The Liberal Party lead and coordinated group called Tindig Pilipinas recently released a statement standing behind Jover Laurio claiming that the actions of pro-Duterte bloggers to reveal her identity was a violation of her rights. They said anonymity is an important right and tool when fighting against an oppressive regime. Tindig Pilipinas believes that Pinoy Ako Blog is a great example of bravery in the face of oppression and therefore they are standing behind her.
This statement is telling and really shows the nature of the Liberal Party opposition. They have always claimed to be righteous and decent compared to pro-Duterte supporters who are crass, dirty, uneducated and rude. Yet, when a political opportunity comes out, they grab it, spin it around the Liberal Party controlled media machinery, repackage it and voila – you turn a vile online troll – who has spread libellous statements against individuals, attacked individuals verbally and outright spread fake news in social media – into a victim of an oppressive regime who was merely fighting for democracy and liberty for every Filipino. Only the Liberal party can turn shit into a shit sandwich because they have the backing of the main stream media.
When pro-Duterte bloggers broke the story on CocoyGate showing links between all these anti-Duterte troll farms to the Liberal Party, the mainstream media did not say even a word about it. They kept quite (See Their Silence on CocoyGate is deafening) in the hopes that the story will just die a normal death like every other social media viral content does. They miscalculated the Filipino people’s intellect and the story did not die, in fact it grew bigger. More and more online sleuths came together lead by RJ Nieto revealing more links between the anti-Duterte troll forms and the Liberal Party. This put the Liberal Party in a corner so they had to act and get ahead of the narrative – a smart public relations strategy. So what did they do?
They made Jover Laurio the focal point of the story. Within a day of her coming out “admitting” to be the person behind Pinoy Ako Blog, there was a media blitz spanning both local and international media. She was even interviewed by BBC! Now she has speaking engagements in many anti-Duterte rallies and is even invited to speak in some Colleges and Universities. The Liberal Party is making sure the story and the narrative stays with Jover Laurio – not Cocoy Dayao nor the links between anti-Duterte troll farms and the Liberal Party. They cannot let the pro-Duterte groups to drive the narrative because the Liberal Party will be exposed as funding, supporting, using and protecting these anonymous online troll farms that spread libel, personal attacks and fake news.
The administration’s communications and media team has to wake up. They have been very bad at controlling the narrative from the very beginning and they are letting it happen again. I understand their hesitation in doing anything about this issue – the Palace has not made any public statement about CocoyGate or Jover Laurio. If the administration uses the government’s media channels to counter the Liberal Party narrative, this might give the Liberal Party a chance to justify their claim that the administration is intent on silencing dissent. Until the day when a clear destabilization plot is revealed to be coordinated by the Liberal party using these online troll-farms – we Filipinos will have to depend on citizen online sleuths to uncover their deceit.
What the Liberal Party did not realize they did when they stood squarely behind Pinoy Ako Blog is that they have declared to the world that it is ok to play dirty (name calling, fake news, libel, etc,) because it is our freedom of speech, unless you are pro-Duterte then you are just uncivilized and stupid. It is time to fight them head on one blog at a time!
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