The aphorism "a picture is worth a thousand words" attracted a following since 1911 when the members of the Syracuse Advertising Men's Club (New York, USA) met in March of that year to discuss their craft. A copywriter who documented the event quoted New York Evening Journal editor Arthur Brisbane as saying: "Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words." Since then, communicators of all shapes and sizes (e.g. advertising firms, propagandists, public relations agencies, media organizations and, lately, content creators, influencers and trolls, etc.) have leveraged the power of pictures to send compelling messages to their target audiences.
By rationalizing that it was for “documentation purposes
only,” Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benhur Abalos
perhaps did not mean to troll himself when questioned about a picture that
showed him and Philippine National Police Chief Rommel Marbil flanking fugitive
and dismissed Bamban, Tarlac, mayor Guō Huápíng (aka Alice Guo). But there he
was, likely forced to explain himself after having surveyed the damage he
caused to his own image when that picture ignited an uproar of disapproval from
the public.
It is easy to see why a picture—taken on September 5, 2024,
or hours after Abalos and Marbil had fished Guo out of her detention in
Indonesia—of both gentlemen granting her with such a royal reception, who in
turn acknowledged the gesture with a winning smile and the universally
understood “peace” sign, is outright distasteful.
Abalos and Marbil are tasked with keeping communities
peaceful and orderly, and which necessarily requires that rogue characters on
the prowl are in check. Whatever it was that Abalos sought documentation for,
nothing could be more damning than a picture that screams how he and his chief
cop have performed badly in carrying out their task. Freeriding on the glow
that belongs not to you is better left undocumented. The comparison between his
cops and those of their counterpart in Indonesia is just too distant in his
disfavor.
In June 2024, or a month before she slipped out of the
country to evade authorities following an arrest warrant issued by the
Philippine Senate, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has confirmed
that Chinese National Guō Huápíng and Alice Guo are one and the same. This
single fact alone indicts the entire government, notably the present
administration and its predecessor. With Abalos in that picture, he has doodled
how he fits into the pattern of government agencies being bribed wholesale by
Guō to get things done her way.
Except for the billions that the Anti-Money Laundering
Council (AMLAC) has belatedly uncovered as having been credited to her multiple
bank accounts, everything about Guo is fake.
Her civil registry record is fake. An NBI Clearance issued
before she applied for late registration contained a picture of another person.
Her Philippine passport is dubious. Her Commission on Election (COMELEC) files
reek of deliberate misrepresentation. Her Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth
Statements, required under the law, are grossly devalued. Fraud paved the way
for her ascent to being elected as a local chief executive, a position which is
under the administrative supervision of Abalos no less.
Because she is a Chinese citizen and a fake Filipino, she
can only serve one country and betray the other. Some sectors, including the
National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, consider her as a national security
concern. Given her record, everything she says is suspect.
Guō Huápíng can be a traitor to a country she falsely claims
to be a citizen of. And those who make her exploits worthy of publicity and,
with their presence, lend a crown of halos to them, should attract scrutiny.
Politicians who ran as Manchurian candidates, like the one who created her,
covertly serve the interests of other countries.
Abalos said:
"Nag-request si Alice na kausapin kami ni Chief and
sinabi talaga na meron siyang death threats and in-assure ko siya na death
threats 'wag niyang alalahanin.”
That should make his photo with Guo even more revolting when
juxtaposed with the one that showed a mother lifting her son from a concrete
deathbed, blood dripping from his body, murdered by men in uniform who
supposedly are disguised as vigilantes. Unlike other suspects and fugitives
that have been stopped on their tracks while on the run, both are uncuffed; but
one is smiling while the other is stiff. One has death threats; the other is
dead. One has an arrest warrant; the other is, at best, a suspect, and, at
worst, as snippets of information from an ongoing congressional investigation
show, a fodder for padding the numbers to meet a state-sanctioned kill quota.
One is messaging by Marcos; the other is justice by Duterte.
A side comment is that while most of the 20,000 or so
casualties of Mr. Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs were poor, Guo is super
rich.
President Bongbong Marcos Jr. saw nothing downright damaging
in what I prefer to call as the “homecoming” photo, saying “I think that is
part of the new culture now that we ask for any photo.” He is correct. To
downplay the value of the picture is to slap it with more opacity to better
conceal the shortcomings of the executive offices of the government which he
heads.
A shadow of this double-speak brings back an image of then
President Fidel Ramos who went around chomping an unlit cigar. He wanted to
show support for the tobacco farmers in the Ilocos Region while keeping the
earth smoke-free.
Which one did Marcos try to please: Those who are weary of
Guo’s antics by suggesting he was on top of the homecoming? Or those who helped
create a quisling in Guo, probably of the same cloth as those who did not mean
to stop her but were not given any other option by the Indonesian police?
The country is thus indebted to Senator Risa Hontiveros for leading
a Senate investigation on the activities of Philippine Offshore Gaming
Operators (POGOs) in the country. Her dogged pursuit of facts that give rise to
revelations of what seem to be an unending string of irregularities made it embarrassing
for the Bureau of Immigration, the NBI, the COMELEC, the DILG, the Ombudsman,
the Philippine Statistics Authority, the AMLAC, among many other
instrumentalities of government, not to whip themselves into action and perform
the tasks that they should have been doing consistently, patriotically, and
with integrity, a long time ago. The takeaway is that had even just one of
these agencies been true to their calling, neither a Guō Huápíng nor an Alice
Guo would have thrived in a country built by the blood of its heroes. It would
have been hard for any of her kind to get around to even think of contending
for any elective office in the first place.
In short, with government regulatory agencies performing
below expectations, we have reached a point where we put all the burden of
electing authentic candidates in the hands of the voter. That, to me, is why
the picture of Abalos, Guo and Marbil is worth a thousand words. It damns not
only the government that Abalos and Marbil represent, but it also damns
Philippine politics. It damns the voters—representing the collective interests
of present and future generations—who are captives of a system that is so corrupted
it shows symptoms of metastasis not only in Bamban but anywhere in the entire
country—especially in areas influenced by political dynasties, drug lords,
gambling lords, and, lest we forget, POGOs. That picture of a cheering trio
sadly damns the whole nation.
