Will the (video and online content providers) bloggers dominate the media skyline? If so, expect spot news reporting (bereft of research) that would worsen the problem of misrepresentation and half- truths in social media. This is because of the appointment (and acceptance) by vlogger Rose Beatrix (aka Trixi) Cruz-Angeles of the PCOO post.
Presumptive president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed lawyer/vlogger and staunch Duterte supporter, Rose Beatrix (aka Trixie) Cruz-Angeles, as head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, which in the time Marcos Sr. was known as Office of the Press Secretary.
Cruz-Angeles has accepted the nomination to become Malacañang's press secretary (but not spokesman a role that the presumptive president wants for himself), according to Marcos Jr.’s chief-of-staff Atty. Vic Rodriguez in a statement released Wednesday.
“I am grateful for the opportunity I am given to take part in the administration of President Bongbong Marcos as his Press Secretary. It is with humility that I accept the nomination and assume the responsibility of running the affairs of the PCOO,” Cruz-Angeles said.
She returns to PCOO where she served as social media strategist from July 2017 to 2018 during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
As press secretary, Cruz-Angeles will conduct regular press briefings to members of the media. But the team noted that since Marcos had earlier said he will not appoint a spokesperson, this would limit Cruz-Angeles’ function during press briefings.
Suspended by SC before
In 2016, the Supreme Court slapped Cruz-Angeles with a three-year suspension as it found that she and two other lawyers violated the canons in the Code of Professional Responsibility.
Cruz-Angeles and two other lawyers were sued by their client after the latter paid P350,000 but they failed to produce a petition for annulment.
The STAR reported then that Angeles, who served as lawyer of Magdalo soldiers and expelled Iglesia Ni Cristo minister Lowell Menorca, admitted that their law firm received the payment but denied that she was remiss in her duties.
Vloggers at the Palace
At present, she hosts Karambola program of DWIZ. She also maintains a vlog “Luminous by Trixie Cruz-Angeles & Ahmed Paglinawan (her husband)” which has 406,000 followers at Facebook and more than 85,000 subscribers.
Part of the mandate of the PCOO is handling media accreditation and access to the administration. Rodriguez has earlier said they are open to allow vloggers at the Malacañang, Rappler said.
Vloggers and influencers were given their own accreditation IDs so they could trail the UniTeam campaign along with the media, who often had more restrictions on access to candidates.
"If that's the set up, I don't see any reason why we should change it," Rodriguez told the press on May 11.
"If it's not the set up now, I think it's a good point that you [reporter] have raised. Maybe we should also consider the vloggers because there already has been a transition from media that we used to know, there was a shift to digital platforms," he added.
Journalists, unlike vloggers, are bound by a Code of Ethics that the Philippine Press Institute, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the National Press Club adopted in 1988.
Among the items in that code is "the duty to air the other side and the duty to correct substantive errors promptly." Journalists — and the news outfits they represent — also risk losing their credibility as professionals when they make factual mistakes.
As press secretary, Angeles will lead the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), an agency that supervises state media channels and stations like PTV, Radyo ng Bayan, and more. The PCOO is also in charge of all documentation and state coverage of presidential events. It handles accreditation of journalists assigned to cover presidential functions.
‘Social media strategist’ during Duterte
Angeles is no stranger to PCOO affairs. Under the administration of President Duterte, she functioned as a “social media strategist” of the agency, from July 2017 to 2018. She was one of the social media personalities who helped promote Duterte’s candidacy during the 2016 elections.
Like many such pro-Duterte vloggers, she had regularly lambasted journalists, opposition figures, and critics of the government. In a Senate hearing, she has admitted “feeding” pro-government information to another Duterte appointee and social media personality Mocha Uson, who ran a Facebook page that had spread inaccurate information and propaganda.
The Duterte presidency has been distinguished by the President’s support for, and amplification of, social media influencers and personalities who targeted his critics, at times spread disinformation and lies against them, and vilified mainstream media and journalists. Such online support had galvanized his base and bred a highly divisive and polarized environment for any government critic.
The Marcos camp’s background description of Angeles pointed out her experience in the media – including as radio host of a radio program on DWIZ, which was heavily pro-Duterte; contributor to several magazines; an Ateneo de Manila University fine arts lecturer, and former lecturer at the Institute for Cultural and Arts Management, and more.
She had also been a former commissioner for cultural heritage at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and a former spokesperson of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.
Angeles finished her law degree at the University of the Philippines in 1997. But in 2016, the Supreme Court slapped her with a three-year suspension, stemming from a 2003 complaint against her that accused her of refusing to refund a client despite allegedly failing to produce the services required.
Angeles was the lawyer of Oakwood mutineer, former Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon, who was also an ardent Duterte supporter and ended up getting appointed to key posts in government, including as chief of the Bureau of Customs.
Angeles was also part of the legal team of the late chief justice Renato Corona, during his impeachment trial in 2012.
During the Duterte presidency, Angeles served as counsel in cases against the leadership of the influential Iglesia ni Cristo, accused of corruption, abduction, and illegal detention.
Cruz-Angeles taking the PCOO post comes at a time when the media that covered the Marcos campaign criticized the presumptive president for supposedly shunning interviews, while Rodriguez was called out by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines for supposedly ignoring questions from a reporter and called it "a red flag for press freedom.
Cruz-Angeles used to be Politiko’s publisher before she resigned to join the Duterte administration as a consultant to then-Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson.
An active social media user, she is a host of the show, “Karambola,” on DWIZ AM radio.
Cruz-Angeles was suspended by the Supreme Court from practicing law in 2016 for violating the lawyer’s code of conduct over a complaint filed in 2003. Cruz-Angeles denied she had been remiss in her duties and insisted she was not accorded due process.
A well- known vlogger (video blogger) and social media personality, Cruz-Angeles is taking an International Relations degree at the University of Minnesota in the United States, as well as an MA in Archaeology, also in UP.
Tags: #PCOO, #vloggersandbloggers, #traditionalmedia, #communication