MANILA (UPDATE) – High engagement and scores of followers may be used as basis to allow a blogger to cover Malacañang Palace, the incoming head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office said Thursday.

Incoming PCOO chief Trixie Cruz-Angeles said they are currently reviewing Malacañang's blogger accreditation policy, which was put in place under the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.

“Under the old policy kasi there’s a 20,000 followers na limit, na kailangan malagpasan po nila in order to be considered,” she noted.

(Under the old policy, a blogger needs to have a minimum of 20,000 followers to be accredited.)

“Right now, tinitingnan din po namin yung (we are also looking at) engagements, kasi engagements really means that people are responding to what you have written or shown, in the case of vloggers, at interesado o sila o nai-involve sila doon sa sinasabi (and they're interested in what you say).”

“So ngayon ang kino-consider namin both following and engagements kasi makaiba po yun,” she explained.

(So now we are considering both following and engagements, because they're different.)

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Angeles noted, however, that the main focus of their policy review is checking whether or not to allow vloggers to attend regular Palace briefings.

“Hindi pa rin natin po alam kung tama na nga po, ngayon ang panahon na nararapat para ma-include sila, ano yung level of inclusion (We don't know if it's the right time. What is their level of inclusion?), ano yung number of--kumbaga will they be regular like the, similar to the Malacanang Press Corps or will they just be able to cover events, do we create events for them?” she said.

Acting Palace spokesperson Martin Andanar told reporters they are leaving the accreditation of bloggers to the incoming administration.

"Any reaction or queries on the matter should therefore be best answered by the next Administration's Press Secretary-designate," he said.

Bloggers played a huge role during Marcos Jr's presidential campaign, with some given priority access during UniTeam sorties.

Access to Malacañang coverage or Palace events was traditionally limited to journalists from TV and radio networks, online news outfits, and newspapers. But PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar in 2017 allowed the accreditation of select social media users through a department order.

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Angeles has previously said that working on the accreditation of bloggers in Malacañang is one of her group’s priorities.

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--TeleRadyo, 9 June 2022

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