WHEN President Rodrigo Duterte was elected, the political landscape was full of expectations that change would finally come. Two years have since passed, and while certain practices have changed, the basic backbone of politics remains the same. It is still dominated by a contentious form of politics, now more emboldened and almost in a constant state of endless destructive bickering and hyper-partisan political combat.
What has heightened the polarization is the speed and breadth by which social media has taken over the political discourse, giving the impression that the articulated manner by which political contestations are imaged and imagined points to a perpetual state of toxicity expressed in mutually assured destruction. It is in this political landscape that we see people raring to destroy the other side, ever suspicious of motives, constantly conscious of insidious attempts to undermine. Blind loyalty to allies and blind hatred towards the enemy are the two most dominant emotions that feed into the political psyche of each side.
In this discursive landscape, there is no room given for people to exercise their critical thinking and independence. Honest, constructive criticism from allies are instantly labeled as forms of betrayal. Any failure to engage the enemy in mortal political combat is interpreted as a betrayal of the cause.
The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and its officials have been repeatedly called to task for allegedly failing to match the vitriol being hurled by the enemies of the President, even if technically, and as public officials, they are not allowed to breach the rules of ethical conduct. Thus, efforts by PCOO and its attached agencies, particularly the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), to publicize the good things that the government does, is weighed and found wanting not because they are non-existent, but because they are not cast as fire and brimstone attacks against those who peddle fake news against the President. For example, despite the fact that factual inaccuracies about the statistics on deaths in the anti-drug war have been constantly addressed, these are cast in bureaucratic, sedate and civil infographics. In a toxic world consumed by hatred, anger and blind loyalty, this is not enough. What is demanded is to engage the lies of Rappler and Pia Ranada with the same name-calling, slut-shaming language of social media.
There seems to be a constant state of collective paranoia from among the supporters of the President. This is triggered by the inability of the political opposition and their followers and enablers in social media to transcend their hyper-critical stances, in that they see nothing could ever be right about the President. In response, Duterte supporters dismiss the political opposition as an irresponsible, disruptive and destructive force that has no other agenda except to see the President go down. As a defensive stance, Duterte loyalists take the view that the President could never be wrong, and that anything that appears as a mistake is actually a deliberate ploy to outwit, outplay and outlast the enemy. And when there is no more rhyme or reason left to justify, they play the cultural relativist card and ask people to understand the President for his quirks as a Bisaya.
This kind of politics will certainly not transform the way we exercise power over and with each other. It is a politics that is nurtured in mutual suspicion, bred in the deepest, darkest feelings of hate engendered by structural and personal hurt. The political opposition, hurting from defeat, is raring to destroy the President to feed its agenda. The Duterte partisans, hurting from being lied to, taken for a ride, and misled by decades of elite rule, and now threatened by attempts by those responsible for it to retake power, are pushed into harboring the same kind of visceral hatred towards the political opposition and its minions.
The political opposition, during its reign, had propagated the same kind of hatred towards the Marcoses, even as they sequestered our public narratives and inflicted a heroic Ninoy and a saintly Cory upon our collective imaginations. It is this socially constructed deification of otherwise flawed political figures that propelled a non-performer Noynoy to the presidency and be treated the same way his parents were pantheonized.
In the present political landscape, Duterte loyalists are turning to mimic the same hate-mongering stance, this time targeting the political opposition. What is dangerous is that they are also turning President Duterte into an infallible demi-god incapable of committing a mistake. The long-term consequences of this idolatry could not be underestimated.
There is a way to put an end to this vicious cycle of a politics of hatred and destructive contestations. And the ball is in the hands of those who support the President.
Supporters of the President should begin to take on a more critical and independent stance. As citizens, we should all be mindful of the fact that at the end of the day, our support for the President is premised on his furtherance of the public good. And when in our view the President is failing in that regard, we should not shirk away from our moral duty to provide constructive criticism. In doing this, we are in fact performing the role that is vacated by the political opposition whose members abandoned their role as responsible critics and are now consumed by its brand of destructive and disruptive politics.
At the same time, we should also be open to the possibility that there are moments when some members of the political opposition, either consciously or unconsciously, articulate sensible alternatives. We do not have to like them in order for us to agree with them.
It is not too late to engage in transformative politics and escape the kind that can only lead to pyrrhic victories that maim the political adversary, but also plant the seeds of future retribution.
And of all the agencies in government, the most appropriate department that can begin talking about transformative politics is the PCOO. After all, it is the only agency in government whose mandate talks about harnessing information and communication pathways to foster a consensus. It is now proper to think of the possibility of a government-funded but independent media apparatus that can neutralize the partisanship of some in mainstream media. This can be done by providing space in which critical, dissenting but constructive voices are allowed to thrive, under the ambit of nation-building, and in aid of achieving a consensus among otherwise divergent interests.
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