by J. Irving

“Guns, Goons, and Gold” – these are the “3Gs” employed by politicians on gullible voters every election in the Philippines. These three are deeply rooted in the keywords: warlords, dynasties, vote-buying, flying voters, private armies, trapos (traditional politicians) and many more. The nice thing about mentioning them is that I do not need to explain further because we all know what they mean, and we can immediately relate.

However, with the advent of technology, the “3Gs” can be hacked and now be replaced by “3Ts.” Politicians must know how to employ “Trolls, TikTok and Tweets.” These are the new Gs in Philippine politics!

Losing candidates are complaining about “Trolls,” which are sources of “fake news” and disinformation; unaware that their supporters are also doing such things. Everyone knows that running in an election is in fact waging a war. In plain and simple language, it is a form of “capturing the flag.” The most coveted flag is the electoral seat that is up for grabs. According to Sun Tzu’s Art of War, he suggested, “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive.” (In this manner, you can notice photoshopped pictures of political rallies during the campaign period, showing doctored numbers of the crowd). Nevertheless, professional news reporters and journalists must never resort to this kind of reporting. They should always fact-check because people expect them to bring out the truth, nothing but the truth; and they are the best sources of reliable information.

Trolls, in Scandinavian mythology, are small creatures that live underground. They become the face and symbol in the social media (socmed). There are already cartoon characters for them. But the Trolls that I am referring to can better be compared to Trolls in fishing, which is a method of baits and lure. Online, they are the people who antagonise others in the hope of getting an angry reactions.

Trolls usually use their real identity and often get enjoyment in the combative engagement; but for those who use fictional identity and hide to promote an unpopular point of view are referred to as sock-puppets, who are usually cloned real people to form an army. A puppeteer controls what they say. Unknowingly, your own profile might be one of them.

TikTok refers to the tick-tocking sound of a clock. It is adopted to be the name of an app in your cellphone which becomes “a depository of short and snappy videos of eye-catching, amazing and spontaneous films,” as described in their website.

You have Robin Padilla and Bong Revilla dancing the Paruparu-G and the comical Budot dance routine, respectively. They do not need to promote any political party agenda nor platforms. Both are from Tinsel Town, another letter T. I heard somebody saying, “The best route in entering politics, we must first become an actor!”

The last but not the least is “Tweets” in “Twitter.” You can see a picture of a bird in the app’s icon. Birds emit sounds for creatures nearby to hear. They do not expect reactions. There are so many socmed apps in the arsenal, to mention: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Group Chats (Viber, Telegram, WhatsApp, others), etc – with the same intent and applications of getting an audience. Nevertheless, Twitter is the best socmed weapon for elections. You can find US Presidents using “Twitter.” Trump and Obama have the most number of followers. Perhaps, this is enough for billionaire Elon Musk to have interest in owning the apps. As Twitter reported, “There are 217 million active daily users in 2021, a far cry from the billions reported by rival Meta (Facebook/Instagram), its users include highly influential politicians, business leaders, entertainers, activists, and intellectuals — public figures with large followings who in turn shape the public discourse surrounding politics, media, finance and technology. More than two-thirds of Twitter’s US users say the platform is an important — if not the most important — source of news, according to the Pew Research Center.” (https://www.pewresearch.org)

So if you wish to run for an elective position, forget the 3Gs and better learn fast how to utilize the 3Ts . . . hehe