Bambi Eloriaga-Amago
When the Vice Presidential debates aired last April 10, Senator Chiz Escudero became the subject of criticisms. Strangely enough, it wasn’t because of what he said during the debates, rather, it was how he said it. Memes and jokes poking fun at the senator’s robot-like manner of speaking and use of formal, sometimes outdated, Tagalog quickly popped up all over social networks.
The senator, however, has his fair share of supporters and they were quick to defend him. However last April 12, netizen Jay Aquino Padriga posted screenshots of two separate comments coming from two different accounts but had the exact same statements defending Escudero. Padriga, who works as a social media marketer, was quick to point out that the accounts were most probably fake accounts created to drum up support for the Grace Poe-Chiz Escudero tandem.
“Kulang sa coordination itong social media team ni Grace at Chiz. (Grace and Chiz’s social media team is lacking coordination.)” Padriga said in his post. “In defending Chiz, nagkasabay pa ng parehong comment… Delete nyo agad, dali! NakuPoe! (they posted the same comment twice. Delete it, hurry!)”
The comments were posted as replies to an Inquirer online article detailing Escudero’s reaction to those criticizing his voice and manner of speaking.
Facebook user Monsiuer Emile said, “Dapat naghire sila ng someone to supervise para kahit papano di obvious. (They should’ve hired someone to supervise, so it wouldn’t be obvious.)”
“May format na kaya copy paste na lang nagkataon na pareho yung napili na ipopost, (They probably are following a format, but it just happened that they chose and copy-pasted the same comment),” opined Arwin Adriano.
“May bayad kasi per comment, (It’s because they get paid per comment),” added Padriga.
