Doublespeak

By Artchil B. Fernandez

Bongbong Marcos (BBM) cancelled himself and his family. This is the most surprising development in the recent days.That he did it before an international audience added shock to the bizarre.

The 14^th Edition of the International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC) was hosted by the Philippines this week.  This is first time the country served as the venue of the event. BBM addressed the conference as keynote speaker.

In his speech BBM emphasized the importance of transparency and access to information. He then highlighted the role of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Program by announcing a “media and information literacy campaign” to support it.

“The FOI Program has greatly advanced the campaign against misinformation and disinformation in the country. A problem that we in the Philippines also suffer from as I guess all of us do around the world,” he told the audience. “Like everyone here, we too recognize as a matter of principle that fake news should have no place in modern society,” he stressed.

The Media and Information Literacy Campaign BBM said will be part of the effort of his administration to combat “fake news.” It “shall be digital, multimedia, and youth-oriented,” he added.

It is astonishing BBM made these public declarations. BBM vowed to fight “fake news!” This is a sick joke, and a creepy one.

VERA Files Fact Check, a third-party fact checking partner of Meta, found BBM to be the chief beneficiary of “fake news” in the 2022 presidential election. This is based on the fact-checked articles by VERA Files from January 1, 2021 to December 10, 2021.

The “fake news” that generated the most views (21 million) according to the fact-checker “was an April 2020 Facebook (FB) video that…carried false, misleading, and inaccurate claims about the Swiss bank accounts that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos opened in 1968 to hold ill-gotten assets.” The second most viewed “fake news” was “a video falsely claiming that the human rights violations committed during Martial Law “were never proven in court.”  The video garnered 8.5 million views.

“Fake news” was crucial to the victory of BBM in the last election. Most of the “fake news” about him was positive the study of UP Diliman associate professor Yvonne Chua revealed. “We see a substantial volume of false or misleading claims about the presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in which case these are largely positive, in his favor, seeking to promote him,” Chua said.

“In the case of Mr. Marcos, [these incidents of disinformation] would be like endorsements that are spurious from various sectors, from celebrities, or heads of state who are said to have endorsed him when that is not the case – and of course, a lot of historical inaccuracies that have been revived or resurfaced in connection to his father, the late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos,” Chua further explained.

“Fake news” is one of the handmaids of BBM’s victory in the 2022 election.

If “fake news” is a menace to society according to BBM and “should have no place in modern society” then he and his family have no place in the civilized world. If we cancel “fake news” as BBM exhorted, then he and his family should be cancelled.

For decades, the Marcos family waged a relentless campaign of disinformation, misinformation, and historical distortion. The main goal of the campaign is to change history and erase the dark past of the Marcos family and the Marcos dictatorship. Only by whitewashing history can they conceal the terrible crimes they committed against the Filipino nation.

The quest for power is not the only reason why the Marcoses wanted to distort history.  They wanted to evade responsibility for their wicked deeds. This only shows they remain unrepentant of their horrible sins and had no remorse for their appalling acts.

Troll factories and farms of the Marcoses polluted the digital world creating false images of the Marcoses. After all, “perception is real, the truth is not” is the guiding mantra of the other half of the conjugal dictatorship, Imelda Marcos. If not for “fake new,” the return to power of the Marcoses would not have been possible.

In this year’s Independence Day celebration BBM also spoke of “corrosive, political and social conditions that make the nation not as free as we would like to profess and to believe — such as poverty, inadequate economic opportunities.” He vowed to “strive to remove [these] unfreedoms.”

BBM failed to mention that his family considerably contributed to these “unfreedoms.”  The corruption of the Marcos dictatorship and systematic looting of the national treasury during the 20-year rule of the Marcos family were responsible for the impoverishment of the country. The luxurious and lavish lifestyle of the Marcos family was built at the expense of the poor and destitute Filipinos.

What Filipinos witnessed in the past weeks was BBM’s doublespeak at its best. He spoke with a forked-tongue and BBM truly excelled in double talk. Deception is the forte of the Marcoses and conjuring it is BBM’s main talent. With Marcos senior as the paragon, Marcos junior continues to spew lies and deceit. He speaks one thing but actually means another thing. His words sow confusion and are intended to deceive, scam, and mislead people.

But no amount of double talk and trickery can conceal the truth. Trying as hard as he can, BBM cannot and will never slay the truth. Lies and falsehoods are no match to the facts.