Two Facebook posts from the 2016 #MyDuterteStory campaign: a testimonial titled "Mayor Duterte — Hard on Crime" with a wedding photo watermarked #MyDuterteStory, and a post titled "OFW's Faith in the Country, Restored" from a supporter in Edmonton, Canada, with a scrapbook-style photo collage of Duterte campaign materials.

MyDuterte Story Campaign Case Study: Scaling Authentic Personal Narratives

September 15, 2026

MyDuterte Story Campaign Case Study: Scaling Authentic Personal Narratives Key Takeaways One instruction to volunteers: “Tell your Duterte story.” No template, no brief, no format required The most credible voice in any campaign is always an ordinary person telling the truth Stories came in every format — essays, memes, photos, videos — in four Philippine languages We gave direction, identified what was gaining traction, and boosted the best The lesson: every brand has people who genuinely love it. Build systems to surface their stories It started with a simple instruction to our network of social media volunteers: Tell your Duterte story. This directive launched the MyDuterte story campaign case study, transforming a single idea into a movement. We provided no templates or visual guidelines.

Infographic of a social media strategy framework: content as king, distribution as queen, engagement building a kingdom community

Content Is King, Distribution Is Queen: My Social Media Strategy

September 10, 2026

Key Takeways: Content is King, Distribution is Queen, Engagement builds the Kingdom — the architecture of every campaign I’ve run Good content evokes emotion or prompts action; format matters far less than the message Filipino cultural shorthand — hugot, kilig, pride — is what makes content travel here Most campaigns fail at distribution: everything spent on production, nothing on reach The marching orders never change: engage your audience, distribute cost-efficiently, and tell the truth I know, I know — “content is king” sounds like something you’d see on a motivational poster. But bear with me. The way I think about it isn’t a slogan. It’s the actual architecture of a social media strategy. Here’s the framework I’ve used for years, and taught to every

A dark blue infographic titled "Who Tells the Story?" contrasting two eras: "Before — one-way, gatekept," showing a single media broadcast node transmitting down to rows of passive audience members, and "Now — networked, everyone a storyteller," showing an interconnected web of nodes with a storyteller at the center.

The Democratization of Media in the Philippines: How Social Media Changed Narrative Making

September 8, 2026

The Democratization of Media in the Philippines: How Social Media Changed Narrative Making Series: Inside the Campaign Eighth of Ten Parts Key Takeaways Before social media, narrative making was controlled by big media companies — we were just the audience Social media made every Filipino with a smartphone a potential storyteller We seeded the MyDuterte story idea and let it multiply into thousands of authentic narratives The old model was message control. The new model is narrative cultivation The lesson: build something worth talking about, then give people a platform to talk about it Let me take you back to how the media landscape in the Philippines functioned before 2016. It was a time of strict control and high barriers to entry. Before the

Infographic of the ABS-CBN ad boycott crisis: listening, rebuilding trust, and a revenue turnaround from ₱266M to ₱1B a month

Crisis Management Lessons From the ABS-CBN Advertiser Boycott

September 3, 2026

Key Takeaways: I was appointed Head of Sales and Marketing at ABS-CBN in February 1997–straight into an advertiser and ad agency boycott Lesson 1: understand what the aggrieved side actually needs before you defend or counter Lesson 2: trust is rebuilt through behavior, not statements — make moves that speak for themselves Lesson 3: a team that’s behind needs a clear goal, not a pep talk — we set the target and hoit it The turnaround grew into quadrupled revenues: from P266M to over P1B per month, without missing a target February 1997. I had just been appointed Head of Sales and Marketing at ABS-CBN. It was a role I didn’t ask for, by the way. Freddie Garcia called me into his office and

Two pomelos at a fruit stand with Duterte-Cayetano campaign stickers placed on their Golden Fruits labels.

How to Run a National Campaign with Almost No Budget — and Win

September 1, 2026

Series: Inside the Campaign Seventh of Ten Parts Key Takeaways Our first TV buy was ₱8M — used to test four regional cities, not flood national airwaves The leading spender spent ₱500M+ on advocacy ads. Our official spend was ₱371M — and our real media value was multiples of that Every peso constraint forced a more creative, more targeted decision The pomelo sticker, the apron, the bicycle man — zero-budget content that traveled further than a billboard The lesson: money buys reach. Belief builds movements. Scarcity is an editor, not just an obstacle Let me tell you about our first TV buy. ₱8 million. That was our initial television budget for what would become the most consequential presidential campaign in recent Philippine history. With ₱8

Winding timeline of Nic Gabunada's seven career stages from chemistry to advertising and reputation management

The Serendipitous Career: Why a Non-Linear Career Path Wins

August 27, 2026

Key Takeways: I enrolled in BS Chemistry; two professors talked me into Management Engineering — the first serendipitous turn of many From activist detention in Davao to economics at CRC to Media Pulse to ABS-CBN: none of it was planned When Freddie Garcia handed me Sales and Marketing with no sales background, mentorship made ‘yes’ posible Non-linear career are failure of planning — they’re evidence of adaptability The market rewards specialists, but it deeply needs sympathizers who transfer knowledge across fields I wanted to be a chemist. That’s the truth. When I enrolled at Ateneo de Davao University, I signed up for BS Chemistry. I had a plan. I had a direction. And then the plan changed — the first turn in what became

An aerial night photograph of a massive Duterte campaign rally crowd filling a public square, captioned "Attend Rallies."

Arouse, Organize, Mobilize: Turning Online Followers into Voters and Campaigners

August 25, 2026

Series: Inside the Campaign Sixth of 10 Parts Key Takeaways Engagement metrics are not the same as real-world impact — this distinction cost other campaigns dearly We used a three-stage framework: Arouse (emotion), Organize (structure), Mobilize (action) Online groups were aligned into four clusters: OFWs, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao — each with a coordinator Mobilization meant rallies, door-to-door, debate watch parties, and ballot guardianship The lesson: social media is the recruitment channel, not the campaign itself There is a trap in social media campaigning that I’ve seen consume well-resourced campaigns with sophisticated tools and impressive metrics: the trap of confusing engagement with action. Likes are not votes. Shares are not door-to-door visits. Passionate comment threads are not guardians of the ballot. And a Facebook group

A cream-colored mare tethered on a grass hillside grazes beside her brown foal, with a row of coconut palms and distant mountains in the background. Photo taken by Nic Gabunada

More Than a Sport: How Horses Built Status, Settled Feuds, and Kept the Peace in Upland Mindanao

August 20, 2026

I still remember the first time someone told me, without a trace of irony, that horses had once settled a blood debt between two families in the uplands of Mindanao. Not a payment of cash. Not a formal apology delivered by elders. Horses — walked from one household to another, accepted as full and final restitution for a life lost. Growing up hearing stories like this, I assumed it was folklore, the kind of detail that gets embellished with every retelling. It wasn’t. Among the Lumad and upland farming communities of Mindanao, a horse has never just been an animal. It has been currency, dowry, peace offering, and proof of a man’s standing in his community — all at once. That’s the world I want

A volunteer-made campaign collage titled "Unity Leads to Victory" showing eight aerial and crowd photos of Duterte rallies in Taguig, Tabaco, Tagum, Danao, Luneta, Cotabato, and Lingayen, bordered with the Duterte-Cayetano campaign banner.

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: Why Consumer-Generated Content Beats Agency-Invented Campaigns

August 18, 2026

Series: Inside the Campaign Fifth of 10 Parts Key Takeaways Our best campaign content came from volunteers, not professionals Digital natives from each region created content that was believed because it was true Our central role was direction-setter and curator — not creator The result was a content ecosystem that felt alive, because it was The lesson: find your believers, give them a direction not a script, then get out of the way There is a fantasy that persists in the marketing and communications industry — that the best content comes from the best creative teams. That a campaign is only as good as the agency behind it. The 2016 Duterte campaign was, among other things, a refutation of that idea. We didn’t have the

Dark editorial graphic with an FM frequency scale across the top and an orange tuning needle sweeping diagonally from bottom left to top right. The needle rises from a jagged analog waveform into a blocky digital waveform that resolves into three icons: a play button, podcast waveform bars, and a video camera. Headline text reads "The radio star is now a multi-screen anchor," with the subhead "From the dashboard to the dial, the feed, and the scroll."

The Radio Star is Now a Multi-Screen Anchor: Revisiting the State of Radio a Decade Later

August 13, 2026

When I looked back at the speech I delivered more than a decade ago about radio living and breathing in a new digital world, I noted that radio was holding its ground against smartphones, streaming, and social media. Reflecting on the state of radio in the Philippines, my core argument was simple: radio survives because it provides unmatched human connection and practicality. It is now a multi-screen anchor. Looking at the industry landscape today, that reality has undergone a massive, volatile acceleration. The “double life” I once described — where audiences split their time between offline and online environments — has fused entirely. Traditional over-the-air listening has faced steep declines, but the essence of the medium has mutated into something entirely new. If radio was

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