Two days after she was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as Assistant Secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, controversial entertainer turned blogger Mocha Uson took to Facebook to explain the kind of work that she will do in her new office.
“Sa mga nagtatanong po kung ano po ba ang gagawin natin sa PCOO. Ang ating pong tutukan sa PCOO ay ang mailapit ang mga ordinaryong Pilipino sa pamahalaan sa pamamagitan ng Social Media. At ma-idiretso ang TAMANG BALITA sa ating kababayan sa pamamagitan ng SOCIAL MEDIA. Samahan po niyo ako mga kaDDS. Panahon na na hindi na tayo umasa sa mga MALING BALITA ng ilang mainstream media at ating palakasin ang SOCIAL MEDIA sa tulong niyo mga tunay na DDS. DAHIL TAYO ANG MEDIA NI TATAY DIGONG,” Uson posted.
Uson will spend her first day on her new government job — her second in four months — joining Duterte’s state visit to Cambodia on Wednesday.
Uson’s ubiquitous presence in social media may have played a big role in her appointment — her second in four months.
Her Facebook page, Mocha Uson Blog, has over 5 million followers, although detractors claim many of those followers are troll accounts.
She had been a staunch supporter of Duterte even before he announced his candidacy for last year’s presidential elections, and she campaigned actively for him for free.
She has constantly and fiercely defended him and his administration from local and foreign critics, especially those in mainstream media whom she calls “presstitutes.”
Although she went on record last year that she would not accept any government position nor would consider running for public office, Uson was appointed as a board member to the Movie and Television Review Classification Board last January.
She took the post but later announced on Facebook that she was donating her salary to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
As an MTRCB member, Uson was very vocal in her stand against soft porn on films and television — a highly controversial position given her history of performing provocatively as frontwoman of the girl group Mocha Girls, starring in two independent skin flicks, posing for provocative nude photos, and dispensing sex tips in an online video series.
She even threatened to resign if she would not get her way in the MTRCB.
Her appointment to the PCOO automatically rendered her MTRCB post vacant.
But while she has been very vocal about her stand against the proliferation of fake news in social media, Uson herself has been accused by her critics of spreading the same.
Immediately after news of her PCOO appointment became viral and provoked strong reactions from netizens, Uson has become and continues to be a trending topic on Twitter with around 11,500 tweets recorded by the social media network.
Some of the reactions questioned Uson’s lack of Civil Service qualifications. Presidential appointees are usually co-terminus with the president and are not required to take and pass the Civil Service examinations.
