Okay, the truth is we’re half-hearted about running this story, because more widespread exposure might undermine the whole thing—but at the same time, it’s too good not to share. So here goes: remember when some US executive agencies went rogue after the White House had them delete tweets? A few disgruntled government workers are finally doing the same here.
Today, we discovered the existence of at least three rogue government accounts. The first, most important one is @AltMalacanang (and that’s alt, not alter), who, if we are to believe their official backstory, are a bunch of Duterte voters who are now completely dissatisfied with the guy they voted for. So they’re turning their guilt and anger into something more productive, which is by livetweeting all the hilariously sad shit going on inside the Palace. Check out their badass mission statement:
And whether you choose to believe their scoops or not, we get some really awesome gems like the following:
And our absolute favorite today:
Honestly, this has been around for at least a month now and we’re kicking ourselves that we didn’t find it sooner. It’s up to you on how much salt you want to take their tweets with—we just think it’s pure comedy. The sad, we’re-really-messed-up-now-aren’t-we kind.
The legislative branch of the government is represented, too, by @RogueSenStaff and @roguehrepstaff. They’re honestly not as sharp as Alt Malacanang, but given the way both chambers of Congress are being run right now, they’re still useful and welcome accounts, staffed by similar people who voted for Duterte and were totally disappointed.
Where Alt Malacanang likes to tell insightful tales of days at the Palace, the Congress accounts are much more savage and petty:
If there’s anything we’d like to say, though, it’s that @roguehrepstaff has to chill a little bit. A thorough reading of his Twitter feed leaves a lot of clues that can make his identity easy to figure out, beyond covering his face with a sticker. It’s actually entirely possible that the people he tweets about actually already know who he is, but we’re just worried about the guy.
Now we’re waiting for someone to go rogue at the Supreme Court so we can cover all co-equal branches of the government, as well as the PNP, just for the lulz. Again, we’re not buying 100% into everything they’re saying because it’ll be just as easy for them to pull our leg as it is for the trolls on the other side to keep supplying the pro-admin Kool-Aid. But if most of these are true—and that’s a really significant if—it’s an important look into the government that the mainstream media can’t always provide, even if they wanted to.
And that’s where the lure of these accounts lie; a lot of people desperately want them to be true, if to at least prove the kind of people the Philippines elected last June. Maybe some, or most of it, are true, but at this point we’re keeping our expectations low. Until we can have all of this really vetted, pass the popcorn.
UPDATE (4:52 p.m.): We were alerted to the existence of a rogue AFP account at @AltTeamAFP, which throws some pretty verbose shade:
The fun never stops, and proves that dissent will always find new ways to manifest itself within a culture of corruption. Keep ’em coming, y’all.