In the alternate universe of the troll farms, the hurting sensibilities of lawmakers Rodante Marcoleta, Juanito Victor Remulla and Michael Defensor — hu, hu, hu — need urgent healing and attention and that should be the national priority. Second to that is healing the hurting sensibility of Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd (Have you ever read a slim book Duke of Deception?), who can’t seem to take it when somebody points out  (some coming from within the Cabinet and some coming from the Senate) that fudging is his second nature and bumbling is his third. The first is well known: the tenacious resolve to remain Health secretary.

The troll farms are, of course, the masters of planning and planting distractions.  But only up to a certain point. When reality sets in, when daylight pierces through the deceptions (what British intellectual Walter Bagehot called “daylight setting in upon magic,” we are back to the problems of the surly earth, the powerful jolt of reality. Like the nation waking up to the coming of August, the start of the school year and the unraveling of the crisis that faces Philippine education in the time of the pandemic.