Respect my opinion.

By our national elections, Filipinos at the age of majority who have registered with the Commission on Elections get to choose those who hold high political office. 

That’s the academic definition, but our elections are much more than that. 

Sometimes, our elections are nothing more than a clown parade: a contest of who among the political elite can demonstrate that by degrading their own dignity in cartoonish ways that they, too, are part of the fellow downtrodden. Sometimes, elections are our way of asking people if we wish things to continue the way things are, or if we desire to put forward someone who can brown nose the powers that be better than the incumbent. Sometimes, elections are an easy cash grab for people who treat these things as nothing but spectacle. Sometimes, elections are all of the above. 

Whatever it may be, elections have lasting consequences. 

An old friend, a political survivor in the mold of a cockroach, believed that our structure of government meant that at each Presidential election cycle we get to choose our dictator for the next six years. Once chosen, my friend opined, we then owed absolute obedience to the most powerful clown until the circus returns. 

He’s not wrong: elections for Congress have always been a contest of whose mouth kisses Presidential ass best. This is true in the time of Manuel Quezon; it remains true today. 

If we take this view as that of the ordinary man, we haven’t moved from the prescription of constitutional authoritarianism as the solution for all our ills, have we? Lasting consequences, you see.

The circus allows us to ignore these consequences; we are lost in spectacle. Entertainment, above all.

The circus now bears tricks from the time of Goehring. It is not enough to debase yourself; years of conditioning have people vulnerable to those who look to a fictional ancient time of plenty. Lying is a participative act that appeals to what is yearned for the most.

To condition: to create aspiration. Flood their feeds with stories of our champions and triumphs. Praise bending the rules for you and your tribe. Tout the virtues of patronage as a means to survive this bleak winter. Dismiss naysayers as unsympathetic people working to deny you your time at the table. Feed them non-stop with this diet of self-esteem candy. Have them worship power. It’s addictive.

Condition their minds, and they will make a narrative for those who appeal to that vision of lost glory. Feed their anger at those these people claim to be holding us down. Who needs the truth when you have anger?

When that time comes, watch those under their thumb say that they know this politician to be true. Watch them defend this politician with their own blood. Watch them find those opposed to this politician as people who have never done anything right. Watch them struggle to find reasons. 

“Respect my opinion.” 

It is what it is; we are all the poorer for it.