Kudos in order for well-run Palit Bise crowdfunded Luneta rally on April 2 2017!

Pinoys must get over their belief that journalists should be fair. They’re not fair and they never will be. Whenever information is being filtered through a middleman, bias and vested interests are unavoidable. Only the degree of bias will vary. Objective journalists are like unicorns. They don’t exist.

The solution to media bias is not to lobby for the middleman to change, but to remove the middleman. Use direct channels of communication. All the necessary tools are now available on the internet.

Recent proof of this was Jimmy Bondoc’s crowdfunding call for the Palit Bise rally. Without any announcement on mainstream media, Bondoc raised something like P2.5 million in 3 or 4 days. All it took was one message on Facebook that went viral. This is absolutely phenomenal.

I personally didn’t think it was a good idea to hold another rally so soon after the one in February, but congratulations are in order for the organizers of Palit Bise. I’ve watched some of the videos and I must say they’ve created a new “best practice” for conducting political rallies. The foresight to do crowdfunding and keep the trapos out of the picture was brilliant.

The mix of speeches was great. I liked Gina Lopez’s videotaped speech. Spontaneous, no script, just straight from the gut. Her colegiala accent is much heavier than Leni Robredo’s, and it’s a real colegiala accent, not a put-on accent like Robredo’s, but every word made an impact because it was authentic.

The musical selections were fantastic. I haven’t listened to Pinoy songs in a long time. I’m not sentimental but I was very moved listening to the modern, nationalistic songs. It was like watching the Filipino regain his soul after losing it to the yellow mafia for the last thirty years. Or maybe the Filipino never really gave his soul up to the yellow mafia, the mainstream media only made it look that way.

Seriously guys, put those performances in a DVD or put them on iTunes and that can be another crowdfunding effort to raise more funds for the Oust Robredo project.

There’s a long way to go. Right now there’s a sword hanging over the head of every Filipino, and it can drop any time if something happens to President Duterte and Robredo is still there. What if he slips in the bathroom? What if he chokes on his monggo soup? The only thing protecting the Filipino people from the yellow mafia right now is one 72-year-old man. I hope to God he will be enough.

But you know, my trade is risk management, and we’re trained to prepare for all eventualities. As early as now the Palit Bise team should organize a transition committee in case an actual revolution becomes necessary. Talk to the Duterte children. People will follow their lead if something happens to the President.

I hope it never comes to that. Rodrigo Duterte, for all his faults, is the best hope we have for real change in the motherland. I want to see him live to at least 100 years old. My gut says he will.

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