‘…as in the US and in the Philippines in 2016, it seems the audience on the margins decided that those who claimed to be speaking for them were in fact not speaking for them, with some even complaining they felt they were being spoken down to.’
THE elections was won by a very large group of voters, the dispossessed, who nobody has been speaking for, and a lot of people have been speaking down to…
More or less, this is how conservative political analyst Peggy Noonan described the surprising election of Donald Trump in 2016, after survey after survey seemed to show that all odds were in favor of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats taking not just the Presidency but also both Houses of Congress.
The US elections in 2016 were held in November; six months earlier, we held our own presidential elections in the Philippines. And here, too, it seems that the “dispossessed,” who have been spoken down to for years, decided to take matters into their own hands to choose an “outsider” from Mindanao and elect him the 16th President of the Philippines.
The Duterte victory was a shock to the political and business establishment. Not only was the winner not from the traditional power circles that were Luzon (even Metro Manila) centric; the character of the candidate and his politics seemed to have been the exact opposite of the man he was replacing.
As I said in my piece last May 10, the elections of 2016 was a counter-revolution. It was the dispossessed telling the political and even intellectual elite who have been “in power” after EDSA 1986 that they no longer believed in the promises of EDSA three decades since then. Anyway, EDSA was a coup of sorts instigated by about a million people in Metro Manila with the assistance of the United States while the rest of the country could only look on.
Voting in 2016 gave those who were looking on in 1986 to make their presence felt.
Three years later, it was clear that the counter-revolution was still ongoing. The eight-man opposition Senate slate was shut out, and all around the country voters were seating politicians who at worst were engaged in a critically collaborative relationship with the administration. The mid-term polls made it clear, once again, that at the grassroots the voters had priorities totally divorced from those of the urban elite; for a significant segment of the voting population their reality was to be stuck at a certain level of Maslow’s hierarchy.
To put it in a very graphic manner: the urban elite was appalled at the sight of individuals, usually young men, felled by unknown assassins on the basis of suspicion that those killed were part of the illegal drug network. For those outside the cities, the local residents were relieved that someone was getting rid of the known local toughies who made life a little more dangerous, especially at night.
One side was rightly focused on human rights; the other rightly focused on peace and order. But when push came to shove and people had to vote, the latter far outnumbered the former.
The just concluded-elections seem to show that the counter revolution continues. One side tried its best to speak for those on the margins of society (the “laylayan”), while the other chose to take a more bigger picture campaign. But here is where things went awry: as in the US and in the Philippines in 2016, it seems the audience on the margins decided that those who claimed to be speaking for them were in fact not speaking for them, with some even complaining they felt they were being spoken down to.
And so they spoke for themselves, in droves, defying even the local parish priests, like those in my hometown who in his May 9 sermons chose to issue last-minute “fire and brimstone” warnings to his parishioners. In reply, our town, which voted for VP Leni in 2016, chose to vote for Marcos Jr., overwhelmingly.
Those in the “laylayan” have spoken. The counter revolution continues.
