Election results: A wake up call to reinvent liberal-progressive politics in the Philippines

 by Rommel A. Curaming

I imagine talking to fellow well-meaning progressive-liberal friends, families and colleagues about the outcome of the recent elections. I’d tell them that I hope this decisive election results would be used as an opportunity to re-set our mindset and rethink key assumptions to reinvent what liberal politics entails in the Philippines. Liberalism-progressivism is in crisis in various parts of the world, and it is up to us liberals to renew it to save it from irrelevance.  

First, it is about time we get off our moral and intellectual high horses that prevent us from realizing our blinders, licensing us to be self-righteous and disrespectful of other people’s choices. It is ironic that as liberal-progressives we’re freedom- and equality-loving people and yet we do not treat others who think differently as our equal and cannot allow them freedom of choice.

Second, let us be courageous enough to take a close and honest look at what really happened, good and bad, since Marcos took power in 1966 and be open to a multi-faceted, more textured or nuanced history of the period. It is a kind of history that was flattened, erased or suppressed by the hegemony of fellow liberal-progressive interlocutors who reigned over public discourses since 1986, but they forced their way into the social and other media in the past decades. Historical fairness dictates that the ups and down in Marcos’s 20 years at the helm cannot be reduced to soundbites or memes of pure dark age of violence, human rights violations, economic crisis and corruption that the post-1986 hegemonic narrative would like us to believe. Fifty million Filipinos spread out in thousands of islands had varied and shifting experience within those two decades. Many suffered to a varying extent but there were many others as well who enjoyed and appreciated, even long for, those years even up to now. People have the right to remember whatever they remember about the Marcos years. To each his/her own.

Third, let us be aware of the intellectualist biases that hamper our effort to reach out to common people. Just as fact checking proved inadequate to turn the tide of support for Trump in the US, it cannot also do the trick in the Philippines. The presumption that people’s support for BBM rests mainly on the success of misinformation or propaganda, which drives fact-checking efforts, need to be seriously re-thought as the whole idea is condescending. It is precisely one of those that turns-off a lot of people when Kakampinks try to convince them. It is also untrue as many people who voted for BBM have their own valid reason for doing so. Denying it is yet another sign of liberal hubris that enable us to fantasize that we know more and better than people who actually live their own lives.

More importantly let us stop deluding ourselves that the Marcos camp has the monopoly of misinformation, propaganda and historical revisionism. The “Never Again!” narrative surrounding Martial Law as well as the hegemonic memories of the EDSA “Revolution”, which propped up the political interests of certain groups, are themselves propagandistic and historically revisitionist (am writing an article on this). This is particularly true if viewed from the “suppressed history” of many Filipinos who remember fondly and lived peacefully and happily during the Marcos years. The painful experience of anti-Marcos activists, rebels and other people who were victims of the Marcos regime deserve to be remembered and be given justice, and the Marcoses ought to be held accountable for all the wrongs they have committed, but it should not be privileged to solely define the long Marcos era. Doing so is partial to the standpoint of certain groups while invalidating the contrasting experience of many others. History is naturally complex and such complexity can only be erased by political interests, of which both sides are guilty of promoting. More consequentially it denies the people opportunity to learn from the ideas and initiatives Marcos made during his time, which is precisely what the post-EDSA de-Marcosification efforts did, and which many of those who voted for BBM wish to restore and pursue to their conclusion.

For decades, I was a believer. I totally believed in the accuracy of the anti-Marcos and the “Never Again” narratives. Since the mid-2000s while doing a PhD, however, I was stunned by realizations upon reading more about Ninoy and Cory Aquino and Marcos Sr. and the politics of that period. Rather than the Manichaean, good vs evil, portrayal that dominated the public discourses since the 1980s, I saw that they were of the same political molds, and the attribution of hero vs villain was imputed by the currently hegemonic side in the struggle for supremacy against the backdrop of contrasting standpoints and shifting political climate. Doing fieldwork in Indonesia in 2005, I was surprised by ordinary Indonesians’ expression of nostalgia for Suharto’s New Order era (how could they long for a dictatorship??!! I wondered). The experience made me re-think some fundamental questions about the Marcos years. These include the possibility that it may be just a matter of time before Marcos’s memories would come back in full force in the Philippines, which in fact happened. I also remember being repulsed to the core by how the illness and eventual death of Cory Aquino in 2008-2009, and the recurrent reference to yellow ribbon and Ninoy’s martyrdom, was milked dry by political groups and the media (later to be called dilawans). As things unfolded it became clear to me that it was a convenient pretext for propelling PNoy’s presidential ambition. I felt cheated and humbled. I’ve thought all along that my UP education made me intelligent enough to see through a propaganda. I wondered about the subtle and not so-subtle mind conditioning techniques that enabled otherwise self-thinking persons like me, or so I thought, to be taken for a ride. Now long aware of the modus operandi, it is easy for me to understand and respect the decision of throngs of people who voted for BBM, even if I did not vote for him. Rather than a bunch of bobotantes, I take them as ones who have their own legitimate reasons. Perhaps, they already realized that just like me they too were hoodwinked for a long time.

Fourth, it is about time we let go of our arrogance to suppose that we have the monopoly of morality, critical thinking, right discernment, capabilities and love for our country. People who voted for BBM or any other candidates also have these in equal measures. Because of our presumption of intellectual and moral superiority, we ignore or dismiss them offhand, calling them names that reflect badly on our being liberal. For all our bitter critiques of authoritarianism (e.g., Marcos and Duterte), it is ironic that we liberal-progressives have also tended to be authoritarian in pushing down the throat of others our favored liberal ideals, ideas and approaches. Let us stop acting as if we are the only rightful vanguard of the ongoing socio-political evolutionary progress. Let us refrain from assuming that we are the only ones who can truly understand the plight of the people and have the right to speak on their behalf. We, in other words, can make use of a good dose of humility, which liberalism requires but many among us liberals seem to have long forgotten.

Fifth, let us abandon the fantasy that BBM won just because of cheating, fake news, trolls and the savvy use social media, and the well-oiled machinery for vote buying. There is no denying these played a role in his campaign, but let us not insult our intelligence by ignoring the magnitude of his mandate, and by giving cozy excuses for our own shortcomings. We can definitely do better than that. Those excuses may be comforting but they divert our attention from the need to address the serious problems with Leni’s campaign, many of which were anchored on the liberal fantasies that we need to confront head on. First is Leni herself. She is not a trapo but she embodies the traditional liberal politics in the country, which has grown repulsive to a huge segment of the population, particularly since PNoy’s time. She reminds many of the media-driven myth-making that surrounded Cory Aquino in the 1980s. Despite Leni’s sincerity and clean image, she is a hard-sell to 70-80% of Filipinos who approve of, even long for,  a decisive or authoritarian leadership exemplified by Duterte. Leni’s campaign failed to organically relate to the hopes and concerns of warm, sweaty bodies on the ground.  Her strategists seem oblivious to the signs of the fast changing times. The very strong showing by BBM in the 2016 vice presidential elections should have already raised a red flag that many people no longer cared (if at all they ever did) about the sins of the Marcoses and the Never Again narrative. The early surveys favorable to BBM whose conciliatory stance and simple message of unity resonated well with many, should have signaled earlier on that people have grown tired of divisiveness and moralizing in politics; what they cared for were unity, public service, economic advancement and continuity of Duterte’s legacies. But Kakampinks precisely focus on moral crusades and the anti-Marcos issues, as if flogging a dead horse. The holding of the miting de avance in Makati, reminiscent of the anti-Marcos high-heeled, yellow protests of the 1980s, was a hallmark of this cluelessness. They are so self-assured that what they regarded as important were also what most people cared about. They constructed echo chambers that nurtured the illusion of a surging bandwagon in favor of Leni, making them complacent about the need to address the paralyzing elitism of the campaign. Casting doubts on the scientific surveys, they created a parallel universe that nourished the fantasies of impending success and unduly heightened supporters’ expectations and along with it the profound frustration after the resounding defeat. More importantly, they lost opportunities to adjust strategies early and effectively. When they adjusted using house-to-house campaign, they bask in the supposedly unprecedented and transformational character of a movement, but seem unmindful of the alienating effects of the elitist (intellectual and otherwise) presence, accents and all, of the pink-wearing campaigners. The contrived nature of the approach was hardly lost on the target voters.

Sixth, it is about time we disabuse ourselves of the illusion that our liberal stance is a moral stance, and an absolute one at that. Just like other stances, it is a power- and interest-driven political stance and any move to cloak it with moral absolutism ought to be suspect. Our tendency to moralize politics arms us with a sickening holier-than-thou attitude. It sets us to pontificate about what should politics be—clean, honest, principled-- rather than how can politics be carried out to serve the needs of the people on the ground.  That 70-80% of Filipinos approve of Duterte and for that many of us are quick to call them stupid and enabler of indecency, speaks volume to how detached we are from realities of the time. We talk a lot about hifalutin ideas of democracy, human rights, justice, morality and accountability and dismiss and demonize populism as the supposed anti-thesis of and a threat to democracy, while most people care about emotional connection, relatability, conviviality, respect and empathy—traits that are well nurtured in populist movements.

Rather than merely blaming the ‘stupidity’ of others, or the misinformation and cheating machines of the Marcos camp, let us take this opportunity to reinvent the liberal-progressive politics in the Philippines by, among other means, making it more relevant, responsive and respectful to feelings and needs of the people beyond the Kakampink crowds. That less than 27% of Filipinos voted for Leni should make us realize that hard core liberals are now a minority, so we should do something about it. Analytically, this means allowing populism to be synthesized within the fold of liberal democratic theory, rather than keeping it as liberalism’s negative Other. After all elitism alone is not inherent in liberalism; populism as well, for the liberal vision includes everyone, the people. The elitist character assumed by liberalism through the centuries owed much to the hijacking by intellectual elites. Let us use our superior education to truly understand the viewpoints, hopes and aspirations of people on the ground and make liberal democracy truly for and by the people. How exactly, I don’t know. We all have to figure things out as this is a very tough collective task, especially because it entails shedding many of our long-held habits of the heart and mind. Foremost of these habits is our self-righteousness, the sense of moral and intellectual superiority which we are often unaware of. I am convinced that despite the many problems that accompany liberal tradition since Enlightenment, the core of this project is the way to go for a better present and future. There is no doubt in my mind that it is worth pursuing and fighting for.