Pro-Duterte artist posts his own take on the #Tumindig online movement—three times

If you were on social media over the past few days, your Instagram and Facebook feeds would be familiar with the #Tumindig hashtag and the illustrations of figures standing up.

There’s no missing it since cartoonist Kevin Eric Raymundo (aka Tarantadong Kalbo), in his call to “stand up”—presumably against the Duterte administration—seems to have sparked an online artists’ political movement that quickly snowballed over the past few days.

Read: So a cartoon named ‘Tarantadong Kalbo’ now counts as a hero of the resistance

This is not to say that all artists are anti-government. Clearly there are a few creatives who proudly count themselves among the Duterte Diehard Supporters (DDS), and Manila Times cartoonist Steven Pabalinas is one of them.

Late last night, Pabalinas posted his own take(down) on the #Tumindig trend, with an illustration of a scowling woman (presumably Sara Duterte) wearing a Sara 2022 shirt and camouflage-patterned pants. On the left hand, she is carrying Mjolnir, while the right hand wears Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet. She says, “Tindig-tindig. Leche!”

Despite apparently misunderstanding the words “disclaimer”, “satire”, “parody” and “literally”, Pabalinas captioned his post: “Disclaimer: satire/parody with some revisions for the wokes who take things too literally”.

As Pabalinas himself admitted, there were quite a few revisions between his first version and the one he left up on his feed.

The first version was decidedly bloodier, showing the woman holding up a dead figure in her Infinity Gauntlet-clad right hand and wielding a chainsaw instead of Mjolnir. There’s also what appears to be blood under her boots.

The second post shows the blood stains cleaned up, with the chainsaw replaced by a hammer. The woman is no longer clutching anything in the gauntlet.

Despite the revisions, a user on Reddit was quick to point out that the cartoon nevertheless “gloriously fails at defending D30, reinforces the image of a murderous regime instead.”

“They do know Thanos is a villain, right?” said one Redditor, while another commented, “The ‘disclaimer’ is the icing on the cake.”