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.)
