been raging for the past four decades is a testament to that.

This administration threatening that it will establish a “revolutionary government” is like it says it respects human rights, due process, and rule of law. It is simply not true to what it is doing to our nation.

You cannot push a “threat” of a revolutionary government when most Filipinos have been living it for decades.

You see, revolutions are not threats. It is a lifestyle and the ruled class is living it.

The ruling class, to put it bluntly, is neither in the position nor have the moral ascendancy to call for a revolutionary government. The ruled class is the proper variable in the equation to complete a revolution, Einstein!

Jeez! Did all these “smart and brightest” flunk world history?

Narcos and corruption

“But it (war on drugs) can’t be won. It’ll never be won. At least not until people see it for what it is. Not until they know the truth.” – DEA agent Javier Peña, Narcos season 3, episode 10

AT the base of any successful illegal trafficking, be it in the flesh or drug trade is a cabal of corrupt elected politicians and bureaucrats. That is what agent Peña realized by the end of season 3. He had been fighting the government’s war on drugs which has long been bought and paid for by the drug cartels in Colombia.

In Narcos 3, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Colombian government are hot on the trail of the Cali drug cartel led by the Rodriguez-Orjuela brothers. These drug traffickers were different from Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel in that they operate with precision like a multinational corporation.

“Another deal. A compromise. A charade. A way for governments who don’t give a s**t about the war they’re supposed to be fighting, to go on pretending they’re winning it,” Peña’s soliloquy at the season ender rued.

In the series, Peña was getting more and more frustrated since he couldn’t seem to pin down the Cali cartel. As it turned out, the cartel “owned” the Office of the President of Colombia.

Ironically, Ernesto Samper won the presidency by campaigning against cocaine trafficking with campaign funds paid for by the Cali cartel. Although Peña and the US Embassy in Colombia had a taped conversation between Miguel Rodriguez Orjuela and Samper and the ledger which proved the existence of offshore shell companies, they were not able to pin down Samper even for charges of collusion to traffic drugs.

My take away lesson on this particular TV series is that no matter how hard and bloody you fight against illegal drugs if the system in government is vulnerable to corruption, the war on drugs will never be won.

A case in point is the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs. One can easily be confused with the smokescreens of those who do not want the truth to be out. Guilty people can and have always hidden behind technicalities and legal loopholes. But the fact of the matter is, a butt load of illegal drugs was able to enter the country from the People’s Republic of China.

Like what Peña did, one need only to examine the supply chain and its subsequent flow of grease money to understand that the bigger scourge gripping a country is not the drugs itself but the rampant corruption, the wheeling, and dealing, the compromises, the charades, in the very halls of power.

Until this administration realizes that, we will continue to witness bodies of young and old, mostly poor, pile up.

Shrifts

“Is it so difficult for alleged lawyers to understand that the mandate of CHR is to check state abuses?” – Prof. Luis V. Teodoro, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication

THERE have been many things that unfolded last week that I have decided to adapt my late father Emilio’s column template — shrifts. Even though the incidents are all political in nature, I cannot weave them into one narrative prose. I do not have the academic smarts to pull that one through. So, here goes.

Change has come indeed.

Now, in the Philippines, when you say “you weep for the youth,” you’ll be branded by the President a pedophile or straight-out homosexual.

“You are so fixated with the death of young males, kaya nagdududa ako na pedophile kang gago ka,”Digong Dada said of Commission on Human Rights chair Chito Gascon on Saturday as reported by GMA News Online.

Using your (demented) logic, Sir, what does that make you then — somebody who is “fixated” with illegal drugs? Aren’t you also “fixated” on branding people you disagree with as gays?

***

After more than a hundred days of being held captive by Isis-inspired Maute Group, Fr. Teresito “Chito” Suganob was supposedly “rescued” by military forces.

Opapp Secretary Jesus Dureza broke the news on his Facebook wall, without any regard to what might happen to the other hostages left behind. Maybe Dureza didn’t want to be “out-scooped” by other government agencies circling around Marawi City.

Like my former editor at Mindanews, Carolyn Arguillas, I ask: “Escaped? Released? Abandoned? Rescued?” I ask the same questions because these are four vastly different scenarios. So, which is it? One might retort that the most important thing is Fr. Suganob is safe.

An assault ops on the mosque is vastly different from a rescue op for Suganob. Both have different scenario settings and different outcomes.

Still, if he escaped and you insist that you rescued him, that’s a whole different ball game, all together. That’s not information. That’s propaganda.

I could almost see another “rescue” of the rest of the hostages in the future when this administration stumbles upon, yet, another political faux pas.

My last question on this: Sirs, are you hard of herring, the red kind?

***

The Davao City Social Services and Development Office was only implementing a city ordinance that is supposed to curb human trafficking when they caused indigenes to miss their Saturday flight to join other “Lakbayanis” in Manila.

“The implementation of the Children’s Code of Davao is something that we always do (every day) and this is to protect our children from possible incidents of trafficking,” reads the statement of Malu Bermudo of Davao’s CSSDO on the incident.

The last time I checked, the Constitution trumps any city ordinance, all the time. Yes, freedom of movement and travel is guaranteed under the 1987 Constitution. More importantly, the children are not residents of Davao City. Why should they be required to secure a permit from CSSDO?

If that’s how it is in Davao City, I’m never flying out from that city whenever I have my kids in tow. Even if, say, I’m from General Santos City or Cotabato City.

And what’s with the problem of Cebu Pacific’s ground crew?

Interaksyon.com reported: “Even ground staff of Cebu Pacific, said Trenilla, ‘took a hostile attitude towards us when they learned we were attending the SOS conference, claiming that the children were only being ‘used’.”

Is it the airlines business now to know what you’re going to do when you reach your destination? Did the pilots of Cebu Pacific Flight 387 tell the passengers what they will do with the plane as it circled its way around Mt. Sumagaya back to Cagayan de Oro?

That’s right. It is none of your business. Your business is to take people where they want to go, period. Focus on that, Davao ground crew of Cebu Pacific, because I’m sure the passengers of flight 387 didn’t want to arrive at their untimely “final destination.”

The list

“There are three kinds of people in this world: 1) People who make lists, 2) people who don’t make lists, and 3) people who carve tiny Nativity scenes out of pecan hulls. I’m sorry, there isn’t really a third category; it’s just that a workable list needs a minimum of three items, I feel.” – Mary Roach, American author

AS promised, my column this week will be about the mystery of Digong Dada’s ever-changing list of narco-politicians or illegal drugs trade matrix or whatever it is now.

Don’t get me wrong. I, too, hoped the list would usher in an honest to goodness change. I thought the way the executive deals with politicians and technocrats who have been wheeling and dealing in the illegal drugs trade was about to change.

I bet everybody was as shocked as I was when Digong Dada started naming generals, judges, and politicians. When the President started bandying the list to the public eye last year, I thought, here’s a President who isn’t afraid to take on the cabals of corrupt bureaucrats.

However, when people started to inquire who helped the President draw up such list, he was suddenly withdrawn, secretive, and most often irked by the mere mention of such inquiry.

It didn’t help either that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau of Investigation admitted that they were not, in any way, involved in the preparation of such list as reported by GMA news online on Aug. 30 last year.

Then PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña (now Bureau of Customs top honcho), emphatically told a congressional hearing at the Lower House that they did not give any inputs which form part of the President’s list. NBI lawyer Henry Canapi, on the same congressional inquiry, sang to the same exact tune. Canapi said they did not submit any “subject personalities, politicians or otherwise.”

By the way, Lapeña doubled-down by saying he was unsure whether other agencies have been advising the President on the alleged drug lords in government, including the Philippine National Police.

Let’s fast-forward to the present. The question still remains. If PDEA, NBI, and the PNP didn’t help the President in drawing the list then who are these supposed intelligence consultants who helped draw up that list?

If the President’s list is to be believed, then how come the shady characters behind the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that passed through the Bureau of Customs weren’t on that list? Why is the President suddenly mum on the list?

Last week, he even advised his son to remain silent should the circus show, led by The Dick, summon him to explain the supposed role of the Davao Group in what could very well be the largest drug bust this administration’s war on drugs has ever carried out.

If the President’s list is to be believed, then why is he not helping the Senate committee investigate the butt-load of shabu that inexplicably passed through people who are highly motivated and passionate in ending the drug scourge that has gripped the nation?

As I have said before, anybody can draw up a list. Hell, even our emotionally detached, spectacularly inefficient, and grossly ineffective barangay chair drew up such a list. The bigots at our local church even contributed to the list. The list, I was told, is based on “common knowledge” which I take as a euphemism for grapevine or chismis.

I have a friend who is a member of a local intelligence unit. For obvious reasons, I will not name him. As he told me, he’d have to kill me if he gets “burned.” This friend showed me their list as well.

It is a list of local drug personalities who are under surveillance. It could have been a veritable kill list, he added. But in the wake of the incorrigible murder of 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos, he said they have to extend the time frames of their surveillance on these individuals. He said they wanted to be sure that when not if, they do “neutralize” these drug personalities they have more than sufficient evidence to do so. He added they will not base their decision on a Facebook post like what the Caloocan police did.

The list holds some familiar names. It has former city councilors, former mayors, and former house representatives in it. Curiously, the list even has a columnist in it, a very vocal supporter of his Excellency. My friend said they have been on to him for quite some time now.

Whether my friend’s list or that of the President are credible will remain questionable at best for as long as the people behind the drawing of such lists remain shady and unnamed. For as long as the process behind the drawing of those lists remains questionable, these will remain as such.

I repeat anybody can draw up a list. If I were to draw up such a list, I would list first all the people who have wronged me or pose a threat to taking away my power to draw up a list.

Just consider the quote above: Any workable list needs a minimum of three items. It doesn’t need due process, supporting evidence, or any modicum of rule of law. These three items, by the way, is a workable list. A list of things which we direly need in government right now.

Of satires and lampoons

“Political satire is ridicule dedicated to exposing the difference between appearance and reality in public life.” -Robert Mankoff

THERE’S another kind of news circulating on social media platforms but it’s not fake. Far from it. It’s satire news.

However, you have to read it in order to appreciate it. You can’t appreciate satire if you’ll only read its “headline.”

I’m bringing this up in light of Sen. Joel Villanueva’s Senate Bill 1492 or “An Act Penalizing the Malicious Distribution of False News and Other Related Violations. It is a serious law.”

“The passage of this bill will encourage our citizens, especially public officers, to be more responsible and circumspect in creating, distributing and/or sharing news. Addressing national and global concerns should not be made more complicated by false news calculated to cause disunity, panic, chaos, and/or violence,” the bill’s explanatory note reads in part.

It carries a pretty heavy penalty for any thinking Pinoy (pun intended) found guilty–fines ranging from P100,000 to P5 million, and one to five years imprisonment.

Based on this proposed law, fake news is defined as “an information causing or tending to cause panic, division, chaos, violence, hate,” and those “exhibiting or tending to exhibit a propaganda to blacken or discredit one’s reputation.”

Therein lies the problem. The definition is vague. What about political satire? Can the law make that distinction? It’s like the “no bomb jokes” in terminals and airports. What if I tell a bomb poem, or a bomb limerick? Technically, it is not a bomb joke but can the security personnel make that distinction?

Merriam-Webster defines satire as “a way of using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, or bad. It is humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, or society.”

Satire is like the jester speaking truth to the king and his royal court. Let me remind you we have some of the most close-minded and “pikon” people in this administration. What will happen to the likes of Professional Heckler or the Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines when Villanueva’s bill is passed into law?

The communications team of this administration, nay spinners, scares the bejeesus out of me. They have a vast mass of followers but there is no informed political discourse in their brand of punditry. They present so much information on social media and pass it off as true, and they have the money and resources behind each and every article they post. Methinks, without satire, the entire public discourse in the republic will collapse.

I can’t even understand why this administration’s supporters are not so receptive of satirical pieces when their principal is the embodiment of sarcasm–hyperbole and all.

Alison Dagnes, a political science teacher at Shippensburg University, got it spot on when she wrote: “Political (satire) is primarily the mark of the underdog. It’s essentially a complaint against oppression. It’s a complaint against the power structure.”

Satire sharpens critique.

‘Facebooking’

ABOUT a fortnight ago, a Facebook group account, Duterte Today, screen grabbed my post and shared this on its wall. For a Kagay-anon to be trolled by somebody from Metro Davao, I must say is quite flattering.

I had posted my usual mundane satirical post after aggressively hunting fake news articles and photos, which has been this administration’s hallmark by the way.

Anyway, I posted: “There has been a deluge of friend and message requests ever since I amped up my fake news hunting. Good luck with that. I don’t ****ing know you. Pfft.”

Duterte Today captioned its screen grab of my post with: “Char. Swerte mo nga umabot 15 likes post mo this time.”

It’s fine because I set the post to public, anyway. Also, the Duterte Today page has a username of @indaysara. If that is not flattering I don’t know what is.

Of course, I don’t think Davao City’s mayor and presidential daughter has got something to do about the troll-like screen grabbing but you have to appreciate the “down time” the people of Davao are paying for this kind of sophomoric social media attack.

I chided a friend in Davao for their city information office for having too much time on its hands while on the people’s employ. The asswipe must be reeling with its/his/her newfound power.

Sorry for the digression. What I really wanted to say is that the incident made me think of the past (cue in: harp)–when I joined Facebook, what I expected to get out of it and what it has become.

Have I, indeed, turned into a “like whore?” Have I let my Facebook account define the person I am supposed to be in real-time? Did I let my inert psychological need to belong rule over what I really am?

All these questions pushed me to look back into my Facebook history, hoping to find some answers or at least clues to the person I really am.

I first joined the Facebook social networking site in 2008. Yes. When Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin launched Facebook in 2004, it wasn’t called a social media platform yet. They meant Facebook to be about connecting people across the globe.

My circle of real-time friends then were still agog over Friendster. They thought it weird for me then to invite them to Facebook. Before that, I used Mirabilis’ ICQ social network.

It was really fun connecting with friends and relatives abroad or from across the country. We exchanged photos of how we look like at the moment.

However, all of that changed when Facebook became a weaponized voyeur’s instrument. It started with “lurker” accounts. People made a different account and followed the same people in their original account just so they could “lurk” on their friends. And when the 2010 elections came, lurker accounts became troll accounts. The rest, as the old cliche goes, is history.

But I will continue my presence in Facebook. I have been using it to vent my frustrations on–not for likes, mind you. It has become a sort of real-time, online, journal for me.

So, do I feel slighted with the Duterte Today screen grab? No, because I think we have different perspectives and agenda when it comes to going online.

To my dear readers (yes, all 243 of you), if you are also a Facebook friend, following, or even lurking me online please understand that you are in no way obliged to like, comment, or do anything. What I post on my wall is an expression.

It’s really nothing personal. It’s not about you.

It’s just me.

Hunting fake news (2)

“You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war.” – William Randolph Hearst, New York World owner

HERE’S the second and last installment of my series on hunting fake news. Purveyors of fake news almost usually also post accompanying fake photos to further bolster the “legitimacy” of their stories.

Fake photos?! It’s hard to imagine, right? It’s because you would think photographs are precise representations of events. Well, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in the last decade, photographs can be manipulated.

However, in this age of photoshop and other digital photo manipulation applications, you might find it surprising that photo manipulation is not actually new.

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It means photographs evoke emotions faster than an article can because it is, after all, visual. You don’t need to read anything. You just look at it and wham–emotions start to flow.

The quote above is an actual reply of Hearst to a cable message of his illustrator assigned in Cuba in 1897, Frederic Remington.

Hearst, for reasons only known to him, had wanted to ignite a war between the US and Spain. Cuba at that time had an insurrection against its Spanish colonizers. However, Remington cabled Hearst: “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here (Cuba). There will be no war. Wish to return.”

So when USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor less than three weeks since the cable message exchange, Remington illustrated the boat as it sank. Hearst wasted no time in using the illustration to foment war between the US and Spain. This was reflected in a phrase he popularized in his newspaper, New York World, “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!”

Spain had nothing to do with the sinking of USS Maine but Hearst made it appear in his articles that it was result of a direct attack of Spain against American forces.

Within three months, the Spanish-American war was raging hard. The Philippines, being a Spanish colony that time, had to be “conquered” by the US as spoils of that war. After that war, the US became a global power to contend with and ended Spain’s old-brand of imperialism.

In a way, bad journalism–in this instance, a fake photo–was the reason why the Philippines was colonized by the US. By the way, a small digression if you will. Hearst was caricatured best in Orson Welles’ magnum opus “Citizen Kane.”

It would have been dramatic that the “new world” conquered the “old world” except that because the war was fueled by a fake photo, it was nothing short of tragic.

Talking of tragic, here in the Philippines now, no less than the government’s communication team has joined in purveying fake news and photos.

The Philippine News Agency posted a story on how the military is having difficulty with close quarter battle in flushing out the Maute Group from Marawi City. I knew the correspondent who wrote the article, so I believed the article. However, the editors, in their incomprehensible wisdom, posted an accompanying photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

Not to be left behind, newly appointed Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Margaux “Mocha” Uson posted a photo of the Honduran police on their knees praying in the hopes of rallying support for government troops who are currently fighting the Maute Group in Marawi City.

When the fake photo was pointed out, Uson brushed off criticisms by saying the photo was mere symbolism of the point she was making or a “representative photo.” Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if her succeeding blogs will not carry any titles–she is already entitled.

They have since taken down the photo and issued an erratum of sorts.

As for my colleagues in media, either they be in private or government employ, I have this to say: If we keep on repeating the same mistakes in a chosen field for a considerable length of time then maybe it’s time to seriously consider another craft or trade. You’re not contributing to the well-being of the planet and your species.

Now that we have the history of fake photos out of the way, let’s discuss how to hunt for fake photos on social media platforms.

But before we discuss knowing what to look for in fake photos, I’d like first to discuss how photos are being faked.

1. Drawing or staging. Unlike studio or glam photography, photojournalists are not supposed to be “directing” a crime scene. The photo should be an accurate depiction of what happened. I have witnessed this once. A photojournalist, at he was back then, asked one of the protesters in a rally to move closer to where he was standing so he could capture a more “provocative” frame. This practice, by the way, is frowned upon by professional photojournalists.
2. Post production alterations. This is where photoshop or other photo editing apps comes in. Sometimes photojournalists would think a column of smoke from a burning building isn’t quite fluffy or big enough they’d clone that column of smoke and paste it on the same frame. There have been times also when photojournalists introduce another subject from an old photo and pass it off as one frame.
3. Inaccurate captioning. It’s quite unfortunate that people in this administration’s communication team have been fooling us with foreign photos with inaccurate captioning, as what we have been witnessing lately. We have also seen our “friends” on Facebook posting photos of bomb victims in the past and captioned it as happening (read: ATM) currently in Marawi City. As in news articles, the captioning the real date of when the photo was captured is also of the same import.

You can also always use Google’s “image search” feature if there’s something suspicious about a photo. I used this in the Vietnam war photo PNA used to pass off as happening in Marawi City. I felt the photo was so familiar but could not put my finger on it. So, I downloaded the photo, fed that photo in Google’s image search, and voila–it was a photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

If the photo is sent to you via email, you can check the details of the photo by accessing its metafile data. You access this by right-clicking the photo’s thumbnail in your file browser. A dialogue box will pop out. Left click on properties.

So, in spotting a fake photo you need to inspect the following:

1. Shadows. I summarize photography as the art of taming shadows and light. Look for inconsistencies in the subjects’ shadow in the photo. For example, if the shadow of a man in the photo is leaning at a 45 degree angle, every thing else in the frame should have the same 45 degree angle-leaning shadows.
2. Light source. Inversely from shadows, the light source of the whole frame should be global. The bounce of the light source on the subjects in the frame should be consistent with the shadows these set. This means the light source should be at the opposite end of the subject’s shadow.
3. Discoloration. This usually happens when a subject introduced to a photo is a clone of a subject from a different photo. If you can see discoloration on the edges of a subject in a photo (read: inconsistent color from the main frame), chances are the photo has been manipulated with a photo editing software.
4. Pixilation. This is akin to the presence of discoloration in a photo, except that instead of color inconsistency there’s inconsistency in pixels of the photo. This happens when the photo editor clones a subject from a different photo and placing it on a new photo without considering the image size (read: dots per inch or pixels per inch) of the photo the photo editor cloned it from.

Now that you know how to distinguish fake news and photos from the real ones, you might ask what am I to do with this new skill. You need to call fake news and photos out. As for those who are share-a-holics: Always check and verify what you share on your wall.

Like the fair warning I posted on my wall weeks ago, I warned friends, relatives, acquaintances, and colleagues that I will be more aggressive in pointing out shared fake news and photos on my Facebook account. I will screen-capture any friend’s post sharing a fake news, and post it with a stamp “Fake News.” Plus, I blocked their accounts from mine.

It’s all worth it, I promise you. Ever since I amped up my hunting for fake news and photos on my Facebook account and called these out for the garbage that they are, the news feeds on my wall have starkly improved.

There are no more fake news except for sporadic trolling on the threads of my posts and a deluge of friends and message requests. But, hey, don’t forget you have full control of your social media account. Like I said in my post: Good luck with that. I don’t [expletive] know you.

Now, I’m enjoying Facebook again.

Uncreative non-fiction

“Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.” -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi party propagandist

I WOULD like to thank the Philippine News Agency for making this column a helluva lot easier to write by posting not one but two fake news articles. Now we have two articles to dissect which will be easier to separate truth from Goebbels-like propaganda.

I was thinking of sharing with you, my dear avid readers (Yes, all 250 of you), the things I learned at a seminar I attended last week. The seminar was about how to spot fake news. I prepared notes on the subject when PNA posted those fake news stories on their website.

This means that I might have to make this a two-part opinion piece. I will discuss and share tips on how to hunt for fake news on my second installment. But for now, let’s first tackle PNA’s latest foray into blatant disinformation.

Unfortunately for us, PNA took down the story and edited the fake news articles.

But good for us because many in the mainstream media (this paper included) screen grabbed the articles before PNA took down the article.

That’s good news for us because now, at least, we know PNA and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) still feel “hiya.” Well, they should be, since their salaries are taxpayers’ money.

On May 15, PNA ran a story entitled: “95 nations in 3rd UPR convinced no EJKs in PHL.” The story, which ran for five days, claimed that 95 member-states who were present in the 27th Universal Period Review of the of the United Nations Human Rights Council believed in Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s report that there are no extrajudicial killings in the country.

Newly appointed Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson wasted no time in posting the erroneous article on her blog on May 18. So the “crusading” blogger–who branded mainstream media “presstitutes”–now became an official “presstitute” of this administration by passing along an inaccurate article.

Vera Files checked its blog and found that as of May 20, at least 8,000 netizens had reacted and more than 900 gullible ones shared it.

The international council took notice of the erroneous article that it posted on its official Twitter account on May 19: “#UPR27 Clarification: To our best knowledge, 95 states were not convinced that EJK is non-existent.” The UN body then posted the full webcast of the UPR session.

The government news wires service took down the story on May 20 (may hiya rin pala) but not before posting a replacement story which is still inaccurate and also served to bolster Cayetano’s claim that the UPR was impressed with his report on the human rights situation in the country. The replacement story bears the odd title: “PHL’s human rights situation commended at UPR.”

So what did really happen at the 27th UPR? To answer this. I went to the international body’s website, www.upr-info.org. Here are samples of the real recommendations of the member-states:

• Further consolidate its national human rights infrastructure, including support to the Commission on Human Rights. (Egypt)
• Continue to improve its capacity to uphold human rights, including by increasing the Commission on Human Rights’ (CHR) fiscal autonomy and organizational capacity, as well as further efforts to prevent human rights violations by Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippines National Police personnel. (Australia)
• Continue to work as a matter of urgency to ensure that there are mechanisms to completely eliminate torture and extrajudicial killings, and to intensify its efforts to carry out investigations and prosecutions on extrajudicial killings and punish those responsible. (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Conduct independent and impartial inquiry in relation to all enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions and that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to justice. (France)
• Work towards the complete elimination of torture and extrajudicial killings, and intensify efforts to carry out the prosecution of such crimes. (The Holy See) For the newbies: The Holy See means The Vatican.
• Further capacity building, such as through human rights education targeting government authorities, particularly law enforcement agencies, and an effective implementation of a national oversight mechanism. (Japan)
• Continue the work to build up the capacity in the area of human rights protection, including through strengthening the national human rights institution. (Russian Federation)

That last one should be a doozy, considering that President Rodrigo Duterte is visiting Russia this week.

For good measure, I also audited the database on the UPR website. I found that extrajudicial killings were mentioned 18 times. Human rights violation was cited 81 times in the 191 recommendations and 74 of which are recommendations that seek “general action” in the categories of action that need to be done. A general action is No. 4 in the action categories of the council. The action categories are: 1 – Minimal action 2 – Continuing action 3 – Considering action 4 – General action 5 – Specific action.

So there. Good luck with your lies and disinformation, PNA and PCOO.