‘We, the people’ kind of suck right now

“We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society and…promote the common good..”

These were some of the first words of a document that, no matter which side you stood on at the time of writing, was one of the most significant statements by our modern countrymen. It shouted to the world that, even though we were just at the most politically divisive point of our history, we were one people, with one goal: to move forward and onward, for the betterment of a united Filipino Nation.

We have come a long way from when those words were inked. We’ve had a few questionable administrations, another revolution, and deep-rooted turmoil that we are still trying to shake. We didn’t have a perfect run, but one thing was certain, whenever a problem arose, a few brave souls raised their voices to be heard and acted as catalysts for the change they believed in.

However, the modern age has caught up with us. With the advent of widespread internet access and the power of social networks, more and more people now have the power to let their voices be heard, thoughts retweeted, and opinions shared on a global level. Unfortunately, a tool that was meant for a greater connection, might just be a reason for our greater divide.

If you’re on any social media platform, watch the news, listen to the radio, listen to your neighbors, or you haven’t lived inside a cave for the past 3 or so years, it is painfully evident that the level of political divide and the social perception of it, is unlike anything before.

A number of reasons could have ultimately caused this–rapid and dynamic modernization, increasing social empowerment, geopolitical instability, or maybe a new and radical administration with the bravado (or some would say recklessness) to speak an unfiltered mind. But the truth is this, the age has come where almost everybody can say, post, and tweet anything with almost no repercussions, and it has radically changed socio-political interactions. Activism is no longer limited to gigantic rallies in the city streets. Revolutionaries no longer have to all hide in distant countryside hideaways to voice their discontent.

Social transparency is the new standard of socio-political discourse of the masses. We no longer have and, more importantly, want to hide what we really think about current affairs, and the numbers support this. Recent statistical data estimates that by 2022 over 47.33 million Filipinos will be active social media users, up from 39.87 million in 2017 (Statista, 2017). The Philippines is so active on social media that in 2017 and 2018, it was ranked first in social media use by country (We Are Social, 2018).

By itself, the collection of everyday people passionately their discussing beliefs is a beautiful thing. Like magnetism, opposing beliefs can attract and collide with each other and create amalgams of solutions for the common good. But, collisions can also make a massive mess.

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The interactions of different people, with different ideas and different beliefs create the solutions that make our society turn. The problem is, we’ve stopped talking about the ideas and instead we started talking about the people talking about them. It’s no longer how irrelevant the other ideas are, instead, it’s now about how stupid the other guys are for thinking differently. And among all of the increasingly loud conversations, the two largest, most apparent and most vocal groups that are almost always at odds are the Anti-Duterte critics and the Duterte supporters.

At first glance, the reason for the volatility between the two groups are pretty apparent. The die-hard Duterte supporters, include PDP-LABAN party members. The anti-Duterte critics, s on the other hand, are a combination of members and supporters of the Liberal Party and tech savvy left-leaning activists. Of all the topics that both sides clash on, from the alleged vice-presidential electoral tampering to President Duterte’s controversial foreign policies, the most toxic by far is the War on Drugs. The President has been accused of sanctioning thousands of other extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users. Critics accuse the president of human rights abuses (in part because of the President’s past statements and remarks) while Duterte supporters claim that the death of addicts helps the country, although the President is in no way connected to the vigilante killers. This topic is widely discussed throughout the country, but no two groups are more explosive than when critics and Duterte supporters meet; all you need to do to see or hear them is turn on a smartphone.

You don’t need to spend much time in the comment section of a social media post to see that the rift between critics and Duterte supporters is hard to miss. Political discourse quickly deteriorates into aimless discussions filled with irrelevant personal insults. Derogatory terms like “dutertard” or “dilawan” have become common. Almost everyone knows that change needs to happen, but no one wants to admit that they are part of what needs to change; everybody expects the other guy to be the one to do it. Critics say Duterte supporters need to compromise. Duterte supporters say that their opponents need to compromise. Both sides are determined to win a shouting contest to say that the other guys are wrong, even at times when what they’re yelling seems robotically absurd.

We’ve gone from points in our past where we united as one people in declaring our independence from three of the most powerful empires in history, to now, when we can’t even have conversations with people from the other side without calling them mentally challenged. We are SO angry, and we are so relentlessly quick to dismiss things that we don’t agree with that we just don’t care anymore for the fact that the truth doesn’t have another side, the truth is the truth. We don’t care anymore about meaningful conversations because the other guy voted for the other candidate. We don’t care anymore about what’s right and what’s wrong, because all that matters is that they’re wrong and we’re right.

This is, admittedly, a very difficult topic to discuss; no one likes that they’re wrong. But, we as a people, need to be brave enough to admit to ourselves that we’ve made mistakes, that we need to change and that we need to listen, not to those that we agree with but to those that we don’t. It doesn’t have to be difficult, if you’re reading this and you subscribe to one side of the political argument, all we have to do is try to imagine what the other guys on the other side think of us. All we really need to do is accept the fact that the people on the other side have as much conviction in their belief as you do with yours to realize that, in truth, we all have the same goal. We need to accept that two people on different sides of a maze have two vastly different paths to a common center.

Socio-political divisions will only widen if our political discussions involve arguments that the other guy is stupid just because they represent or support another party. We need to stop marginalizing the other guy just because he’s on a different path from us or because he believes what he is doing is what he believes is right. The solution to a problem we have as country can’t rely on the answers of one group and one man because, a few decades ago, we decided, that that decision must be  based on the common good of the common people.

We, as a people, need to take a step back. There is a dire situation in our country at the moment. People might step into a future where we may no longer be able to mend our divisions. We, the people, need to accept that there’s only one way we can solve our nation’s problems: together.