THREE YEARS have elapsed since the May 2022 Presidential Elections and I still remember the bitter aftertaste of witnessing a wide gap between Leni Robredo and Kiko Pangilinan. The two were independent and Liberal Party-nominees respectively. Days after May 9 when the elections were held, I remember the Left’s absolving the mass electorate for electing a son-of-a-dictator, receipts-backed incompetent leader Bongbong Marcos, and a daughter of an another de facto dictator, Sara Duterte. There were two main factions of this debate; one who were largely Kakampinks (who supported the Leni-Kiko tandem) and the other, the Philippine Left, who mostly came from the National Democratic strain.

The contentious point sprouted when the former blamed the masses for their gullibility, loyalism, and a poverty of historical knowledge, attributing their voting choices to personal failures. On the other hand, the National Democrats absolved the masses citing elitism from the liberal Kakampinks, who couldn’t see that the electoral struggle was class-based and thus irreducible to individual failure.

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DISCLAIMER: I am not with the Kakampinks who argued with FAEs (fundamental attribution error) as I recognize the inherent class-based effects of such voting preferences. I understand the discrepancies of class privilege that we have, that the urban poor and peasant class simply lack the formal education to understand political developments. I extend my sympathies to those who are truly victims of the system. The Marcos-Duterte funded-troll armies, and the political machinery they own to fool the masses are simply too powerful, sensational that can divert mass perception from “lesser-evil” alternatives, i.e., Leni Robredo. I reserve my sympathies and absolution for the classes mentioned, not for the petite-bourgeois, the national bourgeoisie, and the like classes.

STILL, I differ from many of the Philippine Left in this regard. I think to reflexively absolve the masses who have deliberately voted for corrupt politicians is infantilizing and patronizing. As if they’re devoid of reason or incapacitated for such. As if they (largely the petite-bourgeois) do not have free access to the news, or have basic internet connection/mobile data to update oneself of recent political unfoldings. As if they reside in no signal-having, nonelectrified, the most remote outskirts in the countryside — which most probably, they don’t. The petite-bourgeois children have a political duty, by their relative class comforts, to self-educate and parse information as they are.

If you possess literacy and have achieved a level of educational attainment, and are capable of reason, yet still voted uninformatively, you are culpable for this present mess. The historical and political background between the two main rivals of the 2022 elections is clear and comprehensively, historically documented. The simple fact of Bongbong Marcos refusing to show up in pre-election debates, his involvement in previous scams in 2013, and his alliance with known and convicted corrupt politicians, should be enough to withdraw support. Elections happen every three years; we vote for senatorial candidates who we think deserve a seat in the upper chamber. And for every three-year interval, we are given time to estimate and critically parse information and news articles shown to us in the daily. Thus, if you belong to a class of literate, mentally-abled persons, who aren’t too preoccupied with working multiple jobs to subsist, who aren’t too sick to study and do research diligence, then you are availed of less excuse. Still, I recognize their victimhood for state & slanderous propaganda can be enticing, but at the same time recognize their role in betraying this country.

Additionally, the older you get, the less excuses should be availed of you. Criticality is and must be expected of this age. How many nasty political developments should you be exposed to until you develop an intuition in political thinking? How many elections, both midterms and general, should come to pass before you finally rectify your voting preferences?? It’s suicidal empathy at the expense of this nation’s democracy, to withhold culpability for those who have wrongfully voted, despite having class privileges. Last thing that irates me, that brainwashing requires lots of third-party effort to reverse it and the former to critically rethink their opinions, all effects an opportunity cost for both parties of “better things” to do. Still, I’m maintaining that the poor, middle peasants, the lumpen and urban class are exempted due to relative class-inherent hardships. To remain ignorant, however, despite class comforts and access to free information, is to inconvenience everyone, and therefore a form of immorality.

Still, I do think we’ve all played a part in this current mess. The National Democrats are correct when they said Kakampinks are liberal elitists, but I likewise perceive this of the former. The political climate in 2022 was toxic, as pre-elections often go. It even led to a suicide by a student, due to Kakampink cyberbullying — gravely hurting the repute of Kakampinks. I have published a CSC article (Criticism & Self-Criticism) in this profile too where I threshed out my post-elections guilt and individual responsibility.

More of the author’s work:Read Journaling Stopped Me From Killing MyselfRead When I was nine, I experienced my first culture shock

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