Tag Archives: Duterte populism

komentaryo

Populism, the Liberal Party, and a new campaign strategy: Winning VS Duterte

I did not vote for Mar Roxas in 2016, though I did vote for Kiko Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Leila de Lima, as I did for Bam Aquino in 2013. I didn’t campaign publicly for any of them. In fact the only person I publicly campaigned for in 2016 was Neri Colmenares. Given short memories, it bears repeating that I was heavily critical of the Liberal Party government of Noynoy Aquino. I thought that there was an undercurrent of elitism with which the governance operated, and this revealed itself slowly but surely throughout the six years, in policies, in actions (or lack thereof), and often from the mouth of PNoy himself, sometimes of his Cabinet members. I thought it problematic that they equated social media noise and traction with public opinion; I thought they enabled entities like Rappler to earn from, build upon, false notions of wisdom-of-the-crowd. Information dissemination and transparency were fantastic though, and I miss it terribly now.

It seems like years ago, doesn’t it? An administration like Duterte’s can make us feel this way, with just a little over two years of suffering. This is a governance of chaos-by-design, of disinformation and lies, of destruction and distractions, of literal and figurative violence. It’s exhausting to be critical because nothing is going right, and we are kept in the dark about what exactly is going on. Two years in and there’s still no clear platform for governance, and certainly no clear vision. A constant: Duterte’s rhetoric of violence and vitriol, half the time hyperbole, the other half lies, which we’re told by his men we shouldn’t take seriously. Other constants: incompetence from inflation to traffic to food crises; and Duterte’s threats to leave his post, from letting a military junta take over to declaring a revolutionary government, to railroading charter change and federalism in Congress.

The current state of the nation is enough to build a campaign versus Duterte in the 2019 elections. We know that the more non-Duterte Senators and House Reps there are, the bigger the chances that the people will be represented instead of silenced in Congress, the lesser the chances of any anti-people Duterte law being railroaded. Those of us who might be critical of LP should know it’s time to set those concerns aside for the bigger picture, the more urgent task.    (more…)

komentaryo

The revelation of Robin Padilla

It’s easy to dismiss the Duterte decision to revoke the amnesty that Senator Antonio Trillanes was given (along with 299 others) by President Noynoy Aquino in 2010, as just another way for the government to silence a critic. After all, this is consistent with what Duterte has done the past two years: from Senator Leila de Lima to former CJ Lourdes Sereno, from Teddy Casiño, Liza Maza, Ka Paeng Mariano, and Ka Satur Ocampo to Sr. Patricia Fox. This is the way Duterte has moved against his perceived “enemies,” who are so quickly transformed as he and his followers see fit, into “enemies of the state” for being critical of his policies, for questioning the wars he wages, for pushing back against his anti-people policies.

It has been a successful strategy for them so far. A government that operates on shock is able to keep the populace frazzled and distracted and always preoccupied. The smaller shocks are those soundbites (drop a rape joke here) and the moves that flout the law (order the police to kill or illegally detain citizens here) or dismiss questions about government’s accountability (insert economic managers defending TRAIN here). When those are not enough, have your team create a show of idiocy (insert Mocha here), which can easily be dismissed as government enemies just nitpicking on Duterte and his people (insert anti-elite and anti-Dilawan statements here). 

The bigger shocks are of course the systemic ones: a tax reform law that is taxing the poor and middle class to oblivion, a questionable infrastructure program in the billions that buries us deeper into debt while making traffic even more unbearable than it already is, the highest inflation rate in nine years, two wars that have killed thousands and pulverized a city, the militarization of farmers’ and indigenous people’s lands for big business, a food crisis, a lack of transparency and accountability, an economic crisis. (more…)