She boldly diagnosed the President as a psychopath, and posted this on social media. And when she was bashed, the bashers were told not to violate her right to free speech.

Such is the claim to entitlement by Agot Isidro.





It has been the mouthpiece of anti-Duterte rants masquerading as thought pieces, and was at the forefront of a crusade demonizing anyone who dared to fight the Aquino dynasty and its extension, the Liberal Party, from Renato Corona, to Jojo Binay to Bongbong Marcos, exposing all their dirt, whipping up hatred against them. And when it was pilloried by supporters of Corona, Binay, Marcos and the President, it deployed the hashtag campaign #NoPlaceForHate.

Such is the claim to entitlement by Rappler.

And the claim to entitlement by the decent elites in social media is no less offensive.

They staked out its limits and boundaries. This they did because they thought they were entitled, with their capacity to buy expensive smartphones, until such time that smartphones became cheaper and free wifi became accessible in malls, and later, free Facebook became a feature available for the ordinary and the unperfumed. It was here that the exclusive spaces of netizenship became more open, that the ordinary people began populating cyberspace, effectively colonizing what used to be a privileged domain. Cyberspace was transformed from being a gated cyber-community, to one that has become a mirror of the everyday and the ordinary, a virtual palengke, a cyber-tambayan, a digital mall that is more like Divisoria rather than EDSA Shangrila.

Naturally, political discourse shifted from being pretentious and elitist, to one that is raw, unedited and authentic. The hypocrisy was in the manner these were branded. Elite rants and fakery are considered chic and cultured, labeled as blogs, while those coming from the cyberspace hoi polloi are demeaned as trolling and fake news sites. Maria Ressa even gave the unkindest cut, by giving the impression that every expression coming from the masa are to be suspected as driven by algorithms coming from robots. The cyber-elites, donning the yellow banner, screaming loudly their decency, had the audacity to announce that they have to reclaim social media. On that day I realized the depravity of this section of our society when I wondered at what time these decent cyber-elites owned social media for them to have the right to reclaim it.

The stench of their hypocrisy and self-entitlement is simply disgusting.

Mocha Uson was called a slut, but this decent crowd never started a hash-tag campaign against slut-shaming. They reserved that for Leila de Lima.

Sass Rogando Sasot was bashed, and shamed, and trolled, yet nobody from this decent class signed up for the outrage that many of her kindred spirit felt. They had that privilege reserved only for the likes of Agot Isidro.

After all, for these decent ones only those favoring Leni Robredo, condemning the Marcos burial, aghast at the extrajudicial killings attributed to Digong Duterte, and wore black during the Ateneo-La Salle game can complain about being slut-shamed, bashed and trolled.

And only the unperfumed and indecent anti-Robredo, pro-Marcos burial, pro-Duterte people can slut-shame, bash and troll.

I have to quickly remind myself of that harrowing experience David Yap and I had to endure, when we were bashed, trolled and libeled just because we pointed out the anomalous trend in the votes for Leni Robredo. And I vividly remember that those who bashed, trolled and libeled us included professors from the elite universities, scientists with pedigreed academic credentials, and pro-LP socialites and former beauty queens. This made me realize how so full of themselves these members of this decent crowd are that they wallow in the pretentiousness of their entitlements.

This is the crowd of people who cried foul when issues of mental retardation were raised against the former President, yet now explode in jubilation when Agot Isidro called the President a psychopath, and even treat her like the new Joan of Arc for being burned. Edsel Lagman and company, that motley in the House claiming to be representing this decent crowd, even exhorted everyone to become an Agot Isidro as though she were the new patron saint of political activism.

This is the same crowd of people who mobilized the power of social media to diminish the enemies of Edsel’s Liberal Party and the Aquino dynasty, using all hate tactics they can muster, from exposing Corona’s alleged hidden wealth to exposing Bongbong Marcos’ false diplomas. Yet now, they cry foul when the unperfumed occupants of cyberspace deploy equally creative tactics to bring Rappler down by exposing Maria Ressa.

It is fun to watch how these decent cyber-elites cringe and squirm, and rant, and whine and behave in ways that reveal them for what they have become, lost and disoriented, struggling to remain relevant, even to the point of contradicting themselves, keeping themselves busy fortifying the trenches of what is left of the privileged spaces of their sociological hallucinations.

antonio.contreras@www.manilatimes.net