You know why “activists” in the Opposition camp are not going anywhere nowadays? It’s because they keep whining about “fake news”. Fake news this, fake news that. To them, all the Philippines’ problems of today can be summarised in two words: (1) “fake” and (2) “news”.
Reading the news used to be a fun activity… until “journalism” was turned into an activist slogan.
This is a disturbing developing trend. It highlights an epic failure of imagination in the Philippine Opposition. Because rather than elevate the quality of their arguments, members of this Opposition have put up a comfy straw man to beat upon — the Fake News Strawman. They seem to think that by continuously shrieking bloody “Fake News!”, the Internet Police would show up and handcuff somebody. This is the fantasy Fake News Crybabies live by, the idea that they are entitled to be saved from the clutches of the Fake News Strawman.
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Perhaps it’s a Catholic thing. After all, the the loudest members of the Fake News Crybaby crowd fit a certain profile — they are usually self-described “decent” people who go to church every Sunday and spend weekend afternoons in a Starbucks cafe tapping out tweets from their iPads. Not only are they waiting for the second coming of Jesus, they are also waiting for some kind of social media messiah who will deliver them from the “evil” of “fake news”. Indeed, in their infinite wisdom, the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) actually did declare “fake news” to be “sinful” and even issued a memo with a list of websites the faithful are banned from visiting!
Holy Inquisition Batman! Perhaps this is the reason Fake News Crybabies feel so uppity in their righteousness. The Catholic Bishops are on their side!
People who suffer from the Juan Tamad Mentality tend to see only what they want to see.
This is classic Pinoy Juan Tamad mentality. Juan Tamad is a Filipino folk character who, in his most well-known adventure, comes upon a guava tree bearing ripe fruit. Being too slothful to climb the tree and take the fruits, he instead decides to lie beneath the tree and let gravity do its work. In the same manner, Fake News Crybabies would rather whine about “fake news” than step up and create compelling content online to compete with content they do not like. Herein lies the problem with the way Fake News Crybabies think — they believe content they see online that they don’t like is “fake news”. And this is the reason why they are now in the midst of a crisis of relevance. Because of this Juan Tamad mentality, they have totally copped out from the epic Game of Thrones that is playing out across the Philippine social media jungle and just opt to lay on the ground and wait for salvation.
Indeed, many of the once-prolific and erstwhile respected bloggers of today’s Opposition now spend their days issuing disjointed 140-character pieces of drivel on Twitter. Rather than write out comprehensive articles on their ideas and arguments, they would rather schmooze with their cliques of mutual-high-fivin’ amigas in their little echo chambers in social media. It is hardly surprising that they have become so inbred; so tardic as a result of their unhealthy diet of retweeted retweets of their comfort zone ideas.
Where does one go from here? Might I suggest that the brighter bulbs amongst the Fake News Crybaby mob step back, re-evaluate their social circles, and get themselves a new set of friends. This is tough, of course. An ability to be self-aware enough to step outside of yourself and regard your situation from an outsider’s perspective is a cognitive skill most Filipinos lack. But it is a skill that can be learned. All one needs to do is start with having an open mind. Once you get past the difficult task of opening your mind, you will begin to see just how small the square you had been using to frame your thinking really is.
[NB: Parts of this article were lifted from the Wikipedia.org article Juan Tamad in a manner compliant to the terms stipulated in the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that governs usage of content made available in this site.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
It was the Opposition, who used ” Fake News” and “Fake History”, to grab power …Cory Aquino, and her EDSA revolution was Fake News and Fake History. They even have a declared Holiday for the Fake History. They have also a shrine, for the Fake History. Ninoy Aquino, Jr. martyrdom, is Fake News, that become Fake History…The Manila International Airport is named, after this Fake Martyr. The Rizal Memorial Coliseum is named after this Fake Hero.
Ninoy Aquino, Jr. and Cory Cojuangco Aquino, even have their pictures printed in our currency
They declared themselves, saints, martyrs and heroes.
So, they put themselves on pedestals, to be worshiped, by ignorant and idiotic Filipinos…I have never seen such Nonsense, Narcissism and self Adulation , in my life by a family. They want people to idolize them…
Now, their followers are complaining about Fake News…They should look at their “heroes” , “saints” and “martyrs”…they rode on Fake News and Fake History into power…Not looking on the SMARTMAGIC and HOCUS PCOS, voting machine, on which facilitated their election winnings, including the election winnings of their puppets, like Leni Robredo, Trillanes, Porky Drilon, etc…
These YellowTards can complain to their hearts’ content…but Fake News and Fake History, together with Fake Winners in the 2016 election, and previous elections, were their handy works …
@898hyden. The problem with the great majority of Anti Cory, Anti Pnoy and Anti Yellow is they glorify so much the Marcoses and GMA that they look more to the political non-partisan as propagandists against the Aquinos.
@Ngek Ngek :
We have all the problems of putting these politician scammers on their Pedetals…it is like “pataasan ng ihi”, who can glorify better their political idols.
Most of these politicians get their votes and followers, by enhancing their accomplishments; and hiding their weaknesses /crookedness…
After these people are elected: ” wala para silang ibubuga”…all were bad/good acting only…election promises not kept…graft and corruption…tremendous incompetence…DAP, PDAF, Pork Barrel Bribery, Typhoon Yolanda Fund theft, Mamapasano tragedy, SMARTMAGIC, HOCUS PCOS, Hacienda Luisita fraud, Theft of National Gold reserve, etc…
They even used government money, Fake News, Fake History, the churches/religions, to promote themselves, for their self adulations and narcissism…
We are all Willing Victims of these scammers…
Continuing to play the victim is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Blaming others for your station in life will indeed make you a victim but the perpetrator will be your own self, not life or those around you.
@343Toro007. I do not know if any of the writers and commenters of this blog getreatphilippines Orion Perez and Jimi Hendrix included have any idea of the connection of the relatively non- violent EDSA86 and the setting by Marcos of the Snap Election two days before Halley’s Comet perihelion on February 9, 1986 and the very idea of edsa86 was placing the specter of death in front of the doorsteps of the ruling and opposing elites.
There will always be power abuse by whoever wields power precisely because these elite do not see the imminence of death or punishment upon themselves !
Uhm… maybe it’s because “fake news” is a serious issue that misleads people? And don’t forget, even the pro-Dutertes also cry “fake news” (or more commonly “bayaran,” which is an indirect way of saying that the news is fake because the writer was paid to skew the info) to anti-Duterte news as well. There’s lots of fake news going on, both from the pro-Dutertes and anti-Dutertes. Don’t act as if only the antis shout out the phrase.
The worst fake news that has brainswahed a generation of Filipinos is the so-called glorious EDSA86 forced into the minds of the young and innocent conditioned to believe that corruption is a way of life and nothing can be done about it.