If there’s anything none of us should be arguing about at this point, it’s the climate of fear as fueled and nurtured by Duterte.

Pre-pandemic, we saw how Duterte and his people’s manipulation of the law could keep Senator Leila de Lima in jail on trumped-up charges. We’ve seen this government unseat Chief Justice Sereno because Duterte considered her as “enemy.” We’ve witnessed Duterte get away with massive violations on our rights, where random statements like, say, “arrest istambays” will mean the warrantless arrests of citizens the following day. Where Presidential fury and finger-pointing is enough to get people removed from their positions, business owners divested from their own ventures, critics or perceived enemies arrested or killed. Let’s begin counting the dead bodies from organized Left organizations, and the drug war dead.

The pandemic was just what Duterte needed to further clamp down on our rights, lock us down in our homes, and ensure our silence. We were afraid of the virus, of course and expectedly, but this government was not satisfied with just our fear of getting sick in a time and place with no reliable healthcare system. They wanted to bury that last nail into the coffin of possible resistance, and what better way to do it than by passing the Terror Law and throwing the ABS-CBN shutdown our way?

After all, if a cultural monolith like ABS-CBN could be shut down by this government based solely on Duterte’s pettiness, what can it NOT do? In the course of the Congressional inquiry on the franchise, we also realized that much of it had to do with the content of the network’s shows—and they weren’t just talking about news coverage (!!!), but about the portrayal of politicos in soap operas and teleseryes.

And what is the Terror Law and the contingent soundbites from military officials about regulating social media and the President about cracking down on dissent which government equates with terrorism? What else could the push of the MTRCB to regulate Netflix, and of the FDCP to have all film, advertising, and digital content pass through its office, be about? What could all of these be but the multifarious ways in which this government tries to restrict what we say and what we create, online and beyond? And if they don’t push through with these policies, then at the very least it has made us quake in our boots a little more and has distracted us from the incompetence and corruption that permeates government.

If we, in our cloistered, privileged, middle-class to wealthy spaces, can feel this fear; if we acknowledge that a major stressor the past seven months has been both the virus and the incompetent and violent governance, complete with a President who randomly drops shoot-them-dead orders, and military officials deciding on our lives with not a smidgen of compassion. If we can be afraid, what more the majority in the vulnerable communities?

These communities that were the primary targets of Duterte and his men as they locked down the country in March. These communities that were left to starve, and then threatened with shoot-to-kill orders from the President himself for fighting for their basic right to food. The same people who saw the police and military takeover their communities, with checkpoints randomly set-up, with barangay officials emboldened by Duterte himself to use an iron fist, to ensure that the ever-changing, anti-people policies are followed.

These are the same people who have seen neighbors, husbands, sons, brothers, fathers killed in the drug war the past four years. The same ones who already live in such fear of their local government officials and barangay captains, many of whom have taken on the rhetoric of Duterte and have employed the same strategies of stoking fear in the populace. The same communities that have been at the mercy of the local police who have done raids, inflicted violence, violated rights in the name of the drug war.

These are the same communities who, during the pandemic, saw its people put in cages by policemen for violation of lockdown rules. The same people who were put at higher risk of getting Covid-19 by being arrested without warrants and being illegally detained in cramped jail cells. The same ones who, when they demanded for better, when they dared air their grievances for the world to hear—or for mainstream media to cover—were vilified and threatened with arrests by the President himself. The same ones who were put at risk of getting the virus when government forced them to gather in large groups to get the pittance of assistance, the same people who were left outside airports, and crammed into a crowded stadium, with no proper food and hygiene services as they waited to get home.

These are the people who live in communities like the one in the documentary “Aswang,” where everyone knows each other, and barangay captains and local police can keep tabs on everyone. These are communities from which we heard that during the 2019 elections, barangay captains could tell if anyone voted differently from what was “expected,” and if anyone at all was even leaning towards perceived enemies. These are communities where even people who wanted to do relief work at the height of the lockdown had to tread very carefully, lest their pro-Duterte barangay captain took it against them that they wanted to help.

And let’s not forget: these are communities that fall under the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), headed by a military man who shows not an ounce of compassion for the people, who wants even more power in relation to peace and order and anti-terrorism, and who thinks every problem can be solved by military might. Who brings to the ground red-tagging propaganda that justifies activist killings, who spreads pro-Terror Law propaganda, and sells (orders) the pursuit of Charter Change. Because the latter is also why government worked to take control of these communities—they are pushing for a ChaCha through a people’s initiative. What better way to get the people to say yes, than to sow fear?

Here, with practically all Cabinet positions filled with military officials, because Duterte says “I like the military because when I order them to do something <… they> don’t ask any questions,” the people are expected to do the same: follow orders, follow rules, without thinking, without asking questions, without care for our rights.

So when the DILG says of the recent surveys that this proves how people are now “more discerning and informed” about nation, you must wonder: are survey results, in a place where local officials are looking over your shoulder, in areas where police violence and abuse have been so normalized—are survey results a matter of discernment and information here?

In these barangays, where people were victimized by dropboxes where neighbors were encouraged to “report” suspected drug users in their communities, the same places where barangay funds were re-directed away from healthcare and towards surveillance, which built distrust among neighbors, and even among families. In these same places where at the height of the lockdown, the police were king, and could do anything at all to the people, how are surveys even seen, and received?

If we, in our relatively safe, un-surveyed households, can feel fear; if even we stop ourselves from posting about this government, lest Bong Go or <instert Duterte hoodlum here> decides to file a libel case;  if even we sometimes decide to keep our opinions to ourselves for no reason other than the alarming state of governance; what more the majority in communities who have seen, have experienced, what it’s like to think differently from government propaganda? Who have been at the receiving end of every kind of scare tactic from this government?

Now ask yourself: in these communities, how much of people’s answers to surveys come from a place of honesty, and how much is based on fear and anxiety? How much of these answers are about the questions being asked, as opposed to the answers that are expected of them, given their sense that they are being surveilled, given the threats they have internalized?

If this survey is a snapshot at all, it is a snapshot not of a growing base for Duterte, but of the success of this strategy of fear that this government has spent public funds on the past four years. In the midst of this pandemic, given government incompetence, violence, and heartlessness, we are all practically living with a gun to our heads.

And that gun is not in the figurative for the majority in our communities. Now ask yourself: if YOU were surveyed about Duterte, in the context of fear, DILG surveillance, and Duterte brutality—literally with a clear sense of a gun to your head—wouldn’t you provide the answer that he wants to hear?