Ten Minutes

 

They got her.

No wait, they didn't. She surrendered to the President who then had a little chat with her for ten minutes and personally brought her to Camp Crame. Yes, the President of the Philippines personally escorted the suspected mastermind of the pork-barrel scandal. El Presidente even rode the lead car, which is the most dangerous position in a convoy! Who's the boss here?

There's a lot of hubbub in the social media networks. A lot of people are yelling about Janet receiving special treatment or that the President could have made a "secret deal" with her on who to spill the beans on and who to protect. It does seem suspicious. A lot can happen in ten minutes...

Here's my take. What I think happened was, Janet approached the President out of fear of her safety because there's a lot of lawmakers who have no qualms about giving the old deep six to the odd blabbermouth or two. In an effort to look like he's taking charge, Dear Leader jumped at the chance and perhaps imagined himself as a Caesar in his triumph with the reviled enemy as a prisoner in tow. But being inexperienced at taking charge of things and not blaming others, El Presidente instead, only managed to look servile and the whole thing raised more questions. What did they talk about in those ten minutes? Your guess is as good as mine.

The President should know by now that this is the social media age. The vocal "anti-pork" groups are beasts that lurk on Twitter and Facebook. Therefore, they are not so easily swayed by the excuses of his spokespersons or his lackeys in the media. If it looks suspicious, hell will be raised. You can't wrestle the narrative man, it's not like the old days. This whole mythology of The President as the son of heroes with a glorious legacy won't hold, at least, not on people with enough brains to use a computer. The poor maybe, but remember, his enemy right now are the social media kiddies and some of them are quite competent.

What remains to be seen is if the social media crowd can translate their movement into something concrete like a party or voting bloc. Anger isn't enough. That anger must be transformed into a tangible thing; voting power.

As for Janet, well... due process, etc., etc., all that crap.