‘Cha-cha’ in a climate of fear

Manny Valdehuesa .

WITH the administration’s unprecedented funding on social media of trolls, not to mention its rabid sycophants and apologists, plus its unabashed determination to scramble the party system, there’s no telling how it will all affect our fragile democracy.

The mastery of these trolls—also known as prostitutes of public opinion—on the uses of the internet and media, which the peddlers of charter change and federalism increasingly employ, are a clear and present danger to our tenuous democratic traditions.

Like rabid dogs out to bite anyone that causes displeasure to them or to their master, these internet trolls contaminate the undereducated and the gullible with their biases.

In the process, they turn sycophants into fanatics—much like Isis cyber experts do when they enlist and recruit troubled and aimless youth from different societies into their ideology.

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The radical agenda espoused by these trolls seem to center on having the president mount a palace coup and setup a revolutionary government. “Revgov,” for short. It is driving gangs of menacing, bloodthirsty partisans to intimidate and threaten all who dare to resist or disagree. How else explain the continued riding-in-tandem murders?

Even as I write this, the trolls are at work demonizing dissenters and perceived enemies including the religious. That the government also singles out defenseless social activists like Australian missionaries, also helps whip up fanatics into a frenzy.

They sow fear, cause discord and confusion, and intimidate the fainthearted. Doing so, they prevent consensus from forming. And they are helped along by no less than Malacanang as their bully pulpit.

So it’s no surprise that they are able to keep the public discourse focused on their agenda.

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Not only that, it’s turning out that looming large on this agenda is the father-daughter, president-mayor gambit to marginalize the already weakened parties by consolidating their political dynasty as the vanguard of an emergent “Solid South.”

Presumably, this will complement the putative “Solid North” led by the increasingly emboldened Marcos siblings, placing the weakened parties in a hammerlock and have them beg for mercy and patronage.

Needless to say, all this bodes ill for a society with a large segment of its population still enamored with dictatorship or strong-arm leadership.

In Hitler’s time, fear and intimidation fueled fanaticism and sycophancy. And in our time, it is alarming that there is too much fear and apprehension in the wake of all the presidential profanities and threats to kill the recalcitrant whether they be errant police or scofflaw citizens.

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History tells us that killings, assassinations, and strong-arm policies precede radical upheavals. To tolerate this trend and let it take its course is to fuel and fire up fanatics and sycophants all the more, emboldening them to commit abuses that may get out of hand and induce chaos.

Beware of the attempt to railroad Cha Cha and federalism amidst all this turmoil.

It could clear the path to Revgov and dictatorship all over again!

Let the people’s voice be heard. Let consensus form. Convene and debate what’s going on. That’s what the Barangay Assembly (the local parliament) is there for!

(Manny Valdehuesa Jr. is a former Unesco regional director for Asia-Pacific; secretary-general, Southeast Asia Publishers Association; director, development academy of Philippines; member, Philippine Mission to the UN;  vice chair, Local Government Academy; member, government peace panel during the administration of Corazon Aquino; awardee, PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist. An author of books on governance, he is chairman/convenor of Gising Barangay Movement Inc.. E-mail: valdehuesa@gmail.com)