Decidedly, we shall not be safe if we forget the things of the mind. – Journalist Rebecca West, “The Duty of Harsh Criticism,” New Republic, 7 Nov. 1914
Undoubtedly, 2020 was the year of farcical thinking, “farcical” being absurd, ridiculous, laughable, altogether embarrassing.
Those familiar with history know this wasn’t the first. The Nazism of decades past, lump in Ferdinand Marcos’ New Society doctrine of lies and control (and all political cults from ancient times) — were anything but respectable. How irrationality made waves in recent times was unprecedented, safe to assume.
And then I woke up one lazy New Year’s Day to this rather sad news: Davao City mayor Sara Duterte, First Daughter to President Rodrigo Duterte, bagging a quarter of adult Filipino votes— 26%, to be exact — in support for a possible presidential bid in 2022 based on a Pulse Asia survey.
According to Rappler, “She is followed by four other politicians who, according Pulse Asia, shared second place behind President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter. These are former Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr (14%), Senator Grace Poe (14%), Manila Mayor Isko Moreno (12%), and Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao (10%).”
A matching story in July pointed to Duterte egging his daughter to run for president for reasons of patriotic duty. Loyalty to flag and country, why not? But historian Howard Zinn’s words should ring true for all time: “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
No one expects the daughter of the president to raise even a critical pinkie finger against the drug war murders. This goes without saying that the killings would spill over any administration carrying the name of Duterte at the helm.
That’s not patriotism at all. That’s perpetuating a bloody and criminal legacy. If by patriot, Duterte means what essayist Edward Abbey once wrote, “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government,” then the First Daughter ought to scream a rallying cry against her dad on the killings.
But that’s like hoping for this administration’s tooshie to smell like roses. Neither in this lifetime nor beyond.
Patriotic duty has been marred, mauled and mangled by this administration to mean loyalty and obedience to the State at all costs, forget if they’re imbeciles. Political activist Eugene Victor Debs: “In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”
Make no mistake: the actions of the Duterte administration will pivot, more than ever, toward the 2022 elections now that we only have a year and several months till E-Day. Winning is their only ticket out of a possible charge of wholescale murder. The prospects remain grim, though, given some people’s penchant to be gullible.
The first of what I feel are many signs of this was the recent tagging of several lawmakers as corrupt, based on a supposed probe by the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission.
It made no sense, however, that Duterte publicly named the lawmakers without any shred of evidence to their supposed crimes. “Don’t take this as gospel truth,” he said. So, why do you think the president went out of his way to spill the beans on someone while not having single proof to confirm their misdeeds?
I mean, I’m all for naming (and even shaming) officials who were caught with their hands inside the cookie coffers. Locking them all in jail would be a dream come true. But naming without proof is no different from pumping a bullet in the back of the head on mere suspicion.
So, is this another one of Duterte’s scare tactics? To keep those whose fealty leaves much to be desired from going against him and his ilk come election day? If evidence is terribly wanting, as Duterte claimed, then on what grounds did the PACC drew the list?
It doesn’t take a quantum physicist to know the trajectory of this administration’s plans now that 2022 is just around the corner: more red-tagging, more drawing of lists, and may I hazard to say, a whole lot more impunity if only to restrict further expansion of unrest brewing in the backdrop.
Speaking of unrest, the New People’s Army recently announced the formation of “urban hit squads” because of “blood debts”.
Communist Party of the Philippines Central Committee information officer Marco Valbuena, in a statement to the media, said, “There is a standing order for the NPA to form partisan teams to mete out punishment against enemy units and officers who have committed bloody crimes against the people.”
This came in the heels of the Anti-Terrorism Council’s declaration in December that the CPP-NPA are “terrorist” groups.
While it’s an unwritten policy, this government’s red-tagging activities have pushed and shoved the communist rebellion to a corner, it seems, forcing them to bring the revolution closer to the powers that be. Publicly announcing their plans to come up with urban hit squads seems, to me, however, as a failure in psychological warfare.
I mean, isn’t it a basic tenet of combat not to let your enemy know what you’re thinking? Or is there something here that more than meets the eye?
At any rate, former University of the Philippines dean, Luis V. Teodoro, explained in his essay, “Back to the Fifties,” the reason why red-tagging is the worst possible route to take when attempting to quash a full-scale revolution.
“Only the severely intellectually challenged,” Teodoro said, “would fail to conclude from the evidence available that penalizing people for their political beliefs and red-baiting, harassing and threatening government critics will not end rebellions. What will is democratizing governance so that the economic and social inequities that condemn millions to the horrors of poverty and injustice and to short brutish lives can be effectively addressed.”
Moreover, the state’s tradition of defining the radical in the same plane as the unpatriotic, make no sense when viewed from the light of what journalist H.L. Mencken said: “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
Thus, 2021 may yet prove to be severely problematic on these accounts. For as long as Duterte sits as president, the killings, the red-tagging, the harassment and murder of activists, and the disappearances, will continue, maybe even grow in frequency, more so if another Duterte wins in 2022.
To remain gullible, to forget and reject the things of the mind, to stay uncritical of the crimes committed by the powers that be (the alleged “smuggling” of COVID-19 vaccines, not the least), may prove to be our biggest hurdle yet.
Unless we do something about this soon.
Joel Pablo Salud is an editor, journalist and the author of several books of fiction and political nonfiction. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of LiCAS.news.
Source: Licas Philippines
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