An example of the unoriginal lazy ‘activism’ of Filipino campus militants.
Certain “thought leaders” are crying “academic freedom” in light of recent allegations that state forces are cracking down on university campus activism and “red tagging” militants. They argue that educational institutions should be encouraging “revolutionary” thinking and should be a “rebel” during “tyrannical times”.
Let’s not get too carried away, however. While it is true that nothing short of revolutionary can change Philippine society, “revolutionary” used in that context does not cover the “revolution” espoused by garden-variety campus “activists”. As most people know, campus “activism” in the Philippines is almost wholly monopolised by communists and their satellite organisations. Thus “revolutionary” is hardly the forward-looking notion the earlier statement intends to convey. Indeed, much of what traditional “activists” have on offer remains anchored to Cold War historical relics — that favourite bogey of tyranny the “Martial Law Years” and the ironic “dictatorship of the proletariat” campus activists would like to replace it with.
| SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY! Subscribe to our Substack community GRP Insider to receive by email our in-depth free weekly newsletter. Opt into a paid subscription and you'll get premium insider briefs and insights from us. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter, GRP Insider! Learn more |
The right to be a communist may be covered by “academic freedom” but communist ideology comes nowhere near the coverage of the true revolutionary thinking needed to solve the Philippines’ problems. As renowned physicist Albert Einstein famously said, you cannot solve a problem using the same thinking that created it. Einstein moved the field of physics forward by leaps and bounds on the back of unprecedented and groundbreaking ideas. The idea, for example, that gravity is not a “force” but the effect on moving bodies of curved spacetime was truly revolutionary.
Using this measure of what is truly revolutionary, Filipino campus “activists” don’t measure up. They are even too lazy to apply lipstick to their ideological pig and continue to use those “Overthrow US-[insert current president’s name here] Dictatorship” slogans in their protest rallies. For that matter, politics has a very poor track record of solving the Philippines’ problems. What these “thought leaders” don’t seem to understand is that academic freedom does not cover only political movements. It covers every academic endeavour, and that includes fields of study Filipinos have long known to be poor at — like science, technology, and engineering.
Much of what would constitute as real hope for Filipinos does not lie in their politics but in these hard fields of study and development. As such, campus activism in its current form is an utter waste of time as it is all political and dominated by politically-oriented people. What would be far more worthwhile is something truly revolutionary coming out of the Philippine academe in the fields of science and technology. Indeed, the prosperity of the First World was built on the back of the wealth created by advances in science in technology and the way these contributed to discovering and colonising territory, winning wars, curing disease, improving labour productivity, creating entirely new industries and markets, and finding new sources of energy, among others. All of these made entire societies competitive.
It is therefore an absolute injustice that members of the Filipino university student body that are celebrated and regarded as “heroic” in song and poetry predominantly fit these leftist and communist tubao-sporting “makabayan” stereotypes. And the “thought leaders” who write gushing articles on the Philippines biggest broadsheets refer to them and these cliques by default.
Philippine society, its character, and its culture will remain the same, regardless of what constitution is implemented, whether under a presidential, pariamentary, federal or totalitarian form of government, or whether a Dutertard or Yellowtard or a bunch of commies are in power. Rice yields and sources of energy will not change whether or not corruption is eradicated. No hero will gallop in from the horizon no matter how hard Filipinos pray. Only when modern thinking is applied to the challenge of overcoming these issues will the Philippines move forward. That’s not gonna happen under the moronic notions of what is “revolutionary” that is held dear by the communists that continue to infest the Philippines’ university campuses no matter how much “academic freedom” they are given to spread their ideology.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
If the students were allowed true freedom of thought, they’d find the link between making “original ideas” and discoveries, their ability to make a choice, and gravity. The revolution should start within themselves…
The most important duty of any school/ teacher to a student and is teach them how to learn on their own. Or at the very least show them the importance of learning is not done when class is officially over. So called educated people forwarding Facebook hoaxes that can be easily exposed in Google. These people are really learning on their own outside of the classroom? Pinoy society teaches it is more important to be part of a clique and the characteristics of that clique than it is to come to one’s own conclusions on an issue. Hence the yellowtard flock ( whose visible members went to name universities) who believe a personality/ genealogy is far more important than competence/ experience.
To those Filipino student “intellectuals”, revolutionary means shouting slogans of, Marxist-Leninists ideology. Going on the streets to create chaos, to foment an overthrow of the government, and replacing it with a totalitarian Marxist-Leninist form of government.
It is not creating new ideas, or new inventions, that would improve the lives of people living on Planet Earth. It is not initiating new concepts of political system, that would improve how we are governed.
It is the old 1986 EDSA coup d’ etat ways of fomenting trouble, that made the late, Pres. Marcos, Sr. be kidnapped by the U.S./C.I.A. and had him exiled in Hawaii.
Unless these student activists, can understand what they are fighting for, they will remain as pawns of the communists, political opportunists, and all kinds of leftist anarchists.
Instead of preparing for the future, it is life wasted !
There was no Capitalist Party in Europe to lead its society to a revolution and eventually adopt the capitalist system of society, what happened is that it develop on its own, coupled with some ideas that appeals to the public, spread like wildfire, and thus led to a “revolution”!
Communist/Socialist Party are like business people who sells brand without the product and even if they did, the last product that they sold must have left the customer a bitter sour taste, or if it is a tool it must have had a bad quality, like a knife or a saw that didn’t met expectation, it cannot cut.
If a system of economy is really good, people will go for it, adopt it, adapt to it, and defend it. What’s wrong with left activism is that they could never show how their system really works, like businesswise, they never offer a taste test, and can only offer a “brand” that they “promise” to be “good” and for the customer, the people, that’s not good enough.
the government should have an iron fist like what Marcos did to win the war against communism.
He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.