QUICKLY dispensing with the usual pleasantries to her trademark “friendships” and paeans to the parol makers and sponsors at the Giant Lantern Festival 2025 launch, Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag segued to lamentations against mainstream media.
A totally bizarre turn of
talk, indeed a spite to the spirit pervading the Sept. 4 occasion at Robinsons
Starmills, complete with the mall’s traditional Christmas tree lighting rites
and gift-giving to those in need, young cancer warriors in this instance.
“Hindi na natin alam kung
ano ang paniniwalaan natin sa lumalabas sa mga Tiktok, Facebook. Hindi
natin alam kung ano ang totoo kasi po, ang dami-daming fake news. Ang
dami-dami pong fake news ang lumalabas…,” opened Calaug’s spiel.
In her next breath,
invoking Divine Providence: “Mabuti na lang po, pinagkalooban tayo ng Diyos na
maganda at medyo malawak na platform para po maipahayag naman po ang
kakotohanan sa side natin.”
That platform the Good
Lord blessed her with: TikTok, the very stage whence her political career took
off, spinning off her daughter’s in the same app.
A self-contradiction: Caluag
calling out fake news in TikTok first (two paragraphs up), then citing the same
platform as God-given for her to propagate truth, her truth that is.
Bewailed Vilma that truth:
“Nakakalungkot pong isipin kasi na may mga media na one-sided lang, hindi
kinukuha iyong isang panig.”
Hence, her pining for the
halcyon days of journalism in this season of hope: “Ako, ang wish ko po ngayong
Pasko, maibalik po yung dating mamamahayag, maibalik iyong tapang, patas na
pamamahayag, iyong hindi sila biased. Para naman mabalik po ang respeto natin
sa dating mga mamamahayag na may tapang, may dangal, may dignidad, at
kampante tayo na maririnig natin ang tamang pamamahayag at hindi lamang po ang
isang panig.”
Caluag did not even have
to wish now for that. If only, she made herself accessible to open media
interviews instead of restricting her side of issues on her TikTok. If only her
seasonal, read: pre-major event, media conferences set limits on questions to
be asked solely on the event. If only she gave her own prejudgment of
mainstream media but a little rationalized thought.
“Nakakalungkot na ngayon
po, mayroon pa rin na naman mapagkakatiwalaan na mamamahayag pero marami nang
hindi. Kaya nga po ngayon, hindi na natin alam kung ano nga ba ang totoong
nangyayari at sino ang nagsasabi ng totoo,” in distress, thus Caluag, partly of
her own making.
Her ululations against the
media no more than Vilma’s trying-harder, second-rate copycatting Vico Soto.
Absent, the evidentiary “resibo” of identified journos.
Pushing harder her case,
Vilma made a general indictment of media: “Kasi po ngayon ang mga media
kukuhanan ka lang nila tapos ii-splice nila yung gusto lang nila ihayag, iyong
parang magmukha kang katawa-tawa tapos natatakpan na ang katotohanan.” Again,
citing no specifics.
Her very words instantly
refreshing that scene at the Senate probe of contractors in flood control
anomalies, of the embattled Rolls Royce umbrella-enamored madame proclaiming: “When
I said DPWH, because prior to that we were in local government, so ang hirap
makasingil sa local government. They spliced the video that was taken of
me and just mentioned the DPWH.”
Hard-put to do a valiant
Vico Sotto, Vilma ended up a ridiculous Sarah Discaya.
(Lest we be charged of
splicing, the photos in this commentary are composite stills from the livestream of
the GLF 2025 launch by CLTV-36.)
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