Or probably not?
For the past three years, we have seen change indeed come into a national landscape. For some, it may be the change they were looking forward to with the entrance of President Rodrigo Duterte, while for the others, perhaps it is not the drastic and romanticized change that is longed for.
Interestingly, the terrain for journalists hasn’t been as green as it was, because it is considered to be a media that is pro-yellow. It is considered to be an outlet that only caters as an outlet to elitists who want to bring the President down because of his radical solutions to bring “change” to the country.
On hindsight, the use of this rhetoric has also ushered in a brand for rising political bloggers. Since the 2016 elections, the Philippines has seen the rise of blogs that are staunch supporters of the administration. These brand-new lines of political media offer a quite ecstatic support for the President. They offer analyses that give off an impression that these were never seen before.
Defensiveness has built up when Senator Francis Pangilinan filed the Senate Resolution 271 in 2017 which was criticized by avid supporter, Sass Rogando Sasot, who stated that, “Senator Pangilinan wants to punish fake news, it’s like punishing people for writing fiction.” This was immediately lashed in the social media realm which made the #MagkaibaYan trend, with people citing different examples of fake news and fiction.
A year later, as the 2019 midterm election was fast approaching, the terms “bobotard” and “woke” were given birth. The bobotards are said to be those that fall into fake news while the woke are the ones updated of current events and national issues that need to be addressed. However, beyond that, a social divide has perpetuated with the former considered as those of a lower economic background while the latter of the higher economic background. To put it simply, “the people” vs “the elite.”
These hashtags have been rampaging over the election period while yellows are attributed to be the woke ones and the bobotards are those that support the administration slate. Among the supporters of the liberal party, disappointment has also spread as they were dismayed with the failure of frontrunners like Bam Aquino and Chel Diokno to land a senatorial seat.
These results, of course, are not the end all and be all for the national landscape of Philippine politics. It is just a start of a rougher journey as the truth is continued to be blurred. Fake news and propaganda are still as rampant as ever, even gaining power among the elderlies. This comes in as a red alarm for the spread of populism within the country and on a larger scale, even in our neighboring Southeast Asian Countries.
World Politics Review, an international news publication, has stated that unlike the European and American counterparts of populism that is focused in issues such as immigration and trade deficits, the ones in Southeast Asia mimic those of Poland and Hungary, it gains its reputation by destroying institutions that uphold democracy. Undeniably, the Philippines is now experiencing its fair share of the ideology’s influence.
To blame the bobotards of all these occurrences would just be crude and apathetic as, sociologically speaking, with the limited information that they can digest, the rhetoric and supposed analyses that the administration is releasing, are stories that the ordinary men can relate to. These are people that they believe will “help” them get out of poverty.
In the end, the way around all of these is a heightened effort in educating others. It is no longer a fight between the woke and bobotards but a fight for the country to become a better place for our fellow countrymen. But let this be known, there should not be anyone who own the monopoly of the truth that is happening within the government or any public spheres of the country. As Bill Clinton puts it, “The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.
Story by Patrick Lo
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