Things are so bad that press conferences come with alcoholic drinks because our hosts know how stressed we are right now. Twitter has made every reporter I know depressed today with a series of bad news after bad news, the primary one is having an incoming press secretary who is a lawyer suspended by the Supreme Court and her only claim to fame is being a fake news peddler VLOGGER/blogger. She red-tags people and is very hostile to media.
During Duterte’s admin, I have experienced being unwelcomed by the government as we legit reporters were not given seats in a national economic conference while the bloggers like uTh*king P*noy are given a special section where they can write and tweet inanities. These people who just add GDP cumulatively and declare that Duterte will end his admin with a 45% GDP growth 🙄 These people who cannot make heads or tails of FDI, stock market, mergers and acquisitions, and benchmark interest rates. I had to write my stories on the floor on those days despite my being in business clothes. That’s how bad it was.
My group chat has been on fire today. Marcos is putting hostile people in place to barricade us to prevent transparency and truth.
A lot of my friends and colleagues said they have turned off Twitter today due to the series of WTF stories coming out.
Despite downing a couple of shots of Patron, one of the strongest tequilas known to the market, I didn’t get tipsy. But just to be safe, I went down from the hotel where we had the lunch briefing to have coffee and work.
I wasn’t really productive today but I was able to secure an interview with an Indonesian company for one of my reporters. I’m a generous boss; I farm out the things that land on my plate and I do not hog them for myself. Besides, I should be doing more value-added things like big scoops and more global/regional stories so I shouldn’t be doing small stories that suck up my time.
But I’m so brain-dead now that I could not pull up my watercolors to finish this sketch. Perhaps tomorrow when I’m in the zone?
My friend from my old TV network told me he wants to quit now and join corporate. I told him, he better jump now when the offer still stands because the threat of the incoming justice secretary is serious. It’s martial law all over again, closing down independent media and promoting crony media like SNI (owned by a Duterte ally wanted by the US FBI for sex trafficking and other offenses) and Net25 (Iglesia ni Cristo station).
Oh WTF.