ONE of the more unfortunate things that stood out during the first year of the Duterte administration was the series of blunders committed by its communications team.
This is the group that is supposed to make the President’s message clearer and more palatable to the people. But no—it only succeeded in confounding a presidential image that is already difficult to begin with.
The pressures, we imagine, are immense. Imagine having to speak for a president whose colorful language matches no other, and whose speech is winding and emphatic more than it is sober and organized. The communication team itself gauged that just two of every five statements Mr. Duterte makes must be true—all the others are hyperbole. They also told the public to apply creative imagination in determining what the President really means. Hardly encouraging, and even more hardly productive given all the things that need our direct attention.
And now this communications team counts, as one of its high officials, a social media “influencer” with millions of followers who claims her job is to fight fake news.
Unfortunately, “fake news” is as yet loosely defined. And her boss, instead of telling her it is unacceptable for their office to spread inaccurate information or yield to symbolism, just came up with the brilliant idea of hiring editors to manage her personal blog.
This same communications team also supervises a news agency that has passed off a false story, and a misleading picture, as part of the news.
Finally, it has elevated text messaging as an acceptable form of official communication, as what happened when an employee of the government television network learned about her dismissal through SMS, curiously punctuated with a “God bless.”
God bless this nation, indeed, if we have to endure five more years with communicators who bungle the job and do the opposite of what they were hired to do.