On repeat: I do not think misogyny and the patriarchy are those big ideas that have made this electoral race an uphill climb for VP Leni. That has no basis if one considers the kind of very feminine, very female, very woman empowerment frames that have been created for the women on the Marcos-Duterte side—from Manang Imee to Tita Irene, to Sara Duterte herself. Let me not begin about Liza Araneta, or even their female supporters like Dawn Zulueta. It has even less basis if we consider that throughout the past two years in this pandemic, it is the women in communities that have risen quickly, worked on survival and recovery efforts, taken on more than they usually do. Yes, patriarchy is here. No, it isn’t as simplistic as saying “majority of voters are patriarchal”—like that dictates the numbers we shade on our ballots.

Let’s be clear: there are many reasons why the Robredo-Pangilinan campaign has failed to capture the imagination of the 90% of voters we need to convert. No, the reasons are not as simple as so many 280-character tweets insist it is. This is not about the campaign being “feminine,” nor about the campaign being middle class.

And certainly, the solution is not to make it “more masculine.” These assertions are borne of terrible oversimplifications, i.e., that since Duterte has high-approval ratings, therefore what we need is more masculinity, more military, on VP Leni’s campaign. That fails to consider that the past four years a majority of us—and yes, that cuts across social classes—have grown tired of the militarized governance of Duterte. No, people are not tired of Duterte, but they are at the receiving end of his military and police, so emboldened by having a President who will forgive them anything. To even imagine that any campaign would benefit from being seen with military and police officials at this point, is failing to read the room.

The crisis of the Robredo campaign has always been about class. And it is not that it’s middle class. It’s that it has been taken over by an elitism that can come from the middle class, but in this case was subconsciously built into the campaign strategy. The echo chamber is a comfortable thing after all, and it’s the first time that so many have found the freedom to speak their minds against Duterte-Marcos and their followers. The flex will necessarily go in every direction, including the elitist ones. The campaign itself tried its hardest to speak to this echo chamber, but then it revealed its own elitism. The fact that you had to come out with primers on “pakikipagkapwa” is telling: who even needs a guide to being human? That the house-to-house campaign was framed into a “tao-sa-tao” campaign is also telling: because if you’re calling for speaking to each other as humans at this point, who were you talking to all this time? How were you looking at the voters beyond the echo chambers, other than as “tao” all this time?

“Goberynong tapat, angat-buhay lahat” is just as indicative of this elitisim: it chooses to be blind to the fact that we all remember “Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap!,” and is in denial about how this equation is a false one. Worse, it chooses not to see how this 2022 slogan is exactly like the 2016 slogan; and at the very least, it chooses to imagine that the 90% of voters from classes C to E have not proven with their own lives how these slogans are a failure.

The thoughtlessness with words is what ails this campaign. And it cuts across followers who cannot hear their own elitism if it bit them, to the official campaign communications strategy which cannot rid itself of its moral high ground, of the idea that this is the “right side of history” (a oft-used line during the Noynoy Aquino years), or that this is a battle for “morality” and “righteousness.” The wanton use of degrees as a measure of competence, the flexing of our English skills, the insistence on resibo when a majority live off an underground economy that has absolutely no sense of resibo, is its crisis.

One could go on and on, and as we should, about how words are powerful, and how it is the Robredo campaign’s failure to realize this that has gotten us to this point with less than a month to go. I still think it is possible for our side to win despite these mistakes. But there has to be major shifts on this last 23 days. Not a delusional sensing of “what works” just because it works for the elitist echo chamber. (Aside: Insisting that we are the “liwanag sa dilim,” is yet another echo chamber strategy: Duterte numbers prove that for a majority, we have lived in no darkness the past six years. End of Aside)

I daresay that for VP Leni’s birthday, instead of having another echo chamber rally, just have her spend the day going to communities in the NCR. Have her do a community kitchen in Rodriguez Rizal, have her do a visit with the nanay-mananahis in Marikina that she helped during the 2020 lockdown by ordering masks from them; have her go to Tatalon, or NIA Road, and hold small conversations with our communities. This is middle class Leni, the one who can talk to the most vulnerable, with a clear sense of what it is that they deserve, and with the goal of finding ways to make things better. She doesn’t speak down to them, and adjusts according to their needs, and wants, and desires. This is the Leni we have lost in the course of this campaign. This is the Leni that is in none of the official campaign ads and videos. This is Leni before she was eaten alive by all the pink, and the discourses that have since been equated with it, officially and otherwise. In reality, VP Leni would be the one candidate who does not operate on color, or divides, or difference. 

We’ve known this all this time. But her campaign decided early on that this was not solely about making sure VP Leni would win. It seems that from the start, they took this as an opportunity to shift the liberal color from yellow to pink, and this might be why they’ve taken the color pink a bit too far, making it less a campaign color, and more a rallying cry. It is identity, as it is about a sense of unity. It is a way of thinking and being. A major pitfall is that it is exclusionary—”kakampink” reeks of divisiveness, after all, especially when faced with any notion of “unity.” But it could only get worse when it was translated into Tagalog for a “Kulay Rosas Ang Bukas.” Because really: the color of a bright tomorrow is not pink. It is the colors of the Philippine flag: the yellow of the sun, the blue of our skies and seas, the red of our love and passion and revolt.

That it is the thieves, plunderers, tax evaders on the other side of the electoral fence who have taken on the Philippine flag as campaign symbol is utterly depressing. That VP Leni’s campaign has refused to take the flag on—a symbol of what unites us—is inexplicable. There is no symbol that the Robredo campaign can come up with that will have the power of the Philippine flag.  With only 23 days to go, the words and colors and symbols should shift, more drastically than ever. The kakampinks are already far and wide. It’s time for the official campaign to shift away from the divisiveness of political color, to take back the flag

And start letting Leni lead this campaign, in the middle-class way she would. Including in how she would celebrate her birthday, away from echo-chamber rallies, and instead, with communities. ***