"Where are the apologists?"

 

      At the very onset of the election period, everyone fancied themselves to be a political analyst par excellence: somewhat along the lines of a seasoned thinker whose range spans the spectrum of nuanced political philosophy. They were more than willing to die and barter their soul to the devil such that all their moral integrity would blur and fluctuate periodically for the sake of their chosen political candidate, who, they believed, would follow the dictums of the brand of politics Duterte had initiated, they would go as far as willingly commodify and subject themselves to abject humiliation by invading every political forum and social media outlets with unrelenting and daft polemics against their respective common enemy; black propagandas abound, incessant subversion of traditionally held and empirical-based truths, uncouth political dissents, and call for the abolishment of intellectualism in lieu of the more sublime quality of philistinism to comfort the qualms of ignorant voters. Ironically though, three months later, everyone somehow forgot everything that had since occurred, for even the most neurotic imbeciles that littered the web wasn't that much concerned about how things will go from here on out since majority of them had no inkling of the political, economic, and societal schematics of how their candidate would govern this country, save for a few braindead political sophistry (e.g., "fix this or that," "do this or that," "Unity this and that," and the like), I do not think the newly elected President has any idea what he is doing most of the time other than attending lavish birthday bashes that which he knows he does best. He is a great comic relief in our political landscape, and the ultimate definition of a jest consolidating power in the guise of a populist leader --- by precisely manipulating the audience with prejudices and the proclivity of the Filipinos for nostalgia (and the general idiocy saturating the air), he will always come across as an effective political leader; for how can one know what he is doing when the general public is too oblivious to notice? 

     Makes me wonder that from a broadly phenomenological lens, Philippine politics was not so much a means to materialize a paragon of a well-governed state (that which is controlled by well-informed and politically versed Filipinos with the capacity to deconstruct the political landscape and the power relations that underlies its genesis), but rather merely an abasement into a mere barangay/ purok contest of who can present the most absurdly comical figure -- or in this case, a demagogue --- for the voyeuristic pleasure of the viewers, and then pit them one after the other to arbitrate who elicited the most resounding applause or heckling amongst the largely daft audience. As such, one must only reconsider if we are in dire need of ratifying a proto-militaristic law that attempts to pass off as a self-evident solution to a problem that is intrinsically a pedagogical one. Perhaps, it is well-nigh for an intellectual revolution of the mass --- to strengthen and reform the failure of the current educational system that promotes an environment of docility and complacency of so-called established "truths" rather than question and challenge its assumptions to keep the spirit of dialect alive. After all, discipline is an amalgam of knowledge and wisdom. Nonetheless, we sober citizens mustn't let our guards down amidst the tide of hysterical fanatics lambasting our legitimate misgivings to keep our leaders in line with that of the need of the people.