Aguda’s absentee genie
So why has Zuckerberg become the star of the show? Perhaps because it is much easier to summon a billionaire in absentia than to explain what Congress actually wants changed.
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So why has Zuckerberg become the star of the show? Perhaps because it is much easier to summon a billionaire in absentia than to explain what Congress actually wants changed.
Apparently, the House has discovered a new form of parliamentary magic.
Rub Henry Aguda’s lamp three times, summon Mark Zuckerberg and — poof! — the billionaire materializes before Congress, preferably in person, preferably contrite, preferably ready to explain why Facebook cannot instantly make the internet behave.
The lawmakers have deferred action on the proposed 2027 budget of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) while demanding answers from Meta over child safety, harmful content, online gambling, cyberbullying, and other digital ills. It is quite a trick.
The only problem is that the lamp belongs to DICT. Not to Zuckerberg nor to Meta.
Congress has every right to conduct inquiries into matters within its legislative jurisdiction. There are perfectly legitimate questions about how enormous technology platforms respond to child exploitation, violent material, scams, and other online harms.
But somewhere between the legitimate questions and the dramatic summons, the proceedings have acquired the air of a particularly Filipino bureaucratic fairy tale: we cannot make Zuckerberg come, so perhaps we can make DICT’s budget wait.
For all I care, they can give Aguda a peso for a department whose own internet connection dropped many times during a simple DAILY TRIBUNE video interview with one of its undersecretaries.
Yet, the underlying concerns are serious enough. DICT says Meta continues to fall short on youth safety and has cited online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, child sexual abuse material, illegal gambling, cyberbullying, and related harms.
I’m no fan of Zuckerberg and I perfectly understand if people think he sucks. But these are not uniquely Facebook problems, like the recent school shootings being blamed on online groomers and violent video games.
They are internet problems. They are platform problems. They are law enforcement problems. They are parental problems. They are regulatory problems. And, increasingly, they are problems created by an internet on which a child can encounter something monstrous while the world sleeps.
So why has Zuckerberg become the star of the show? Perhaps because it is much easier to summon a billionaire in absentia than to explain what Congress actually wants changed.
Does it want faster takedowns? More Philippine-based moderation? A 24-hour government liaison office? More cooperation with investigators? Identity verification? A formal agreement with DICT? These are solid questions.
One of the arguments is that the Philippines is such a huge Meta market that the company owes the country a greater presence and greater accountability. That basic premise is understandable. But the claim that Meta has no Philippine country manager or “real office” is problematic.
Meta appointed Jerry Jimenez Bongco its Philippine country director, with responsibility for its local team and business strategy. Meta also maintains a Philippine office. So the congressional argument does not become stronger by making the Philippine presence sound smaller than it is.
If anything, the interesting question is why a company with a substantial Philippine operation and an enormous Philippine audience still requires government officials to negotiate repeatedly for cooperation on matters involving Filipino users.
To this Contrarian, Congress has a perverted chain of accountability. Meta misbehaves, Zuckerberg doesn’t appear, and DICT’s budget gets delayed. That is not exactly the technological architecture of accountability.
It’s like blaming the barangay captain because the multinational next door won’t answer the phone. And maybe that’s the real lesson in this little congressional drama featuring self-important fools.
The internet does not become safer because a famous American executive is dragged before a Philippine hearing. It becomes safer when the government writes enforceable rules, applies them consistently across platforms, gives regulators the resources to enforce them, and makes companies — foreign and domestic — comply with those rules.
That requires less theatrical magic and considerably more legislative plumbing.
Unfortunately, legislative plumbing does not make for very satisfying television optics.
Summoning Zuckerberg does.
