Disinfecting alcohol has become rare in the Philippines these days, thanks in no small part to panic-buyers hoarding it due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scarcity of the sanitizer inspired vlogger Isa Rodriguez to create a video review of several local alcohol brands — one that was less of a consumer report, and more of a comedy routine peppered with witty, thinly veiled attacks on the Duterte administration.
Posted late last week, shortly before President Rodrigo Duterte announced the Luzon-wide lockdown, the video shows Rodriguez trying popular local alcohol brands such as Doctor J, Casino, and Green Cross. She starts the video by joking, “I’m just going to do an alcohol review because we have no one else to rely [on] except ourselves alone. Anyway, we’re used to pretending that we’re clean.” (Zing!)
Throwing shade at the president’s tendency to ramble like an incoherent drunk in press conferences, she at one point shows off several mini bottles of liquor. “These are just props… If I reviewed wine, this would appear like a presscon.” (Burn!)
“All of these [alcohol] I just picked here in our house, that’s why there is not a lot,” she joked, “just like my trust in this administration.” (Ba-dum-tshhh!)
It didn’t end there. Holding one bottle, she said, “This one, I stole from my brother. It’s fine with him. Anyway, Filipinos are used to being stolen from, right?” (Hey-oooo!)
You can watch the video, which has been shared almost 18,000 times since posting, right here.
In an interview with Coconuts Manila, Rodriguez said she created the video because she, like many Filipinos, was anxious about the coronavirus outbreak.
“I had a lot of feelings because of what was happening this week. I couldn’t really go out and find stuff to shoot because of ‘social distancing,’ so I decided to try and find something at home. Figured alcohol would make sense since everyone was talking about it,” she said.
Because buying the disinfectant has become almost impossible, she said she just took a few bottles that she found around her house.
“One was from my brother’s gym bag. One came from my sister’s room. One I found in the sala for everyone’s general use in the household, and the last bottle was actually a new one from my mother’s last grocery run,” she said. “It was not at all sourced or sponsored, I would’ve grabbed any bottle here. I even considered adding actual alcoholic drinks to the mix if I didn’t find enough alcohol in the house.”
She said she has also attracted her fair share of critics because of the jokes she made in the video.
“I found that a lot of trolls that comment are doing so to attack, that they aren’t willing to listen; even reason won’t change their minds. Of course, when criticism is constructive, I try to engage, though those comments are very few and far between,” she said.
Thanks for cracking us up, Isa. Keep those jokes coming!
Have you seen any interesting videos that poke fun at our incompetent politicians? Tell us by leaving a comment below or tweeting to @CoconutsManila.
