Social media reports so, but traditional media is oblivious
IF the Yellow Cult still believes that Vice President Leni Robredo is their great hope for recapturing power, they should squarely face the facts. When they do so, the inescapable conclusion is that she is politically dead, and what we see now is a mere ghost who cannot accept her demise.
Look, the rally which drew a sizeable crowd Sunday of at least 5,000 patriots, billed as âPalit-Biseâ is the first ever in our history undertaken to demand that a vice presidentâfor chrissake, a vice president who is supposed to be just an idle spare-tireâgive up her post. This is unprecedented and historic.
One reason for such a demand is that she allegedly cheated to win the elections last year. The more important reason though is that she is just hated so much, perhaps for her unending tirades against a popular President.
But what triggered the Sunday demonstration was her video sent to the UN gathering that was full of lies and falsehoods, intended to denigrate President Duterte but which painted the countryâof which she is Vice Presidentâas a land ruled by killers where corpses litter the streets.
In politics, one episode that triggers so much outrage against a political leader is irreparable. And Robredo isnât in a government post which she can use to repair that damage.
If she hadnât angered Duterte so much that she wasnât fired as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, perhaps she could have portrayed herself one day as having given hundreds of thousands of poor Filipinos decent housing. That would have salvaged her from her UN boo-boo, and her reputation as too eager to be President that she bad-mouthed him, and in the process painted the country black.
In politics, out of sight is out of mind. Robredo doesnât have any government position she could use to keep her face appearing in the newspapers. People have already gone tired of her bad-mouthing the President. She isnât even fiery and passionate enough to do soâas demonstrated in her UN video in which she had that what-me-worry smile as she spoke that thousands of Filipinos were being killed in the streets.
Only if jailed
The only way she could become a high-profile figure would be if she were jailed, but I donât think Duterte would give her that opportunity.
The gradual disappearance from the public mind of Senator Leila de Lima (and Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla as well, whom many thought would have a shot at the presidency before they were jailed) also doesnât make that kind of jail-me-plan too attractive.
What is very interesting in Robredoâs political demise is that in this case, her ruination as a political force is so crystal-clear in social media, but of which traditional media is oblivious.
The last time social mediaâs political assessment contrasted with that of traditional media was in the months before the last elections, when the former reported the groundswell of support for Duterte, which the latter didnât. The pro-Roxas Philippine Daily Inquirer for instance portrayed Duterte as a candidate so corrupt (his alleged secret bank accounts) and so much a killer (through his Davao Death Squad) it was impossible for him to win. It consequently focused its fire on candidate Jojo Binay, who had been the frontrunner in 2016.
Four of the five broadsheets reported Sundayâs âPalit-Biseâ rally only as minor news stories and in their inside pages. Only the Manila Times reported such a major historic event in its front page, with an accompanying photo.
In the biggest social media platform Facebook, Robredo has been cut up with a hundred thousand blades, and a favorite topic by netizens ever since her message to the UN. Even with the Yellow Cultâs deployment of trolls, she has been buried in thousands of critical posts, with only very few, mainly the internet-only website Rappler, defending her.
By social media, I just donât mean Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or similar platforms. I consider as social media the internet versions of newspapers, whose articles are now mostly spread and read though posts in Facebook et al.
Because of this, newspapersâ reachâespecially as the price of their printed version has become beyond ordinary peopleâs capacityâis now determined mainly not by the number of copies of their print versions sold.
Instead, their reach is now mainly through the âviewershipâ of their internet versionsâ articles. This are spread mainly through Facebook and other social media platforms. This has occurred in this country only in the past several years, when smartphones became cheaper because of Chinese-made phones and consequently ubiquitous, allowing people, even without computers to log in into their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Outrage against Robredo
Our newspaperâs analytics of its internet version conclusively show the outrage against Robredo.
âViewsâ (readers) of my column âRobredo lies to the world, shames the nationâ broke all of Manila Times records, having 200,000 views (and 49,000 âlikesâ, as of yesterday), larger than my two other âbest-sellingâ columns which were during President Aquinoâs term that each had 180,000 views. News articles, âVP Robredo sidesteps #Nagaleaks revelationsâ and âLeniâs Fil-Am backers plotting vs Duterte,â had 65,000 and 92,000 views, respectively. My colleague Antonio Contrerasâ column âThe tragedy of Leni Robredoâ so far is his most-read piece, viewed by 65,000 readers.
If that were âconvertedâ into mainstream media format, Robredoâs political destructionâby her own hands, or rather mouthâwould have been front-page news, even newspaperâs banner headlines for days.
Another indication of Robredoâs political demise is out of 50 regular opinion writers in broadsheets, only one went to her defense over her UN tirade: Philippine Daily Inquirer Rina Jimenez David. Even David wasnât really sure of her convictions, and merely quoted a statement by âPilipina,â which she claims is a womenâs group, but which you canât even find any information on through Google. David also merely played the woman card, writing in her column that âour tough-talking macho officials have trained their guns so far on women.â What?
With the outrage against her, if Duterte for some reason has to vacate his post before 2022, Iâm afraid Robredoâs assumption to power would probably be blocked by some form of uprising. That would lead our country to a very explosive episode. She should find in her heart the patriotism to resign now, to relieve the country of the worry over such a nightmare scenario. In her heart of hearts, anyway, she doesnât believe she really won the elections for vice president.