Kill journalism.” It was a bizarre phrase in the middle of a bizarre rant that punctuated a bizarre series of press conferences. “I’m challenging you guys. Kill journalism,” President-elect Rodrigo Duterte told reporters. “Stop journalism in this country. If you’re worth your salt, you should accept the challenge. Pagka hindi, mababa na ang tingin ko sa inyo. Para kayong takot (If you don’t, then you look pathetic and scared).”
In a span of days that saw him call on people to kill drug lords, dismiss Vice President-elect Leni Robredo for fear of hurting Bongbong Marcos’ feelings, catcall GMA News reporter Mariz Umali, cuss out the UN, justify some media killings, call a murdered journalist a “son of a bitch,” and warn reporters “Don’t f**k with me,” we were treated to the full Duterte experience, a chilling preview of the next six years. Some insist that this is just classic “Mayor Duterte,” an authentic public figure who shoots from the hip and speaks truth to power. The suggestion is that it’s the national and foreign media that should adjust and get used to his #RealTalk.
By now, journalists are already aware of the adjustments required in covering Duterte. Reporters have flown to Davao for a President-elect who refuses to leave the comforts of his province to cover press conferences that start in the evening and sometimes last until the wee hours of the morning just because the man cannot operate with a normal human schedule. While news organizations have struggled with cussing on live telecasts and the stylebook limits us from printing expletives, they have generally tried their best. Even when international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders appealed to the local press to boycott Duterte after his semi-defense of media killings (saying that most of those killed are corrupt anyway), media outlets here continued to cover him. If anything, Duterte was the one who distanced himself, calling off his evening press briefings and keeping non-government coverage far from his thanksgiving party in Davao.
Autocratic Tendencies
When the world has to adjust around someone’s peculiarities, that person is usually a monarch, specifically the Game of Thrones kind. But while Duterte does exhibit some autocratic tendencies, he strikes me as another kind of person, the type whose whims make grown adults fold in surrender. Duterte is basically a child. When he hears something he doesn’t like, he throws a hissy fit. React to his tantrums, and he doubles-down, calls people names, turns into a potty-mouth. On a health-related question that apparently offended him, he said he wished he had asked the reporter: “How is the vagina of your wife? Is it smelly or not smelly?” Offensive statements, when coming from his mouth, are supposed to be brushed off as just “Rody being Rody,” which would be fine if he didn’t have the sensitivity of an insecure tween. Noynoy Aquino, too, was a child, the way he constantly whined and disregarded criticism. But Duterte is a different, more volatile kind — he’s a schoolyard bully, the type that can grow up to be a juvenile delinquent, or worse, a dangerous president.
And like a child, it seems he has trouble expressing himself. A common defense after any logical reaction to a typical Duterte tirade is that critics often read his statements “out of context.” The phrase has been uttered so much over the past few months as though context were some magical fairy dust that can make any outrageous statement acceptable. Context is important, but with Duterte it often gets lost in the thicket of obscenities and bluster that makes it hard to tell what he’s even talking about anymore (the question of whether or not he means what he says adds another layer of ambiguity to the mess). Take the “kill journalism” quote, for instance. When asked what he meant by it, he explained that he was daring the media to boycott him. He couldn’t have simply said that; he had to infuse the added context of violence by choosing the word “kill,” knowing fully well that the verbal vortex began with a question on media killings. Perhaps it’s an effort to obscure the weirdness of his dare, for how can it be cowardly to continue doing one’s job despite being bombarded with invectives?
This tendency of his is unfortunate because he has mourned media killings before. He called the murder of Davao journalist Fernando Lintuan in 2007 “a tragedy for press freedom and peace and order.” This makes his refusal to categorically condemn media killings during that press briefing all the more perplexing. Days later, he finally did, saying: “I do not condone nor tolerate killing of journalists regardless of the motive of the killers or the reason for their killing.” But this was a prepared statement forwarded by Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo, not something said during a live press event, where Duterte is supposedly at his most authentic.
Rabid Supporters
Maybe it’s not the media that he hates so much as communication itself, since he looks genuinely uncomfortable explaining himself. However, there’s no mistaking who his rabid supporters hate. After accusing media of bias for most of the campaign season, they are at it again with “Ako ang media ni Duterte” (“I’m Duterte’s media”), a meme that went viral this week, showing pictures of supporters claiming to be the impartial journalists giving voice to their beloved hero.
And this brings us to the crux of the problem: Duterte’s cult of personality is so large that he feels he can get away with anything. He slouches on his reputation of being authentic and honest and treats criticism as an affront to truth itself. To his rabid supporters, the most trustworthy source of truth is not ABS-CBN or GMA; not The Philippine STAR or PDI — it is Duterte himself. If journalists contradict him, it must mean that their profession has failed as a truth-seeking endeavor.
The biggest tragedy here is not that hordes of Filipinos think this way; it’s that the highest official in the land endorses this thinking. By being belligerent towards media, Duterte is reinforcing the Dutertroll belief that journalists are not to be trusted. This distortion is what makes a meme like “Ako ang media ni Duterte” possible, an outrageous claim that what constitutes real journalism is not the imagined “bias” of journalists but the very real bias of a Duterte supporter. The underlying message is that, if you wish to be a journalist under a Duterte presidency, you cannot be critical of Duterte. Freedom of speech is only valid when exercised by the people who agree with Duterte (vox populi) or by Duterte himself (vox dei). It’s okay for him to offend anyone, but God forbid anyone offends him (or his pal Bongbong). And if you have a problem with that, p — — mo.
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