The way the Duterte-Aquino “Achievement War” rolled a while back demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of political discourse in the country. Although I would hammer the Aquino side more, I maintain the point I made in my earlier article “Positive should never be used to cover the Negative Up” that achievements by politicians are not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Both sides are throwing out achievement lists to try and show that their president is better. If you ask me, I’d trust Ben Kritz’s article that compares the two sides based on quality over quantity, giving the Duterte side a little advantage. But for me, no matter the achievements, corruption or any huge mistake will soil any record. Political leaders should be punished accordingly for those, or at least should not be heaped with high praises.
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But here’s why I would hammer the Aquino side more: the Yellow side is more cultic. In my article on GRPSupport, BS Aquino Fandom reflects Starstruck Ignoramusness and Wokeness, I showed how the blindness of Aquino supporters continues to this day. They continue to insist that BS Aquino is an unblemished, faultless saint, even if so many lucid moments of callousness and in-your-face disrespect of others were recorded.
Opposition keeps harping on Duterte, or even Arroyo and other presidents, as evil (it’s obvious that they consider anyone not on their side as evil). On Duterte, they keep parroting the kwentong barbero (barber shop gossip) that he maintains a secret hit squad from his days as mayor, never mind that this cannot be tried in court without any proof (Let me also reemphasize that Aquino himself likely had his own private goon squad and may have ordered hits, as I mentioned in my GRPSupport article). Just that contrast, the Aquino fandom insists, justifies preferring Aquino over any other to the point of worshipping him.
I think Aquino worship is already the sign of a mental disorder, since people are willingly blinding their eyes to obvious signs. You may call Duterte worship like it, but I think Duterte was different in that he never pretended to be the good guy. The Aquino side was the devil who takes the guise of an angel.
But as I said, the problem with Filipinos is how they treat leaders as silver bullets. They think, choose the right leader for the job, the “born leader,” or the clean, faultless leader. The truth is, no such person exists. There is no such thing as a naturally “good person.” All people are on equal footing and do either good or bad at different times. And, as I said in an earlier article of mine, I more believe that the role of leaders, especially national ones, is perhaps overrated and that things move forward despite more than because of them. People should lead themselves.
It’s a given that any administration should come up with infrastructure and achievements. Praise is best kept to a minimum for anyone. It’s the foul-ups that are something to measure and to harp on, especially those of the ever-holy, uninsultable Yellow Saint.
I still think the Yellow Cult still wants to do the dumb thing called overthrowing government so that they could take over and maximize their gains. They should be denied that.
The Yellow Cult also believes in the baloney saying, “when you are neutral, you are actually siding with the oppressor.” I believe neutrality is a legitimate thing, and painting one side as “evil” is just a publicity ploy. There are no good or evil sides in politics, only vested self-interests vying with each other. The recent spat between Florin Hilbay and Antonio Carpio seems to prove this.
The said spat also seems to be a leftover of the Balay vs. Samar days of Aquino’s term. I wonder what other things would come up related to this. It would be interesting to see if this fully exposes the “good guys” as vested interests and bursts the Yellow Bubble for good.
I wonder if it is finally making some Yellow supporters ask themselves how could two anti-Duterte people quarrel. “How could they not put up a united front? They’re the good guys right? But wait… are they actually vested interests working for selfish gain?”
Truth hurts. But if you don’t accept it, it can hurt even more.
I believe, as my cohorts here do, that what Filipinos embrace as their culture is what actually pulls the country down. And those who seem to be anti-dictators, who may also believe themselves to be “heroes,” are the real dictators.
ChinoF, the reality is that a lot of our kababayan have been left out and are literally not capable of ‘leading themselves’. That’s the reality none of us can escape.
It’s been my observation that despite government and leadership, I think people lead themselves anyway. Whatever a larger government does, many Filipinos do something to deal with it or live around it, rather than embrace or reject it. Sort of, let’s go on with our lives whatever happens. So perhaps leaders may be working at a smaller level, like on the local level, but at the national level, I doubt they make much positive impact. But even on the local level, people prefer to go on with their lives rather than have a larger entity interfere. That’s the attitude I based my article on.
A larger entity that interferes (positively or negatively) is still subject to the people’s approval- or tolerance. Those at the local level choose to go on anyway because they need to make things work. You participate when you consider yourself a part of the collective- which incude the pooling of resources, etc.
Good that there’s people’s tolerance or such. But I think people can’t be taken as a whole with one mind. If there are people who want to unplug from the collective and live, that should not be opposed by the bigger government.
Anyway, my article was more based on demystifying the Aquino myth. If people want to unplug from that collective, the Aquino fandom is hypocritical to call such people “evil.”
It would take some serious self-sufficiency to unplug. Even then security is not guaranteed if you have to share the physical space. In a way being one mind is inevitable if you want efficiency and organization. It’s not necessarily being the same. If you watch a bunch of synchronized metronomes you might get the idea.
I think the metronomes analogy is too rigid and unrealistic to describe people. Perhaps gears of different sizes and grades working together is more like it. But if we use the metronome analogy, I’m against the metronome who insists that everyone synchronize to his beat. In my article, I refuse to synchronize with the Yellow metronome because it has a broken beat.
I’m making an article where I make the point that we don’t all need to be on the same page, need to move forward all at the same time always or need to see eye to eye on everything, but we can still be at peace or in harmony. I think such a view is needed even if it seems counter-intuitive at first.
It’s a useful analogy in that the phenomenon can be seen in other collective behaviors, not just the metronomes. The technical part is important- if you’re interested. Of course, people are more complex, but we’re still subject to the same laws. Put simply, too much disagreement is also problematic, don’t you think? If we’re going to be realistic and adaptive, our thinking needs to have basis in reality by observing what we encounter or experience.
Finding a clean politician or official in a notoriously corrupt country is already like finding a needle in a haystack.
It’s my view that corruption originated from the local and crept up to national, not the other way around. Thus, if we want to address corruption, specific programs should be done at the local levels, not a whole national program that likely will not allow for understanding of a local situation.
I can’t even take anything you say seriously. Why? Because you’re proclaiming that this whatever media something you have here is supposed to be objective and yet you are clearly demonizing one side from the other. Perhaps you’re trying to “balance out” the holier-than-thou attitudes of the side you are critiquing, okay, I’ll give you that. Here’s the question though: is there a need to use the word “cult” or refer to the faction you’re supposed to be scrutinizing by a color scheme? How can you even consider yourself (or this entire “media operation”) objective when you clearly throw insults to the other side? Whatever happened to your mission “to develop and articulate groundbreaking and insightful ideas and disseminate these to as big an audience as possible. The approach to developing these ideas — critical thinking — is what unites the men and women who run the various blogs and media channels that make up the GRP Network”? Critical thinking? My ass! How is there any critical thinking without any objectivity in the stuff you are discussing? What you’re doing here is no different from the very media you are supposed to be loathing. Now how’s that for hypocrisy!
By the way, before you even start tagging me with whatever colorful terms you want to call me, let me assure you: I’m sick of all of you hypocrites: yellowtards, dutertards, marcosians, whatever, you can just all go to hell for all I care!
Remember what “critical” means in critical thinking: to criticize. What am I doing in this article? Criticizing. Hence, critical thinking.