FEATURES

Four Horsemen of the New Normal

Manifestations of Tyranny Amid the Pandemic

By Shanin Kyle Manuel and Marianne De Jesus

The skies slowly dim.

One by one, the four horsemen lumbered along the high hills giving the watchers a numbing chill in their spines. Was it or awe or confusion? The people looked at each other showing that they cannot thoroughly fathom the occurrence of strange creatures.

The skies are veiled with darkness.

They are puzzled because they can now only hear themselves, but cannot grasp the existence of one another. The only well-lit are the horsemen. Without knowing what to do, they collectively thought of appealing to the horsemen to help them get away from the darkness. In one condition, they have agreed to foster them to see the torch, but little did they know the horsemen just exhibited their hocus-pocus to gain eminence in the race.

A sudden shadow capsulated, blanketing them in total darkness and the cavalcade of the creatures sealed their mouths. Only thumps can be heard begging to be freed. It was followed by chaining their necks. Nothing can be heard. The deafening silence marks the beginning of an apocalypse that will haunt their lives in the next couple of years or until they realize their collective powers.

The First Horseman: The Modern Dictator’s Conquest

“I saw, and looked! a dilapidating horseman pretending to be a mended leader. Despite the warning that a huge wave was about to destroy the land, he paid no attention. The horsemen forced his people to lunge the strong current .”​

— Revolution 20:1

As early as January when the first COVID-19 case has been recorded, people have been demanding the state to ban international flights, especially to where the virus came from. Not surprisingly, he insisted to keep in touch with his Trojan allies to protect their self-serving interests.

With infections plaguing nationwide, he cannot in any way hide the devastating effects of his misplaced priorities. He knows he is in danger as the clamor of people heightens. In order to pacify and safeguard his crippling throne, he was vested extraordinary powers by his cohorts to expand his reign so he put out a 275-PHP billion stimulus fund and a task force to curb the virus, ironically lead by uniformed men who do not have a background with health studies.

The people have expected that a huge chunk of the fund will be used for mass testing and aid for medical practitioners but as days pass, nothing has changed, only rising cases of infections and plummeting numbers of frontliners who have succumbed to the virus are being reported. Consequently, the task force has done almost nothing but to parade their men on the streets to peddle the narrative that discipline is the key and to stimulate a blame game among citizens who got infected.

Not only did the tyrant showcase his inutility to the people when he chose not to shut international flights, but also when it continuously coddles an incompetent health secretary, who paved way for dusts to pile up on locally-made test kits, to command the crumbing pillar of health.

Despite receiving constant budget cuts in the health sector, as early as December when the first report of coronavirus emerged, the scientists and doctors have already teamed up to start the project. In March, the team announced publicly that after almost four months of trial and test, a successful test kit has been created. However, it is only in July when the health secretary approved their usage for commercial purposes because of favoring more with expensive imported test kits from Trojan allies.

Even amid a health crisis, they outrightly show that countrymen are not who they are primarily serving for. After all, this is the hefty price the people deal with when a dilapidating leader, at its best, tries to dress himself as a staunch defender.

The Second Horseman: The Warfare and the Orchestrated Killings

“I saw, and looked! a horseman walking restlessly in front of his cavalcade commanding them to prepare armament. He let them mark his words; whoever speaks or disobeys shall be drenched in a plethora of blood.”

— Revolution 20:2

Terrified to the bones would be an understatement to picture out the experiences of the so-called “pasaways.” With only a meager amount of savings the people have, some have resorted to alternative means to fend themselves. However, the parading men do not see them eye to eye, instead they show no mercy by labeling them as protocol violators and slam them in a crammed cell or even, in the dictator’s own words, “shoot them dead.”

This has been the plight of thousands of Filipino. Not even a former military veteran who was suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder got away from the killing spree as his life was ended by his fellowmen because of fabricated narratives. Nonetheless, the tale of a chief lapdog, who outrightly breached protocols, says otherwise and is even likely to be placed in a higher organ.

While those who implement remain scot-free, coordinated attacks against the people continuously loom, especially those who use their voices to fight against injustices.

Men in uniform simultaneously throw trumped-up charges against activists who were exercising their freedom of speech making it similarly to an extortion tactic. Worse scenarios even came as the culprits did not hesitate to start digging graves of whom they tag as terrorists as soon as social mobility has been reduced which resulted in the killing of peasants and their leader, and urban poor activists Jose Reynaldo Porquia and Carlito Badion. When the fascist dictator signalled the passage of the Anti-Terror Law, the criminals have shown their thirst for blood that prompted for more bloodbath such as the brutal murder of Randy Echanis and Zara Alvarez, who were both working as human rights defenders.

To further aggravate the condition, even watchdogs of society whose duty is to broadcast the truth are not safe from the dictator’s playbook. Staunch journalists eat harassment and death threat messages for breakfast due to exhibiting fastidiousness, while others, especially in the countryside are mercilessly dispatched.

At a time when the nation is plagued with tribulations, delivering the stories and criticism are of utmost important. However, the administration chooses the other way around to slowly monopolize its power. Under a new normal era, they have warmly inaugurated a chilling effect, the legalization of silencing of dissenters.

The Third Horseman: The Famine and the Poverty Trap

“I saw, and looked! a horseman amassing billions of wealth. Beneath his high horse are the poor and the underserved, asking for loaves of bread. Amid the cry of his people, the horseman swung his leg, gathered his reins, and rode the horse away.”

— Revolution 20:3

Poverty, it is the same old pre-pandemic woe that has been killing a number of Filipino families until today. The pandemic made poverty hyper-visible that the state can no longer push those suffering from it into the shadows. As the series of lockdowns paralyzes the whole economy, it creates the “worst job crisis” in the country.

The IBON foundation reported that 14 million of Filipinos are currently unemployed and six to seven million are underemployed. In an attempt to address this economic recession, the Congress re-granted special powers to the President under the Bayanihan Act 2. However, while it was agreed that a huge portion of the COVID-19 budget would be used to revive crippling economic losses, the allocation remains trivial.

For instance, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict received a budget thrice higher than those allocated for our public health lapses, such as the pandemic programs on personal protection equipment. Time and again, the pre-pandemic obsession of the administration with counterinsurgency is indispensable regardless of poverty rise and mass unemployment.

That’s not the only case. The Bayanihan 2 only allotted Php 19.2 billion to fund emergency cash subsidies for the most affected sectors, which can only be extended to at most 3.8M families. Based on the country’s official poverty threshold, a Filipino family must have at least Php 71 to meet their basic food and non-food requirements. However, the new “assistance” being offered merely amounts to Php 37–60 per day or less in a month. There is no even guarantee if every poor household will be covered.

The hesitance of the government to reinforce a more progressive tax system for income redistribution is becoming more intolerable. The government has been refusing to tax the richest 1% of the human economy for obscure reasons. While a few of its cohorts enjoy an excessive free pass to corruption, millions of Filipino families are forced into poverty. With jobs being laid off and poor households actually dying from the pandemic crisis, the government should redirect its focus.

To hasten the recovery of the marginalized from poverty is indeed a choice. Widespread poverty is not and should never be a part and parcel of the new normal. One way or another, it is the government that determines the programs that maneuver the people’s needs: the supply chain of the food they eat, the continuance and the end of their livelihood, the accessibility of health facilities and basic sanitation infrastructures, and any other must-haves for survival. Once these programs are rigged to protect the interests of the few, recovery will be a longer way to go than what is expected.

The Last Horseman: The Death of Tyranny

“I saw, and looked! the last horseman, but he isn’t alone. The grave might have been following them, but they were too many to be defeated. They were fiercer than the beast and stronger than the plague. It is happening — the final horseman is the revolution.”

— Revolution 20:4

A few reckon that the landscape of fear and chaos is doomed to be repeated after a tyrant is replaced by another. It has been decades but the ills of society were never truly resolved. When the pandemic creeps into the land, the new dictator builds the exact weaponries that kill and jeopardize every Filipino’s basic freedom. They are faced with a vicious fascist, relentless human rights violations, and enforced poverty, which are all weaponized during the consecutive months of lockdown.

These are the horsemen of the new normal — they signal tyranny and perils to our democracy. In myths, they are meant to rally the final destruction of humanity. Yet, myth is myth and history is history. None of them is meant to be repeated nor embraced. In the people power’s playbook, a dictator is meant to be overthrown and nothing else.

“Days of disquiet, nights of rage,” these were the words Pete Lacaba left to illustrate how the First Quarter Storm of the 70’s changed the political landscape of the country. Through protests and demonstrations, it reignited and refueled the ranks of the marginalized in offsetting the pattern of oppression and structural violence. Decades after decades, activists and student-leaders on the ground are being reborn as new crises emerge. They are the masters of their own destiny — no amount of fascism can banish their will to restructure their nation.

The people are the last horseman. Still they signify death, but it is and should be the death of tyranny. The revolution is the arbiter of their fate, as it marks the end of structural violence they’ve been enduring for decades. Altogether, the pandemic and dictatorship should end under the rule of civil society. The new normal should never be worse than the past, nor should be as despotic as it was. The people have had enough of a government that never really considers the welfare of its people. May those who still keep themselves blind of these ills be awakened of their indispensable role in the revolution. Raise your first and resist tyranny!

Always and forever, “makibaka, ‘wag matakot!”