Gone are the days when demonising the incumbent worked for an Opposition party. Indeed, this is the lesson that today’s Philippine Opposition still hasn’t learned in the aftermath of the catastrophic loss of their Otso Diretso coalition in the 2019 election. That bunch hinged their entire campaign on a smear job on the government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and look where that got them.
Unfortunately the Opposition, led by a bloc loyal to the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan (the Yellowtards), continue this sad tradition. They blamed inflation, traffic, the Taal Volcano eruption, and even the coronavirus outbreak among other things on Duterte while providing no solution or alternative to consider. They seem to remain comfy in their “success” in 1986 that they continue to latch on to where they used the same demonisation tactics against then President Ferdinand Marcos to seize power illegally.
Rather than engage Filipinos, the Opposition in last year’s elections insulted their intelligence.
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The Yellowtard-led Opposition should move on from their failed Blame Duterte strategy and work a bit harder and apply a bit more imagination towards crafting a more modern and more innovative campaign platform. By being seen to be destructively critical of the Duterte government, they will fail to convert voters. However if they are able to present a better alternative to the Duterte Way, they might just succeed.
See, coming up with something better than the competition is hard work. Imagine trying to come up with, say, a better social media platform to beat Twitter and Facebook. Sounds impossible, right? This is the same challenge the Yellowtards face. The Duterte government may not be perfect, but it is the incumbent and has an enormous base of voters on its side. If the Opposition continue to apply the equivalent of a strategy to destroy Facebook and Twitter in order to seize the social media industry with a mediocre alternative, they will fail. They need to come up with something better.
Religious hocus-pocus no longer belongs in the poltical exercises of a modern democracy.
It is ironic that “Laban” (“fight”) is considered to be the trademark rallying cry of the Yellowtard-led Philippine Opposition. The reality is that they are doing everything but fight. They merely whine, screech out their flaccid outrage fads, propagate their selective “activism”, sleep with former enemies, and take selfies that signal their virtue. All these no longer fly and will likely not fly in the coming months leading to the 2022 national elections.
The Opposition have a lot of work to do. This work should consist of smart work rather than the lame emotionalism that their top “thought” leaders favour. Filipinos deserve a modern and intelligent Opposition, not the lame, primitive, superstitious, and obsolete one they put up with today.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
The YellowTards opposition cannot learn any good lesson from their 2016 “otso diretso candidates” defeat…It was an unprecedented defeat…yet they still cling to the obsolete 1986 Aquino EDSA tactics…
The opposition is also led by a “thick skull woman”, Lugaw Robredo, who flunked her Law Bar Exams three times; and was elected by massive frauds, as a fake Vice President , thru COMELEC’s HOCUS PCOS and SMARTSWITIK…Former COMELEC Chief Andres Bautista, facilitated the 2016 VP election cheatings, with rewards of multi million pesos bribes, from : Aquino, Mar Roxas, the Liberal Party and the oligarchs. Bautista is now a TNT in America, enjoying his multi million pesos bribes…
With these issues, the YellowTards opposition cannot claim relevance in their issues against Duterte. They had shown to us, what they can do with their 30 years of Aquino era…
In this times of social media, FaceBook, Tweeters, and Information Technology…they cannot win by merely rallying with priests, nuns and bishops…The U.S. cannot help them, to put them into power – the Philippines , already has the means to defend itself…EDSA tactics are obsolete political tools, they don’t work anymore in this Age of Information Technology.
Give us your alternative programs, better than Duterte, and we will listen to you…Resolve the issues against you, and you will gain your political relevance…show us better leaders than the crooks: Porky Drilon, Mar Roxas,etc.; and the brainless, Lugaw Robredo, and you may have our attentions !
Opposition (and i guess the majority of the politicans do this anyway) are so used to villifying the opponent that they forget to have any long term plans and goals to actually accomplish should they win.
I honestly can’t see that changing anytime.
Right now, im actually losing hope that the projects that were started, or groundwork/planning almost done eill be continued by the next administration, whoever it may be.
I really think the shock to the political system did some (or a lot) of good to discussions started and some action.
Problem is, i dont think those that control from the shadows would let it happen again, by hook or by crook.
With the looming recession that will look to kick in within the tail end of this duterte administration, the opposition will likely blame everything on duterte and his economics team, even if it is going to hit globally.
For now, i do think we as a country need someone like Lee Kwan Yu to get our act together and discipline the country as a whole.
But that’s a pipe dream and i see more sloganeering and posturing being the norm, with hashtag activism being the go to approach in terms of reacting with no critical thinking applied and just knee jerk reactions to spell doom and gloom for whoever the administration is.
I just hope there is something we as a country use to continue to move (crawl) forward.
Would a Lee Kwan Yew be as effective as a leader beyond his Singaporean model, a city-state with a manageable population of around 5.6 million, having no problems of high illiteracy, no widespread poverty, no problems of rebellion, uprising, or insurrection and although without natural resources does not experience natural calamities such as earthquakes and typhoons?
Can he be as efficient with a much bigger country with a much complex problems?
Lee also dreamt of leading a much bigger country. Lee was efficient in controlling a small Singapore but not so with his plan merger, to join the Malaysian Federation. In a documentary, he cried when Singapore got booted out. But as we know it now, it went well for the Tiny Singapore.
A lot of people here still dreams of a LKY but some people say that he copied some programs and policies from Marcos and then end up becoming more successful.
As far as we can observed things being done now, Duterte is already doing something similar to what is a Lee Kwan Yew leadership style. But will he be as effective and produce the same results? That is the question!
Well, for my part, I mainly see the most basic aspect lacking in Duterte. He doesn’t inspire or really push discipline which is what majority of Filipinos lack.
I won’t wash my hands and claim I am disciplined as I do fall short in that area as well from time to time.
But the most basic to fight against littering is an example I can think of. I don’t think reinforcing this idea from a elementary school level is being done at all, let alone the enforcement of littering laws.
I think that is just one of many basic fundamental behavioral issues that need to be groomed/drilled into the next generations.
Granted, I still see Duterte inspiring some change, but I don’t think he manages to push most of it to an actual “action” in the government and the populace.
I am not against the government, I actually kind of like this over the previous administration but it is still a lesser “evil” game.
And when you see that Duterte is surrounded by similar “Actors” in the political sphere (politicians, businessmen), then it’s really more of changing the players but the same rules apply. In fact, from my experience, they have become more “brazen” and I doubt that’s going to change even with another change in administration come 2022.
“He doesn’t inspire or really push discipline which is what majority of Filipinos lack.”
This is pretty spot on. I admire this man’s “iron hand” brand of leadership. I work in a government office and many people just doesn’t realize that Duterte has changed processes and systems for the better.
But he doesn’t really inspire people to be better. He inspires people to fear the the authorities / consequences of their actions, but that will only get us so far.
In more developed countries… like Japan, people there follow traffic laws because they would feel ashamed of themselves for not doing the right thing. Unlike here where people only follow traffic laws when they think they’ll get reprimanded for it, which doesn’t really happen as often as it should.
He does inspire in some aspects especially in the beginning but he’s a let down also for some inconsistencies and lacks the discipline as far as when it involves himself.
(ex. involving some erring public officials over allegations of corruption in the 6.4 Billion shabu fiasco in the Bureau of Customs, he’ll say, “I will fire you” then “I will hire you” In spite of the tell all account of Sen. Gordon’s star witness, he end up getting in prison but not the officials!)
Forget the old destructive way of politics.
A stronger influence has to come from somewhere else. A new generation of leadership is needed.
The current opposition is defective for the following reasons:
1.) The presidential SYSTEM is more prone to popularity contests. That’s what the opposition of presidential systems want.
2.) As said, it’s the failure to give alternatives. In the parliamentary system, the opposition MUST give alternatives at the weekly question hour.
The current constitution is a huge mess and full of loopholes! We really need to change it, ASAP before President Duterte would end his term on June 30, 2022 and this should be the MOST priority right now & not the renewal of the ABias-CBN licensing franchise.
So let’s support the Swiss style federal form of government which is more people-centric than the 1987 Constitution as what I’d mentioned it on this blog below here on GRP a few years ago & it’s still there:
https://www.getrealphilippines.com/2017/08/fastest-way-change-anti-people-yellowtard-constitution-revolutionary-government/
Why does government corruption still exist under duterte?