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| photo from bandera.inquirer.net |
IF YOU'RE anti-Marcos, you should thank the campaign culture of Bongbong Marcos' camp in the last vice-presidential contest for instigating anger in the people (towards those who ousted Bongbong's father's regime) through the spreading of shady "facts". Anger births insults, hostility, the birthing of which left the new Marcos' camp with nothing more to work with outside of same anger, rendering it unable to convince people with sympathies for the other camps to consider the logic of the new Marcos' camp and thus join what might have been shaped as an open force.
But it was not surprising, of course, since a presidential system based on cult personalities for its maintenance, as against a parliamentary system based on a culture of constant debate, is a ready landscape for anger and hostility, anger and hostility deriving from all the personality-based camps towards their enemy camps. Besides, a Marcos position can really do nothing much else, unless it distanced itself from the policies of the father and promised to open its offshore accounts to public access.
But, just for the sake of argument, imagine a Marcos campaign that did expand its culture of hostility to the area of amiable persuasion, even aggressive persuasion sans the option to lie. It just might have surprised the Leni Robredo camp with a convincing win.
But, as I said, it's not surprising that followers of camps in our nation, any camp at all, would carry this culture of cult personality-based hostility towards the other. Like we said, the presidential system insists on this culture for the maintenance of its star system. It would even, as is often the case, insist on every individual's being either of one camp or another. It might even insist on loyalism.
So it was not surprising that every opposition to a Noynoy Aquino decision was met by the Aquino regime with the notion that it was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo camp-deriving, just as it is not surprising now that Rodrigo Duterte's regime and loyalists paint every opposition to the government's many decisions as an opinion of the "dilawans".
Is it possible to remain a citizen within a presidential system while absorbing parliamentary systems' culture of constant amiable debate (or hostile debate, but real debate, as against the non-debate of mere exchanges of expressions of hostility between the colored camps)? I don't know.
But if an opposition to the current Duterte government is to grow, it must first learn the Bongbong Marcos campaign shortcoming. Shielding itself from the other's anger through its own anger at those who voted for Duterte would make the presidential system mistake all over again, a mistake of taking another cult-persona's position of distrust towards the other.
For instance, if millions of Duterte supporters are to withdraw their support for the president they voted for today, an occurrence that often is not surprising in countries with recall elections for presidents, you can only credit it to people's having gone beyond the mere culture of hostility between cult personality camps and having learned to imbibe the more democratic, perhaps wiser, or smarter, virtues of openness to facts and the other's power of persuasion. [S / -I]
But it was not surprising, of course, since a presidential system based on cult personalities for its maintenance, as against a parliamentary system based on a culture of constant debate, is a ready landscape for anger and hostility, anger and hostility deriving from all the personality-based camps towards their enemy camps. Besides, a Marcos position can really do nothing much else, unless it distanced itself from the policies of the father and promised to open its offshore accounts to public access.
But, just for the sake of argument, imagine a Marcos campaign that did expand its culture of hostility to the area of amiable persuasion, even aggressive persuasion sans the option to lie. It just might have surprised the Leni Robredo camp with a convincing win.
But, as I said, it's not surprising that followers of camps in our nation, any camp at all, would carry this culture of cult personality-based hostility towards the other. Like we said, the presidential system insists on this culture for the maintenance of its star system. It would even, as is often the case, insist on every individual's being either of one camp or another. It might even insist on loyalism.
So it was not surprising that every opposition to a Noynoy Aquino decision was met by the Aquino regime with the notion that it was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo camp-deriving, just as it is not surprising now that Rodrigo Duterte's regime and loyalists paint every opposition to the government's many decisions as an opinion of the "dilawans".
Is it possible to remain a citizen within a presidential system while absorbing parliamentary systems' culture of constant amiable debate (or hostile debate, but real debate, as against the non-debate of mere exchanges of expressions of hostility between the colored camps)? I don't know.
But if an opposition to the current Duterte government is to grow, it must first learn the Bongbong Marcos campaign shortcoming. Shielding itself from the other's anger through its own anger at those who voted for Duterte would make the presidential system mistake all over again, a mistake of taking another cult-persona's position of distrust towards the other.
For instance, if millions of Duterte supporters are to withdraw their support for the president they voted for today, an occurrence that often is not surprising in countries with recall elections for presidents, you can only credit it to people's having gone beyond the mere culture of hostility between cult personality camps and having learned to imbibe the more democratic, perhaps wiser, or smarter, virtues of openness to facts and the other's power of persuasion. [S / -I]
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