WE VOTED FOR DUTERTE, JUST DUTERTE
Dear People in Malacanang minus President Duterte,
DISCLAIMER: Hindi ka kasali sa patatamaan ng open letter na ito, Daddy D.
With all due respect, let me inform you, the every-person in Malacanang who is not President Duterte, that there is a limit to how much abuse the tens of millions of Duterte supporters on social media can take.
Treat your supporters for what they are: supporters. They are not your enemies, so don't treat them like one.
Remember that the massive political capital you currently collectively enjoy emanates from them. You will not be where you are without them, and you will not be there, still in your positions, without them.
Considering that most of you grew up in a different time, we initially didn't blame you for your inability to adapt to the rapidly changing information landscape, and that's why we were generous enough to give you almost two years to adjust.
We allowed you to ignore us in social media because we felt that we needed to help those that President Rody Duterte chose to help him. Instead of complaining about your inadequacies, we chose to give you some breathing room as we attempted, day by day, to defend the person we chose to put in the Palace.
But patience is slowly becoming a scarce resource, as we recently witnessed several officials in Malacanang find ways not just to ignore us, but to undermine all that we've fought for in the past couple of years.
This is unacceptable.
We know that Duterte is not god: he makes mistakes too, and we hope you are not one of those mistakes.
Let this be a gentle reminder to the ones up there: we are not your online slaves.
We will not lick your feet after you've kicked us around. You have kicked us a few times already, and I cannot guarantee that we can take some more.
Fix your act, but do not fix it at our expense.: you already saw what happened to that one guy who tried to be cute but sorely failed.
Because at the end of the day, it's Duterte who we really support, and not any of you. While we respect a great number of people in Malacanang, one's mere association with the President is not enough for us to risk life, limb, and property for anyone other than the President.
With that said, I personally declare a ceasefire because of APEC and ASEAN. I will not hit you as hard for the next couple of weeks because I want to give you as much breathing room as possible to make those two events a success. Note that I cannot speak for the rest of social media in this regard: I can only speak for myself.
As for the other social media personalities and the millions of Filipino Duterte supporters on this platform, it is your choice if you will go along with me or not. It's really up to you guys and besides, I do not control your minds in the first place. But rest assured, for what it's worth, that I will respect your decision, whatever that decision may be.
This bears repeating: We voted for Duterte. Just Duterte.