The Pandemic Made Me Realize Why People Still Believe in Duterte
We all miss the time before the quarantine. We see people express it in hundreds of articles, personal journals, blogs, in Twitter and Facebook posts, in memes. It seems like it’s been such a long time and the feelings even border on nostalgia, but it’s been going for only about seven months.
Relatively, in the course of the average human life, that’s short. I understand that being cooped-up for that long is different, though.
We all had quiet talks in coffee shops, unfettered parties with friends, we all experienced a time when you can travel from place-to-place without worrying about a random inspection or getting a fine for missing your face shield. There was a time when people with no valid IDs only worried about those things because they would not be able to land a job or a loan application, but now people who needed to visit family and friends feel like they have to secure ones, too.
There was a time when people did not care too much about you. Where, in every intersection you come across you did not have to prove that your health is perfect. Come Covid and suddenly, everyone had the potential to cripple a whole barangay, or a whole town. In a twisted way, you are now suddenly important. The Covid-19 pandemic amplified the need to prove ourselves.
This was a time before an individual large-scale responsibility.
Now, let’s relate to that one step further. Do people still remember that feeling of power when they had the chance to choose a leader, and then decided to vote for Duterte?
I would like to remind them of the probable mindset: “We’ve only ever had corrupt officials before.” “The government will always fail.” Out pops this charismatic person who claims that he can save the country and the popular response is, “This is the change we have all been waiting for.” “Let’s just vote for him. He seems different from the ones before him. What could go wrong?”
Duterte’s campaign, as we all know, was based on grand promises backed up by snippets of facts and methods with which he claimed to have cleaned his hometown of Davao. To believe that Duterte managed Davao in such an effective manner arrived as a very inviting and welcome air, one that came after a bunch of failed administrations that, apparently, did very little to benefit the common man.
These “facts” about Davao seemed true enough that they did not warrant further research. People did not feel too much a sense of responsibility about what could happen. People may act otherwise on the internet, but as I mentioned earlier, they probably thought that they did not have to prove anything to anyone. After all, if that guy has that track record for Davao, he could as well apply it to a whole nation, couldn’t he?
They based their beliefs on the problems they already knew of, or had an idea about. The corruption, the rampant spread of drugs and the flourishing of the drug trade. The territorial dispute in the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoals. The healthcare and education system at the time.
These were all important issues, yes, but they did not affect the common man as much as it did the pandemic.
No one expected this pandemic. It might be a risky statement, but I would like to say that all those issues, with which these people based their decision-making on, pale in comparison to the effects that the pandemic is currently exhibiting.
Now, the drug war should’ve been seen as a failure from the start. I’ve learned that Former President Nixon of the United States popularized this term — it’s not original, and in the time that the U.S. declared drugs as “public enemy number 1,” they soon realized that aggression and hostility towards drug users and distributors not only led to unnecessary deaths, but also for the drug cartel to find more clever ways to get purer, more concentrated drugs out to the public. The response to restricting the distribution of drugs only meant that the desperate (i.e. those who were left with no choice) were forced to make them much more potent in lower doses. A similar response can be seen during the nationwide alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, also in the U.S. As we will later witness, this is what happened during Duterte’s persistent persecution of the people who were involved in drugs.
But if one could turn a blind eye to that and not feel responsible, then you can easily see how people can turn a blind eye to the failed promises that followed. Remember when Duterte promised to personally ride a jet ski to the border to protect our claim of the Spratlys? Yeah, funny, that.
A lot of time has passed, ample time for the current administration to prove that they are worthy of the Filipino vote, but all we got are distractions. Millions wasted on white sand. Propaganda pushing historical revision saying that Marcos was the best thing that happened to the country (well, before Duterte, at least). This is in the middle of what should have been seen as unforgivable blunders — the death toll of the drug war, along with the country’s contribution of worldwide deaths due to the pandemic. Farmers everywhere, being underpaid for their valuable crops. Students already struggling now they needed to suffer more because apparently, the government sees no other alternatives to online learning, even though it has been made very clear that we have one of the most abysmal internet services in the world, not to mention the fact that not everyone has the means to procure proper equipment to help them effectively participate in online school.
We’ve seen once-principled politicians turn into clowns, the evidence of their insincerity revealed by Facebook posts that they already probably forgot, or felt they have no need to be responsible for. Oh, and Philhealth officials still have to answer for the P15-billion fraud, by the way.
Amidst all these red flags, the people who voted for him will still try to defend this position — after the fact. They might state examples of why this government is great because of one good policy in the middle of a hundred failed ones. You want to know why most DDS are still, zealously and religiously, are? Because I believe under any and all of that bullshit, this is the core: that they believed someone like Rodrigo Roa Duterte can turn the country’s position around.
They do not want to admit they made a mistake. They did not want the responsibility that comes with placing a vote in bad faith. They don’t like the idea that they made a fool out of themselves, and so they kept on believing and believing. And in the course of that unceasing belief, they managed to fool themselves instead into thinking that what they believed is still true — in spite of the countless evidence that prove otherwise.
The government’s terrible handling of the pandemic and the popular response has led people on social media to call Duterte supporters “slaves,” which I personally think is inaccurate. Slaves were not willing to be slaves; in fact, most of them rebelled against being one. Also, at least their owners took care of them because they know that their slaves were property and had actual value to them, personally.
I am long past the point where I feel the need to appeal to the government. I’m just a person who writes stuff, but I concede that I am powerless alone. So I have to appeal to you: people. You may think that we’re different because we’re of opposing beliefs, but if you think about it, just like me, you practically don’t have any value in your masters’ eyes. You don’t gain daddy points for defending your masters in social and mass media.
If you really care about the country, then consider what you could to for your fellow countrymen. In this perspective, your value as a person is proportional to the scale of responsibility that you are willing to take on. As far as this government is concerned, you could keep on being the person who only thinks about things that make you feel good about that decision. Or you could stop ignoring the massive red flags, because you empathize with the harmfulness with which these beliefs affect your fellow Filipinos.
Someone must tell you that you’re worse than a slave if you support this administration that willingly and blindly.
I hope it doesn’t take another pandemic for you to realize that.
