#MassTestingNowPH tweets as acts of citizenship: The rhetorical functions of tweets in pandemic-stricken Philippines

Abstract

Constrained physical mobility and oppositional action during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines drove many Filipinos to turn to social media affordances, like Twitter’s hashtags, as sites of free speech, dissent, and collective action. One of which, #MassTestingNowPH, called for the implementation of mass testing for the vulnerable population and objected to Rodrigo Duterte’s militaristic pandemic response. This paper examined how #MassTestingNowPH tweets served as acts of citizenship and exerted their rhetorical functions in the digital space during this global medical crisis. Using rhetorical political analysis, this research found that #MassTestingNowPH tweets manifested acts of citizenship by asserting citizens’ rights and responsibilities, and exacting government’s accountability in newly-formed ad hoc publics. Users criticized the country’s COVID-19 response and the injustices of VIP testing for some of its officials. These criticisms enabled them to generate collective grievances for medical frontliners and the marginalized. With these sentiments, netizens called on their audiences to act on their judgment and assert their citizenship in online and offline platforms. These tweets, as acts of citizenship, performed three rhetorical functions: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative. This rhetorical process shaped Twitter’s hashtag as an ad hoc public and the meaning of citizenship in our highly-networked world.