Nakakaon na ba ang tanan?” (Has everyone eaten?) 

With that question on Facebook Live, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan proceeded to eat with his hands as he talked to followers of his massive social media platform. Chan, mayor of a city of around 497,600 people, is the most active Cebuano public official on Facebook, amassing 880,000 followers.

Chan is everywhere on Facebook. He is shown live attending to emergencies like fires, inspecting projects, or going on Facebook Live while eating and talking to his followers. He dances on video and, at one point, was photographed squatting on the side of the road, looking exhausted after seemingly helping with dirty road work.

Chan, like his wife, Lapu-Lapu Representative Cindy King Chan, has a team handling his personal Facebook page that’s separate from the public information office (PIO) team. The Chans all have large Facebook followings. Cindy has 387,000 followers of her page, which was created on June 11, 2019 as the “Lapu-Lapu City Government – Chan’s Administration.” 

With politicians such as Chan posting on Facebook, reporters in Cebu have increasingly relied on their accounts instead of producing original reports on issues. 

This practice has become more prevalent as public officials and government agencies built bigger platforms of their own to rival those of media groups.

The higher pay, shorter hours, and better equipment have also enticed many senior reporters and photographers to transfer to government information offices. This influx of former media workers shows in the much-improved posting and performance of social media pages of politicians and government agencies, said lawyer and newspaper columnist Ian Manticajon.

With massive platforms, public officials can now just ignore the media, especially in communities outside Manila, according to several people interviewed for this story.

Rappler has been asking Chan and his staff for an interview about his social media initiatives several times since October 2024. We will update this story once he responds to our questions.

Monitoring Facebook Live

Politicians’ use of Facebook can have its downside for journalists.

“Mag-live man mi (We’ll go live),” is often the answer of government officials to requests for comments or an interview by members of the media, said broadcast journalist and mass communications instructor Annie Perez-Gallardo. 

She said this became a more common occurrence to her after the ABS-CBN shutdown and the pandemic lockdowns. Gallardo worked for ABS-CBN before it was shuttered and continues to report for the company, single-handedly covering Central Visayas.

Gallardo said that active social media accounts of public officials and government agencies are helpful for journalists like her, the regional reporter handling Cebu, Dumaguete, Bohol, and Siquijor. She said it allows her to monitor the region and even get facts for her report even if she’s based in Cebu City.

However, being told to just monitor Facebook Live is frustrating, reporters told Rappler in separate interviews.

It was difficult at Cebu City Hall back when Michael Rama was still mayor, said The Freeman reporter Iris Hazel Mascardo. 

Rama, in whose term the Sugboanon Channel Facebook page started, would prioritize being interviewed by City Hall Public Information Office (PIO) staff rather than members of the media. City Hall tried to set the narrative and the reporters would often wait in futility. The PIO took advantage of the situation and solicited questions that reporters wanted to ask Rama.

“But lahi ra ba gyud ang framing sa questions (They frame the questions differently),” Mascardo said. The PIO screens the questions and sets their own agenda, Mascardo said, and there were questions they wanted to ask but did not get the opportunity to raise. 

Mascardo said that at times, they were left with no other choice but to use the livestream and PIO report as bases for their stories. She said there were times when a piece of information included in a PIO story caught them by surprise because this was insider information not made available to them. The Cebu City PIO would also cannibalize their content, reprinting her stories for The Freeman in the Cebu City PIO website.

Mascardo said the situation is better now, with Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia scheduling regular press conferences at City Hall. Garcia became mayor after Rama — under whom he served as vice mayor — was suspended for six months and then eventually dismissed from his post by the Office of the Ombudsman. 

In the south, the news beat covering Talisay City government has disappeared, leaving only one broadcast team regularly checking for updates. Talisay City Mayor Samsam Gullas prefers the current setup, he told Rappler, because he is able to set the news agenda by posting on Facebook. What he posts is then picked up by the media.

The disappearance of news beats is concerning, according to people interviewed for this article. News beats provide an avenue for journalists to learn how to cover their assignments, said Maria Jane Paredes, a lawyer and retired journalist who teaches communications at the University of the Philippines Cebu. The beats foster mentoring, she said.

For Manticajon, however, news beats are obsolete. Manticajon is a communications instructor at UP Cebu and writes a column for The Freeman. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), availability of information, and easy access to people including news sources, the news beat is no longer essential, Manticajon told Rappler.

“Dili na kaayo ta kinahanglan og specialist (We no longer need specialists that much),” Manticajon said. The tasks served by the beat system are better addressed by a functioning newsroom, he said.

Turning to traditional media

But even if politicians’ pages and partisan accounts have high engagement and often break news, people still turn to traditional media for trusted and verified stories, said Mascardo. 

“I think the people still need the media for legitimacy check ba,” Mascardo told Rappler.

It’s a view shared by Mascardo’s editor-in-chief, Lucky Malicay. People still trust traditional media like newspapers, even if “we were caught with our pants down” by the rise of social media. Malicay said that he asked reporters at The Freeman not just to rely on the social media posts of politicians or government agencies, but to also get the complete story to keep their journalism edge.

Malicay said newspapers like The Freeman continue to be impacted by the pandemic and the rapid shift to digital. “We are still on the road to recovery,” Malicay said when asked about the state of the Cebu newspaper industry.

In Cagayan de Oro, the situation is the same, if not worse, said journalist Froilan Gallardo, president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) Incorporated. More than being ignored, officials label you as being for or against them and refuse to engage with you, he said. Gallardo said financial issues are the biggest problem for community media in Cagayan de Oro.

It’s also happening in Davao, said Mindanao Times editor Amalia Cabusao. “It’s a very challenging time for media, it’s also a very interesting time. We’re at the cusp of great change,” she told Rappler. The paper had to cut down their pages and reduce publication frequency from daily to weekly.  She said they are strengthening their community, especially online, by reaching out to specific groups of people.

“It’s the same problem across the archipelago,” said Philippine Press Institute (PPI) executive director Ariel Sebellino. The PPI is the national association of newspapers and counts community publications as the majority of its members.

The upcoming elections are crucial, especially for the community press, Sebellino said.

Sebellino said “pockets of initiatives” in various communities show promise in helping address media problems. Among the initiatives is the establishment of media-citizens councils in various communities throughout the country. 

Sebellino said the media-citizens councils are mechanisms that can empower communities and support citizen participation in governance. These councils are independent organizations with representatives from various sectors. They are meant to hold media accountable.

Sebellino said it is important that communities rally behind journalism because it is fundamental in nation-building. Community media are at the forefront not only in fighting the infodemic, but also in fostering citizen engagement, he said.

“If we are able to save the community press, we will be able to save Philippine journalism,” Sebellino said. – Rappler.com

Max Limpag, a freelance journalist from Cebu, is a 2024 Aries Rufo Journalism fellow.