By Raïssa Robles

On September 11, the birth anniversary of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, President Rodrigo Duterte was supposed to hold a very important press conference at 3 pm. Or so we were told, the day before.

Instead, what transpired was a gruesome comedy where Duterte and presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo held a “tete-a-tete” on a disjointed set of topics, with the watching media forbidden from asking questions.

The press conference of President Duterte will now just be a one-on-one with Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo, which SAP Bong Go earlier described will be “showbiz type” | via @dgplacido — ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) September 11, 2018

There are several theories why it turned out like this.

So here is this pro-Russian foreigner named Adam Garrie @adamgarriereal “praying” that Duterte will declare a revolutionary government today.

Since he’s pro-Duterte, this is not called out as foreign intervention. pic.twitter.com/7xQkR3qcVH — Raissa Robles (@raissawriter) September 11, 2018

If this Garrie was tweeting something against Duterte and calling for a revgov, I bet the trolls would crucify him as a foreign meddler and call him all sorts of names. But since he is pro-Duterte, they welcome his tweets and retweet them.

Now, there’s a story going around that Duterte had intended to announce a state of emergency, only the military wouldn’t play along, leaving him irritated and empty-handed. Especially since earlier, the military had refused to follow his order to arrest Senator Antonio Trillanes.

There were confused reports that the press conference was cancelled, or that it would just be a speech: finally when it started, 30 minutes late it was just the two officials talking on a bewildering range of topics.

So when finally, the TV cameras showed Duterte seated across Panelo, I found it very funny and disturbing. I felt like I was watching a press conference being conducted in Moscow or Beijing.

The sentiments of many reporters toward this press con was captured by whoever photoshopped this:

As a member of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) I could have gone to the event, but I chose to cover it by watching it on TV, and live-tweeting the conversation.

There are some journalists who would rather NOT WATCH a Duterte press con because it raises their blood pressure. I am one of those who continue to watch because it’s part of the job.

However, sometimes I do vent my own opinions freely on Twitter, a privilege I retain because I’m a freelance journalist. And so I tweeted this:

The people are hungry. Give them – comedy?https://t.co/XntnKSOmsL — Raissa Robles (@raissawriter) September 10, 2018

Those covering the event were also asked to submit questions beforehand. That is rarely done, except when the President wants to meet the press but his relations with the press have gotten so bad that his handlers and crisis managers want to control the questions and his answers.

It was in the course of my live tweet that I reported Duterte pronouncing the word “struggle” as “stragol”.

Duterte’s accent was particularly thick during his tête-à-tête, so to capture that flavor, I thought I would spell as pronounced.

Besides, I never ever thought of Duterte as a Visayan, although I knew that was his origin, but his family had left the area way way back in order to migrate to Mindanao.

I always thought of him as the long-time mayor of Davao City.

It never ever occurred to me that some of those on Twitter would be offended by it. They thought I was making fun of the Visayan language. And looking down on Visayans as well as Mindanaoans. I never realized that pronunciation was a sensitive issue.

I do now.

The tête-à-tête for me, it was a new low in Palace-press relations. The journalists were being used as mere props

Journalists always have to look for new angles to write about. The only hard news angle in that tête-à-tête was the “resignation” of National Food Authority head Jason Aquino.

The press conference raked Trillanes once again. Old news angle. Except for the fact that the President was adamant that his predecessor should have personally signed Trillanes’ grant of amnesty.

What does the September 11 comedy show tell us?

It might suggest that we have a President who is not fully in control of the situation. There was a rumor that, after the tête-à-tête, Duterte declined to preside over a cabinet meeting, saying “hindi ko na kaya.”

The Palace’s reaction has been to keep saying there’s no problem with Duterte’s health, everything is fine. This strongly reminds me of how, during the Marcos dictatorship, his propaganda minions desperately tried to hide the fact he was suffering from lupus and was undergoing dialysis. In the absence of information, rumors will fly. Maybe the Palace should remember that, when they stage the next episode of the Sal and Rodi show.