Spectacle economy

Social media has been abuzz lately over a post by Cebu Governor Pam Baricuatro on her personal Facebook page. The governor’s post, which I later learned from media commentators was directed at a lawyer-vlogger who had uploaded a video explaining the process of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has gone viral.

The governor posted, “Kahilas nimo y**s. Who do you think you are???” --which some readers view as LGBTQ-tinged and unbecoming of the office-- then added “Tatay Digong forever!” and a fist-bump emoji. The language was sharp, expressing disapproval of what many Duterte supporters perceive as disloyalty to former president Rodrigo Duterte, given that the lawyer-vlogger is widely viewed as pro-Duterte in her video commentaries. As of yesterday, the post has drawn around 9,800 comments and over 3,200 shares.

I first saw it on my social-media feed Sunday afternoon. My reaction was one of curious detachment: the governor seemed to be her characteristic self, showing an unguarded candor that many find disarming. I first saw her in a mall one time during the campaign period and observed how the security guards, mall staff, and other people reacted in her presence. There’s a certain disarming charm about the governor that endears her to the masses. I even know a ‘kakampink’ colleague, a fellow critic of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, who voted for Governor Pam, fully aware that she’s a Duterte loyalist.

But that same down-to-earth candor, the trait that makes her so likable to many, can also make her oblivious to the weight of her words and to how they come across now that she’s the province’s highest official. I don’t really have a firm stance on the matter; I just think our attention is better spent on what actually matters: how she governs.

We tend to get caught up in the noise of social media, but those fleeting moments of tone, phrasing, and emotion rarely define leadership. What matters more are the policies our leaders set in motion, the programs they sustain or neglect, and the results that can be measured --not merely the reactions that trend on social media.

When a public official like the governor expresses raw views on social media, I actually imagine her talking to a group of friends after work in a relaxed, unguarded setting. That also goes to show that I don’t take too seriously what is shared and talked about on social media, given the nature of the medium (I’ve written about this in previous columns). It’s a different matter, of course, when she talks about policy and programs within her realm.

The Supreme Court once reminded judges to be mindful of their posts, noting that even online “personal” speech can carry public consequences. But judges are a different breed of public servant. Their authority rests on the perception of cold impartiality, so even a hint of bias or impropriety can erode public trust in the courts.

Politicians, on the other hand, thrive in an arena where visibility and emotion are part of the job. Studies on “mediated authenticity” show politicians often cultivate rawness to feel real (Enli, 2015). But then audiences tend to over-read those signals. Social media posts are persuasive but often ephemeral. They are good for identity politics, weak as evidence of governance. One study describes social media chatter as “inputs to the spectacle economy.”

This is where the role of independent mainstream or legacy media becomes indispensable. Its watchdog function, grounded in data-driven verification rather than engagement metrics, supports our shared goal of good governance.