Duterte War

Filipinos have probably become so tired of being manipulated by many leaders in the past that they have turned to be hostile at anyone or group that they find has the tendency to be lording over their lives one more time.  We had our dark experience during the Marcos era when for two decades the Filipinos have been subjected to tyranny.  Worse is when we recall that over four centuries, our forefathers were enslaved by the Spanish colonizers, and we can continue to count in our historical timeline the times when we have become subjects by other nationality or group of people and individuals.

The coming of Rodrigo Duterte, the current president of the Philippines, is something that is surprising and shocking to others, and hopes for some.  We cannot quantify exactly the number of those who are happy and dissatisfied with his presence because we can only see surveys that present a high degree of satisfaction in favor of the president.  But during the election where Duterte was catapulted to the office of the president from just a Mayor of Davao, a city so far away from the capital, he garnered a total of more than 16 million votes, a win that could only be beaten if we combine the votes of the second and third contenders.

Despite this gigantic win and an epic high satisfaction rating, there is a quite a number of organizations who are ganging up on the president to find faults on almost anything that he does.  There are the mainstream media that we watch and read every day for which we no longer are able to determine which among them is telling the truth.  The social media, on the other hand, are so actively involved in informing the public which somehow adds up to the pressure of determining the truth from the fake one.  There is really an information warfare going on between some mainstream media organizations and social media practitioners with regard to who is in favor of and are against the president.

This is not new to a democratic system anyway, and the Philippines is so used to over politicizing all issues surrounding the government.   What worries me most is the involvement of the people.  The people are the main victims of the so-called truths they announce on media every day, and because these people have no way of verifying the facts except in browsing and searching on the internet of which many of the things they see are from those social media practitioners who are in the same way as guilty as the mainstream media, thus, the truth they get is diluted with another truth resulting to confusion.

The big question now is who to follow in situations like this.  My answer to that is simple question is to follow the president because he was not placed there by mere magic.  The people voted for him no matter how much others would claim that they did not, still, he was chosen by a great majority.  It is like joining a basketball team; you have to submit yourself to your coach in order for the team to run smoothly.  The coach has to be firm in his decisions and actions otherwise the team would crumble.  If you are in a team and all you contribute is complain, then you are not a help but a liability.  There is always room to voice your dissatisfaction, but it has to be limited with your group because if you go beyond the bounds of civility like declaring war, rebelling on a rally, or going out on international media just to discredit your country, then that is a different story.  In some nations, in fact, they regard their president in the same way as they would respect or give honor to their flag.