In the remaining few weeks in the lead up to this year’s elections, the most prominent Opposition coalition dubbed “Otso Diretso” have yet to make progress up the poll rankings into that fabled “Magic 12”. So far only two individuals have made it to that list — Bam Aquino (an Aquino, we are reminded) and Mar Roxas (of “you are a Romualdez and the president is…” fame). In a sense, it remains debatable whether it was wise to come up with the Otso Diretso machine to begin with because, at the end of the day, it comes down to individual name recall.
As a coalition, Otso Diretso has so far failed to make a compelling pitch to the broader base of Filipino voters. What it has, instead, achieved is merely ratchet up the inbred rabidness of its small cliquish community of constituents. It did this by continuing to drum in the dogma of the liberal orthodoxy into its followers’ heads. The uppity notions of “human rights”, “gender equality”, “gay rights” — long rendered irrelevant to a public grown weary of no-results abstractions — continue to serve as fodder for the ineffectual campaign of Otso Diretso.
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The latter two, gender equality and gay rights, in particular were manufactured “issues”. Homosexual people have long been an accepted and included group in Philippine society. At a time when flamboyant homosexuality was greeted with curious contempt in many even more advanced liberal societies, characters portrayed by comedy greats like Roderick Paulate and the King of Comedy himself, Dolphy, were hits in the mainstream. The Philippines also for so long led the region in gender equality, long before this snowflake term was coined. Indeed, female workers fuel the engines of much of what props up the Philippine economy — the “informal” and overseas employment components of it that benefit the masses.
The Opposition are, in essence, insulting the intelligence of Filipino voters in presuming to lecture them on “gender equality” and “gay rights”. Filipinos have long lived and breathed these concepts. All the Opposition did was package them into dishonest slogans and doctrines that they now use to grease their election winning machines and, worse, their attempts at sedition.
But the worst and most dishonest ideas the Opposition are propagating today involve painting the current Philippine government as one that is “tyrannical” and the judiciary as hopelessly dysfunctional. It is really bad because they do this not to build upon but to tear down. They would rather see a Philippines set back to achieve their ends rather than craft a platform or strategy to build upon what is working and what’s been progressed. We can see this destructive attitude in the way they would run to and get in bed with foreign powers to undermine the Philippines from the outside — a perverse sort of reverse colonialism.
The fact is, Philippine democracy works — or, at least, it is functioning to the letters that govern it enshrined in the 1987 Yellowtard Constitution. If it is not working to the specific ends of the Opposition and the personal agendas of its Otso Diretso “leaders”, that is more a reflection of the skill they apply at navigating the system. Perhaps it is this consistently evident lack of skill at working within the system that accounts for the Yellowtards’ penchant for favouring dishonest approaches to achieving their goals.
You wonder then why a political bloc whose leaders believe that Philippine democracy is broken enough to justify inviting foreign intervention into the country is participating in this year’s elections to begin with. If they truly believe the system is rigged against them, then they should match that rhetoric with actual open rebellion against a system they have no faith in.
It is interesting to note that this bloc’s campaign machine is supported by a media organisation, Rappler, that is accused of offenses against laws barring foreigners from owning media businesses in the Philippines. It is also worth considering that the cornerstone of this Opposition’s campaign against alleged “human rights abuses” of this government involves walking into the embrace of the so-called “International Criminal Court” — an “international” body with a track record of selectively picking on easy targets to justify its billion dollar entitlements from rich governments emotionally-blackmailed into funding it. You then wonder: Who really is the foreign invader here?
Ironic, indeed, that the top “thought leaders” of today’s Philippine Opposition mount a shrill movement to highlight the importance of “honesty” in government when their campaign this year is anything but.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
In the last 3 years the opposition just decried anything the incumbent government did. People who can think know the difference between someone belly aching and someone who actually has constructive criticism. It does not matter if what the government did actually worked. But the opposition was all fine and content and happy with anything that happened in the term of the guy with little hair and even less braincells. They have no track record to stand on when making their criticism . They can’t point to ” we did it better”. Because if they did , they would still be there. So they have to resort to shotgun complaints and condemnations. And of course to the trolls that we see here in GRP that they fund who parrot their thoughts yet bristle at any suggestion that they are connected. Am I right DILAW citizen?
Gogs asshole,
For the last 3 years of Duterte’s term, he only did ribbon cutting most of the time from the already finished projects of Noynoy Aquino. For the last 3 years, he is a lame imitator of Aquino’s signature move that is to get revenge on his perceived enemies using public funds and resources, which revenge Duterte already promised in his 1st SONA that he would not ever do to his critics. How many times Duterte lied in his 3 years? Can’t count them anymore.
For the last 3 years, Duterte’s war on drugs that he promised to be eradicated for 3-6 months is already a failure. He said it himself recently that drug problem is getting worse during his time, which is true. Billions worth of Shabu are still entering the country while druglords are still roaming around the country. Most of them are Chinese in cahoots with Filipino politicians and public officials. He even have an economic adviser who is a drug lord accdg. to the news. You might wonder if his drug war is genuine in the beginning while thousands of lives are already lost and sacrificed and their families homes are shattered. Not to mention the criminalities are still rampant as opposite to what Cayetano said that the Philippines is already like as peaceful as Singapore during Duterte’s era.
Duterte’s priority is to get a loan from China for his so called “build build build” while endangering the fiscal stability of this country using Philippine natural resources as collateral. Duterte’s style of economic management is a hybrid from the economic policies of Marcos Sr., and Gloria Arroyo. That only means Duterte has no originality to begin with.
Duterte copied from Marcos the path of entering a lot of loans and make Philippines indebted to the core, and make Filipinos pay for these loans and those Filipinos yet unborn. The reason why before, the Philippines was bankrupt when Cory Aquino took over the presidency from Marcos Sr. And until now, Filipinos are still paying these debts from Marcos.
Arroyo’s policy of loving China is also copied by Duterte. China is the number one source of shabu in the Philippines according to the government, the number one that entered fake and substandard materials in the Philippines, the number one land grabber in the West Philippine Sea, and the number one that puts high interest in every loan, which is, if one country is unable to pay, China will take over the resources of that country as collateral just like what happened to Sri Lanka. The Philippines will be in the next line up of this trend because of Duterte.
Dutertards love to take a swipe with the yellowtards Yolanda funds while being blind on Marawi funds and the permanent housing units Duterte promised to the survivors of the war that are still pending nowadays. Unlike the typhoon Yolanda, this war can be prevented in the first place if not on the failure of the government side, who had a budget of billions of pesos in intelligence fund at the time. Not only civilians were killed but also on the military’s friendly fire units twice on their armies from the incompetence of government’s airforce.
Surely by these only FEW examples I mentioned above, asshole Gogs would still say Duterte is way better than Aquino. Gogs only favorite rebuttals are the TRIVIAL things that Noynoy Aquino did because Gogs’s mind is too shallow and stupid.
Thanks for taking the bait dilaw zombie.
Yep, and Pinoy NPC proves himself to be too shallow and too stupid as his fellow NPCs in America who are so butthurt about the Mueller Report.
Like Gogs said, you took the bait. Congratulations.
This current shrill of comment tells that Pinoy Soyboy had ZERO sound arguments and all autistic screeching.
Change My Mind.
@PinoyCitizen: Swear at or call anyone here names again — just one more time — and you WILL be banned from commenting on this site.
Respond to this warning with anything other than agreement and you WILL be banned.
benign0,
LOL! Go ahead! Long overdue. It’s my pleasure if you ban me. You get insulted and your friend Gogs from the curses and name-calls I wrote? That will only prove your hypocricy there because while you hate me on that, you love to pamper Duterte at the same time, who is the leader in curses, insults and calling people names using words “son of a bitch”, “stupid”, and recently “fucking idiot” almost in every public speech that he made while you hate Liberal Party and Aquinos who do not swear and insult anyone at all. Where is your logic there? Do not confuse yourself too much benign0 because you are already so confused. Make up your mind now!
Bye!
Hey, Pinoy NPC, you should know that any argument isn’t won by hurling labels and insults. And you can’t persuade people by using such. Oh yeah, it’s totally evident that you’re too stupid to realize it. You just love to incite ad hominem attacks against the writers here.
You have to be thankful the fact that Duterte isn’t the same level as Hillary Clinton, where she insulted voters by calling them being ‘basket of deplorables’. That also totally destroyed her, which also leads to a Trump presidency. And please, LP and Aquino never swear and insult anyone because all they care is their good looks and good PR. They’re the defining example of a ‘trapo’. Even my late father said this: “Ang pulitiko ay magaling magsalita, pero wala sa gawa.” With your logic, words are far more important than actions. You’re the one who is so confused here because you can’t even make a reasonable argument. Ever.
But to summarize up, benign0 stated loud and clear:
EVERYONE HERE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR BULLSHIT.
So with your last 2 rants, the webmaster finally decided that this is the last straw. He already made up his mind. So yeah, enjoy being banned.
Personally I thought this would be a good time to introduce some of you to Paul Kersey/ Charles Bronson.
Pinoy Citizen,
Do you really believe these stuff you’re saying? Damn! You’re a true blooded yellow troll.
“OTSO DIRETSO SA INODORO” ! This is the party of the Aquino Cojuangco political axis. They stole anything that is not “nailed” in our country. They raided the National Treasury. They cheated in the 2016 National election, thru their corrupt tool, former COMELEC Chief, Andres Bautista, who is hiding in the U.S., enjoying his loots.
Mar Roxas, is a vicious thief, who stole the Typhoon Yolanda Funds. This thief, is going around , asking for your votes, to become Senator again. He has already proven his worth. He is a crook and a thief…
Bam Aquino is a low IQ individual, who is lazy and a credit grabber. He is clinging his bid for re election on the basis of name recognition. Any Aquino is not worth voting for…they are all scammers , crooks and thieves.
The opposition is bankrupt of any idea to improve our country. They only want to be in power. They promote their political agendas thru deceptions; thru asking for the removal of Pres. Duterte by the ICC; thru their “inserting” of that imbecile woman, fake VP Lugaw Robredo, as our President, in case Pres. Duterte is removed by crook or by any means…
The “Otso Diretso”, indeed belongs to the “inodoro” !
I have to agree with your point in gender equality and gay rights. I don’t get why the Yellows focus so much on those issues, when our problem is clearly Classism.
All the feminist issues/problems encountered in this country are mostly felt in the middle class and below. When a poor woman wears shorts outside the comfort of her home, she’s gets called pokpok. No one would dare say that to a fair skinned teenager from Ateneo when she goes to the mall wearing her signature ripped jeans and cropped top. No one would dare catcall her either.
Same goes for a gay man from a rich family. A straight male construction worker would sooner face any discrimination before he would.
But then again, it works in the Yellow’s favor that the ACTUAL problem continues to go unnoticed by the general public.
That’s a good take on the subject — classism. Indeed, it’s all relative to the class one happens to have been born into.
Promoting gender equality and gay rights will not help or sort out the problem. In reality, it seems to corrupt and worsen identity crisis.
The discredited opposition don’t even have a clear idea of themselves and what they want for the country. How can they help PH move forward?
Dishonesty is the raw material not of quacks only, but also in great part of dupes.
They’re following the First World Liberal playbook, why cater to “First World Problems” like equality and other inane issues that they failed to address when they were the ruling party, and there’s the branding issue that Roxas and Aquino already solved, the rest are non-achievers according to the average Filipino, no matter how they cling to the two or to some nebulous achievement they aim to take credit for, they’re pretty non-existent to the general Filipino public. And there’s their party slogans and platform, what can they offer to the Philippines than back to the “Golden Age” of Liberal rule?
When was the last time Mar Roxas won an election? He was always around every president since the mid 90s . Now 2 1/2 years after the fact he said he offered tinolang manok. In reality forget offered. Mar Roxas provided 6 plus month wait on drivers licenses and plates, the reality of the MRT and whatever Tacloban thinks of him.
You have to remember that people have the memory of goldfish, the average Filipino will have already forgotten about what this political grifter and Mr. Rebranding has done in the past like during Yolanda, I might give them credit but in the last Presidential elections, his so-called diehards and others who fell for his garbage still voted for him in the millions, he doesn’t deserve along with the rest of the Hateful Eight a position of power when all they do is play impotent and petulant opposition while telling us that they’re gonna change the status quo they’ve been perpetuating for the 20 so years since the turn of the millennium. But you can’t discount these partisan idiots who hate “Trapos” but will still vote for this man and the rest out of spite against Duterte while ignoring political history and reality in substitute with their own, these are the same desperate force that are doing political stunts from petitioning the ICC to try Xi Jinping or have another “witness” that saw Duterte play Presidential Drug Lord with no corroborating evidence again, they will get squashed but the desperation they’ve shown is dangerous.
I even saw posters of Mar Roxas from homes in my subdivision and I was like “Why the hell would they vote for this guy?” Seems these idiots forgot how much of a crook was during the Noynoy Administration despite of his ‘achievements’ and yes, I certainly agree that they’re gonna vote not because of their platforms but out of hatred against Duterte.
Oh yeah, that Acierto guy. He’s another Matobato/Lascanas clown in the making.
The Philippines is a Third World Country. They should cater more on Third World problems instead if they want to be relevant. These Third World problems this country had still remains unsolved, even we got a lot of progress under the Duterte administration, no matter how Yellowtard shills try to spin it.