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[av_heading heading=’ PEOPLE POWWOW | For whom the trolls troll ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
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ONE of the many old meanings of the noun troll is that it is a bunch of ropes with lures and hooks for fishing.
In a parallel sense, the same word used as a noun or a verb in the social media today depicts “fishing” for allies, notably in the realm of politics. Hence, people who troll for somebody aim to win followers for him. They have come to be known as “Dutertards”; their counterparts on the other side, “Yellowtards.” It is not my intention here to join the fray. Let this just be an analysis.
I am in no position to say how such tags have developed, but they are no doubt unpalatable and objectionable to those so tagged. The “tard” in both coined words is short-cut for “retard” – anybody who has not normally developed mentally.
The “Dutertards” are admirers of President Rodrigo Duterte while the anti-Duterte “Yellowtards” are supposedly those of former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III and the Liberal Party. The obvious error here, however, is that not all who detest Duterte are pro-Aquino.
There are chatters who lump Aquino and Duterte together as circumstantial “misfits” in the presidential shoes. Aquino won in 2010 out of public sympathy over the untimely death of his mother, former President Cory Aquino.
By his own admission, Duterte had never ambitioned the presidency. He was initially projected as a reluctant candidate waiting for public clamor to change his mind. In time, “insistent public demand” pressured him to run because no other candidate had as much track record in effective governance as the outgoing mayor of Davao City. When finally he filed his certificate of candidacy for President beyond deadline, he did so through “substitution”; a former barangay captain Martin Diño had backed out of the race.
An avalanche of publicity projected Duterte as the underdog braving a field bursting with the well-oiled machineries of other presidential candidates, namely outgoing vice president Jejomar Binay, Mar Roxas, Sen. Grace Poe and the late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
By the end of the campaign period, Duterte had maximized use of the social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) showcasing him as the knight in shining armor on a mission to vanquish the illegal drug industry.
There was very little mention in both the mainstream and social media of his senatorial candidates – former Manila councilor Greco Belgica, former Interior secretary Rafael Alunan, former Quezon City representative Dante Liban, and former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director Dionisio Santiago – all of whom would lose.
Duterte was himself the least advertised presidential bet in the mainstream media. But this served his image well as the poorest candidate in the mold of Ramon Magsaysay.
Remember when Magsaysay, an auto mechanic, ran and bested re-electionist President Elpidio Quirino in 1953? I do. I was three years young then but old enough to recall “Mambo Magsaysay”, the heart-tugging radio jingle that helped him win. The first stanza of the march was:
“Everywhere that you would look
Was a bandit or a crook;
Peace and order was a joke
Till Magsaysay pumasok! “ (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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