Medyo nagulat ako sa pagpaslang kay  pro-BBM vlogger Mima Alicia — the first and hopefully the last social media murder — gayong ang mga ka-DDS ang matagal nang feeling threatened na baka ipa”gurgur” sila ni “vangag”, to quote DDS vlogger Maharlika who is the most foul-mouthed of them all.  Alicia was small-fry relatively, gaya-gaya nga lang daw sa kanya, say ng Maharlika. I guess the difference is, she’s right here where the action is, and she certainly gave as good as she got pagdating sa bardagulan. One of her last posts na napanood ko, where she was asking why Zuleika and the VP’s staff deserved their own fridge and catering, special treatment much? among some other allegations such as delaying tactics, were  actually on point, esp because Zuleika was suddenly dropped from the witness list on July 13, (coincidentally?) after five senator-judges — one Cayetano, two Villars, Robin, and Imee — were seen leaving the trial hall, perhaps to talk strategy with Zuleika mismo who was waiting to be called? Whatever.That Mima Alicia was killed a few days later, which the DDS have been celebrating because she deserves it daw, with pointed references to alleged death threats by her ka-BBMs instead, or something like that, is so nakaliligalig.  

GRAVE THREATS & THE DUTERTES
Katrina S.S.

On the Duterte-Marcos algorithm on Tiktok, Mima Alicia was one of my favorite female vloggers. I think it was the fact that she was using a language and tenor that would otherwise only be heard from the men, across the political spectrum. Yes, it wasn’t exactly my language, but I appreciated how it was breaking a certain barrier and surprising even the men she would talk to. Half the time, natatawa rin sila at the audacity.

More importantly, she was talking politics in a way that highlighted its ironies — without doing a sermon about what irony, or sarcasm, means. In fact, she was rarely doing sermons, or hard selling anything. Instead her engagement with issues was generally bound to what politicians were doing, how they were doing it, what they were saying. She wondered aloud about why anyone would support Sara Duterte whom she separates from her father Rodrigo — they are not the same, she insisted. Her assessment of the Duterte dynasty was generally based on having lived recent history (from 2016 onwards) — that same history that the Duterte propaganda (as maintained by vloggers to vice president to senators) has consistently tried to rewrite and erase, which is what made her kind of commentary interesting, if not important.

That she has been killed is easy to tie to the anti-Duterte commentary she was doing. In the past, she had posted about going to the police against a Duterte supporter-SMNI regular who had issued grave threats against her and other pro-Marcos vloggers.

That Duterte propagandists and supporters cannot help but celebrate her killing is a reminder of the violence that the Dutertes stand for. They gleefully celebrate the murder of their purported enemies. They claim to be the ones who are oppressed and whose rights are being violated, but they — the Dutertes and their loyalists — are the first to oppress and violate the rights of others. They will claim that these are just words that they say, and don’t mean anything, but look at them gloating now, watch them populate comments sections with wanton threats against others they fashion as enemies.

This is why when I say there IS a culture of violence, and violence IS cultural, I mean it across the board. Not just your violent video games in the hands of kids who have no privilege of guardrails and protection, I mean it in terms of what we have allowed to be said, out loud, on social media and digital platforms, like threats of violence mean nothing which, as the vice president said, are non-existent when there is no proof that it is being executed.

I will be the last person to defend Alicia for whatever words she said that offended Duterte loyalists. I do know this: Tatay mo karton, uuwi sa garapon. That is not a threat.

But saying “patayin na lang ang mga ‘yan” referring to pro-government vloggers; and “sisilaban” sila at ang kanilang mga pamilya. Those are grave threats made in the name of the Dutertes. Let that sink in.

To call what they do, between the more vile and vicious of Duterte and Marcos vloggers, “bardagulan” is disingenuous. It makes it seem like it’s nothing, it’s just words. It might just be that if we didn’t believe that words have meaning and that there are repercussions when we use this kind of tone and tenor and language to engage. It seems like nothing until someone like Mima Alicia is dead, killed in front of her house, as she tried to run from her killers.

#CultureOfViolence #ViolenceIsCultural #polarization #politicalvloggers

Gets ko naman the grumbling over Sen Chiz Escudero as Presiding Officer of the Impeachment Court — the “forthwith” history and all — pero grabe naman ang panlalait kay Senate President Win Gatchalian for giving way to one who is more equipped to deal with the legal acrobatics expected from the VP’s defense panel, not to speak of the contentious Cayetano sibs.

Kesyo pangit daw ang optics of the SP sitting up there with the PO doing nothing. I beg to differ. It’s reassuring to have Win up there on that rostrum, watching and listening from a vantage point that gives him a commanding view of the entire assembly, allowing him to observe body language and subtle interactions and whole-room dynamics that the Presiding Officer would be too occupied to note.

At Erap’s impeachment I remember SP Nene Pimentel seated beside CJ Hilario Davide, an arrangement signifying Pimentel’s continued Senate leadership, while Davide focused strictly on running the judicial proceedings.

Worked for us then, works for us now.

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Gatchalian to focus on legislative work as Escudero presides over trial https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/