Iced Mocha Federalismo

A mug of iced mocha Frappuccino is not your typical cup of coffee. With an oversized dollop of whipped cream, marbled with twirling strands of caramel and chocolate syrup, and served like an ice cream soda, diehard coffee traditionalists would probably deny it as a true coffee concoction.

If at all, it’s an aberration. Coffee purists would freak out and label it a transgression on traditional java brews.

Be that as it may, casual observations might reveal that these artisanal, non-traditional concoctions have recently brought the traditional café closer to the public, morphing it beyond recognition to popularise coffee-drinking even among the youth for whom classic and conventional coffee was mere bitter brew.

For the moment let us set aside this crude and forced allegory on Mocha Uson’s role in popularising presidential policies and instead dive into the positive and negative consequences of that rather unfortunate stunt from the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

While still on the subject of Uson, allow us to view her recent communications faux pas in the light of a divisive political milieu.

By most standards, the PCOO’s “Pepedederalismo” video produced for Uson’s multitudinous social media audience was indeed inappropriate for any communications campaign, whether official or unofficial, state-funded or free, with or without the sexual undertones catering to crass commonplace gutter-speak.

Reading the draft Federalism constitution written by the Charter change ConCom, there is really very little there to substantiate a full information campaign save for broad strokes.

In fact there is little there that can stoke a profound debate other than clichés that most who’ve been following the Federalism proposal from the broadsheets already know. Despite the long hours expended, the draft is substantially a disembodied framework.

If this is the kind of material its authors initially expect Uson to disseminate among her thousands of followers then her apparent cluelessness in the controversial video is not only explainable, it is also justified.

In effect, even as the video virtually trivialised Federalism through its kitschy treatment, it also accurately reflects the amount of ignorance by the general public and not just Uson’s or her unfortunate colleague’s. If the video had done the Federalism initiative any damage beyond ridiculing it, it was not through Uson’s faux pas but rather in the failure of ConCom’s “brainiacs” who wrote the draft.

Honestly speaking, their fear that Federalism has been trivialised might not be based on Uson’s questionable taste in creating awareness for Federalism but in the reality that Uson not only has a following they would give their left nut for but she has such base popularity that overwhelms all the sweat and intellect they’ve invested. Inadvertently, Uson exposed their hubris and their failure to make their draft understandable to those tasked to market it.

As twisted fate would have it, Uson also unexpectedly brought the debate to the street level, there softening it up for subsequent criticism.

Where ranking presidential alter-egos openly expressed profound misgivings were added to the negative consequences wrought by Uson’s video, it now appears that the task facing die-hard advocates is not simply to conduct an information campaign, but one that needs to address deeply discordant discourses where some involve Federalism’s catastrophic costs.

Uson is Frappuccino to Federalism’s bitter espresso. An effective cheerleader and crowd drawer, she can popularise an inherently dull product given adequate support.

That the ConCom failed to address the humongous transitional costs of bureaucratic bloating and redundancy wrought by Federalism is telling. They should not fantasise that Mocha Uson can do more than rally support. If Federalism’s experts failed to address critical requisites, how can they expect Uson, whose expertise lies elsewhere, to fill in their shortcomings?