The satirical Facebook page Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines (SGRP) hits the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines for deleting the Aquino administration’s records from its archives.
“The Best Communication Team in the Solar System congratulates the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines for transitioning from merely withholding necessary data through omission to actually deleting the previous administration’s records from the archives. Talk about leveling up,” the Facebook page said on October 30, while tagging the OG.
The page also address the current administration’s communications team.
“A special mention to Communications Secretary Martin Andanar, Asec. Ramon Qualoping, and OG handler Marco Angelo Cabrera – you have truly become full-fledged Philippine politicians, masters of deception,” SGRP added.
The page credited the report about the deleted records to netizen @noelledg.
SGRP also posted a commentary the next day and called it “Making Ghosts Out of the Past.”
“The Duterte Administration has been busy deleting the achievements of the Aquino Administration from the website of the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Beyond just revising official history through revision, the Administration has moved on to deleting records as well.
Many of us dislike Duterte, others dislike Aquino, and a lot dislike both. But despite this, the services that the government provides to the people, regardless of who is in power, is something we deserve to know – it is paid by our taxes, after all.
This Administration has made it apparent that it would stop at no cost to discredit its political opponents and glorify itself, starting with the online propaganda war – where billions of pesos were added to the Office of the President for the purpose of operating propaganda machinery such as paid troll pages and suppression of critics through intimidation. One such move was hiring Marco Angelo Cabrera, a Bongbong Marcos staffer, to manage the Official Gazette.
The #SuperficialGazette condemns this #HistoricalRevisionism from the Duterte Administration as a blatantly shameless, corrupt, and utterly self-serving propaganda initiative.
What we as citizens can do is remain vigilant and ensure that our government does not continue to hide the truth in the pursuit of corrupt, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing interests.
You can start by sharing this Commentary and other similar posts, as well as making your own. Keep the fire burning – for if we stop caring, they have won.”
As of today, November 4, 10:16 a.m., we checked the Official Gazette’s website to see if they have restored the records of the achievements of the Aquino administration.
The graphics about the economy, social welfare, good governance, are back.
But some of the pages about Daang Matuwid’s achievements in different regions in the country are still inaccessible.
Aquino admin’s achievements for the NCR and Caraga regions are accessible, but most of the other regions still give this error: “Oops! That page can’t be found.”
According to Rappler, these pages were still accessible in May and June, based on the Wayback Machine, but they were already inaccessible by October.
The North Cotabato page, for instance, looked like this last May 13, as per Wayback Machine’s archives.
But as of today, it looks like this.
This is not the first time the Official Gazette has come under fire by netizens.
The netizens accused the government of historical revisionism after it posted a commemoration of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ 99th birth anniversary in September, downplaying the Martial Law era, which was plagued with human rights abuses and corruption.
Another related controversy was that it was later discovered that one of Official Gazette’s writer used to work for former Senator Bongbong Marcos. Marco Angelo Cabrera even used the OG’s Facebook page to post a reply to Atty. Jesus Falcis.
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This issue also led to the creation of the parody account Superficial Gazette, which “specializes in political satire.” Its Facebook Story also said that it is the “official repository of Historical Revisionism in the Republic of the Philippines, edited by the Best Communications Team in the Solar System.”
Rappler, however, noted that this is not the first time records have disappeared from the Official Gazette. Before Aquino’s time, the Official Gazeette was only distributed in print form.
During Aquino’s first month, contents of its old format disappeared, but there was a note saying the site was “under construction.” Among those contents that disappeared were former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s achievements. But a Presidential Communication’s employee clarified then that Aquino’s team did not have access to the Arroyo administration’s content, adding that the previous portal was “copyright of the PGMA Foundation.”
Facebook page Daang Matuwid provided links to the archives of the Aquino admin’s achievements.
As of posting, the Presidential Communications Office has not yet explained the disappearance of some of the previous admin’s records.
Sources: (rappler.com, gmanetwork.com)
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