Appealing on the people to surround Camps Crame and Aguinaldo in 1986, Jaime Cardinal Sin sounded out that clarion call from Radio Veritas, and thus was born the People Power Revolution at EDSA.

Today, collective public thought may not necessarily be harnessed only through radio. When some from Classes D and E have access to internet data from their mobile phones, social media has arrived. It has become possible today for activist citizenship to call out the social and political order without need for street protests, yet can see exponential growth across society.

There is such a thing now as online citizenship that the era of the Internet had redefined. Netizens can air their gripes and call for redress through social media. But just as critical citizenship had arrived, it was further redefined when trolls changed the political landscape.

A very active myth-making factory portrayed Rodrigo Duterte as a plain-speaking maverick to the established traditional political order, empowering his rise to power. He was seen as one who understood the plight of the common man, or so the myth had narrated.

After six years in office when he left a trail of unaccountable corruption, oligarchic cronyism, a ballooning foreign debt, a congress of pork-fattened legislators who catered to his piques, and a lazy attitude in the performance of his office, Duterte still recorded a high popularity rating in surveys even though the myth was there for all to see as a fakery. 

That was because trolls who twisted the real narrative into the fake always protected his malfeasant governance. Netizens know this: in the six years Duterte was in office, apologist trolls continued operating even after he had won in 2016. It was as if he was in campaign mode for all of the six years he was in power. There is ample empirical reason to believe that his administration used troll armies to fend off criticisms against it. 

Just a few days into office, the new Marcos administration has effectively shown signs that it will sustain the dirty Duterte playbook of employing trolls to whitewash whatever inefficiencies it may manifest in its public performance. The destruction to our already tribalist culture as Filipinos cannot be underestimated.

In fact, the Marcos penchant for pomp and pageantry, power and perks began the minute they restored themselves in Malacañang. Even before he called for his first cabinet meeting, he instead hit the ground running by ordering his communications lieutenants to keep the media away from two lavish parties he had hosted – his inaugural ball and the 93^rd birthday bash of his convicted mother, the former first lady.

The inaugural ball was kept secret from the public. But this is what opened the Pandora’s box: guests freely posted photos of the ball on their social media accounts. Were it not for them, the public would not have known that each one had received an inaugural souvenir of a golden medallion minted with the new president’s likeness and encased in a specially crafted velour box. 

Commemorative medallions are no big deal. Past presidents had their own, albeit not all of them had inaugural balls. So why the secrecy? Did it cost much to the taxpayer? Why the secrecy that the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied pianist Cecille Licad and that the dinner was catered by top cuisine doyenne Glenda Barreto? Was it because taxpayers picked up the tab?

Yet not even a week had passed when the Marcoses again turned the palace into another secret party venue for the 93^rd birthday of the convicted former first lady. “Convicted” has to be woven into the narrative: she was found guilty of seven counts of graft.

As with the inaugural ball, the Presidential Communications and Operations Office had nothing to say about it. The veil of secrecy was opened when photos the Marcos family members themselves posted leaked across cyberspace.

An activist citizen would find these questions normal, par for the course. After all, that mantra of “public office is a public trust” is time-honored. But when online citizens posted criticisms of these lavish parties, the troll attacks came uniformly: that they were bitter for losing, that they are “ampalaya” (bitter gourd), that they were bitter for not having been invited, and bitter that they did not receive their share of the gold medallion. 

While none of these gaslights are true, it is the exponential power of trolls that can pervade social thought and turn questions of accountability into something wrong and ugly. If one were not made of sterner stuff, who would continue to dare this strange social order defined by trolls?

In less than a week, the new Marcos administration has presented itself as predictable: it will continue using the Duterte playbook of disinformation. Troll armies will continue to dominate the political landscape for the next six years. 

A troll attack is a molestation. The aggressive pestering can drive away online citizens from questioning the accountability of public servants. When that happens, online citizens will be weakened from their role as activist citizens. The right to question existing perspectives will be lost in the process. Absent that, those in power will have the free rein to abuse public office. Troll myths will change public psychology to sustain popularity ratings. 

How does one reconcile the fact that the sustained hate and lie campaign against Leila de Lima had never successfully pinpointed her guilt after more than five years of being in jail? How does one reconcile the fact that the targeted hate and demolition jobs against Leni Robredo never explained the fact that her office had always received high ratings by the Commission on Audit? But public psychology about them was sealed and sealed effectively by troll-dictated thought.

Real citizenship is when we hold our public servants accountable for their every action, whether we voted for them or not. When the troll barrage brands such enlightened citizens as “ampalaya,” that will be the day when ordinary citizens, ironically at the determination of the state, have lost their political and social rights. It is a defeat in the hands of narcissists and Machiavellian power-holders.

A government that reduces its citizens as non-citizens through the use of trolls is one of the most malicious realities that contemporary change has introduced in the world of humanity. – Rappler.com

Antonio J. Montalván II is a social anthropologist who advocates that keeping quiet when things go wrong is the mentality of a slave, not a good citizen.