Becoming what we hate

By Mikaela Gabrielle de Castro

For all the anarchic storms and leaderships we’ve endured, we made it clear that Filipino resilience is deadly. And although we’re gradually relearning that romanticizing it kills, our country remains a sinking ship as we push our desensitized mentality and humor during disasters. Indeed, calamities taught us that we only have each other (to blame).

No one is innocent of laughing or mimicking infamous lines made by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. supporters (BBM). But imagine leaving unhelpful and bitter remarks for fun towards people who are simply seeking help and are victims of the circumstance. Many were dumbfounded by the election’s aftermath. We’ve excruciatingly given the remaining patience and love left to enlighten the misinformed and even the deliberately disinformed; to pull them from their echo chambers, but we may have been too late. As some Kakampinks, supporters of former vice president and presidential candidate Attorney Leni Robredo, put it jokingly during the first days after the election, their “radikal na pagmamahal” era is over.

So this cycle made me ponder: Is our fixed goal to just creatively ridicule the 31 million followers who led us to our irredeemable fate in every crisis?

A common trait shared by diehard Duterte supporters (DDS) and BBM supporters online is their habit to attack the person, rather than their argument or stance. We’re used to criticizing them or letting them go, but we aren’t so clear from doing this too.

After all, all’s fair in love and war where bad publicity is still good publicity.

As we’re all psychoanalyzing this red and pink binary, I think a lot of us are confronted with the valid predicament of still choosing empathy even if it won’t get returned. Some joked they’re currently living in their own reality in Robredo’s Angat Buhay program while neglecting politics, which goes against the whole program’s advocacy about inclusive empathy.

At this point, it should also go without saying that the enemies aren’t the exploited masses we love to blame and shame. Perhaps we feel we’ve earned the right to let them learn their lesson because it’s what they deserve; to suffer in guilt as we all suffer under the idle unity their candidate has promised.

All of us want someone accountable for opening the floodgates. However, it wasn’t like they wished for the downfall of each Filipino when they cast their vote. Like everyone else, they’ve also seen it as their ticket to hope and change, but were unfortunately duped by the well-oiled machine of scathing and charismatic disinformation that won them over. When we point fingers at each other, who wins but those in public office — busy reciting false litanies of nurturing the poor, mothers, children, and minorities? For the next six years, the most morally superior vote or best punchline will not save us from the draconian rules, inflation, cases, and death tolls that are on the rise.

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