By Manny Piñol
The oligarchy and the establishment have thrown every mud and trash at presidential frontrunner Rody Duterte, including the proverbial post and the kitchen sink but it looks like nothing can stop the rise of the candidate who promises change.
The readership of this page, MannyPiñol, has shot up from 1.2-million last week to 6.2-million this morning, exactly a week after the media assault on Duterte started.
Following a controversial narrative on the rape and killing of an Australian preacher in a hostage-taking incident in Davao City 27 years ago, the Oligarchy and the Establishment launched a vicious media attack against Duterte using the mainstream media and whatever little influence they have in the social media.
They have called him unfit to be President, a psychopath, a loose cannon, an embarrassment to the Philippines and they even got the ambassadors of Australia and the United States to issue statements condemning Duterte’s offensive remark in the rape and killing over which he has already apologised.
Yesterday, they intentionally twisted the statement of Duterte which was in answer to a question on how he would react if the US and Australia cut diplomatic ties with the Philippines if he becomes President.
Of course, the recorded statement will show that “he dared the US and Australia to cut ties with the Philippines” if they would not be comfortable with having him as President of the Philippines.
The headlines of the mainstream media cried: “Duterte to break diplomatic ties with US and Australia.”
At noon yesterday, using a personality who claimed to be a supporter of the Dutertes but who could not even correctly accentuate the nickname of Duterte’s son, Paulo or Pulong, the black propagandists again accused the Davao City leader of involvement in rice smuggling.
The so-called whistleblower named former National Food Authority (NFA) chairman Lito Banayo as the chief political strategist of Duterte, which is, of course, a big lie because the former NFA chief, while admittedly a supporter, is not his political strategist, neither is he a member of the campaign group.
Even TV host Pia Hontiveros reported that there was a spike of comments on Duterte on Twitter with only a small fraction of these negative.
How do I explain this?
Well, I believe that the people have already made up their minds and no amount of black propaganda or media assault could change that.
Instead of causing a disintegration of Duterte’s tens of millions of almost fanatical supporters, the attack on him strengthened their belief that the rich and the powerful area threatened by the rise of a President who would represent the poor and even the rich and the middle class who are helpless against crime, drugs and corruption in the country.
This is actually the first time that the readership of this Facebook page, MannyPiñol, reached the 6-million mark.
The highest readership I had previous to this was 4.9-million and this was when Duterte announced he was running for President.
It went down to 2-million following the Papal gaffe.
Now, it has reached an unprecedented 6-million.
More attacks are expected to be made against Duterte but it looks like these are not going to work anymore.
In fact, the black propaganda worked in the reverse. It made Duterte more popular as more people are talking about him.
Now, not all of the 6-million reading my posts are Duterte supporters but it is safe to say that majority of them are interested in knowing how things are going on for him and his candidacy.
I will just take half of them as followers who will vote for Duterte, that is 3-million.
Holy Cow, that’s a lot of votes.
(This was the last image I took of my page cover showing a readership of 5.9-million. A few minutes after I took the shot, the readership went up to 6.2-M.)
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