[Newsstand] No, the Far Left will not support Robredo
No such thing as “unity” in the opposition until now. Not when you have “natdems” like Tonyo Cruz and Mong Palatino ranged up against progressive liberals like John Nery. If there is internecine warfare in the Duterte camp, it’s the same in the opposition.
This gap has been widening since it first broke after the exclusion of Neri Colmenares from the Senatorial slate of Robredo. The two camps exchanged barbs through proxies. Antonio Trillanes claimed that the leftist-militant groups were pushing for Isko Moreno and hadn’t endorsed Leni Robredo despite her selection as the Presidential bet of 1Sambayan. As if that wasn’t the logical conclusion from the very beginning when every other candidate named declined to be part of the process.
His website describes him as “Tonyo wears many hats: Blogger, advocate, strategist and newspaper columnist, among others.
In 2016, the French foreign ministry selected him for the Programme d’Invitation des Personnalités d’Avenir (International Visitor Leadership Program), citing his work on digital, social media and advocacy.
Here are some highlights of his work:
In 2012-2013, Tonyo was Chief Social Media Strategist for Movent Inc., the country’s biggest digital agency.
In 2011-2012, he served as Digital Consultant and later Digital OIC for TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno, one of the most awarded creative agencies in the Philippines.
In 2012, the Philippine tech website The New Media (TNM) feted him and his colleagues with a “Digital Hero” Award for outstanding use of social for calamity response (#RescuePH, #ReliefPH).
In 2009, he co-founded TweetUp Manila, the lead organizer of Social Media Day in the Philippines since 2012.
In 2008, his blog tonyocruz.com received honors in the Philippine Blog Awards.
In 2001, he co-founded TXTPower, an advocacy group that promotes the rights of Filipino mobile and internet users as consumers.
He has spoken or participated in summits and conferences across the Philippines, and in Asia, North America, Latin America and Europe. He has appeared as resource person in hearings of the Philippines’ Senate and the House of Representatives.
He graduated from the prestigious Manila Science High School, and later studied sociology at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. He joined the UPLB Perspective, the official UPLB student publication, and the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, where he served in various capacities.
Upon leaving the student movement, he served as public information officer for the multisectoral alliance Bayan, human rights alliance Karapatan and the offices of Representatives Saturnino C. Ocampo and Teodoro A. Casino.
In January 2014, he started writing an Op-Ed column in the Manila Bulletin, one of the country’s leading newspapers. His “Hotspot” column now comes out twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
It’s safe to say that he’s mostly form with very little substance as he promotes the national democrat cause like a typical blind follower.
Palatino’s Wiki page describes him as “is a Filipino writer, journalist, politician, and activist. He represented Kabataan (Youth) Party in the 14th and 15th Congress of the Philippines. He is currently the secretary-general of BAYAN Metro Manila. As a writer, he was a contributor for Tinig, Yehey! and UPI-Asia. He is currently the Southeast Asia editor for Global Voices, contributor to ASEAN Beat and The Diplomat, Bulatlat, Manila Today, and New Mandala.
Palatino became a member of the House of Representatives following the decision of the Philippine Supreme Court declaring the entitlement of Kabataan Party to a seat in the House of Representatives. A graduate of education from the University of the Philippines Diliman, Palatino was active in student politics. He was chairperson of the college student council in 1999. A year after that, he was elected as chairperson of the University Student Council. He joined Global Voices Online In June 2006 and he is currently the regional editor for Southeast Asia.
In 2001, Palatino was elected as the national president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), the biggest alliance of student councils and governments in the Philippines.
Palatino was one of the convenors of different broad youth formations, including the Estrada Resign Youth Movement (ERYM), Youth Action Network (YAN), Filipino Youth for Peace, Kabataan Kontra-Kartel (Youth Against the Oil Cartel), and TxtPower. Palatino was awarded by the United Nations Association of the Philippines (UNAP) for “youth empowerment on national concerns”.”
As you can see, both have followed the usual career path for milennial national democrats. Started out as student leaders in UP and parlayed the same into the image of a cause-oriented individual. There is really something about the French leftist-bohemian image and lifestyle that our local socialists and communists are very much into.
Progressive liberals such as John Nery have a love-hate relationship with leftist-militants such as Cruz and Palatino. The psyche of the modern member of the opposition usually has its roots in UP. Think of Kiko Pangilinan as the prototype. But Pangilinan is wiser than all of them because he married Sharon Cuneta. This is the only reason why he won a Senate seat. Kiko’s nat-dem colleagues from his UP days are still stuck at the party-list level.
The basic question we need to ask these morons is what makes them believe they have mass support when they can’t even get anyone from their ranks to win any direct election race they run for?
The answer is it’s all part of the facade that the image of being associated with a cause brings. The nat-dems believe in their fantasy that they’re fighting a revolution. The contradiction is they aren’t as proletarian as they would like the masses to believe them to be. Think of how Teddy Casino did cartwheels justifying his sons attending La Salle Greenhills. He isn’t even transparent as to how he earns a living after his term as party-list representative was up.
Tonyo has a fetish for Apple products. Never mind that they’re made in China. Being anti-US and China is lost on him as he wants to have whatever the latest Apple is offering.
Mongster, as Palatino is known on Twitter, is the same. All of these pretenders live two lives; one is the public persona while the private stays well-hidden because it runs contrary to what their public image is. The truth is they are part of the elite in their own political niche. They are no different from the trapos. In fact, they are the same trapo cut from a different cloth.
If there is a Tonyo and a Mongster amongst us, there is also the John Nery and Manolo Quezon types. These two stereotypes are sometimes allies and sometimes at each other’s throats. What they have in common is one big intellectual circle-jerk of ideas which only they understand even if they claim to care for the plight of the masses.
What the youth who join the nat-dems don’t realize is they’re just being taken for a ride. As a political power bloc, the leftist-militant groups also partner with the trapos for their share of the power and money pie. They don’t give a shit about the students they recruit to join their umbrella of organizations, some of whom end up dead as NPAs.
What’s certain is they’re not national democrats in the true meaning of the term but more simply political and social opportunists who bask in their fifteen minutes of fame.
This is why it is imperative that the masses open their eyes to this reality and stop voting these morons into the party-list system in Congress.
Think of how they protest about extra-judicial killings but don’t mind when NPAs kill policemen and soldiers or the students recruited into the NPA are killed in encounters with the AFP. This is more than enough proof that these pseudo-nationalists continue to make fools of Filipinos.
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