The president’s speech

By Anjo Bagaoisan

No prompter. Pres. Duterte speaking to repatriated OFWs in April 2017. (Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

President Rodrigo Duterte’s communications team saves on the hardware and setup time for Teleprompters.

That’s because they don’t bring any to the president’s functions, and for good reason.

While remarks are prepared for him, there’s a chance he would not read them. Or if he does, expect the delivery to vary–or rather, veer away–from the original text.

Media covering the president’s speeches find them to be similar to press conferences, even without anyone asking questions. Any topic gets covered. And the headline that comes out might not even be related to the event where the speech was made.

‘Do not destroy my country’

Of course, some topics get mentioned more often than others.

Drugs, President Duterte’s main bane, came first during his remarks at a ceremonial launch of former President Fidel Ramos’s book “Prosper Thy Neighbor” at the Manila Hotel on October 14.

Waiting for Digong

(Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

DAVAO CITY— The Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School hardly saw a crowd in its grounds like the one that descended outside Precinct 216 on the afternoon of May 9, election day.

It was like a mob waiting for a rock star. Many of them dressed in red and raising fists and cheers at broadcast cameras, people were jockeying alongside media and police for a view.

Precinct 216, a room labeled Aster (after the flower), was one of 14 clustered voting precincts in the school where 90,000 Davaoeños would vote.

As the noontime heat gave way to afternoon shade, fewer voters came to vote in the precinct. Still, the rush of people who wanted to see the precinct’s most famous voter did not end. The rest of the school gradually emptied, except for the area surrounding the bungalow classroom.

Some had arrived since morning, others after they cast their own votes. They were pointing cell phone cameras at the scene, on themselves, or on familiar faces from the national media, hoping their angle would capture the moment they saw him.

(Shot by Dong Plaza, ABS-CBN News)

The people here were waiting for Rodrigo Duterte, the man they believed would be president. And as the minutes of that fateful day passed, it was not just in Davao.

Everyone across the nation awaited him.

#Halalan2016 starts here

By Andrew Jonathan S. Bagaoisan

Live from Comelec Main, Day 1 of COC Filing 
209 days before Halalan 2016

(Shot by Anjo Bagaoisan)

This week officially begins election season in the Philippines. It’s also the general elections–that time every six years where all posts from councilor to president of the republic are up for grabs.

It’s part-celebration, part-chaos, all-challenge.

The best preview of the atmosphere and the stakes is seen here at the Comelec main office in Intramuros, which opened its doors this week to people filing their certificates of candidacy (COCs) for national posts.

Despite efforts to put a sense of order, the road to 2016 still opened with drum bangs, hyped crowds, unruly shooters and comic cameos.