Dutertistas celebrate

Dutertistas have a reason to celebrate. It was an overwhelming victory for their candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. His victory was variously called phenomenal, miraculous because even if Smartmatic-PCOS votes were readied to favor the Aquino government’s candidate in the beginning, the margin of victory was just too much to make up for. According to insiders some two million fake votes were being poured in but it was not enough to stop the avalanche of votes for Duterte. So the PCOS strategy was abandoned. Plan B (or maybe C if we count the Poe card that was attempted) moved to a victory for Leni Robredo instead as vice president. That is better than nothing. After all, the vice presidency is just a breath away.

Most of those who had come to the victory party at the Oriental Palace in Morato last Wednesday were facebook friends meeting in person for the first time, reminding us once again that there are many ways to launch a revolution. In the last Philippine election, a revolution was won, by the sheer weight from votes of people who had never met. They were devotees of the social media, especially Facebook. By the time the campaign was past half way,  the Davao Mayor was expected to win on the back of thousands of netizens posting everyday to each other and to social media at large.

Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker had once said a revolution cannot be tweeted.

That may be true if it was expected to happen in the traditional order that people had to know each other personally and be connected before they can launch a revolution.

But all that changed in the presidential elections in the Philippines 2016 – Duterte followers were facebook friends before they came together to make their candidate win – Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. They connected before they met each other by tweeting and facebooking.

The most ardent practitioners of networking through technology was – BayanKo – a group that proclaimed its advocacy for crowdsourcing for change. With millions of voters crowdsourcing can only be done if we had the wide reach by using the internet. Yes, a revolution can be tweeted, Mr. Gladwell. It was not an Edsa, it was Luneta where Dutertistas and ordinary citizens aching for change met each other.

The traditionals following the campaign from outside were outmaneuvered. They were shocked by the speed that the Dutertistas connected and organized. If we can point at the exact time when the change and Duterte came together I would it was on May 7 – at the Duterte miting de avance in Luneta. I call it the Luneta revolution. How did it happen?

That was what we celebrated at the victory and thanksgiving party of May 15. We met each other like old friends. Ah facebook friend kita. You remember what you posted to each other before you connect the name and the face.

Among the many facebook friends I met in person that night was the prosecutor Dan Yang who was president of the Prosecutors Association of the Philippines. How did it all begin? How did this small town personality become the political sensation that won the national presidency. “It started maybe three years ago, he was no longer sure. But they would have drinks together with Duterte in a bar and would talk about how bad things were for the country with rampant criminality, the abuse of the powerful and the millions of  poor and powerless marginalized sectors. How could we put our strength together. We had to have a leader that would excite the imagination of the crowd. Duterte would be that leader. But he hesitated. He thought it was a funny joke then.

 I sat at a table with a councilor from Masbate and a retired major general Romeo Poquiz who was now in BioSyn Power. He said he kept the crowds orderly in Luneta that night when it is estimated that more than a million came to listen to Duterte. They did have one thing in common – they wanted – change.

 But the surprise of the evening for me was to meet the singer Arnel Ignacio Arevalo. Wow, Tita Chit, look what you have done with BayanKo. I did not even make the connection but he did and that was gratifying. He was in the launch of BayanKo for crowdsourcing in Club Filipino last year. He remembers there were only a few of us, but enough to fill Kalayaan Hall. I never met him again since then but he said that was the start of his Dutertista life, going from meeting to meeting and like most anyone else who wanted change.

I also met the Avancenas of Iloilo there. If ever you are in Iloilo come to our hundred-year-old house and have a taste of tsokolate ..eh, the thick kind. That is what visitors come from. She said they were ardent Dutertistas and followed the progress of his campaign. When Duterte surveys in mainstream newspapers were said to be weakening they would turn to my column – From a Distance – not to lose heart.

There was also Benjamin Tiu Contreras, a columnist from Cagayan de Oro’s Gold Star Daily. I have his card and we promised to be in touch with each other.

 It was, indeed, as the leader of Friends of Rody Duterte, Andrea Domingo told me at the Oriental Palace thanksgiving dinner,  “here today are Filipinos from all walks of life coming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to celebrate the victory of Digong Duterte and how he unified them for change with a mixture of cussing and humor and anger.

By the time the trapos realized what was happening it was too late – the FB millions had united and gave him the overwhelming vote not even Smartmatic-PCOS machines could overcome.