Inside Philippine politics & beyond

That September 11 fiasco of a “press con” in Malacañang

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By Raïssa Robles

On September 11, the birth anniversary of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, President Rodrigo Duterte was supposed to hold a very important press conference at 3 pm. Or so we were told, the day before.

Instead, what transpired was a gruesome comedy where Duterte and presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo held a “tete-a-tete” on a disjointed set of topics, with the watching media forbidden from asking questions.

There are several theories why it turned out like this.

If this Garrie was tweeting something against Duterte and calling for a revgov, I bet the trolls would crucify him as a foreign meddler and call him all sorts of names. But since he is pro-Duterte, they welcome his tweets and retweet them.

Now, there’s a story going around that Duterte had intended to announce a state of emergency, only the military wouldn’t play along, leaving him irritated and empty-handed. Especially since earlier, the military had refused to follow his order to arrest Senator Antonio Trillanes.

There were confused reports that the press conference was cancelled, or that it would just be a speech: finally when it started, 30 minutes late it was just the two officials talking on a bewildering range of topics.

So when finally, the TV cameras showed Duterte seated across Panelo, I found it very funny and disturbing. I felt like I was watching a press conference being conducted in Moscow or Beijing.

The sentiments of many reporters toward this press con was captured by whoever photoshopped this:

As a member of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) I could have gone to the event, but I chose to cover it by watching it on TV, and live-tweeting the conversation.

There are some journalists who would rather NOT WATCH a Duterte press con because it raises their blood pressure. I am one of those who continue to watch because it’s part of the job.

However, sometimes I do vent my own opinions freely on Twitter, a privilege I retain because I’m a freelance journalist. And so I tweeted this:

Those covering the event were also asked to submit questions beforehand. That is rarely done, except when the President wants to meet the press but his relations with the press have gotten so bad that his handlers and crisis managers want to control the questions and his answers.

It was in the course of my live tweet that I reported Duterte pronouncing the word “struggle” as “stragol”.

Duterte’s  accent was particularly thick during his tête-à-tête, so to capture that flavor, I thought I would spell as pronounced.

Besides, I never ever thought of Duterte as a Visayan, although I knew that was his origin, but his family had left the area way way back in order to migrate to Mindanao.

I always thought of him as the long-time mayor of Davao City.

It never ever occurred to me that some of those on Twitter would be offended by it. They thought I was making fun of the Visayan language. And looking down on Visayans as well as Mindanaoans. I never realized that pronunciation was a sensitive issue.

I do now.

The tête-à-tête for me, it was a new low in Palace-press relations. The journalists were being used as mere props

Journalists always have to look for new angles to write about. The only hard news angle in that tête-à-tête was the “resignation” of National Food Authority head Jason Aquino.

The press conference raked Trillanes once again. Old news angle. Except for the fact that the President was adamant that his predecessor should have personally signed Trillanes’ grant of amnesty.

What does the September 11 comedy show tell us?

It might suggest that we have a President who is not fully in control of the situation. There was a rumor that, after the tête-à-tête, Duterte declined to preside over a cabinet meeting, saying “hindi ko na kaya.”

The Palace’s reaction has been to keep saying there’s no problem with Duterte’s health, everything is fine. This strongly reminds me of how, during the Marcos dictatorship, his propaganda minions desperately tried to hide the fact he was suffering from lupus and was undergoing dialysis. In the absence of information, rumors will fly. Maybe the Palace should remember that, when they stage the next episode of the Sal and Rodi show.

Comments

  1. Raissa Robles calls herself a journalist?!?! If She were a journalist worth her salt, she should not make fun of other people’s language or dialect. And an apology? No apology can correct a mistake that hurts other people, the whole group of our Visayan brothers and sisters.

    When I was about 7 years old, and watching a western movie, I laughed at the way the American Indians’ way of talking. My older sister heard me and I got tongue lashing. Shae said. “You should NOT laugh at others peoples’ way of talking; because your way of talking is just as funny to them.” I never forgot her advice.

    And to NOT know that most of the people who migrated to Mindanao are Visayans? Gosh! Where did you study your geography?

  3. @netty, papaano kung tinanong ng mga bisayang nurses si dough ng ” dog how is your bebe (bisayang pronounciation:baby)? mabuti naman at hindi alam ng mga canadian ang ibig sahibin ng bebe . lol

  4. There are also some of our countrymen who are irritated be the way some of their countrymen speak English with American or British twangs. They say that those speakers are exaggerating. Take for example that Ben Tulfo whose accent was noticed by Senator Gordon when the former appeared in s Senate hearing. Tulfo way was really exaggerated. I must say though that speaking a language is like putting a pair of shoes on. The left shoe is for the left foot and the right one for the right. The shoe is different from the Filipino bakya which can be put on by either left or right foot. The point is, speak the language likt it should be.

    • You should hear the English of the CNN Phil correspondents and anchors. I really don’t know where they learned their English. The anchors are worse; they read the tele-prompters like the are in a race to reach the period. Anchors should speak slowly and clearly. Borromeo and Rodriguez are the worst. But I like Webb, Andolong, Mercado, and sometimes Hontiveros who lapses into the fast talking anchor.

  5. Hi Raissa, this just shows you really are a good person, admitting minor or major mistakes and sensitive to fellow pinoys as to their accent and the intricacies of the nation’s different dialects.

    You already apologized, that is enough.

    I want to share my experience about this when I was still working at the hospital here in Toronto with some VIsayan co -workers.
    A guy named Doug kept on complaining about some ladies, calling his name, Dog or Dug. He says why are those ladies calling me Dug, I am not a dog, that I kept on LOL.

    Little did he know that those ladies are Visayans and they were pronouncing his name with thick accent that it came out like they were calling him a dog,,, LOL again.

    Well, my daughter in laws are from Visayas, that sometimes I do hear my own granddaughter saying ticold as in tickled. Hahah. I easily corrected her when and if I hear her. Funny.
    Some things are not worth to be angry about, but our own GMRC dictates doing the right thing.

    Cheers, RISSA, HAHAHA, JOKE ONLY .

    • On this pronunciation thing, we are not native speakers so we can’t pronounce the way native speakers do. It does not matter what part of the Philippines you are from, there will always be mispronounced words. That is because of regional accent. And it carries over when one speak English. Secondly, phonetics plays a factor. It is how it was taught to a person. The person will imitate.the sound that was taught and and will make that sound. Thirdly our alphabet phonetics is different from native speakers phonetics. Even Filipinos who have livedvin the US for quite some time cannot stiĺl pronouncevsome English words like native speakers. Then key to better pronounciation is imitating the correct sound and make the mistake and learn how to correct it. Just my 2 cents.😊