Merong mga tao na nasa gitna – mga malalaking vlogger na mayroong napakaraming sumusubaybay kahit na hindi nila ikinakahon ang kanilang sarili na kakampi o kalaban ng gobyerno.

Sila ang mga boses sa gitna, ang mga vlogger na nakahanap ng kanilang komunidad sa isang mundo sa internet na nagkakawatak-watak ang mga tao.

Sa documentary na ito, sinundan ni Rappler reporter Rambo Talabong ang tatlong mga vlogger. Masalimuot ang pagitan ng mga para at laban sa gobyerno. Saan sila pumoposisyon?

Panoorin ang buong video sa Rappler.

Must Watch

DOCUMENTARY: Ang Bagong Media ng Bagong Lipunan

– Rappler.com

9/11: The Philippine Connection tells the story of the plot that was tested in Manila and later came to fruition in 9/11.

Why is it important to us Filipinos? The extremist ideology that spawned the leaders of the 9/11 attacks and lives on in terror networks all over the world is the same ideology that runs through the homegrown terror groups in the Philippines and in the region until now.

Watch 9/11: The Philippine Connection for an in-depth look back at the turbulent decade that reverberates into our own times.

Rappler received permission from ABS-CBN to air this documentary. – Rappler.com

Since its construction in 2000, Masungi Georeserve has become a haven for endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna.

While the founder and staff of Masungi have preserved the area for years, the threat of illegal encroachers remains a challenge to this day. It’s a challenge that its forest rangers have long accepted.

In this documentary, Rappler tells the story of Masungi founder Ben Dumaliang, his daughter Billie, and Kukhan Maas, a park ranger who almost lost his life guarding the conservation area. – Rappler.com

Host/narrator: Iya Gozum
Writer/producer: Nick Villavecer
Production specialists: Franz Lopez, Jeff Digma
Video editor: Emerald Hidalgo
Supervising producer: Beth Frondoso

By noon of June 30, 2022, Robredo stepped down with no regrets, fulfilled that she and her team at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) achieved the goals they set for themselves. She also looked back at her presidential run in the 2022 elections, which inspired a massive volunteer movement that defied traditional campaigns in the Philippines.

Robredo lost the race, but she did not truly feel defeated.

Rappler trailed Robredo during the last three days she spent at the Quezon City Reception House, which served as the OVP’s headquarters during her six years in office.

Watch Leni Robredo’s final days as vice president. – Rappler.com

Producer: Mara Cepeda
Production Specialists: Bryan Jeff Digma, Edrian Kagahastian, Errol Almario
Video Editor: Jaene Zaplan
Graphics: Nico Villarete and Alyssa Arizabal
Supervising Producers: Beth Frondoso and Marga Deona

And it was a colossal “rock.” Under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, human rights suffered unprecedented setbacks that could only be compared to another dark era in Philippine history, Martial Law under the despotic President Ferdinand Marcos. 

By his own estimate in 2018, Gascon said around 27,000 were killed in extrajudicial killings during Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.

In 2017, congressmen loyal to Duterte reduced the commission’s annual budget to P1,000 or approximately $20. That move to debilitate the commission was thwarted by the Senate. 

Gascon kept chipping away at this gigantic rock that demonized human rights. President Duterte famously said in a 2018 State of the Nation address, “Your concern is human rights. Mine is human lives.” 

That statement, uttered by the highest official of the land, further alienated the Filipino people from the concept of human rights, that is at its core about the quality of life of humans. 

In 2020, he again told policemen, “I don’t care about human rights,” then told them to shoot addicts, because “all addicts have guns… even if you don’t see a gun, just go ahead and shoot him.”  

Gascon was undeterred in pounding the rock. CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit says the government’s “wanton disregard for life” fired up Gascon’s passion. 

A student activist who played a huge role in the EDSA uprising 36 years ago, Gascon saw the rise in the dead body count as a repudiation of our country’s democratic past. The Philippines ignited the flame of People Power across the world in 1986 as one of the first countries to depose its tyrant through a bloodless revolution.

Pounding the rock, he was unfazed despite the lies and vicious personal attacks Duterte inflicted on him.  

“Every single strike, every moment whether in times of victory or frustration, what we do every day will make a difference,” Gascon said.

In this documentary, Rappler, in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation For Freedom – Philippines, tells the story of Gascon’s legacy in the fight for democracy and human rights. – Rappler.com

Children like Issa Bautista and Ivan Gutierrez, Grade 2 and Grade 3 students respectively, woke up early for this special day. After nearly two years, they could finally wear their school uniforms to physically meet their classmates and teachers. 

Issa and Ivan were only two of the 40 grade school students in Sitio Longos who attended the pilot run of limited face-to-face classes – the first of two batches. Wearing their face masks and face shields, they attentively listened to their teachers’s lessons.

This is the imagery of education in the new normal. Inside the classroom, plastic barriers separate the learners and the teachers – one meter apart. It’s a preview of what’s to come for thousands of other Filipino students in the country who have yet to physically go back to school.

Longos Elementary School is located in a far-flung community in Alaminos City. Surrounded by salt farms and fish pens, it was precisely because of its location that it was selected as one of the 100 public schools that have been allowed to reopen.

Inaccessible by car, visitors have to walk for around 1.5 kilometers or ride a habal-habal or motorcycle to go here. During high tide, residents ride a small boat to go in and out of the sitio.

Rappler visited the community during the opening of limited face-to-face classes, where we met some parents and children who excitedly looked forward to this historic day. After all, the Philippines is the last country in the world to reopen its schools.

There is a common thread among parents in Sitio Longos: Many of them have not finished school. Issa and Ivan’s parents, for example, only completed high school and elementary school. After that, they took up jobs as fishermen, fish vendors, and salt makers.

The little education they had made it very difficult for them to process their children’s learning modules during the height of the pandemic. They ask the same question: How could I teach my children something I barely even know?

In this video, we followed the journey of two families and a teacher in Sitio Longos to understand what the opening of limited face-to-face classes in their area means to them. – Rappler.com

Hours before his assassination in what was then the Manila International Airport, Aquino knew the danger to his life of his homecoming to the Philippines. He had been in exile in the United States for three years.

“If it’s my fate to die by an assassin’s bullet, so be it,” he told journalists while onboard China Airlines Flight 811 – the flight that would eventually be his last.

Before his tragic death, Aquino was not only known as the staunchest critic of former president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos. 

Filipinos knew him for his indomitable spirit. He told kababayans in Los Angeles in 1981: “I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying for? Is he not a coward who would yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown? Is a Filipino more comfortable under an authoritarian leader because he does not want to be burdened with the freedom of choice? Is he unprepared, or worse, ill-suited for presidential or parliamentary democracy? I have carefully weighed the virtues and faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for.”

Shortly after Martial Law was declared, Aquino was arrested and endured long periods of solitary confinement. In 1975, he went on a hunger strike to protest his military trial. He suffered a heart attack in his cell in 1980 and was allowed to leave for the United States.

A journalist at 17, Aquino’s wisdom and intellect reflected in his interviews and speeches, even up to the hours before his assassination. 

Rappler compiled some of the late senator’s most notable soundbites from archive footage and documentaries so that Filipinos continue to remember Aquino’s heroism and his contribution to Philippine democracy.

Note: Rappler could not get access to the speech “Is the Filipino dying for?” that is quoted above. Our apologies for not being able to include it in this video essay.

Watch the full video on this page and on Rappler’s social media channels. – Rappler.com

Produced by Nick Villavecer

I immediately saw 26-year-old Ana Patricia Non, the woman of the hour, wearing a dark lavender sleeveless shirt and shorts while carrying a megaphone. Non, whose simple act of kindness sparked a nationwide movement, is the organizer of the Maginhawa Community Pantry.

At the time, she was handing out bananas to everyone, including me. She asked, “Kumain ka na ba?” I haven’t even introduced myself to her yet, but she was already offering me food. 

“No, not yet,” I wanted to say (I was starving), but before I could answer, she already handed me a piece of banana. That simple gesture made me see why she’s now a community rock star.

Play Video

Just the day before, I was watching her in a Zoom press conference, where she said that the temporary closure of the Maginhawa Community Pantry hurt her because many more families could have received help if not for the baseless red-tagging claims of some government forces against her.

“Masakit kasi natigil kahit isang araw lang, kasi isipin mo, ilang pamilya, ilang meals sana iyong ihahanda ng pantry natin (Stopping operations hurts when you think about how many families we could have helped),” Non said.

On the ground, some residents who didn’t know about the temporary closure still lined up on Tuesday as early as 4 am.

Josephine Bitara, 58, was one of them. 

A wife seeks ways

Bitara, a housewife and a resident of Barangay San Vicente, sought relief at the Maharlika-Mayaman Street Community Pantry. She needed to get free food because her husband has just lost his job due to the pandemic. That makes them two in her family jobless. 

Asked if she had something to say to the government, she said: “Dapat hindi masamain ng gobyerno dahil tumutulong na nga sila eh tapos binibigyan pa nila ng ibang kahulugan. Dapat hindi gano’n, dapat tumulong na lang o lalo nilang tulungan.”

(The government should not see these efforts in a negative way because these people are helping us. They’re just giving these actions a different meaning. It shouldn’t be that way. They should just help too or help the organizers even more.)

Contrary to the “pasaway” narrative that some government officials continue to hurl at the poor, the residents who lined up followed social distancing, which stretched the line further to the adjacent street. They were there simply because they were hungry.

Compassion knows no color

I took a video of the long line – from the first person on the line to the last – and all of them were patient enough to wait for their turn. And, no, they didn’t hoard the items from the cart. They took just enough items for themselves, knowing that others also needed food on their tables.

After my interview with Josephine, she showed me the items that she took: a small kilo of rice, a few bundles of vegetables, some pack of noodles and canned goods – enough to last them a day or two.

The donors I talked said everyone should set aside any political leanings during these times. Compassion knows no political color – or distance.

Father Arnold Abelardo, a priest from Nueva Ecija, travelled all the way to Quezon City on Wednesday to drop off the donations of farmers from his province. The farmers, he said, offered to give their harvest for free for the beneficiaries of the different community pantries in Metro Manila.

“Sa gitna ng trahedya, sa gitna ng pangangailangan, ang dapat na manguna ay pagmamahal – pagmamahal sa Diyos at syempre sa, kapwa,” he said. (In the midst of tragedy, amid a time of need, the thing that we should all aim for is love – love for God, and of course, love for others.)

And that’s what Non and the movement she sparked exemplify. 

At the re-opening, we asked her how she’s feeling after the red-tagging incident. Non admitted being concerned about her safety, but stressed she has not done anything wrong. Non posed a challenge to her critics: Why look for motives when you can just volunteer and help? – Rappler.com

The case study, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and Rappler, analyzes hundreds of thousands of Twitter and Facebook posts directed at Ressa from 2016, when President Rodrigo Duterte took power, to 2021.

“The goal is to pound you to silence, right? So, at the beginning, they were all messages about corruption. ‘Barayan! Bayaran! (You’re a paid hack!) You are corrupt! You’re paid to do this!,’” Ressa says.

The study finds that almost six in every 10 attacks against Ressa on Facebook and Twitter were designed to undermine her credibility, mostly done by associating Ressa and her work with the terms “lies” and “fake news.”

Over four in every 10 of the attacks against Ressa from both platforms targeted her “at the personal level – often viscerally.” 

“Maria really does sit at the intersection of viral disinformation – what we might call networked misogyny – and also press freedom erosion in a country run by a populist strongman leader,” says Julie Posetti, global director of research at the ICFJ.

Watch the special report “Maria Ressa: Pushing back against online violence” on Tuesday, March 23, at 8 pm on this page and on Rappler’s Youtube channel. – Rappler.com

READ: State-led and coordinated: ICFJ dives into online attacks vs Maria Ressa

The palace is Malacañang, and the person looks every inch the man returning to his rightful place, reclaiming his legacy.

This man is Bongbong Marcos, and that dream-like sequence was part of the many vlogs he posted on his YouTube channel in 2018.

Since the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986 toppled the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Marcoses have been working their way to the national stage. In 2016, Bongbong Marcos ran for vice president, a position that could have easily made him president by now – based on Duterte’s previous remarks that he would have stepped down if Marcos had won.

But he lost – not only once, but thrice – to opposition candidate Leni Robredo. 

A political strategy?

In an interview with Rappler, historian Leloy Claudio says that undermining the electoral system of the Philippines is one of Marcos’ biggest mistakes. 

“Sa tingin ko, kaya niya ginawa ‘yun, kaya siya nag-propaganda war, claiming na dinaya siya noong 2016 is parang ngayon, ‘pag tumakbo siya ulit, pwede niyang gamitin ang narrative na, ‘Nadaya ako, kaya dapat manalo ako this time’,” Claudio says.

(I think he did the propaganda war claiming that he was cheated on in 2016 because if he runs for a position again, he can use that narrative, “I was cheated, so I should win this time.”)

Networked propaganda

Marcos lawyer Vic Rodriguez confirmed in an ANC interview that Bongbong Marcos is running for a national position in the 2022 elections. 

Marcos owes his ascent to power in great part to a networked propaganda and a systemic disinformation campaign on Facebook and Youtube. (READ: Networked propaganda: How the Marcoses are using social media to reclaim Malacañang)

These posts glorify the late dictator, deny the abuses that transpired during Martial Law, and vilify perceived opponents. 

Just a year before the 2022 elections, the lies continue.

Riding the coattails

Claudio thinks that one of the best tactics employed by the Marcos camp is to tap into the fan base of President Rodrigo Duterte, whose solid popularity on social media helped him secure the presidency in 2016.

“Huwag nating kalimutan na ang return ng (Let’s not forget that the return of the) Marcoses came at the heels of a real authoritarian moment in the Philippines which is the 2016 elections. There was real acceptance on the part of the electorate of strongman politics,” he said.

From villain to ‘hero’

Amnesty International reported that 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed during Martial Law from 1972 to 1981. 

Despite his sins, Ferdinand Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in November 2016, 27 years after his death. 

Now, 35 years later, critics fear that the memory of the bloodless uprising in EDSA is slowly fading away. – Rappler.com/Nick Villavecer