State of the nation’s 82%

Karl Gaspar

DAVAO City–“Pulse Asia Research’s June 2017 Ulat ng Bayan survey, conducted from June 24 to 29, showed the Chief Executive is enjoying a majority approval score for his performance, pegged at 82% nationwide – a 4-percentage-point rise from his 78% rating in the March 2017 survey.” Such was the headline news in most reports out of mass/social media just recently.

Eighty two percent despite the debacle in Marawi City resulting in 565 deaths (420 militants, 45 civilians and 100 military/police), 522,777 internally displaced persons as of July 16, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the martial rule in Mindanao and its extension (possibly… even nation-ide soon?), the indicators of poverty and inequality still at record high, the horrendous killings of more than 10,000 victims of EJKs (extrajudicial killings),  the endless sufferings of urbanites owing to the worsening traffic situation especially in Metro Manila, the surrender of our sovereignty of the Spratly Islands for the sake of investments which many experts say will go towards increasing foreign debt, the diminishing value of the peso vis-à-vis the dollar, corruption in the high places of State bureaucracy and the PNP (Philippine National Police), his sexist-misogynist and coarse language… and the list just goes on and on?

And just now the news:  “In lopsided vote, 261 lawmakers say Yes to the extension of martial law in Mindanao until the end of the year.” The great majority of those in Congress are in cahoots with the 82 percent of our population who continue to approve PRRD’s (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte) running the country.  So only the remaining 18 percent disapprove or have no opinion. (In an interesting interplay of numbers,  the No votes came from 18 legislators — four senators and 14 representatives).

So – if rationality still matters in this beleaguered Republic – how can one explain this intriguing phenomenon? Or is there no logic in all these?  Is it possible to mobilize theories and tools of the social sciences to help those who are scratching their heads wondering: from Edsa 1986, how have we as a people shifted once more to supporting a rising authoritarian rule where a one-man rule is being supported more and more by all other powerful socio-eco-political institutions?

Listen to Sen. Manny Pacquiao – boxing legend turned legislator turned “Christian preacher” – who voted in favor of PRRD’s push for the extension of martial rule: “It’s the right time to give support to the government to exercise authority and power to discipline people… In the Bible, it says let everyone subject to the governing authority… The authorities that exist have been established by God, consequently whoever rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves,”

Huh?

A year ago, immediately after PRRD was inaugurated, the eminent anthropologist Pons Benagen (delegate to the 1987 Constitutional Convention) exhorted his colleagues to set up an online Paaralan ng Bayan in order for anthropologists to provide explanations as to his rise in power. Now, a year later, there is need to supply answers to the question: why has PRRD remained very popular among Filipinos, including the nation’s elite and intellectuals?

As it developed, there has been no wanting of theories offered by a whole range of public-opinion makers, newspaper columnists and intellectuals appropriating theories from a whole range of social sciences and not just anthropology.  From Randy to Rina David, from top university academicians to radio commentators on both sides of the fence, many have attempted to put forward their explanations,

And just recently an esteemed historian, Vincent Rafael (author of Contracting Colonialism and Motherless Tongues) offered his own analysis which he posted on his Facebook wall.  On why we as a people do not object to EJKs: “It is the logic of scapegoating, one that has become the substance of daytime shows like ‘Eat Bulaga,’ for example, and lies at the core of Duterte’s political speeches. Blaming the victim, scapegoating also exalts the force that puts an end to its life and offers its corpse as the assurance of safety and protection. But it is also about generating fear for one’s safety that then drives one to look for protection in the murderous acts of authority. Conjuring a state of emergency, authorities capitalize on uncertainty and offer drug addicts and other criminals as the source (rather than the symptoms), and their summary execution a cure to such ills.”

On why there is a strong support of martial law declaration and now its extension: “The cultural logic of Martial Law is woven into the very fabric of social institutions. When malls are heavily policed, when armed security guards are everywhere found, every corner equipped with CCTVs, when schools search their students… ‘martial law’ is less a legal state than a state of mind deeply ingrained in even the most liberal of Filipinos who prefer hierarchy and authority as the guarantors of safety above democracy. A compliant citizenry, as against a self-assertive one.”

So what else can be offered so we get to the right answers? Ethnographic studies have shown that our pre-conquest indigenous communities needed strong, decisive and courageous leaders who feared no one and can face up to their enemies. When they appear in the scene, the people support them and will offer their lives in following their lead. Meanwhile mythical heroes from Agyu of Tuwaang of the Bagobo-Tagabawa to Agyu of the Arumanen Manobo were celebrated in orally transmitted epics narrating how they vanquished their enemies – in ways that were gruesome but considered heroic, while performing magical acts to redeem their people.  Such archetypes continued to appear at our various historical junctures: the legends of the messianic figures like Papa Isio and Hermano Pule, up to contemporary era as echoed in the films of Fernando Poe Jr., and yes, even Manny Pacquiao’s epic boxing fights!

The late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, envisioned to be this kind of leader but fell short of the masses’ expectations. He died in ignominy in exile; however, the political dynasty he left behind spends a fortune with a revisionist history that trumpets “the golden years of martial rule.”

Out of this mold arose PRRD and alas, many factors have also arisen to favor his rise to this mythical level. How he has been packaged in the image of a non-nonsense leader who is fearless, his tough guy swagger, anti-US rhetoric, army of trolls in social media, mass base support (with the OFWs worldwide mobilized in his favor), the Rafael notion of scapegoating as drug addiction is every family’s nightmare, the rise of the feared face of global terrorism –the Isis (now the bogey to be feared, driving people to cow in terror) – all these and more could all add up to the Pinoys’ desire to have a leader like PRRD and support him all the way.  Come what may.

Here is Pacquiao’s pathetic explanation of his vote on martial law extension: “The country should be grateful for its strong leader… I think it is right time to support government to exercise its authority and power to discipline the people” and “to have order.” In Foucauldian terms, it is discipline and punish, as judged from the “gaze” of the powers-that-be.  But those listening to his speech aired live on TV would have nodded in full agreement of his words. Fear and the desire for order: such powerful forces determining humanity’s movements. And yet, as a Franklin Roosevelt once said, when it comes to fear, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” (to be continued)

(Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is Academic Dean of the Redemptorists’ St. Alphonsus Theological and Mission Institute in Davao City and a professor of Anthropology at the Ateneo de Davao University. He is author of several books.)