FILE PHOTO: San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora shared on Facebook a photo taken during the Sentro Artista awarding ceremonies, held on November 10, 2023, at GH Mall, Greenhills, San Juan City. He was joined by his wife Keri, First Lady Liza Marcos, PCSO Chairman Mel Robles, Jay Ruiz, QC Congressman Arjo Atayde, Art Atayde and Sylvia Sanchez, Joseph Lumbad, and QC Councilor Geleen Lumbad.
By DIEGO MORRA
It is perplexing, to say the least, that Jay Ruiz is still with the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) and Mel Robles is still the head honcho of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) despite the promise of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself to weed out the corrupt and the incompetent in government agencies.
Similarly, he retained Eduardo Ano as national security adviser and chief implementor of the counter-insurgency campaign under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) despite the complaint of Comelec chairman George Garcia that the task force sent him a threatening letter demanding that party-lists led by Bayan Muna be scratched from the May 12, 2025 election. Worse, Ano’s NTF-ELCAC has consistently lost its trumped-up cases against activists and part-list politicians simply because it does not know the law, does not respect due process and manufactures evidence 24 hours-a-day, thus crippling shattering their attacks. It had actually come to a point that prosecutors and judges fear the NTF-ELCAC wants to have its own kangaroo courts.
Ruiz is still engaged in some internal squabbling at the PCO, where some local tyrants have dominated recently, with unsavory deals cut with the PCSO and other agencies with close ties to these tyrants. Ruiz has also made a caricature of the destructive disinformation campaign being run by the Duterte cult and also by the troll army of the Marcoses. He is neither here nor there in defending freedom of the press and would like very much to have Congress corral press freedom rather than tackle the problems posed by social media platforms themselves, whom Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton described as consumed by the profit motive and not lifting a finger to control the Frankenstein monster that they have unleashed.
Ruiz could just as easily have explained that on the question of disinformation, the only issue is the truth. When “influencers” and trolls twist facts, propagate lies and try to control the minds of the incredulous, the state can easily the levers of power to shut down their social media platforms. Relying on Facebook, X, TikTok and other platforms to do so is like wishing for the moon. Facebook and its rivals are fattened checkers and the more disinformation they dish out, the better, and they want various jurisdictions to do the job for them. For this reason, it would even be wise for Ruiz, if he cares, to look into the recent decision of a Brazilian court to hold social media platforms responsible for the content that they carry and profit from.
Nothing much has moved on the murders of provincial journalist Johnny Dayang and former broadcaster, transwoman and known human rights advocate Ali Macalintal who was gunned down while inside an acupuncture clinic in General Santos City on June 23. Makalintal was the former broadcaster of RPN XDX and former deputy secretary general of Karapatan SOCCSKSARGEN, where she helped organize and participate in various fact-finding missions in Mindanao. In 2017, Macalintal also stood with the Moro and Lumads during the Lakbayan ng Pambansang Minorya, standing in solidarity against the rampant attacks and militarization in the Moro-Lumad community at the height of Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao.
Macalintal had previously been threatened via text message in February 2019 after she was confronted by a masked man and told to stop her activities. National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chairperson Jonathan de Santos also recalled working with Macalintal during a safety training in 2002. He said her case should not be excluded from the list of attacks on journalists. The Dayang family has been furious about the police claim that the murder case was “cleared” when the alleged assassin, who was supposed to have been imported from Cavite, has not yet been arrested.
Robles, on the hand, has been linked to railway projects after wending his way into the corridors of power through his ties with a fundamentalist Catholic organization. He figured in light rail projects, along with his associate, resigned PCO secretary Cesar Chavez, and is rumored to be close to e-sabong kingpins. Robles and Ruiz submitted their courtesy resignations to Malacanang but for reasons unknown, they were retained while Housing and Urban Settlements Secretary Jerry Acuzar was not, along with other Cabinet secretaries. Robles was investigated by no less than Sen. Raffy Tulfo about allegations that he could change the winning lotto combinations and cut a deal with the company of a wealthy businessmen for the coverage of e-lotto, with the latter getting a commission even when the project was only to be tested for a limited period. Lotto outlets also complained about the tickets sent to them, PCSO inefficiency and the scrapping of contracts with lotto operators.
The public will be forever grateful to Sen. Raffy Tulfo if a complete report on his investigation into Robles and PCSO is released and whether the graft case filed against Robles before the Office of the Ombudsman had moved. The people were glued to TV when Tulfo initiated his inquiry and they would certainly ask whatever happened to the investigation. It is actually the duty of every senator and congressman to render reports on their inquiries and official functions. The Senate is supposed to be independent. It must release the results of the Robles probe, never mind if he is supposed to be very close to the kitchen cabinet, or even to the pantry that is always stocked with caviar and expensive wines. Incidentally, is Robles monitoring the case of the missing 34 “sabunbgeros”?
