There is this famous Spiderman meme where three different spidermen point fingers at each other — except we can’t tell who’s at fault because everyone’s finger pointing and everyone is both victim and suspect. And while all of them are distinctly different beneath the costume, on the surface, there is no telling who is who, and no sense at all how one is different from the other.

We are at this point in our discursive polarization, one wrought by six years of Rodrigo Duterte and the massive propaganda strategy that propped up a governance that undid all that we know about democracy, rights, and justice. This strategy has continued despite his being held accountable at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for crimes against humanity, because expectedly for all political dynasties, he has a daughter already a presidential candidate for 2028.

It would be easy to dismiss this as just political noise, but it is a propaganda strategy that is so consistent, and so obviously funded, that it continues to affect our political discourse whether we admit it or not. And it’s not because their number is growing (few people at rallies, surveys that say they want the impeachment trial of the Vice President to happen say otherwise), but because they have perfected this strategy and redefined political communications where soundbites are key, repetition is necessary, and content is all.

Yes, we would rather not give them anything. But it seems important to call it what it is: a success. (more…)