The 2016 national elections seem so far away in distant memory now; but the official statistics on the elections only recently released and analyzed, should spur the country to think deeply about its democratic future.

Some analysts point to the expansion of dynasties under the country’s decentralized governance set-up. And still others note the increased risks if we deepen this with a federalism initiative. While the country has no doubt produced exceptional local government leaders, the evidence seems to suggest that we are producing more Andal Ampatuans rather than Jesse Robredos.

This article provides an update on the local government leadership patterns in the country, incorporating the results from the May 2016 elections. Overall, the Philippines’ local governments have become more and more dynastic since 2007 (see Figure 1).

Most dynastic provinces and positions

All of the top positions in each major local government unit appear to be dominated by dynasties: over 81% of governors and vice governors, and around 78% of representatives (see Table 1).

If we measure dynastic prevalence as the share of political dynasties out of the total elective positions in a province (e.g., governor, vice governor, mayors, representatives, councilors), then the most dynastic province in the country is also our country’s fourth poorest, Maguindanao.

Over time, stretching from 2004 to 2016, the most dynastic provinces appear to have remained so – and new dynasties have begun to dominate additional provinces like Cavite and Catanduanes (see Table 2).

The fact that dynastic growth can be observed across the country suggests that this is not merely a cultural phenomenon one can attribute to the Muslim South.

In a majority of these provinces, political dynasties from the same families have been dominating these provinces for well over a decade now. And that dominance, it seems, can only be degraded by other political clans rising up to compete with the larger dynasties. This signals a complete deterioration of inclusiveness in our democratic leadership selection – only the moneyed and those with the correct last name appear to enjoy the entitlement of leadership.

For example, the Ampatuans in Maguindanao were recently toppled by the Mangudadatus, and the Espinosas in Masbate were eventually displaced by the Khos and the Seachon-Lanetes (see Figure 2). Very few, if any, new leaders were produced in these areas.

Masbate is a particularly interesting case – 4 of its congressmen were assassinated between 1989 and 2005, signaling the intense and vicious competition for Masbate’s leadership. During the entire period, poverty in Masbate deepened – one in two Filipinos in Masbate lives below the poverty line.

In many parts of the country, “political competition” under these circumstances brings about a merry-go-round of dynastic families in power, with very little fundamental change in governance or development outcomes on the ground.

Dynasties thriving under decentralization?

To be sure, not all dynasties are corrupt, criminals and murderers – but the overall pattern of governance dominated by dynastic clans is definitely associated with sub-par development outcomes, on average across all local government leaders, if we look at the evidence.

There are many reasons for this – and distortions in public finance are among the main ones. For instance, disaster reconstruction funds are historically allocated based on clan ties, according to a study by University of Michigan economists, including Nico Ravanilla and Allan Hicken. In addition, Joseph Capuno of the University of the Philippines found evidence that gerrymandering (the creation of new political jurisdictions) favors the expansion of political clans.

Finally, several studies by the Asian Development Bank, Asian Institute of Management, Ateneo and Univerity of the Philippines economists show how political dynasties thrive in the poorest and most underdeveloped regions in the Philippines, where human development and economic progress fail to take root.

There is strong evidence that the growth of fat dynasties (i.e. “sabay-sabay nanunungkulan” or serving at the same time) is associated with deeper poverty, notably in the provincial periphery, where warlordism and traditional politics thrive to this day.

As noted by Alex Lacson (author of 12 Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country) the country kicked out a dictator in 1986, but he was replaced by many “mini-dictators” in the provinces ever since. No wonder then that the promise of freedom and development after EDSA has proved elusive. This does not, however, justify or rationalize a return to authoritarianism.

The real challenge for reformists lies in correcting the deep-seated political and economic inequality that existed under Marcos, and continues to persist and divide the country today.

If decentralization (or broader, federalism) is to work, leadership selection must first be made more inclusive and competitive; and the distortions in our public finance must be replaced by a better working and more disciplined fiscal federalism. – Rappler.com

*The views expressed in this article are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ateneo de Manila University. Further data and references on this article are available here.

It was an overcast, drizzling Saturday afternoon when my parents and I decided to go to the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) to visit the grave of my brother, 2nd Lieutenant Julian Omar V. Advincula of the Philippine Navy (Marines).

This was exactly a day after the surprise, nay, stealth burial of former president Marcos at the LNMB.

Omar graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1991, and was killed in action in Basilan on February 9, 1993. He and members of his company were among the first casualties of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). Since then, we – most especially my parents – have been religiously visiting LNMB at least 3 times a week. We never had any problems gaining access to LNMB until last Saturday.

As our car approached the cemetery gate, two Army guards stopped us and asked for our identification and our business in going to the LNMB. As a retired captain with more than 30 years of service with the Philippine Navy, my father handed the guard his identification guard with an explanation that we are visiting my brother’s grave.

The guard went inside the LNMB compound, presumably, to ask guidance on his next course of action from a more senior officer. After a few minutes of waiting, the guard came back to inform us that we can enter the compound, provided that we leave the car outside the LNMB compound. We were given the option to either walk or take their shuttle to my brother's grave.

There was only one shuttle going around LNMB. A quick observation indicated that no fixed route was being followed. This meant that we can only take the same shuttle back if there happened to be other people visiting the vicinity of my brother's grave. If there were none, we, including my septuagenarian parents, had to walk the distance to the LNMB's main gate. 

Given that there was a drizzle, and the advanced age of my parents, these suggestions were unacceptable for a couple who already sacrificed one of their children for the country. We insisted that we be allowed entry to do our regular visit to my brother.

While ours is seemingly a very personal, or at most a family trouble, on hindsight, it is actually a reflection of a much wider outcry of thousands of Filipinos who felt betrayed by the surprise burial of the late dictator at the LNMB.

My family and I were able to gain entrance to the LNMB because we felt empowered enough to argue on the impracticality of the guards' proposed solutions. But what about the other countless and nameless visitors easily intimidated by the sight of an Army guard wielding an M-16 machine gun?

As a public cemetery, LNMB visitors should not be penalized for the decision of the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to accommodate the requests of the Marcos family. At the very least, an arrangement should have been put in place to secure and cordon off the controversial plot at the cemetery without unduly affecting the ingress and egress of ordinary visitors.

Many of these visitors do not have the luxury of private transportation and can only make the trip once or twice a year. To turn them away when they are already at the gates of LNMB is the height of heartlessness.

The unfolding events are not simply about the recognition (or lack of them) of the sacrifices made by a relative, but rather, an illustration of the sheer callousness of this administration to continuously penalize members of the bereaved families who reason with them.

In its struggle to deal with the repercussions of its highly questionable political decision, this administration is placing the burden of the sacrifices on the weakest individuals and families who had nothing to do with the decision in the first place. This is reminiscent of the Martial Law days when the most powerful – those with guns – called the shots.

As a security organization, the DND and the AFP should have foreseen the security implications when they pushed through with the questionable burial of former president Marcos at the LNMB, and they should have prepared for this contingency without sacrificing the welfare of other visitors of LNMB. The responsible officers cannot feign ignorance of the plans because the logistical preparations and coordination were very obvious in the well-orchestrated burial last Friday. (READ: FVR: Investigate AFP, PNP officers behind Marcos burial)

While the fallen heroes of LNMB died with dignity, the humiliating things that the command is imposing on those who were left behind are actually robbing these people of dignity and self-respect. It is cowardice to hide behind the cloak of the overly used phrase that "we are just following orders."

Even the most structured and hierarchical organizations such as the military, actually provide spaces for individual agents, especially powerful military leaders, to make sense of how to use the existing rules and resources of the very same organization. In this case, these government and military leaders are influential enough to come up with ways on how to deal more compassionately with the "other" visitors at LNMB.

Authoritarian heritage of the AFP

While more than 30 years have already passed, the wounds left by the Martial Law years are still fresh in the minds of the victims. For those who have never recovered the bodies of their loved ones, or were never given a chance to have their day in court, memories of a very powerful military cannot be easily erased (Pion-Berlin, 2005).

The continuing role of this government and the military, to honor the memory of a former dictator who allowed, even consciously orchestrated, the systematic elimination of all his opponents open the floodgates of very painful memories. (READ: Martial Law, the dark chapter in Philippine history)

The major role played by the military, then and now, illustrates the continuing importance of monitoring the political roles of the military. While not fully determinant of their position, the organizational trajectory being pursued by the military reflects its authoritarian heritage. As a complex organization, the military would always seek to advance its institutional prerogatives, and these are strongly influenced by its partnership with a former authoritarian regime (Aguero, 2001).

In the case of the Philippines, Marcos made sure that his declaration of Martial Law would be successful by forging a very strong partnership with the AFP.

Meanwhile, an interesting comparison can be had with many of the soldiers buried at the LNMB and the victims of Martial Law. In a country with one of the longest-running insurgency problems in the world, many of the soldiers interred at the LNMB died fighting for the country. They were fully aware of the dangers that they were facing when they signed up for military service.

While nothing can ever erase the pain of the death of a loved one, the families of these soldiers were better off because they, at least, have a body to grieve over. Sadly, such was not the case for many Martial Law victims. Many individuals who were brave enough to speak against the abuses and atrocities of the Marcos administration simply disappeared. Thousands were emotionally, physically, and worse, sexually abused. Thus, to tell these victims, and their families to move on is the height of insensitivity.

State and society disconnect

Healthy civil-military relations require a vibrant partnership between the representatives of the State, the military, and society (Barany, 2012). However, the palpable sense of betrayal felt by many over the surprise burial of Marcos at LNMB reflects the emerging fissure in these relations. On the contrary, a vibrant civil-military relation should never undermine public opinion in the practice of national politics.

President Ramon Magsaysay changed the name of the Republic Memorial Cemetery to Libingan ng mga Bayani to highlight the symbolic importance of the cause for which the country’s soldiers died, and to express the nation’s reverence and esteem for her war dead (Proclamation No. 86, s. 1954). In burying former president Marcos at the LNMB, the country, in effect, is memorializing, even honoring, the collective horrors and trauma caused by a former dictator.

The seeming lack of commitment of the State (at least its representatives) to play by the rules, and the absence of oversight functions to temper these transgressions resurrect the dormant fear of many Filipinos of the horrors of an authoritarian regime of not so long ago.

For Hite and Cesarini (2004), this fear is enough motivation for people to act collectively so as not to repeat the errors of the past. As indicated by the spontaneous negative reactions, the street protests of many Filipinos to express their dismay last Friday, this fear is all too real.

For many, the administration of President Duterte contributed immensely to the continued misery of thousands of Martial Law victims. What is more worrisome, however, is the quick acquiescence of the military, and certain parts of the judiciary and legislative branches of the government. This is like a slap on everybody’s faces who, up until Friday, had faith in the checks and balance of the democratic institutions of the country.

Could this be now a prelude to a resurgent authoritarian regime? In the end, is the palpable sense of fear and betrayal felt by many Filipinos really justified? – Rappler.com 

Leslie V. Advincula-Lopez is a research associate at the Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University. She just finished her ASEAN-Fulbright (University of Maryland) research grant on the gains and challenges of the Philippines and the US defense cooperation and is currently working on her PhD dissertation at the Department of Sociology, University of the Philippines in Diliman.

CUSCO, Peru - The Philippines, with its 7,107 islands, can be considered part of the Pacific Islands and of Oceania. From Taiwan, the big bulk of the great Austronesian migration may actually have passed through the Philippines, and many of the languages from Madagascar to Easter Islands are similar to our own: when you call for “tulong” in Indonesia, they will understand. We share with Austronesian peoples root crops like gabi and ube; our knowledge in marine navigation; our intimacy with the sea. 

The Philippines is, of course, very much part of Asia. We have been trading with our neighbors long before the coming of Magallan. When times were tough in China, Japan, and elsewhere, their people sought refuge in our country and we welcomed them with open arms (hence many Japanese-looking Pangasinenses). More than the rice that nourishes our stomachs, we share with our Asian neighbors values like strong family ties and deep respect for our elders. 

Our having been a colony of Spain for over 300 years, for much of that time governed from Mexico, gives us much in common with Latin America. There is lechon in Puerto Rico; pork adobo here in Peru; chicharron in Bolivia. The Don Bosco athletes wear yellow in Ecuador, and of course the La Sallians wear green. We share with the Latinos culture-bound illnesses like pasma, values like palabra de honor, and a warm, easygoing approach to life. 

The Philippines is very much part of the Christian world (we are the third largest Catholic nation), but we are also part of the Muslim world by virtue of Sulu, Maguindanao, Maranao, and many other proud cultures in Mindanao and elsewhere. Today, Filipino Muslims continue to enrich our culture and testify to the possibility of pluri-religious co-existence. 

The Philippines was a colony of the US for 50 years and we are deeply connected to America. Despite our (rightful) mixed feelings about the US government and American hegemony, our bonds with America go deep, embodied by the 3.4 million Filipino-Americans that make Tagalog the fifth most spoken language in the US.

The Philippines is truly where East meets West, where Christianity meets Islam, where the ocean meets the continent. Far from historic past, these connections are living present, and continually growing, as the Filipino diaspora continue to enrich our bonds with other countries. This intimacy with different lands should not only place us at the heart of the world; it should also should give us a heart for the world: an empathy for the struggles and sufferings taking place beyond our shores. Not just because there are Filipinos living out there, but because the peoples living there are our neighbors and friends. 

Sadly, we have not maximized these bonds with other nations, both in diplomatic and cultural terms. Our foreign policy is largely oriented to the United States, Japan, China, the European Union, and of course, the ASEAN. Our cultural imaginary is even narrower: we are more familiar with Los Angeles, London, and Paris than Luang Prabang, Lima, and Palembang. 

What do we need to remedy our global disconnectednes? 

For sure, a truly “independent foreign policy” is a step in the right direction – for as long as it is grounded in respect. Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial’s warm reception in Havana speaks of the possibilities that lie when we go beyond our usual engagements.

But diplomacy can only do so much: APEC has not brought us closer to Peru, nor ASEAN to Laos and Cambodia. Though surely we can prod President Duterte to look beyond Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, we Filipinos – not just our leaders – must ourselves realize and take ownership of our place in the world.

Traveling, as I have experienced, helps a lot: it is thanks to my trips to different continents that I learned of our connections with them. Cultural – even culinary – exchange, is likewise beneficial, and the same can be said of the teleseryes that we Filipinos are exporting to – and importing from – various countries.  

But most importantly and fundamentally, we need a renewed sense of history – or perhaps a retelling. Alas, much of our national narrative paints ourselves as objects of colonialism. Without denying the sufferings and betrayals we endured in the past (there are too many to mention), we should also be reminded of how throughout our history we have forged bonds with people from all over the world; and that oftentimes, these bonds have shown the best of humanity.  

We need to be reminded that 15 US soldiers actually defected to the our side during the Philippine-American War, believing in the righteousness of our cause; and that Americans like Mark Twain denounced their own government’s colonial ambitions. By adding nuance to the way we regard other nations, we avoid generalizations that lead to hate, conflict, and suffering. 

We need to be reminded that 112 Filipino soldiers died to fight for the freedom that South Korea enjoys today; and that we have always opened our doors to refugees, from the Jews during World War II to the Indochinese during the Vietnam War.

When we realize that we Filipinos, far from passive victims of history, have always been active in making not just our history but that of the world, we begin to overcome the feeling of smallness that sets back our geopolitical imagination. What our past should give us is not an enmity for those who oppressed us, but an empathy for those who experience oppression.  

What our past should give us is a not a feeling of victimization or entitlement, but a dignity of a people that has suffered much – but has overcome more. – Rappler.com

Gideon Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and commentator on culture and current events. His essays have been published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Singapore Straits Times, Korea Herald, China Post, and the Jakarta Post.

It’s been more than a week since the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but the anger among the affected remains. It is raw. It is real. It is deep.

Pockets of protests have been held in key areas nationwide in the past week – on the streets of Iloilo City, in parks in Tuguegarao, in Cebu, on Taft Avenue in Manila, on EDSA, at the Luneta Park, and even in Davao, hometown of President Rodrigo Duterte. Another huge rally is scheduled on November 30, Andres Bonifacio Day.

We hazard a guess that not even President Duterte or the Marcoses knew this was coming. After all, prior to the Supreme Court’s decision to bury Marcos at the heroes’ cemetery, various groups had staged protests and campaigns to rally support for a “No” vote. The campaigns were so-so, the crowd consistently thin.

We hazard a guess that this – and the declared plans to stop the heroes’ burial from happening – emboldened the Marcoses to sneak the dictator’s remains into the heroes’ cemetery, in connivance with the police and the military.

Responding to criticism, the President said he knew nothing, aside from the general order he gave to his troops in August 2016, when he made the decision allowing Marcos to be buried there.

This doesn’t diminish his role in the burial. It doesn’t shield him from the anger among the youth, the veterans in the anti-dictatorship movement and their families, and the thousands of victims of Martial Law abuses – from the businesspeople who lost opportunities to Marcos cronies, to farmers who lost their land to Marcos’ friends aided by goons, to workers who lost their jobs as the economy plummeted, to soldiers who were made to kill civilians outside the battlefield, to journalists who worked under a climate of fear, among others.

We know that organizers of these protests have been careful to avoid directly hitting Duterte for the Marcos burial.

The Left, which provided organizational muscle to the Luneta rally last Friday, November 25, is allied with the Duterte administration through Cabinet seats and a peace process that has released its top guns from jail. 

On the other hand, the moderates, who are behind the planned November 30 rally, do not want to add fuel to government’s conspiracy theory: that groups aspiring to remove him from power are merely using the anti-Marcos protests as cover for their insidious plot to install Vice President Leni Robredo.

Yet, it can't be helped. Ask anyone who's attended any of these protests and he will tell you this: Filipinos angered by Marcos’ burial put this squarely at Duterte’s doorstep.

This has cost him political capital, though it appears he doesn't see it that way.

To dismiss the protests as fleeting or manufactured or the antics of the has-beens is to misread the situation.

Emotions made Duterte president. He, of all people, should know that emotions are driving these protests.

The anger is real. It is raw. It is deep. – Rappler.com

Living on the edge poses risks and dangers. But it also enables a sense of adventure that sometimes propels meaningful change even in our policies and practices. Much like the thrill of intimacy - however momentary - especially after enduring loveless, sexless or even violent unions, which are as yet expensive and embarrassing to unmake.

But politics can debase the beauty of challenging boundaries, particularly when this means disrupting the norms that perpetuate male privilege. The attacks can only be more vicious when even the most respectful dissent becomes a more direct threat to patriarchs themselves. Hence at the center of the misogynist pronouncements and actions of the Duterte Administration are two women leaders — Senator Leila de Lima and Vice President Leni Robredo — who are unrelentingly subjected to the double standards of morality.

De Lima led the investigation on the spate of extrajudicial killings (EJK) of suspected drug users. As of November 2016, the death toll is nearing 4,000, which includes civilians whom President Rodrigo Duterte described as “collateral damage.” But rather than addressing EJK, its impacts on widowed partners, orphaned children, burgeoning prisons, and, more importantly, the role of the Administration in its support for the “war on drugs,” the President pointed out her liaison with her driver and bodyguard. (READ: The public trial of Leila de Lima) 

‘Immoral woman’

Following the President’s statement about the Senator being an “immoral woman,” leading figures from his male-dominated Cabinet and the Legislature took their turns in challenging de Lima. The head of the Justice Department presented de Lima’s former aides to testify against her. The Senate Majority stripped her off the chair of the Committee on Justice that was conducting the hearings on EJK. Her replacement, a Duterte ally, immediately called off the investigation. Then in his bid to conduct an investigation on de Lima’s credibility, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (HOR) threatened to play her supposed sex videos with her driver during the public hearings.

Amid these attacks, the Senator disclosed her seven-year relationship with her driver, who is married with another woman. De Lima was herself married but got an annulment. Now under the custody of the HOR, her former driver, Ronnie Dayan, wears a visibly stressed mien and sings a seemingly expected tune: He identified himself as de Lima’s bagman, who collected money from drug lords, particularly those whom the Administration has been running after. (READ: De Lima: House inquiry a spectacle 'full of lies')

Women’s rights advocates may have prevented the showing of de Lima’s supposed sex video with a viral #Everywoman campaign. But the quick turn of events in the last few days caught the nation in shock and dismay when male legislators questioned De Lima’s former driver and partner over their seven-year relationship and pressed for even the more salacious details, which should have been kept private. 

It is ironic that the public hearing happened on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. One of the lawmakers was once accused of domestic violence that gave rise to Task Force Maria, which in turn advocated for the passage of Republic Act 9262, otherwise known as the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act.

Unwanted attention

Meanwhile, the Vice President has not escaped the inappropriate behavior of the President. Admitting that he ogled at Robredo’s legs to a jeering crowd, he recounted, “You know ma’am Leni would always wear skirts which are shorter than usual. At one time, Dominguez [the Finance Secretary] asked me (to) come closer because I was far from them. But I told him, ‘Come here. Look at (Robredo’s) knees.” A remark like this is one of several that actually constitutes sexual harassment.

Following her criticism of the clandestine burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the pantheon of heroes, Robredo once more became the subject of innuendoes especially in social media. A widow of a revered public official, rumors about her pregnancy and relationship with a married man made the rounds.  

Although the candidacy for their current posts were supported by a mainstream political party, de Lima and Robredo have been operating with significant independence. For starters, they do not belong to political dynasties. They rose into prominence because of their work as lawyers doing private practice and community service. Their government careers can be characterized by substantive and sometimes progressive interventions that they were able to draw the support of civil society, including women’s rights advocates.

But as they face their most bruising battles in their political careers, few voices from the opposition are openly defending them. After all, scores of Liberal Party members have jumped ship to the ruling parties while some progressives would reason that there are more important tasks at hand.

The fear of losing political favors, or conversely, suffering political vindictiveness may have prevented solid support to these women among their peers. But there is also a history of reluctance in engaging these double standards of morality.  This has made some aspiring women leaders bow out during the campaigns or losing in the elections while their male counterparts managed to run and win elective posts despite their identification as womanizers. Duterte and two other men were elected as Presidents despite their publicly known extra-marital affairs. (READ: Duterte: Yes, I'm a womanizer)

Rise of the sexists

The discriminatory attacks against de Lima and Robredo have no value in exacting accountability for any wrongdoing. Instead, they only fuel the resurgence of a cavalier discourse, debasing human rights, particularly women’s rights over our identities, bodies, sexualities, mobility, relationships, as well as access to political participation, economic empowerment and social services. Moreover, they erode years of individual and collective struggles, which have resulted in the progressive laws on women’s rights and gender equality and the impetus to transform some more policies and practices.

Indeed one of the recent recommendations of the Committee on the Commission on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to the Philippines as a State Party to the Convention is to amend the laws which result in the unequal treatment between women and men who engage in extra-marital affairs and who desire to be free from unwanted unions. It is easy to charge women with bigamy by any evidence of an extra-marital relationship than to charge men with concubinage, which requires proof of co-habitation. (READ: PH women craft global women's rights agenda)

“Morality” may have been mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a limitation to the exercise of rights and freedoms. But the term has never been defined, much less used as an anchor even in succeeding international human rights standards such as CEDAW. Instead, morality has been used in different national laws to discriminate women from exercising their rights to marriage and family life, inheritance, education, political participation, among many others. As former Special Rapporteur on violence against women Yakin Erturk observed, “‘Public morality’ clauses in legislation generally serves to undermine women’s rights.” In the Philippines, “morality” as advanced by the Catholic hierarchy had been a formidable barrier to 16 year-struggle towards the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law.

If these double standards on morality against the more visible women leaders persist and prevail, it will not take a long time before it becomes undesirable for women to think critically, express our opinions fearlessly, organize with other women, raise kinder kids out of non-traditional families, derive pleasure from our bodies and sexualities, pursue love freely or even recognize the power within ourselves to initiate change. It is nothing short of living in the pink of health but tied down to a death bed. – Rappler.com

Nina Somera has been working on women and gender issues for nearly 15 years in Asia-Pacific. She was part of the campaign “Whose Morality?” when the ASEAN Human Right Declaration was being drafted and the term “public morality” was being considered as a limitation to human rights. Nine out the 10 ASEAN countries voted to take out the term. 

Protesters have returned to the streets, but they seem choosy with their issues and targets, and careful not to touch President Duterte.

These days they have seized upon the hero's burial given the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Duterte himself championed it and now, after the burial, continues to defend it, but it's the Marcoses who are getting it from the protesters, almost exclusively, for brazenness and insensitivity.

On the other hand, more fundamental issues – issues arising directly from Duterte’s own actions and decisions and involving assaults on human rights, sovereignty, and freedom – have incited no significant protests. There is, for instance, the runaway campaign that has left more than 4,000 drug dealers and users killed in just four months, facts that alone constitute a circumstance enough to raise reasonable suspicions of summary justice, if not moral outrage.

There, too, is the official tendency, if not policy, to virtually surrender to rival-claimant China control over Scarborough Shoal, a strategic passageway for trade and a rich fishing ground that an international arbitral court has declared part of Philippine territory. All this, even more worrisomely, falls in with a diplomatic shift toward China and Russia and away from the United States and the rest of the West.

Now Duterte warns he will suspend the writ of habeas corpus to allow for arrests without warrants if the twin scourges of drug and southern terrorism continue, a threat that looks curious in the face of reports that headway has in fact been made in both efforts. A long-wanted principal suspect in the drug trade has been captured and begun to tell about a drug network involving police and officials. In the meantime, seven suspects have been arrested in the bombing that killed 14 people in Davao City in September.

The arrests came under a state of lawlessness Duterte declared to give himself the power to deploy policemen and soldiers anywhere in the country. The emergency remains in effect. A suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is only a further, and more suppressive, measure, the exact same one that Marcos imposed to preface his martial law.

What's going for Duterte?

But for all that dreadful familiarity, Duterte, with his own tendency toward authoritarianism – he ruled Davao as an autocratic mayor for more than two decades – is even less criticized than a dead dictator.

I see three reasons why.

One, Duterte's popularity and volatility inspire some trepidation.

Two, the generation who mounted the million-people street vigil that drove the Marcoses out of power in 1986 have, by its own default, allowed the Marcoses back from foreign exile, and back as well in power; now, it wants to redeem itself, fixated on Marcos.

The third reason would seem the most plausible, given its resonance even with citizens too young to have been born in the Marcos years; they in fact make up the bulk of the protesters. In its very ludicrousness, Marcos’s case lends itself to a simple narrative: a dictator who presided over a regime of torture, murder, and plunder is buried a hero. Duterte's case, on the other hand, is a strange and complex one; in fact he is himself a strange and complex one.

Moreover, Duterte has managed to put together such a broad-based coalition it’s inconceivable that no protest of any significance could happen without co-opted, therefore inhibited, sectors. A prime example is the Left, which has comrades in the President’s innermost circle, among them the Cabinet secretary himself.

The mainstream Left was at the forefront of the Black Friday demonstration at the Luneta Park. It was the first organized multi-sectoral anti-Marcos demonstration after the surprise burial the Friday before; pockets of street protests, pouring out of campuses, had been staged since.

Surveying Black Friday at the park, I saw no placard, no streamer, no outward sign of protest connecting Duterte to Marcos or to his burial.

A leftist leader sounded rather apologetic. “But this is just the beginning,” he said. He saw the protests snowballing, sustaining themselves, and becoming “an inescapable test” for the Left, especially in regard to its place in the Duterte coalition.

It is, indeed, the unlikeliest coalition: it collects leftists in one corner, dynasty leaders and other political patrons in another corner and, in a corner all their own, the Marcoses.

It would seem the sort of deal doomed from the start. For now it holds, but for how long can the dealmaker keep it together? – Rappler.com

Due to the obvious differences in terms of context, power, and global significance, it is difficult to compare the current President of the Philippines, Rodrigo R. Duterte, and the US President-elect Donald J. Trump (known to their supporters as “Digong” or “Rody” and “the Donald”, respectively). Also, Duterte has been in power since late June 2016, while Trump will be inaugurated only early next year. Yet, there is a compelling reason to discuss the two politicians together. Both Duterte and Trump have caused outrage, both locally and globally, with their offensive and vulgar communication styles.

During the presidential campaign in 2015, Duterte bragged about his affairs, called the Pope a “son of a whore” because of the heavy traffic caused by the papal visit, joked that as mayor “I should have been first” in the gang rape of a Christian missionary during a brutal jailbreak in which she was later murdered, and said about drug criminals “if I have to kill you, I'll kill you. Personally.” In office, Duterte told Barrack Obama to “go to hell” when the US President criticized him for the thousands killed in an anti-drug crackdown, said “fuck you” to the European Union when they also raised human rights concerns, and even compared himself to Hitler (for which he later apologized) to threaten drug dealers and users in his country with “slaughter”.

Donald Trump labeled Mexican immigrants “rapists”, referred to the leaders of China as “motherfuckers”, called on a ban on Muslims entering the US, insulted disabled people, said of a critical female television presenter: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever…” Before becoming a presidential candidate, Trump told publicly to a contestant in a reality TV show that it “must be a pretty picture you dropping to your knees.” In a leaked video from 2005, Trump bragged he could kiss and grope women without their consent and even “fuck” them because “when you are a star they will let you do it”.

Although these comments generated national and international outrage, both politicians enjoy significant public support. Duterte won the Philippine presidency in May 2016 with a clear plurality, with his popularity rocketing to over 90% once he took office in June. Defying all expectations in November 2016, Trump, despite being a highly controversial candidate, defeated his rival Hillary Clinton in the electoral college (though not the popular vote). Why?

A number of reasons have been offered for their popularity, including their dystopian diagnoses of the state of affairs, their tough policy solutions, their nationalism (Trump’s “make America great again” and Duterte’s anti-colonial stance) and the current political, economic, and cultural context. This article explores why their communication strategies have been widely considered to be effective despite their vulgarity. It highlights how an obscure language-related trend, the lack of style-shifting, has helped covertly to boost the popularity of Duterte and Trump. 

Informal vs formal speech 

By early adulthood, people acquire the common codes and norms of behavior of their societies. Our socialization involves learning key linguistic skills. Among these, style-shifting enables us to adjust our speech to different situations. The ways we talk with a friend and our boss are different. A family dinner and a public talk call for distinct speech styles. To use the terms introduced by the American linguist William Labov, we are conditioned to opt for an informal language in casual, relaxed settings and to shift to a formal speech style when we speak publicly.

Informal language tends to be loose, filled with incomplete sentences and containing words — sometimes even swear words — that we would not say publicly. Talking to family and friends, we also tend to jump from one topic to another quickly, paying little attention to the coherence of our speech. By contrast, when speaking in official and public situations, we aim to speak in a grammatically correct fashion, we are careful in our word choice and strive for accuracy and consistency.

Although style-shifting is voluntary, most people do it automatically, without thinking. We also expect others to engage in style-shifting with similar ease. This expectation can make us slightly suspicious when we listen to professional public speakers, such as politicians. We presume that the bigger the audience people face, the more attention they will pay to their discourse. Most of us also know that politicians aim to influence us through their talk, relying on the help of PR and communication experts. Therefore, in the case of politicians, we take it for granted that they engage in heavy style-shifting, speaking differently in everyday and public life.

However, Duterte and Trump’s rhetoric generally runs counter to the public’s expectations of style-shifting. They are speaking from the political stage but are using the language of the “backstage”. Indeed, the communication style of the two politicians is characterized by its radical informality.

‘Backstage rhetoric’

Duterte and Trump’s “backstage rhetoric” is filled with offensive comments and vulgar words — both politicians frequently swear in public. What they say is often incoherent, jumping randomly from one topic to another, regularly leaving their sentences unfinished. Duterte does not even seem to bother to prepare for his speeches by at least double-checking some basic historical facts. For example, when recently comparing himself to Hitler, he claimed that “3 million Jews” were killed during the Holocaust while actually an estimated 6 million Jewish victims perished. In the American presidential campaign, fact checkers have had a field day with Donald Trump’s untruisms, with Politfact even claiming 91% of Trump’s statements are partly or completely false.

Usually the lack of style-sifting is not tolerated. A person who uses the “f-word” during an office presentation is likely to be fired. A student who is disrespectful of a teacher is likely to be thrown out of class. However, there are some trickier cases when the lack of style-shifting can actually be an advantage. The rhetoric of Duterte and Trump exemplifies this trend.

Implications

By cultivating an informal way of speaking, Duterte and Trump can shape their listeners’ thinking in unexpected ways. Without being aware of it, listeners can be unconsciously influenced by the fact that the speeches of Duterte and Trump are filled with incomplete sentences. Other components, like vulgarity which generates a sense of informality, are more explicit. As a result, people may decode the public rhetoric of these politicians as actual informal speech. This has at least four important implications.

1. By resisting a shift from informal to formal speech style in public situations, Duterte and Trump create the impression that they are genuine, honest politicians who speak their mind instead of strategically manipulating their audience.
2. The lack of style-shifting also provides an important background for these politicians’ agendas. Through radical informality, Duterte and Trump can present themselves as outspoken, brave, and even heroic politicians who dare to say what is usually left unsaid and liberate their people. Duterte still speaks like a tough talking local mayor (a label which, despite now being president, he still often uses when referring to himself). He also uses expletives when referring to foreign officials (Obama and UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon) or foreign governments or entities like the EU criticizing his violent anti-drug campaign in the name of restoring Philippine dignity on the international stage. Trump claims to use the gruff language of “deal making” refined while a celebrity on the “Apprentice” TV show. Trump portrays political correctness as “censorship” and demonstrates with his own discourse that it is possible to confront and fight it.
3. By resisting the style-shift, Duterte and Trump show that they are different from most other politicians. Their “backstage rhetoric” allows them to present themselves as political figures who side with the people and not with other politicians. Duterte portrays himself as a man of the people opposed to the country’s traditional oligarchy although in reality Duterte comes from a provincial family dynasty — his father was governor of Davao province.The powerful and rich Donald Trump portrays himself as a “layperson” in the American context due to his radically informal speech style. Unsurprisingly, an expert argued that people think “he’s saying what we are saying at the coffee table.”  Trump was also described as “a rare politician who speaks in plain English.”
4. While shocking many people, the “backstage rhetoric” of Trump and Duterte entertains crowds. Major political figures who break the common, expected norms of style-shifting, can be perceived as unusual and “funny”. A reporter who covered Duterte’s campaign for Rappler wrote: “Believe it or not, it’s his cursing that never fails to generate laughter even in formal, upscale settings.” In fact it is notdespite but exactly because of the context that Duterte’s cursing makes people laugh.

Evading responsibility

Our linguistic socialization is an imprinting process, the effects of which cannot be changed easily. The reception of the leaked recording in which Donald Trump brags in 2005 about sexually harassing women demonstrates this tendency well. The video caused a kind of “moral panic” among several prominent Republican leaders in the US. The leaked recording undermined their ability to play down Trump’s rhetoric as exaggerated but harmless. This is also due to the fact that Trump’s misogynist words (including his explicit mention of female genitalia) were recorded in an informal setting — backstage and not onstage. With the “Access Hollywood” video Trump’s words suddenly seemed all too real.

Downplaying the significance of the leaked video, Trump labelled it “locker-room talk”. Similarly, Duterte has dismissed outrage over his rape joke and other sexist language as overblown: “You judge me, not by the cuss words, epithets, and curses that you hear. Judge me for what I stand for, the values that I hold dear.” On such occasions, the two politicians evoke a culturally deep-seated dichotomy between doing and saying things (“actions speak louder than words”). This defense strategy belongs to the informal, private realm as well. It is appropriate to apologize to a friend after an impulsive, heated debate, by saying “I didn’t really mean it”, it just “slipped out,” “you know I’m actually not like that”. The same arguments uttered publicly by powerful politicians concerning their deeply disturbing words can be considered as attempts to evade responsibility.

As president, Duterte has “stuck to his guns” in carrying out his campaign promise to wage a violent “war on drugs” that has resulted in 5,600 killings as of late November as reported in Rappler’s “In Numbers”. At the moment it is unclear if after his inauguration Trump will attempt to deliver on the promises he made as a running candidate. As of now, he seems to backpedaling on some of his harshest campaign pledges, including those which targeted Mexican immigrants and the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. If this trend continues, the actual political implications of Duterte’s and Trump’s “backstage rhetoric” will be different. Nevertheless, the lack of style shifting appears to have been a key factor in the victory of both maverick candidates. Their cases demonstrate that by breaking the established rhetorical norms through an often shocking informality, politicians can attract a large number of supporters. – Rappler.com

Dr. Anna Szilágyi is an expert in media, politics, and communication. She is the founder of Talk Decoded, a blog about the power of language in politics.  

Mark R. Thompson is professor of politics at the City University of Hong Kong.

“Sayang ang mga buhay.” (These lives are put to waste)

Thus was the lament of my colleague, a medical oncologist, who confided to me her frustration over cancer patients who seek alternative treatments: “They would come in the early stages, and we would advise surgery and other treatments. But instead, they would resort to unproven kinds of alternative medicine, from cabbage leaves to mangosteen tablets. As expected, these treatments didn’t work and they would come back months or years later, at a higher stage. By then, the treatments are much more expensive. Had they opted for treatment early on, it would cost them much less – and their cancers could have been cured.” 

She concludes: “These ‘No approved therapeutic claims’ treatment modalities and their advertisements should really be regulated.” 

My colleague, whose request to remain anonymous underscores the sensitivity of this matter even among oncologists, raises insights that are worth reflecting upon, in light of the growing incidence of cancer – the third leading cause of death in the Philippines.

What is the role of alternative medicines in cancer treatment? What benefits and dangers do they have, and what factors lead patients to choose them over biomedicine? 

To be fair, we must note that there could be a “selection bias” at work here: Doctors are unlikely to encounter the "success stories” of alternative medicine: they will not come back for follow-ups. Instead they will be blogging and telling people about how they recovered.

Indeed, patients can be “cured” by other means. In fact, even without any form of active intervention, some cancers can just disappear: “spontaneous regression” is a rare but well-documented phenomenon in the scientific literature. In real life, however, cancer is rarely left alone; people attempt various kinds of treatments, and when they do experience some improvement, in the absence of a definitive explanation, they will attribute it to something specific: the religious to divine intervention, the healthy eater to diet, the MLM networker to the pill or a product that they could better sell.

Nonetheless, while testimonials can magnify these miracles, statistics show a dire picture: without biomedical treatment, most people progress through the stages of cancer. In one Canadian study for instance, the 5-year survival rate was 86% for breast cancer patients that accepted conventional cancer care and only 43% for those who didn’t.

The lack of evidence for their claims, however, has not stopped people from marketing all kinds of products as cancer treatments. Some manufacturers trumpet on the wonders of a single herb, while others claim to gather all kinds of curative herbs in one tablet. Many of them make use of scientific terms (i.e. “antioxidants”, “cytokines”) to sound authoritative, invoking laboratory and animal studies that are scientifically insufficient but are convincing enough for the general public. 

They will also be advertised as “FDA approved”, as if it were an endorsement, even though the FDA only registers supplements as a matter of procedure and makes no actual evaluation of the products themselves or their claims. 

Finally, many alternative medicines are promoted as harmless vis-a-vis the well-known side effects of chemotherapy. Left unsaid is the fact that supplements, too, can have side effects and more importantly there is a heavy opportunity cost of each day that goes by without getting proven treatments. 

It is worth mentioning that others go even further, offering not just unproven treatments, but unproven diagnostic tools, using dubious methods such as special urine and blood tests, oftentimes with “high-tech”-looking devices. By “diagnosing” someone as having “cancer,” these quacks can then offer a treatment that is sure to work, as there was no disease in the first place. 

Why take alternative medicines seriously?

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) must be taken seriously for a number of reasons.

Firstly, biomedicine should never shut its door to new knowledge. Vincristine and vinblastine – derived from an periwinkle long used in India and China as an herbal medicine – are now important anti-cancer drugs. Immunotherapy – once set aside in favor of immunosuppression – is showing promising results and is now an exciting avenue for research. Indeed, CAM shouldn’t be generalized as ineffective. Moreover, while biomedicine’s paradigm is treatment, other forms of healing focus on prevention, and their view that modernity itself - our diets, lifestyles, and environments - has become carcinogenic is something that we must seriously consider.

Secondly, the health care system should see these alternatives as symptoms of its own problems and shortcomings. Perhaps it is not able to allay people’s fears and misconceptions about the causes of cancer and its treatment options (i.e. surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy). For people who fear cancer, taking supplements has “symbolic efficacy” in assuring themselves that they are doing “something” about their perceived risk. Perhaps, too, the cost of cancer treatment remains – or is perceived to be – prohibitively expensive to many Filipinos. Surely, better PhilHealth coverage will relieve patients of the hesitation brought about by the threat of financial ruin (On a positive note, the Z-benefit package is a step towards this direction). 

Finally, alternative medicines speak of the toothlessness of the Food and Drug Administration in controlling the ways in which supplements and other products are marketed. Disclaimers such as  “No approved therapeutic claims” and the newer “hindi ito gamot” (This is not a drug) are meaningless when drowned by imagery and language suggest otherwise. While the FDA has done a great job in issuing public advisories against false claims, the fact that these claims are even allowed in advertisements underscores the need to give the FDA more regulatory teeth - and inter-agency support.

Ultimately, however, the decisions will have to come from cancer patients and their families. While it is easy to dismiss them as gullible or irrational, we must understand that they are caught in desperate situations in which there is nothing more attractive than hope, something that Western medicine itself cannot offer in clear and reassuring terms. 

Until a cure for cancer is discovered – or unless we step up efforts towards information dissemination and regulation – the search for alternatives will go on, and “merchants of hope” will continue to profit from people’s desperation and hopelessness.– Rappler.com

Gideon Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and commentator on culture and current events. His essays have been published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Singapore Straits Times, Korea Herald, China Post, and the Jakarta Post.

The majority of the Supreme Court has spoken. It has deferred to the President’s executive power and found that “there is no clear constitutional or legal basis to hold that there was a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction which would justify the Court to interpose its authority to check and override an act entrusted to the judgment of another branch.”

There are a couple of pithy aphorisms that come to mind in trying to make sense of the Supreme Court’s majority decision. There is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous observation in Northern Securities Co. v. United States, that: “Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance... but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment.” Then there is also Robert Jackson’s remark in Brown v. Allen, that the Supreme Court is “not final because [it is] infallible, but [it is] infallible only because [it is] final.”

Judicial power is usually described as the power to “settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable.” But Article VIII, Section 1 of our 1987 Constitution provides for more: it also includes the ability of the courts to determine “whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.” This “expanded” power of judicial review was proposed by the Framers to minimize the application of the so-called “political question” doctrine — applied so often during the years of the Marcos dictatorship — that holds that some issues in their nature, “are fundamentally political, and not legal” so that if a question is thus fundamentally political, then the court, in deference to the principle of separation of powers — so the logic goes— should refuse to hear the case.

In exercising this specific aspect of judicial review, the Supreme Court has also highlighted what is already patent in the Constitutional text: that for abuse of discretion to merit judicial review, it must be of a grave nature, and by “grave” the Court has said that the exercise of discretion must be characterized by “a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law, as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner because of passion or hostility.”

Notwithstanding this general characterization, the boundaries of what constitutes “grave abuse” as applied to particular circumstances have expanded and contracted depending not only upon the specific particularities of a case, but also (and more realistically) according to the individual and collective values, principles and priorities of the judges sitting in judgment on the case.

In Ocampo v. Enriquez, the Supreme Court was able to find, and using what some would characterize as a “narrow and legalistic” approach to the application of its power of judicial review, that the President did not commit any grave abuse of discretion. As honest students of the law, we will probably have to concede that based on these laws (or absence thereof), President Duterte did not, in fact, gravely abuse the exercise of his discretion as Chief Executive of the Philippines. This is notwithstanding the documented human rights violations during the 11 years of Martial Law and beyond and the massive corruption and theft of government resources during his tenure as President. After all, Lady Justice is blind, and the Supreme Court is not a trier of facts (though judicial notice of history is allowed under our Rules of Court). Understood from this standpoint, the decision of the majority can, at the very least, be characterized as legally correct. Could the Supreme Court have decided any differently? Certainly – the dissents penned by Justices Sereno and Carpio more than illustrate this point. But 9 will always be more than 5, and the majority of the Court carried the day.

Where then, does this leave those who are adamant that former president Marcos is not a hero?

On the one hand, the majority’s decision in Ocampo is a fine example of the limits of the judiciary under our tripartite system of government, particularly as regards its power of judicial review. Some have described this as the “counter majoritarian difficulty”: that by exercising its power to nullify the acts of co-equal branches of government (that is, the executive and the legislature), an unelected court could substitute its will for what would effectively be the will of the majority, who have acted through their duly-elected representatives. And this, perhaps, is what the majority in the Ocampo decision is saying: “There are certain things that are better left for history - not this Court - to adjudge. The Court could only do so much in accordance with the clearly established rules and principles. Beyond that, it is ultimately for the people themselves, as the sovereign, to decide, a task that may require the better perspective that the passage of time provides. In the meantime, the country must move on and let this issue rest.”

In other words, the “correctness” of the burial of President Marcos is now a matter to be decided through the democratic process - that is, politically, and not judicially: the remedy, therefore, is now no longer through the courts, but through the legislature, the ballot box, or through the parliament of the streets. Whether that process will be successful for those who decry Marcos’s burial is, unfortunately, a numbers game. And that numbers game has so far tilted towards the 16 million Filipinos who voted President Duterte into power. Without sounding facetious, though: as they say in basketball – bilog ang bola (the ball is round) – and the 16 million today may not be the same million tomorrow, or in one month, or in one year. The legislators who are silent on this issue today, may not be silent on this or other similar issues tomorrow, or in one month, or in one year. Who knows – the President may even change his mind. The wheels of democracy grind slowly in this way but, like history, it grinds (or bends) toward justice. Therefore: No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. [Art. III, Sec. 4, Phil. Const.]

Do I agree that former President Marcos should be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani? I do not. To bury him there would be the first step down the slippery slope that will end with a revision of Philippine history: that former president Marcos was anything other than a dictator and a thief. It is not only I who says this, but the Supreme Court also: This case is unique. It should not create a precedent, for the case of a dictator forced out of office and into exile after causing 20 years of political, economic and social havoc in the country and who within the short space of 3 years seeks to return, is in a class by itself [Marcos v. Manglapus].

Jefferson says that the price of democracy is vigilance. And in this time of great national divide on what, only 30 years previous in 1986, seemed to be as settled as the triumph of good versus evil, or of the light versus the darkness, the call goes out again to the heroes of EDSA to guard against the dying of that light – or perhaps, more crucially, to pass on that light to the younger generation. By what we have seen of them over the last days – and thankfully - they have accepted this call willingly, and with brave and defiant hands. There may perhaps still be hope, after all.  – Rappler.com

PJ Bernardo is a parter at a Singapore-based law firm and practices finance and foreign investment law. He was a member of the faculty of the Ateneo Law School, where he also received is law degree in 2005.  He pursued post-graduate studies in international finance at Harvard Law School in 2012. He hopes to return to teaching, his first love, in the very near future.

“No to Marcos historical revisionism!” has become one of the most urgent battle cries of anti-Marcos protests following the dictator’s surreptitious burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. This call rejects fundamentally the idea that Marcos could even be considered a hero. But for many Ilokanos, he is a hero. No question about it. Many are offended by the label “dictator” and many still consider his overthrow and exile in 1986 unjust. Paul Ricouer has rightly noted that "It is very important to remember that what is considered a founding event in our collective memory may be a wound in the memory of the other."

On and off in the last couple of years during research fieldwork in the country and visits to Ilocos, I have talked to Ilokano writers about their personal position on Marcos and what they think of his military regime. For many years now, I have also been critically examining Ilokano literature over this issue. Let me here focus on two texts whose authors I also interviewed: Juan S.P. Hidalgo’s Saksi ti Kaunggan (Innermost Witness) a novel which began serialization in the Ilokano weekly magazine Bannawag (Dawn) two months after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution; and Severino Pablo’s biography, Ferdinand E. Marcos: Ti Silaw a Sinapsapul ti Kaaduan (Ferdinand E. Marcos: The light many are searching for, 2011), which devotes a few chapters to the issue of where Marcos should be buried.

As I have noted elsewhere, although these works represent an individual author’s remembering of Marcos, such a remembering is only possible in the presence of a mnemonic community that enables and sanctions it. Hence, though this remembering emanates from an individual author, it necessarily implicates an intersubjective construction. As pointed out by scholars of social and cultural memory, these literary texts point to the role of novels and biographies, and of cultural texts more generally, to the construction and dissemination of memory as socially and collectively shared rather than merely remaining as the preserve and prerogative of an individual.

Marcos as victim

We who consider the Martial Law regime as one of the darkest periods in our history see Marcos as the mastermind and perpetrator of the disappearance and torture of thousands of our countrymen and women. He’s a tyrant whose thirst for power is equaled only by his lust for wealth. He’s not just a thief; he’s a plunderer. A murderer who not only corrupted and destroyed our nation’s democratic institutions but also plunged it into bankruptcy and debt.

In contrast, Marcos loyalists hold on to a perverse version of Marcos and of his dictatorship. Indeed, the two texts provide a version of history and memory of Marcos that represents the dictator not only as a benevolent figure but more crucially, as a victim.

Marcos as a/the victim? Of whom or what?

Betrayed: Marcos as threat to US hegemony in the Philippines

The representation of Marcos as the victim of US interference in the Philippines depends on his simultaneous construction as a strong leader whose refusal to capitulate to US influence becomes his undoing. Rosales-born writer Juan S.P. Hidalgo Jr is the main exponent of this nationalist-Marcos-as-victim narrative.

In Hidalgo’s version of history, Marcos was becoming too independent, pursuing national self-determination that the US could not abide. The US wants the Philippines to remain politically and economically dependent on its colonial master so it could continue controlling and exploiting the Philippines. To maintain its hold over the Philippines, the US had to remove Marcos and put in power someone it could easily manipulate. Marcos’ removal from power is thus not only an act against Marcos but also the Filipino people. He is hence not only betrayed by his closest ally but also by his own people who allowed the US to interfere in the country’s affairs and even participated in ousting him.

This conviction, that the US instigated Marcos’ overthrow, is the source of Hidalgo’s reimagining of the Philippines’ past, present, and future that have been dominated by colonial, especially American, influence. Offered as a nationalist and an anti-colonial novel, Saksi, however, echoes Marcos’ appropriation of history in which Marcos inserts himself in the national narrative as a central figure.

Hidalgo’s revision of Philippine history involves the cleansing of the national body-spirit of all western "evil" spirits that have controlled the Filipino nation. In this novel, he liberates the Filipino nation, which he constructs as Marcos (that is, the Philippines is Marcos or Marcos as Fatherland): he sends away all foreigners who have enriched themselves through the resources of the country and asks all Filipinos – scattered all over the world as a result of the foreign exploitation of the nation – to come home and share in the good life that they had been deprived of and had to search for elsewhere.

Hidalgo’s view that the US orchestrated Marcos’s removal by instigating the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution conveniently disregards the fact that the US propped up Marcos’ dictatorship on account of its anti-communism. The then US vice president George H. Bush, in his 1981 presidential-inauguration toast to Ferdinand Marcos, declared, “We love your adherence to democratic principle and to the democratic processes.”

Hidalgo's construction of foreigners as the cause of the dispersion of Filipinos and of Marcos as Fatherland asking all of his children to repatriate absolves Marcos of his role in turning the export of labor into government policy. It strategically forgets that the migration of Filipinos as overseas contract workers was part of propping up his dictatorship or his project of building the New Society through their remittances.

Marcos as a victim of 'dark and evil forces'

Severino Pablo’s biography (or hagiography) presents Marcos as “light,” a source of direction and inspiration. It is a representation that resonates with how “liwanag” has been used not only as a metaphor but as also as conceptual basis for a social justice discourse in various social movements in Tagalog Philippines. Such a framing of Marcos as “light” is possible only in a context in which his abuses and crimes, if there were any, can be justified, or indeed, are justifiable.

Pablo begins with an acknowledgement that the light of Marcos, or the light-as-Marcos, was one that various dark and evil forces wanted to extinguish or banish. Because these forces are filled with anger and hatred, they could only misrecognize Marcos and his accomplishments. Vindictiveness, partisanship, and historical blindness have caused Filipinos, specifically non-Ilokanos, to view Marcos negatively.

Pablo argues that Marcos aimed to destroy oligarchy in the Philippines and bring about social justice especially through land reform. He claims that Martial Law brought peace and order as well as development and economic progress to the entire country, that the many presidential decrees that issued forth from his pen benefitted no one else but all Filipinos, and that the Philippines would not have seen any progress had Martial Law not been declared. Through the help of Imelda Marcos and Imee Marcos (as chairperson of Kabataang Baranggay), the country experienced cultural and political renaissance. None of this however, was acknowledged by anti-Marcos forces. Pablo laments how they instead focused on how the military regime trampled on democracy (pannakapukaw ken pannakailuges ti demokrasia).

Pablo’s short account of presidential corruption from Elpidio Quirino to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo makes clear that for him, Marcos was the only one who was not corrupt. He claims that there were no reports of corruption committed by Corazon Aquino because Fidel Ramos, who owes his presidency to Cory, controlled the media in order not to expose Aquino’s corruption. He writes that although there were reports of corruption during Marcos’ first term as president, he did not know this was going on and that his reelection proved his innocence. For Pablo, Marcos is someone who could do no wrong. Indeed, for him, Marcos never did anything wrong.

What has always guided Marcos then, and his family now, is a tradition and heritage of public service. Pablo conjures up the Marcoses as occupying positions of power because this heritage of public service runs in their blood. And that Filipinos have failed to recognize or acknowledge this. Such failure obtains in a culture of envy and anger (kultura ti apal ken rurod). Yet, however much Pablo sanitizes his account of Marcos and his family, there are irruptions in his narrative that he fails to contain. He unwittingly acknowledges that Marcos trampled on democracy.

Forgetting as memory

Both these Ilokano narratives of Marcos turn memory and remembering into a form and means of forgetting. Indeed, in them we see how forgetting, as Alfred McCoy has noted, becomes a form of memory. Pablo can argue that Marcos has not been given the proper historical recognition by the Filipino people (except the Ilokanos); in other words, the gratitude that he deserves from his people, only through a non-recognition, if not denial, of what Marcos actually did. Hidalgo can conceive of Marcos as the embodiment of the Filipino nation, as benevolent Fatherland, and as Freedom itself only through a thorough and systematic exclusion, if not erasure, of the atrocities Marcos and his allies committed during the dictatorship from our narratives of the Marcos regime.

Memories are not simply of the past. The current protests against the burial of Marcos at the Libingan, and the support of many old and young Ilokanos for the Marcoses, reveal the intergenerational transmission of memories. They can be drawn upon to guide present and future action. The protests, participated in by many who did not experience the Martial Law period, might be said to show that memories, like life, can be inhabited. That memories can be kept alive, can be shared, and hence can be lived. They can be lived through collective action and movement that draw on and derive their impetus precisely from a sense that a violation is being committed against our sense of what is just and right. That what others fought and paid dearly for is willfully and blatantly disregarded for the benefit of precisely those they fought so hard to bring to justice, if not the judgment of history.

We have often been lamented as a people who easily forget, too quick to forgive. The two texts I have analyzed here clearly show how Ferdinand Marcos is deified by and among Ilokanos, as well as the abiding fondness for his family. There are most certainly texts that provide counter-memories of Marcos as well as stories of Ilokanos who suffered from or died fighting his regime. Certainly, there are expressions of Ilokano memories of Marcos as a tyrant. Ilokano activists who were imprisoned and tortured during the Martial Law years have become more vocal and visible. They have used the space provided by the legal fight to obtain compensation for human rights abuses to have their experiences of the dictatorship heard and recorded for posterity.

One survivor took a leading role in listening to and recording the stories of many other survivors, which became the basis of their claim for compensation. As an Ilokano who grew up hearing only of the greatness of Marcos, I am heartened to personally meet and talk to a number of these survivors who belie the myth that the North was and is solidly behind the Marcoses.

The protests against Marcos’ burial in the Libingan and historical revisionism in favor of Marcos testify to the necessity of a continued struggle over history and memory, and over which versions of our narratives of the past must, in the end, inform our collective memory, and hence our sense of history. – Rappler.com

Roderick G. Galam is a Research Associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin.

"Loribeth, kuyugan nimo siya sa ilang balay." (Loribeth, guide her to your house.) 

Teacher July Lasaca asked her student Loribeth Fernandez to take me with her on her way home.

Loribeth, 24, is a person with autism studying senior high school at the Mandaue City SPED High School. I was documenting segments of her day as part of my grant story on education for persons with disabilities. (READ: Cavite, Cebu schools prepare PWDs for employment) 

Having no significant interaction with people with a similar condition before, I was kind of anxious to let her direct our way to their home. Her father had gone ahead of us because he had to attend to something. I guess I had no choice but to go on this sort of adventure.

We were told to walk to a nearby Jollibee branch, where we would ride a jeep going to their home. Loribeth's father, Lorenzo, said their house was just around the corner, so I was expecting a brief trip.

We walked out of the school grounds and headed toward Jollibee. "That must not be too far from here," I thought.

We had been walking for some 5 minutes, however, and there was still no Jollibee in sight. Did Loribeth really know where we were going? 

I reminded her, "Loribeth, Jollibee?"

"Yes, Jollibee," she responded in her usual high-pitched and happy voice.

A few blocks more and we reached Jollibee shortly after.

We had to cross the road to reach the terminal. I have never really been a skillful pedestrian but I felt I had to lead the way. Loribeth didn't need any guidance, however, and instead, she helped me cross the busy road.

"Sa balay mo (To your house)?" I asked again, pointing to the jeeps. At that point, I was a bit worried if we would be riding the right vehicle since there were varying signs posted on their windshields.  

"Balay mo (Your house)?" she responded. I thought she didn't understand what I was trying to ask.

Our conversation was limited to these short phrases because she only understands Cebuano and English. Good thing balay (house) was among the Cebuano words I know aside from maayong buntag (good morning) and duwa (two).

And so we rode a jeep. "Duwa," I told the driver as I handed out our fare.

Again recalling what Loribeth's father said, I did not expect the ride to be that long. So I relaxed and let Loribeth prompt the driver when to stop. But some 15 minutes and several right turns later, I asked her again.

"Loribeth, malapit na (Loribeth, are we near)?"

She did not respond. I think she was puzzled with what I just said. 

So I just let it be – until 10 minutes later and we still hadn't reached our destination. I was more worried when I caught her catching a nap, seemingly tired from a day's work at school.

When she woke up, I asked her, this time in English: "Loribeth, we are going to your house. Are we almost there?"

She then pointed toward where the jeep is heading. I was still clueless if we were near or not. But just a few minutes later, she told the driver, "Stop."

We walked a few more meters until we reached their house. Finally, I saw her father – the sign that finally, we had arrived at their home.

"Kaya po pala talaga ni Loribeth bumiyahe mag-isa 'no, sir (Loribeth can really travel alone, right, sir)?" I told him.

"Oo, ma'am. Kaya niya talaga mag-isa (Yes, ma'am. She really can do it alone)," he replied, also explaining to me that the trip took a while because the jeep took a longer route than usual.  

I would be stating the obvious if I said I had so many doubts during our whole escapade. But I was happy and more humbled that I was proven wrong.

There remains many misconceptions and false judgments about persons with autism. They are called derogatory terms such as being retarded, discriminated against in the community, and face problems in getting jobs.  

If more people would get to interact with them like this, maybe more would see that persons with autism have the capabilities and skills to lead normal lives just like everyone else.

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– Rappler.com

Let’s get the facts straight. 

Sometime before November 5, Director General Ronald dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), had received intelligence reports that one of his officers, Superintendent Marvin Marcos, was receiving money from a drug lord in exchange for protection.

He acted on these reports and relieved Marcos, who was based in Leyte as head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Region 8 (Eastern Visayas). 

But the President intervened. Duterte called Dela Rosa and ordered him to reinstate Marcos. 

Marcos reported back to work and on November 5, led a team from the CIDG that attempted to serve a search warrant on Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr, who was detained in a Leyte jail, on charges of drug trafficking.

We all know how this ended. Espinosa was murdered in what some senators regard as a clear case of extrajudicial killing. So far, this has been the most blatant of the thousands of extrajudicial killings committed under Duterte’s war on drugs. 

A key issue needs to be addressed here: Why was Marcos reinstated? There are 2 versions. 

Dela Rosa said he had to “balance disciplinary action and compassion towards his men.” Marcos, he pointed out, was worried about the family members he would leave behind in Leyte as his relief would mean he would move to Camp Crame.

Duterte gave a different reason: he wanted Marcos on the job so that a case could be built against him: “Because I was keeping track of his movements. If you take him out, then...everything will disappear. I can't follow up.”

If we are to believe the President, his logic reveals preferential treatment for Marcos. If the top cop, Duterte’s trusted man, found the intelligence reports on Marcos credible enough to relieve him and initiate a probe, why mess it up? 

Remember that the President sided with Marcos and his team, believing their story that Espinosa was killed in a shootout. 

The President’s obsession with his war on drugs is weakening the PNP as a law enforcement institution. He is eroding the rule of law in the police force. 

By ordering them to kill, kill, kill, he has stripped them of any notion of due process. This is alarming.

We shudder to think of the long-term impact of all this on the PNP, which has, through the years, tried to integrate respect for human rights among its men and women. – Rappler.com

Even the most insensitive people know that it is not right and cool to break up with someone through SMS, personal messages, or email. For long distance relationships, a love letter might suffice, but the best practice always is to do it up close and personal. It will be painful, uncomfortable, some tears might even be shed, but that’s the best way to move on: I love you; sorry; goodbye; we will still be friends.

Alas, the way the Duterte-Robredo separation came about was far from best practice. In the same way as she was appointed, it came as a surprise, and through text of a message President Duterte passed on to Presidential Assistant Bong Go who then passed it on to Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco who had the misfortune of being the one to actually send what will now be notoriously known as the breakup text of 2016. In fairness, Evasco has said that he tried to call first but there was no answer.

But other than the ungracious way this was done, this latest development is very good for Vice President Leni Robredo and the country. 

For Robredo, it was no longer tenable for her to stay in the Cabinet with her strong disagreement on many important issues with the President. Ordinarily, I would have expected a Cabinet member, who is an alter ego of the President, to actually keep his or her opinions to herself when opposed to the President’s, but Leni was not an ordinary Cabinet member. As Vice President, she has her own political mandate and constituency. (READ: Where Duterte and Robredo part ways)

Duterte’s consolidation

As to whether she has been fired or she is resigning as Speaker Alvarez claims, does not matter. On the side of the Duterte administration, this could be part of a set of consolidation moves. This explains why Chairperson Patricia Licuanan of the Commission on Higher Education has also been asked not to attend Cabinet meetings. In her case, she does not have to as the work of CHED does not require as much coordination as  that of the housing portfolio. Licuanan should stay put, not resign, and finish her term in office as a mater of principle.

 As for the Vice President, she is now liberated to lead the opposition against the Duterte government. Until a month or so ago, my preference would have been for the Vice President to stay in the Cabinet so that she can prepare for her constitutional role as successor if circumstances conspire for her to become president. I was hoping that other people could rise up to lead the opposition. That unfortunately has not happened. 

The courageous Senator De Lima can play an important role but it is limited by her own admissions regarding her personal life. For the record, I do not believe Kerwin Espinosa’s and Ronnie Dayan’s false testimonies against her. The testimonies in the Senate showed very clearly that there is no case for illegal drugs against Senator De Lima. But while I certainly do not judge her for the romantic choices she has made, her credibility has been diminished by her admission of a relationship with her employee. I will not say, absent other facts, that she has committed a crime in carrying on that relationship, but continuing that relationship while she was a public official and Dayan remained in her employ certainly was inappropriate. In fact, perhaps Senator De Lima should have refrained from being the face of President Aquino’s war against corruption as the credibility of that effort has now been diminished by her own admissions.

Will the Liberals follow?

With Robredo breaking from Duterte, I hope the Liberals in the Senate and the House all now move to the opposition. In the Senate, it is not necessarily a Duterte coalition that Senate President Koko Pimentel leads but in fact a tripartite coalition of Duterte allies, independents, and Liberals. However, I expect the Liberal senators to be more assertive. But in the House, it is clear what LP members must do. For the country, they should give up their committee and leadership posts. 

The Liberals and their allies must stand ready to oppose Duterte in all legal and non-violent ways possible. I dare say that President Aquino must now come out of retirement and speak his mind about affairs of the state. Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Arroyo are anyway speaking up already. 

It's an exciting time for the country. Hopefully, we will now have a robust opposition to the Duterte government when it does bad things like killing the poor or protecting corrupt police officials implicated in illegal drugs.

SC: Tread carefully

As for the Supreme Court case, I would tread very carefully if I were in the Robredo camp. I would monitor closely what is actually happening and not react to rumors. From what I can gather so far, and based on precedent, the Marcos petition is years away from resolution, at least a year or two. The key thing to watch here are the appointments Duterte will make to the Court and whether they will shift the balance of votes in the Court. Of course, vigilance is good in cases like this.

Two weeks ago, when the Marcoses, with the connivance of government officials, surreptitiously and dishonorably buried their patriarch in the Libingan ng Bayani, I was ready to give up on this country. But then the millennials came out in full force to protest the burial of the dictator and plunderer.

The award-winning documentary film maker Ditsi Carolino filmed this remarkable coming out of the young, ending with a haunting version of Bayan Ko. That made me cry, remembering the hundreds of times I sang this in the last 40 years and the tens of thousands of times Filipinos in this and the last century who have sung this protest song.

United front

This is only the beginning of a democracy and human rights movement and we must learn the lessons from the past. Among the many, above all, it is important to have a united front. Let's pay attention to what could distract and divide us – for example, transforming this movement to become mainly anti-Duterte or worse to collaborate with military or other regime change adventurists. 

Already rumors of plots and subplots abound, including of a sick president who has no control of the police and military. As I have said before, an extra-legal ouster of a popularly elected president will only make matters worse as we have seen at EDSA 2, which ushered in 10 years of bad governance.  A military takeover will mean giving up many freedoms for an uncertain period of time as we are now seeing in Thailand. So let's not go there.

Many of us from the older generations come to this movement with our ideological biases, anti-communist or other prejudices for example, or pro- or anti Aquino sentiments. Most millennials I know, and I teach hundreds of them all over the country and in many schools, do not share these. Let's not pass our prejudices to them for the sake of unity.

We must increase our ranks so that democracy and human rights will be successfully defended. There will be tough times ahead, maybe even martial law. We must stand together when that happens.

The rising up of the millennials and the liberation of Leni Robredo is not coincidental. It’s a gift for Christmas. It gives us hope. – Rappler.com

The author is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government

While the November 25 and November 30 mass actions had manifested the emergence of what could be described as a virtual pro-democracy movement against the perceived authoritarian tendencies in the country, the democratic forces did not have a face, a central character, a rallying point, or a conscience to anchor their opposition against the autocratic Duterte government.

Now, it’s a totally different story. Her sudden resignation from the Duterte Cabinet makes Vice President Leni Robredo the leader of the rising pro-democracy movement. Her statement asking the Filipino people for courage to face an emerging dictatorship was a clear indication that she was willing to take the mantle of leadership of the pro-democracy forces.

The November 25 and November 30 mass actions saw the emergence of a critical mass of protesters, who did not agree with the sneak burial of the remains of dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, a special cemetery for the country’s heroes. While the protesters, mostly millennials, or young people aged 15 to 36, explicitly said that Marcos was no hero, the mass actions did not have any leader who could be the face of the rising pro-democracy movement.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary Leoncio “Jun” Evasco Jr, whom President Rodrigo Duterte has tapped to replace Mrs. Robredo in her housing post, has announced the creation of Kilusang Pagbabago, a purported citizens’ movement that seeks to gather administration supporters under a single roof.

Its creation validates the conflicting themes of the Philippine political experience: authoritarianism and democracy. While the sea of protesters that showed up in the November 25 and November 30 mass actions now constitute the democratic forces, the purported citizens’ movement represents the authoritarian constituency.

The two forces appear to be in a future collision. 

Robredo’s perceived evolution as the emerging new face of the anti-establishment protest movement did not come as a mere afterthought, accident, or twist of fate. It appears to be a consequence of her growing disenchantment with the political direction of the Duterte administration.

As a Cabinet member, she had direct personal knowledge of how the President runs the government, his incoherence and mood swings, lack of respect for women, and authoritarian tendencies. She saw his intolerance for contrary views and pugnacious ways and watched with horror his careless, albeit sexist, remarks and enmity he had made with certain leaders and international institutions.

She could have seen the President’s lack of capacity to digest every single act, words, or situation from a moral standpoint. The abject lack of moral compass, or the existence of an inner voice to enable him to put everything in a moral context could be most appalling to her.

After all, Mrs. Robredo is a widow of a great political leader, the late interior and local government secretary, Jese Robredo, who was a totally unassuming workhorse, who had left a pair of big shoes to fill in government service. 

Biggest challenge

As emerging leader and face of the pro-democracy movement in the country, Mrs. Robredo would have to present to the Filipino people her agenda, vision, and formula on how to untangle the authoritarian mess that the incumbent president has been creating after nearly six months of incumbency.

Moreover, the Vice President would have to present her version of an anti-drug war that's premised on the twin principles of rule of law and due process, and a wholistic rehabilitation program for thousands of drug users. She would have to provide a rehab program that combines the latest but most effective therapeutic approaches to bring those users not to their graveyards but back to mainstream society, where they could become productive citizens again.

But her biggest challenge lies in leading the entire pro-democracy movement to reclaim the nation’s democratic ideals that are being eroded slowly by the administration’s authoritarian tendencies, as well as to stop efforts to undermine the democratic institutions and processes and reinstall an authoritarian regime. 

Mrs. Robredo has to stop by all means the current initiatives of defeated vice presidential Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, who has been claiming that he was cheated in the last presidential elections. The mediocre son of the detested dictator does not seem to understand that if the Liberal Party, under which Mrs. Robredo ran, had indeed cheated, it would have done it for the presidency and not the vice presidency. 

As the country’s second highest political leader, Mrs. Robredo has no choice but to lead the political opposition. It is her task to take the Liberal Party away from the Super Majority Coalition in Congress and assume an opposition stance primarily to stop the passage of authoritarian legislative measures, which include the bill restoring the death penalty and the bill lowering the age of criminal liability to nine years of age.

She would have to lead the combined pro-democracy movement and the political opposition to a direction that seeks to apply a more intensive and extensive pressure politics to force the current administration to step down to enable the democratic forces to retake political power. – Rappler.com

Leni Robredo must have made President Rodrigo Duterte and his sycophants feel awkward, sitting there among them being her own man.

She was against extrajudicial killing, the death penalty, lowering the age of criminal liability to nine, and burying a heel a hero.

She was just too oddly proper to be accepted into the Duterte club, so that when word came debarring her, even in such a rude fashion of firing someone, it could not have come, knowing them and her, as a surprise.

Of course, there was more to it than debarring and firing, and she knew it; it was all part of a plot to unseat her as the constitutional successor to President Duterte in favor of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

It’s nothing secret, really. Marcos has filed a protest alleging that Robredo won over him as vice-president by fraud. But, even before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) could be constituted to begin hearing his case, Duterte has begun proclaiming Marcos his successor.

But, if he thinks his way has been all cleared with Robredo’s marginalization, Marcos should think again, not only because Robredo has vowed to “not allow the vice-presidency to be stolen,” or because it could take longer than a year for the electoral arbiter to come up with any credible ruling. What should really give him pause is the prospect of a hijack. He should watch Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr.

It was Evasco who fired and also replaced Robredo as housing secretary, a position that would have allowed her to show her well-known popular touch and now gives him an opportunity to mount a political coup by organizing for his own movement at the grass roots.

Evasco had been a priest for only four years when he joined the communist rebellion in 1974, two years into the martial-law regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Caught in 1983, he was prosecuted by Duterte, went to prison, and suffered torture. President Corazon Aquino freed him in 1986 with other political detainees.

In 1988, Duterte, who may have become the socialist he now professes himself to be, recruited Evasco to run his campaign for Davao City mayor and for his subsequent reelections, and kept him in his government, as economic manager and, at the last turn, as chief of staff, through his terms. Like Duterte, Evasco also served as mayor of his hometown, Maribojoc, in Bohol province, from 2007 until he rejoined Duterte for his presidential campaign.

Odd couple

He now leads the Left in the most improbable three-cornered coalition Duterte has put together – in a second corner are the dynastic leaders and other members of the patron class in congress, drawn together principally by a common preference for a switch to federalism, and in a corner all their own are the Marcoses, led by Robredo’s rival.

Understandably, it’s the Left and the Marcoses who make for the oddest couple in Philippine politics, and, as it happens, their partnership has come under its first serious test: the burial of Ferdinand Sr. as a hero.

Championed by Duterte himself, an unabashed idolater of the dictator, and sanctioned by the Supreme Court in one of its consistently questionable rulings, the burial has provoked snowballing street protests. The mainstream Left has robustly joined them, but its supposedly hard-core representatives around Duterte are quiet; in fact, along with their elders long in exile in the Netherlands, where peace talks are going on between them and Duterte’s negotiators, they have put the Marcos-burial issue on the agenda, suggesting it was up for bargaining.

This is definitely not the proudest moment for the Left. As if having to take the son weren’t insult enough, it now faces the prospect of having to swallow the father if only to keep its place in Duterte’s power circle – it has never come so close to power, indeed.

But, as plain as it was, the reality could not have escaped the Left: it was submitting itself to a strange one, whose strangeness is reflected in his narcissistic, impulsive, intractable presidency, but, more relevant to the case at hand, in his choice of men and women to most closely surround him – all manner of leftist and feudal characters.

Come to think of it, the one compromise that might just suit the ménage is federalism, another of Duterte’s babies. It divides up the territory and decentralizes and devolves power accordingly.

The freakish genius of Rodrigo Duterte may yet prove to lie in that – breaking up the nation to make everybody happy! – Rappler.com

So what if she's not a journalist?

By asserting that she's not a journalist, Mocha Uson can claim that she stands for the truth.  She has suggested after all that the media industry is biased, even giving its reporters the moniker "presstitutes." 

To be fair, as far as truth is concerned, it does not really matter whether one is a journalist or not. This is because for most of us, we believe what we have been conditioned to believe.  Of course, others may believe the lies they propagate but that is a different issue altogether. 

Constructing reality

Reality, for sociologists, is socially constructed. This means that the world we inhabit is not a given. We receive it but at the same time take part in creating it. We are born into a society that teaches us its norms, values, beliefs, and practices. We learn from childhood that blue is for boys and pink for girls.

As we grow up, we behave in a manner that is consistent with these lessons.  Failure to do so pits one against the majority. It's called deviance. The various modes of social control are coercive enough to put you in your place. Boys don't want to be called bakla, for example, because they don't want others to think they're soft, feminine, or crybabies.  

But really, what's wrong with being soft, feminine, or a crybaby?  

The lessons we learn at home, school, playground, and everywhere else, although not necessarily absolute, create for us a coherent worldview through which we accept and reject many things around us. It is for this reason that Peter Berger, an American sociologist, once defined religion as a sacred canopy under which the world we inhabit becomes clear and comprehensible. In this light, we need to recognize that Mocha Uson and her contemporaries may in fact be completely convinced that they are fighting for the truth.

Such is the power of religion, worldviews, and political loyalties.  

If you think about it, groups tend to be stronger if they offer coherent and strict worldviews about reality. In this sense, Islamic extremists and Biblical fundamentalists are as sold to their ideas as are militant atheists, staunch human rights activists, and Marcos apologists.

Not the only issue

Having a worldview, however, is not the only issue: the way we see things affects the way we act upon the world. The power of knowledge, in other words, is not only in offering arbitration on what is right and wrong.  The French philosopher Michel Foucault has shown us that "saying the truth" about our bodies, for example, affects the way we treat and take care of it. 

This is the reason that being convinced that we have facts is inadequate. People often tell us that "you might be entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."  

That is right.  But that is not enough.

Check this out: When Mocha Uson claims that she is not a journalist, she does not simply take on a prophetic role to proclaim the truth. Like a choirmaster, she can tell her followers to sing her songs and sing them loud. And sing loud they do.       

What then is at stake?

What you believe to be true matters. But the human consequences of what you believe to be true also matter. The world we inhabit is not simply made up of ideas. Much of its material condition is a result of ideas, for better or worse.

Consequences matter as much as convictions.

It is in this light that Mocha Uson and her followers need to be examined as much as the others who profess to be against them. For example, it is not only knowing what really happened during Martial Law that matters. If that were so, then the debate would never progress beyond "your facts versus mine." And it has not. 

To make it worse, the battle for hearts and minds is no longer just a battle for the truth. It has become a battle in which noise and vitriol have become the most deadly weapons. If you don't believe this, just look at Rappler's Facebook page. 

This is now the case because we do not interrogate the consequences of our beliefs in which the other person is readily a retard, ignorant, fanatic, or even anti-Christ (another Mocha Uson concoction). Cursing the other is at once its symptom and the language of anger.  

Take it a little further and we have blood on our hands.   

Get real

In the end, when a website asks you to "get real," your concern cannot simply be whether it presents you facts. That is important, of course. But at the same time, you ask yourself what must you get real for?

You want to get real because you want to make the world a better place in which collective wisdom can coexist with respectful disagreement.  If this were not clear to you, you could be sold not just into a web of lies, but a worldview in which only you are convinced to have found the truth and that everyone else is wrong.  That is how wisdom dies and wars begin.

In other words, the compulsion to be unbiased is only half the battle – journalist or not. – Rappler.com

Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, PhD, is a sociologist and the Director of the Development Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University.  His recent book shows that for many Filipino Catholic youth, right living is more important than right believing.  Follow him on Twitter: @jayeel_cornelio.

Vice President Leni Robredo’s shocking expulsion from the Duterte Cabinet this week has revived several issues from the hotly contested May elections.

Still at a loss over the unfortunate series of events, Leni speculated that her Cabinet ouster could be but one manifestation of a larger plot to “steal” the vice presidency, presumably to put into power her main election opponent, Bongbong Marcos. 

No less than the President himself has repeatedly expressed support for Bongbong’s electoral protest before the Supreme Court. The President even boldly announced in Beijing that we could have a new vice president soon. Bongbong’s camp stoked the flames further by stating that it was Leni who actually “stole” the vice presidency by committing fraud in the May elections. 

The wounds from the 2016 vice presidential race have been reopened, and the issues could feature in another landmark Supreme Court ruling soon. 

Back in May various people (including myself) have put forward analyses of the election data which debunk claims of Leni’s fraud in the vice presidential race. I figured that now would be a good time as any to revisit the key findings from these informal studies. 

For a virtual bibliography of these studies, see the “megamix” compiled by Jesus Lemuel Martin. For a related news coverage, see this Rappler report.

1) Bongbong’s votes grew at the same rate as Leni’s votes. 

Bongbong’s camp previously asserted that Leni’s cheating could be deduced from the fact that in the wee hours of May 10 the results turned magically in favor of Leni, whose lead increased by 40,000 votes for every additional percentage of votes that came in.

But by looking at the growth trends of these votes, I showed that ever since the first results arrived on May 9, the growth of Bongbong’s votes was mirrored very closely by the growth of Leni’s votes (see Figure 1).

A very high correlation of the growth rates between Leni and Bongbong’s votes means that when Bongbong’s votes increased or decreased in one period, Leni’s votes mirrored those changes very closely. Whatever advantage Leni gained came from the accumulation of very small gaps between these otherwise highly correlated growth rates. 

Taken together, these patterns would tend to debunk rather than support any allegation of cheating on Leni’s part.

2)  Bongbong’s votes just arrived earlier than Leni’s votes.

A good explanation of why Leni’s votes seem to have overtaken Bongbong’s votes in the morning of May 10 is that some regions transmitted their results earlier than others.

First, note that both Bongbong and Leni had bailiwicks of their own (see Figure 2). On the one hand, Bongbong enjoyed a landslide win in northern regions like CAR, Regions I, II, III, and NCR. On the other hand, Leni enjoyed significant support in the southern regions, notably in Bicolandia, the Visayas, and Mindanao. 

Figure 2. Source: Rappler. Note: Thinking Machines also made an interactive map using the same data.

At the same time, the data clearly show that the votes from Luzon came in first, followed by Visayas and Mindanao. Dr. Reina Reyes summarized this fact beautifully in an animated graph (see Figure 3). 

Since Bongbong won overwhelmingly in the regions which first transmitted results, it’s not surprising to see that Bongbong seemed to win in the initial hours after the elections, only to be overtaken by Leni later on.

Many other data analysts have corroborated this result. For instance, a group of other researchers made a similar analysis and animation (see Figure 4) and reached the same conclusion.

Meanwhile, Peter Cayton showed that while votes from Luzon and NCR came in a single big “wave,” votes from other parts of the country arrived in multiple waves due to difficulties in transmission. 

Finally, Miguel Barretto Garcia showed that even before the midnight of May 9 it was statistically clear that Leni would win. 

3) There was also no evidence of suspicious electoral “fingerprints.”

A more rigorous way of detecting electoral fraud is by observing several precincts where a particular candidate or party won unanimously (or near-unanimously). 

This method of detecting “fingerprints” in the data is one of the more advanced ways of detecting electoral fraud in the academic literature. Rappler’s Gemma Mendoza had used this method before to show high probabilities of cheating in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur in the 2010 elections. 

For the 2016 elections, Dr. Christian Alis applied the same methodology using precinct-level data and found that no such electoral fingerprints could be detected among all vice presidential candidates, including Bongbong and Leni.

Figure 5 below shows the distribution of Leni’s votes across different precincts, with voter turnout on the horizontal and Leni’s share of votes on the vertical. If Leni won by ballot stuffing, reporting of contrived numbers, or other methods of electoral fraud, then one should observe a dark spot (resembling a fingerprint) on the extreme upper-right corner of the graph.  

But no such spot can be observed from the actual data, and this again does not show any indication of cheating on Leni’s part.

Figure 5. Source: Christian Alis. Note: TJ Palanca also made a related analysis.

Conclusion: Leni did not “steal” the vice presidency 

It’s often said that Filipino politicians either win the elections or get cheated (they never lose). Never has this been more pronounced than in the 2016 vice presidential race, which we sadly continue to dispute nearly 7 months after the elections.

It’s true that Leni won by a slim margin of just 263,473 votes. This number is just as large as the entire population of Lucena City or Catanduanes province as of 2015.

But by examining the election data and subjecting it to various methodologies, it is virtually impossible for anyone to conclude that Leni cheated and “stole” the vice presidency. The data tells us that she won fair and square.

Of course, the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, will rely on a wider array of evidence—including testimonies or expert opinions—to prove or disprove Bongbong’s claims of electoral fraud. 

But unlike witnesses, the data don’t lie. This is something we should all bear in mind as we continue to monitor the vice presidential contest in the coming weeks and months. All of us could be affected by the outcome of this protracted dispute, so we must all remain vigilant. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliations. Thanks to friends and colleagues who have given permission to feature their graphics, and to Kevin Mandrilla for helpful comments and suggestions.

Vice President Leni Robredo has decided. Head and heart have finally aligned. Our Vice President Leni has firmed up her resolve to work for people, by continuing her work without the constraints of being part of cabinet. Her decision means that she will work for those “in the fringes of society” by working on the “fringes of government.” The fact that she will work outside the cabinet can be considered a blessing – for it gives her brand of principled politics, one that is anchored on a brave way of doing politics from below, a real chance of working though it will certainly be challenged by the traditional politics of the day.

Nothing happens by chance. Things always happen for a reason. In the case of our Vice President Leni, there must be plausible reasons why she assumes her mandate as the people’s chosen second-in-command outside or “on the fringes” of the President’s official family, the Cabinet.  She now literally occupies a rather unique place in our politics that may fit in well with an apt phrase coined in her campaign which we can paraphrase, “sa laylayan ng bagong pamahalaan.”

It is imperative that among those who continue to lead are men and women imbued with character who will retain both independence and the capacity to take different positions on diverse issues, based on principles such as her opposition to the burial of the dictator Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, her opposition to extra-judicial killings and the re-imposition of the death penalty,  and her opposition to sexual attacks against women – all of which she enumerated in her letter of resignation.   

Better angels

Given her life-long advocacy, her track record, her personal gifts and her passion for causes she holds dear, it would seem logical that Leni Robredo’s principal focus would be to help improve the lives of our people, particularly, the women folk whom she has supported unstintingly in her previous work as alternative legal defender, non-governmental worker, local government activist both as companion to the mayor of a provincial city and legislator representing a provincial district in the province of Bicol.

What could this mean in the concrete?  Catalyze the formation of a movement, not an organization but rather inspire a direction, that would summon the better angels of our people toward promoting a critical citizens’ cause: improving the lives of women and girls in our midst, in rural and urban areas, who are more vulnerable; to listen and learn from them, and explore ways that they can take the initiative and chart paths towards their liberation and their betterment as well as the improvement of the lives of their families and communities. In so doing, we will be forging the kind of character we need in our social and political life.  Character in politics! 

Galvanizing citizens’ courage 

Making such a call and convening such an effort – requiring both courage and concern – could be piloted in selected areas in the poorer regions of the country such as the ARRM or Eastern Visayas or Mindanao, and Bicol.  These experiments in building empowered communities through the involvement of women could then shine like the light on the hill or the beacon that can keep our people’s hopes alive.  

This vision, I believe, can energize the formation of an empowering vehicle for self-sustaining communities where women and girls can play a central part.  In so doing, and given adequate resources and support structures, they can thus make a real contribution to the well-being of an entire country.

In sum, the VP’s brief can be understood as the undertaking to unleash the energies of half a country – our womenfolk; and, their contribution is crucial as the country moves forward in the more competitive period of the ASEAN integration.  This process could take shape under the rubric of concerted but separate efforts striving towards a shared sense of purpose that will focus on improving the lives of women who are most vulnerable – “sa ika-uunlad ng mga kababaihan sa laylayan ng lipunan.” 

Women in 5 sectors

The focus of the undertaking could initially be given to women and girls in at least five basic sectors of society:

• Rural women, particularly, those engaged in farms, working as farmers or related fields;
• Women workers, women working in factories, or in the retail or service industries;
• Urban poor women, women who as heads of households or partners who live in urban poor areas across different regions of the country;
• Women working as fisherfolk or in work related to the fishing industry;
• Indigenous peoples, women who belong to the indigenous peoples such as the lumads or those in Cordillera and Bangsamoro, and whose rights need to be promoted and protected. 

Focus could be given to five strategic areas of endeavor, in consultation with the women concerned, their groups and communities:

• Livelihood (providing opportunities and training for earning livelihoods that are meaningful, dignified and well-remunerated);
• Education (focusing on the girls and youth in education, as well as the teachers, trainors and mentors in society);
• Health (dealing with the mothers and those nurturing infants, the ill and those in need of medical care, and nutrition);
• Housing and Social Security (focusing on the elderly among them);
• Democratic Participation (addressing concerns of women by women who are able to participate socially and politically in the democratic project, assuming leadership roles in the community and engaged in the formulation of policies and in decision-making).

Others sectors supporting these efforts could be mobilized, among them – initially and principally:

• Local Governments (relevant barangay, local, municipal and provincial units);
• Media (national and local, print, broadcast and visual media; as well as theatre, the arts, and employing social media);
• Business (engaging national, regional and local business organisations or aggrupations by  trade or industry),
• Schools (engaging the youth and the teachers);
• Churches (engaging religious leaders of different faiths and their agencies focused on social action and basic ecclesial communities). 

5 other areas of concern

Five other areas of concern, among others, can complement this thrust involving work in inter-related spheres:

1. Peace (supporting the peace process in Bangsamoro where a Framework Peace Agreement has already been signed and now needs consolidation; as well as, the emerging peace process with the National Democratic Front/the CPP/the NPA);
2. Human Rights (ensuring that the full respect for human rights and the rule of law be given prominence amidst calls for “rapid elimination of crime as well as criminals”);
3. Women’s Rights (the promotion and protection of women’s rights and the dignity of women at all levels and in all aspects of life, ensuring that no disrespect is shown women in public and private);
4. Environment (addressing concerns related to climate change, climate justice and linking our efforts to the recently-concluded Paris climate pact);
5. Disaster-Preparedness (working at disaster-preparedness particularly in areas prone to flooding and other disasters either due to weather changes or disturbances and natural causes such as unbridled mining and unregulated extractive industries). 

It is often said that the mark of a true leader is one who can transform risks into opportunities; who can read signs of hope in situations that for most only spell disaster; who can show resilient character in times of adversity.  

In the case of our vice president Leni Robredo, she is in fact given an unedited opportunity or, in a manner of speaking,  being handed a more or less blank slate where she can draw the lines – knowing that the main protagonists of the story are the women whose interests she has always had in her heart. The country indeed is blest that the candidate who has won the vice-presidency is a woman of integrity, of commitment and deep passion. That is a rare blessing indeed.  

In her letter of resignation, Vice President Leni explained the reasons which led her to tender her irrevocable resignation from cabinet.  Many people are enraged, we feel the pain and the anger. 

For just as the people elected a president who run on a platform of law and order, pledging to dramatically stamp out crime and drugs in a brief span of time, by all means and measures, we have side by side elected someone quite extraordinary: a woman of uncommon valor, truly a woman of courage with a marathon mentality without the drama, one who has excelled in quiet work from below – and, hopefully, one who can bring out our country’s better angels. – Rappler.com

(Ed Garcia taught political science at the University of the Philippines where one of her students was Ma. Leonora Gerona . He worked at Amnesty International and International Alert in London for over two decade, served as a framer of the 1987 Constitution, and now works as a consultant on formation at FEU Diliman.)

Our restored democracy is under threat. What has been nurtured over the last 30 years faces imminent destruction and demolition by conspiring political forces with authoritarian tendencies.

The threat comes from the political alliance supporting the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. It is also in a tactical alliance with certain political families and groups pushing an agenda to reinstitute an authoritarian regime in the country.

These political forces plan to thwart or dismantle the current democratic system by initiating a series of political moves leading to the presidency of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr on or before June 30, 2022, or the end of Duterte’s 6-year term of office.

They are maneuvering for a recount of the votes in the vice presidential race, cheat to obtain Bongbong’s electoral victory, kick out Vice President Leni Robredo from office, and declare and install Bongbong as winner and vice president. As planned, Bongbong takes over as Duterte leaves office because of ill health or incapacity to govern. 

Hence, the son of the dictator is set to initiate an authoritarian agenda to get back to power, perpetuate the Marcos authoritarian regime earlier toppled by the people in the 1986 People Power Revolution, and plunge the country into another era of political darkness.

This initiative has to be stopped. A democratic agenda has to be put in place to prevent the return of authoritarianism. This agenda will define the moves to enable the pro-democracy forces to defeat authoritarianism.

Conflicting themes

Two conflicting themes have characterized the nation’s postwar experience: democracy and authoritarianism. It appears simplistic, but this dichotomy of political themes has been evident for nearly 5 decades. 

On the one end, pro-democracy forces want the democratic institutions and structures to remain strong and vibrant and the democratic processes to continue and flourish. Moreover, they believe in a pluralistic society, where various belief systems, world views, and advocacy are given ample space for peaceful coexistence and growth.

The pro-democracy forces are represented by disparate forces composed of the middle elements that supported two people power revolutions (EDSA 1 and EDSA 2), political parties and organizations advocating democratic ideals like the rule of law, and institutions like the Majority Church, or the Roman Catholic Church, and the Minority Church, or various Christian and non-Christian denominations, their clergy, and various Church-based organizations. 

Although they are collectively called the “Yellow Forces” since they helped to catapult the Aquino mother and son (Corazon and Benigno III) into the presidency, the democratic forces extend to political groups that have been mainly on the fringes, which include certain legal Left organizations and other advocacy groups. Hence, it is inaccurate to call the democratic forces the “Yellow,” although the yellow forces constitute a big part of these pro-democracy forces.

On the other end, political forces with authoritarian tendencies live in the past, as indicated by their persistence to revise history, treat the two people power uprisings (EDSA 1 and EDSA 2) as historical flukes or non-events, and reimpose the failed authoritarian system, believing it is the better way to run the country. 

Off-the-cuff presidential remarks that seemingly showed a tilt toward the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, declaration of martial law, or establishment of a revolutionary statement seem to fan widespread anxiety and fear on a return of authoritarianism.

Historical antecedents

The country’s postwar liberal democratic system was put in place in 1946, but Ferdinand Marcos, elected popularly in 1965 and reelected in 1969, touched the nerve of history by declaring Martial Law on September 21, 1972, plunging the country into an unprecedented political experiment in what he termed as “constitutional authoritarianism” or dictatorship.

Marcos was to step down by the end of his second term on December 30, 1973 since the 1935 Constitution provided that a president could have only two successive 4-year terms of office. But he wanted to prolong his stay in power by hook or by crook, or largely the latter.

Since wife Imelda, or any of his men like Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, had no chance against the constellation of Liberal Party stars like Senators Gerardo Roxas, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr, and Jovito Salonga, in the 1973 presidential elections, Marcos took advantage of a loophole in the 1935 Constitution to extend his tenure.

By a stroke of a pen, Marcos declared Martial Law, writing finis to the democratic traditions and destroying its democratic structures. He abolished Congress, closed down mass media outfits, arrested and jailed without charges tens of thousands of journalists, activists, labor and peasant leaders, religious workers, and opposition stalwarts, including then senators Jose “Pepe” Diokno and Ninoy Aquino.

Marcos invoked the national security doctrine for martial rule, saying he wanted “to save” the country from what he described the “conspiracy of the oligarchs and the communist rebels. He said the much ballyhooed rebellion, led by the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA), its military arm, grew to constitute a major security threat to the country.

Facts: The CPP-NPA, at the time, was a nascent organization that did not have the sufficient number of cadres, warriors, firearms, and other logistics to put the country at the brink of civil war. Its political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF), which sought to unify the middle forces under its leadership, was non-existent. Its preparatory commission was formed in late 1973, or a year after the Martial Law declaration. The 1973 outbreak of the Muslim separatist movement, led by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), was another factor for the martial necessity.

To stay in power, Marcos intimidated members of the assembly tasked to draft a new postwar Constitution to replace the colonial 1935 Constitution and manipulated the ratification of the 1973 Constitution to serve as the blueprint of his dictatorial rule.

Marcos justified his dictatorship by claiming it was his intention to create a “New Society” to “liberate” the country from the “oligarchy” and communist rebels. He ruled by decrees, exercising the powers of the executive department and the abolished Congress. He bamboozled the Supreme Court to give the green light for his Martial Law administration.

Promised change

After declaring Martial Law in 1972, Marcos ruled for another 13 years. But the promised changes did not happen. Instead, he did the following:

• Centralized corruption, where he earned fat under-the-table commissions from big ticket state projects and deposited the illicit proceeds in various foreign banks, mostly in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, a small principality in western Europe, which serves mainly as a tax haven
• Crony capitalism, where his stable of cronies replaced the pre-Martial Law oligarchs, cornering fat state projects, forming monopolies in the coconut and sugar industries, obtaining special import privileges in select industries in the manufacturing sector, and grabbing monopoly contracts in the services sector, which included the waterfront
• Unrestrained and wanton human rights violations, where tens of thousands of student activists, religious workers, and other anti-Marcos elements were arrested and imprisoned without charges, released without any explanation, tortured, and summarily executed, and disappeared without any trace.

Although the first 4 or 5 years brought economic growth, Marcos ruled without mandate, triggering widespread criticisms in the domestic front and the international community as well. He was not popularly elected beyond 1973, but held several rigged referenda and elections to reflect ostensibly the people’s approval of his Martial Law regime. 

Although his Martial Law declaration was to last for few months to address the communist insurgency and Muslim secessionist issues, Marcos prolonged his stay in power, making him a dictator with absolute powers.

But absolute power corrupts absolutely. Without the world knowing it, Marcos, Imelda and cronies, which constituted the Martial Law-sponsored new oligarchy, were plundering the country of its wealth, treating the national treasury as if they owned the public funds, stashing the loot elsewhere, and transferring them from one place to another to avoid detection.

It was kleptocracy, or the use of power and state structures to plunder and accumulate wealth to enable them to live like kings and queens for 20 lifetimes. Jovito Salonga, the first Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chair, estimated their total loot at between $5 billion to $10 billion. After 30 years, the estimate stands. Even the international community accepts the figures to typify the rapacity and greed of the Marcoses and their ilk.

By end-2015, the PCGG was reported to have recovered about P170 billion of ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses, cronies and friends. As the pending civil cases prosper, the recovered loot could go up to slightly over P200 billion by 2017, the PCGG said. 

Yet, the amount was but a fraction of the loot, as a sizable amount has been successfully stashed by the Marcoses. In fact, a big amount was spent for the unsuccessful 2016 vice presidential bid of the young Marcos. (To be concluded) – Rappler.com

(READ: Part 1: Time for pro-democracy forces' agenda)

The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution was the game-changing political upheaval that led to the restoration of Philippine democracy and the revival of democratic institutions and processes. Cornered like scalded cats, Ferdinand Marcos, his family, select relatives, and friends fled on the night of February 25, 1986, and went into a 5-year exile in Honolulu to escape the collective wrath of the Filipino people. 

Meanwhile, President Corazon Aquino took the country to the tortuous and arduous task of rebuilding the country from the morass created by the Marcos dictatorship. She battled at least 7 military coups, and regained the trust and confidence of the international community. The Cory government took major steps to dismantle the authoritarian structures and destroy the tendencies to bring back the authoritarian system.    

The Aquino government scrapped the 1973 Constitution and replaced it with the 1987 Constitution, replaced en masse local officials identified with the dictatorship, retired overstaying military generals, and established the PCGG to run after the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, relatives, and ilk. 

It abolished the Batasang Pambansa, the rubber stamp legislature created by Marcos, called free, honest, and credible new elections under the new Charter, and reestablished Congress, the members of which were popularly elected. She reorganized the Commission on Elections, Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission, and Commission on Human Rights, the 4 constitutional offices under the 1987 Constitution.

Over the years, the succeeding governments had worked for the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman, Philippine National Police, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; the professionalization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and PNP; and abolition of state firms that propped up the dictatorship and their replacement with accountable and transparent government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs).

But the soft treatment, inability, and failure of the Aquino administration and its successors to get rid of the Marcoses or put the final nail on their political coffin appears to have become a major problem over the last 30 years.

Somewhere, sometime, and somehow, the Marcoses continue to haunt the country. They did not hesitate to use their fabulous loot to revise history, reinvigorate their networks, and use the democratic system they earlier destroyed to stage a political comeback.

Authoritarian, democratic forces

The rise of the political forces with authoritarian tendencies had manifested during the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections. Just before Bongbong Marcos announced his intention to seek either the presidency or vice presidency, political forces identified with his late father’s rule started forming and solidifying.

This was not the end though. The Marcos camp, led by Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, entered into a tactical alliance with the Duterte forces despite Duterte’s decision to have Senator Alan Peter Cayetano as his running mate. Although the young Marcos ran as an independent, Duterte tilted towards him as if he were his running mate.

Later, the camp of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, through husband Jose Miguel Arroyo, joined the Duterte-Marcos alliance, forming the triumvirate of authoritarian forces in the country. The Marcos and Arroyo camps were reputed to have provided enormous resources for Duterte’s presidential campaign.

The pro-democracy forces were resigned to accept Duterte’s election, as they could only express regret over Senator Grace Poe’s insistence to run for president and divide the votes of the democratic constituency. Only Mrs Robredo’s election as vice president could assuage their combined feelings of frustration and rejection. 

But when the incidence of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) took an upswing and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the release of Mrs Arroyo from imprisonment, the pro-democracy forces felt uneasy, forcing them to abandon their wait-and-see stance. The unrestrained but careless statements of the pugnacious president were factors too.  

When the Supreme Court ruled, favoring the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani and the Marcos family implemented their planned stealth burial, the battle lines appeared to have been drawn. The camps of Duterte, Marcos, and Arroyo are now perceived to have been in a conspiracy.  

The pro-democracy forces would take to the streets to raise their objection to such conspiracy. Such objection was already shown by two subsequent and successful mass actions on November 25 and 30. More protest actions are expected in the coming days. A new protest action was held on December 10.

Meanwhile, Mrs Robredo has resigned abruptly from the Duterte Cabinet, triggering expectations that she would have to take the mantle of leadership of the pro-democracy movement and the political opposition since she is the current highest elected political leader.

Judging from her statements and body language, Mrs Robredo does not seem to be one to flinch from a fight and could be assumed to lead the massive protest movement that could escalate by the first quarter of 2017.

Mrs Robredo’s departure from the Cabinet could also mean providing a face or inspiration for the pro-democracy movement. Her reputation as public official has remained untainted although she has been the subject of insidious black propaganda. She has developed her own charisma, seemingly inspiring democratic forces to take her as their leader.

Meanwhile, the aurthoritarian camp is reported to have been moving to form Kilusang Pagbabago, a purported citizens’ movement no different from the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) of the Marcos dictatorship. This purported citizens’ movement, according to its prime mover, Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco, seeks to put administration supporters under a single roof, making it the KBL of Duterte.

Evasco was reacting to the embarrassment of the Duterte and Marcos camps, when the Duterte Youth, which is similar to Hitler Youth (Hitler Juven), came out for the first time in the November 25 and November 30 mass actions with hardly a handful of members, who were not even youthful in looks. They were subjects of public ridicule in social media. 

Democratic agenda

Over the last 3 decades, the democratic cause has reshaped, as shown by the varying situation, but its fundamentals have hardly altered. The pursuit of truth and justice has been the central theme of pro-democracy forces. Moreover, economic wellbeing as shown by jobs and food on the table is a fundamental objective. Furthermore, the respect of human rights of every individual is paramount.

The authoritarian forces likewise speak of those objectives, or something close to those noble goals. But they could not hide their disdain for the established democratic traditions and structures, their contempt for the rule of law and human rights, and their intention to revise history to show the Marcos authoritarian experiment was successful. They never speak of keeping the democratic system, but insist on breaking the established democratic order ostensibly to bring the country to what they regard “a path of economic progress.”

For instance, the current administration speaks of federalism, which calls for the adoption of a federal form of government to replace the current unitary government. Deep apprehension has been expressed by several political quarters, which view federalism as a Trojan horse that could lead to a weakened central government, thus strengthening those authoritarianism tendencies.

The anti-drug war serves as a convenient platform for those authoritarian tendencies. By continuously harping – or exaggerating – that the country has become a narco-state, the current political leadership has been virtually saying that it is now incumbent to pursue extrajudicial killings (EJKs) for reason of national security. In its limited reasoning, the political leadership is virtually saying that pursuing EJKs is a matter of self defense.

The November 25 and November 30 mass actions have confirmed two things: first, the existence of a critical mass of warm bodies to comprise the pro-democracy movement; and second, the emergence of young people, or millennials, as a new force to reckon with.

Hence, the democratic agenda encompasses 3 major areas: politics, education, and governance. 

On the political sphere, the pro-democracy forces should continue, sustain, and step up the protest mass actions to stop the authoritarian agenda from further taking root under the Duterte government. It should take steps to stop any attempt to manipulate the democratic process leading to a victory of the young Marcos in his electoral protest and his assumption of the vice presidency.

Reviving the “parliament of the streets” would not only complement the battles in the so-called “parliaments of social media” in those skirmishes to win the hearts and mind of the public. The parliament of the streets seeks to counter inroads in Congress and other forums to railroad public acceptance of the authoritarian agenda, which includes disrespect of basic human rights and the proposed legislation to lower the age of criminal liability to 9 years and the restoration of death penalty.

Both the parliaments of the streets and social media exert what has been regarded as “pressure politics,” which seeks to influence the democratic institutions and processes to behave in the generally accepted democratic manner. Moreover the two parliaments, which serve as unofficial legislators, seek to check abuses against the democratic principles and bring to public attention these abuses.

On the educational sphere, the pro-democracy forces, which have been transformed into a citizens’ movement, should take steps to stop efforts to revise history, rehabilitate the Marcos dictatorship, and sanitize the public image of the young Marcos, who is being groomed by the authoritarian forces to replace Duterte.

They have come out with a plan forming teams of anti-Marcos adherents to go to major cities and even rural areas to explain the Marcos legacy of world class kleptocracy, massive human rights violations, and crony capitalism. In fact, teams have already formed for barnstorming visits.

But this would not be enough without pursuing the inclusion of the Marcos dictatorship in the history books. Over the last 3 decades, public and private educators have succeeded to pursue the “demarcosification” of textbooks and other reference materials. But they have merely scrapped statements and paragraphs hailing Marcos as sort of hero or demigod in textbooks of elementary and high school students.

They have yet to include pertinent materials about the Marcos legacy. They have yet to explain what the Marcoses and their ilk did to the country, particularly their  greed. The issues of crony capitalism, kleptocracy, and human rights violations have to be fully explained to them.

Democratic governance

Over the past 3 decades, the restored democracy has been functioning well as indicated by the performance of democratic structures and institutions. The Armed Forces, the judiciary, and mass media are among the institutions that reflect sustained democratic governance. 

The AFP has shown its capacity to reform to become what the 1987 Constitution has envisioned – the defender of the Republic and “protector of the people.” From a highly politicized instrument of the Marcos dictatorship, the AFP has transformed to become an institution of professional soldiers, whose loyalty is not to the person in power but the Constitution.

Hence, the democratic agenda should step up efforts of the pro-democracy movement to stop all attempts to coopt the AFP to become part of the emerging authoritarian regime. The democratic forces should stop presidential overtures to make the AFP part and parcel of the anti-drug war. Its identity as an institution of constitutional soldiers should remain intact.

The AFP has the virtual monopoly of arms, but the pro-democracy movement should stop the use of those arms against the people the AFP has sworn to defend and protect. The democratic agenda should stress a full campaign to emphasize the “protector of the people” doctrine to all soldiers.

The democratic agenda should stop authoritarian incursions on the independence and integrity of the judiciary and mass media, two institutions which serve as the bedrock of restored democracy. Without these two institutions, the restored democracy could be regarded as big failure. – Rappler.com