DESPITE the pandemic, my concerns remain rather beyond the basics.
Truth to tell, I never really panicked about food, or toilet papers, during this pandemic.
I panicked a little bit about the delay of vaccine availability.
And I was a little disappointed that my travels were limited.
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But all told, my worries involved selling my house, charting my next 10 years, acquiring several properties, and thinking about businesses post-pandemic.
If you review my purchases this year, a large part of it will still be books from Amazon.
And if you check my diary, my days since March 2020 were filled with movies, movies, movies.
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I’ve read a lot during this pandemic.
Watched a lot of movies, and even binged on documentaries.
Earned knowledge that I plan to use when I write books, and textbooks, for the Filipino learners.
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I also kept you company by writing my columns that come out Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
This time last year, I was a Facebook sensation as I tried to single-handedly squash and crush the teen porn writers on Wattpad.
But mostly, I feel that I’ve cheered most Filipinos up.
Made them laugh, think, laugh again.
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My humor is warped.
But that’s me.
And that’s what is most fun about me.
I don’t try to please anyone, and so I just trust my instincts to be me.
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My social media exposure is mostly hit-or-miss.
I’ve been loved, I’ve been hated.
I’ve been adored, I’ve been despised.
In the era of cancel culture, I’ve been “cancelled.”
And I put ‘cancelled’ in quotation marks because I really cannot be cancelled.
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The poor people can only cancel me if they have the power to give me money with their support.
If I don’t depend on them for monetary gain, what can their cancellation do to me? Haha.
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My social media engagement is basically for my fun and pleasure.
I enjoy causing heart attacks and panic disorders in people who are not strong enough.
I want to cause stress and distress in people who put their well-being online.
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Excuse me, but I’m not online to feed your low self-esteem.
I am there to destroy you—if you are so stupid to think that the online ‘likes’ will make you a better person.
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I do not rely on social media for my sanity.
I mean, that’s why I write for Panay News.
And that’s why I continue to write good literature.
Whatever happens to my social media engagement, I got plenty of backup to pick me up.
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I will not be a hypocrite so I will admit that I enjoy the attention I get on social media.
In social media, publicity—good or bad, is good publicity for me.
I think the term is “branding.”
Whatever I’ve done in social media, I’ve done to establish my brand.
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What’s ThePSN brand?
Firstly, to earn that name—ThePSN, with the determiner ‘The’—that is awesome.
The tri-letter code PSN is already a great achievement.
But the ‘The’ before it is just phenomenal.
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And then, there are the hashtags: #ThePSNofPhilippineLiterature, #PSNlangmalakas.
I don’t care much for PSN lang malakas.
My strength or force can weaken.
But ThePSN of Philippine Literature?
Now, that one I can take to the grave.
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So far, on the second year of this pandemic, ThePSN as a brand has established that:
1.) I am fearless.
2.) I do not backdown.
3.) I am invincible because I am logical, and very well informed.
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That no one can refute me is the netizen’s conclusion; not mine.
That stupid people don’t stand a chance against me on social media is also proven by my staying power.
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That I toy with students and young people, or that I pick a fight with people smaller than my own size is sick—is an understatement.
An oversimplification that I can live with.
So what? Haha.
They want to pick a fight with me; I just don’t allow myself to lose.
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I cannot lose in social media.
What I do well, I plan carefully.
I pause before I click.
To say that I pray before I click is even truer.
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I have a communications consultant.
I have a lawyer. Haha.
How can the simpletons and the ignorant be blessed?
What chance do they have against me?
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As a friend in the Ilonggo media has said many times online: I know how to tight walk the thin line of libel and literature, of defamation and decorum.
In my 21 years (celebrated in mid-September 2021) of writing for the Ilonggo newspapers, I’m still here.
With no libel suits ever filed against me.
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Sure, people may talk behind my back, but that’s all they can do.
Meanwhile, my brand will live on!
ThePSN brand will live on!/PN
