[OPINION] Quo vadis, Kakampinks?
Quo vadis is Latin for “where are you marching.” It is like the song “Do You Know Where You’re Going To” from the film Mahogany sung by Diana Ross.
Teddy Casino is about the same age as I am. I should know because I have been butting heads with him in Business World’s Letters to the Editor section since the 90s. This was the time he shared column space with another leftist-liberal, lawyer Argee Guevarra. Back then, the two were like Batman and Robin. But not much has changed with them. They are still full of hot air, the one that is usually associated with flatulence.
In this “Thought Leaders” Rappler piece, Casino outlines a seven point goal for the Kakampinks’ Angat-Buhay NGO. It is funny how he disassociates the Makabayan Bloc from the alliance even if there was explicit support from leftist-militant groups for Robredo’s “independent campaign.”
The “independent campaign” has now been packaged as a broad-based “people’s movement” or “people’s campaign.” This is political gaslighting again. They are making it appear that they gained actual ground during the campaign. Never mind if they got buried in the landslide of the Marcos-Duterte tandem.
Let us dissect Casino’s point-by-point directive to the Kakampinks:
First is towards seeking transparency, accountability, and reform in the electoral system. Many Kakampinks find Marcos Jr.’s lead simply unbelievable. The speed and unusually uniform ratio of the count, coupled with the malfunction of 1,800 vote counting machines and the inordinate delay in the voting in many precincts, have added to the disbelief.
Still sticking with the allegation of fraud even if the random manual audit did not find any and even if the automated results tallied with the audit of the PPCRV. This is still the denial stage in the five stages of grief. Perhaps this is why Robredo refuses to concede up to this point. But narcissists will never admit to anything. That is the hard and fast characteristic common to all suffering from this psychological dysfunction.
Second is towards fighting disinformation and fake news. As we all know, truth is the lynchpin of democratic governance. In the last two elections, it was alarming how false narratives and fake news, troll armies, and bogus social media accounts were able to influence people’s perceptions of the candidates and, ultimately, their votes. The appointment of rabid pro-Duterte vlogger and newfound Marcos supporter Trixie Cruz-Angeles as press secretary and head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) signals the official role that weaponized social media might play under a Marcos regime. The fight for truth has become as urgent as ever.
It is not only the administration which has trolls. The opposition as well. But the point is simple. 31M votes cannot be trolls. The lines for voter registration were long. The turnout was 82%. Filipinos wanted to make their choice known which is why the election set records even in the midst of the pandemic.
Definitely, the incoming administration could have made a better choice in terms of the designation of the Press Secretary or PCOO head. There still seems to be confusion over the appointment. The issue is not about the weaponization of social media as Casino claims but more of credibility and integrity. It is also about principle since the appointee has been turning cartwheels going from left, right and middle in terms of ideology. You cannot just attribute it to evolution.
What of mainstream media which is openly biased against Marcos-Duterte? That is not an issue because they represent the “good”?
Third is towards upholding historical accuracy and justice. The Marcoses may have succeeded in rebranding themselves enough to bring them back to the Palace. The next step for them would be to erase their crimes and prevent the nation from further seeking acknowledgment and redress for the historic wrongs they and their cronies have committed. In this light, the fight to debunk the myths and historical distortions surrounding the Marcoses becomes crucial.
How can the Marcos’ erase their crimes? The landslide electoral win is not absolution. It is the product of the narrative that the opposition has been using since 1983. Casino and his fellow Kakampinks still refuse to see the writing on the wall. The Filipinos got tired of the narrative. What worked for the Marcos’ is their patience and keeping to their belief that eventually the day would come when the Filipinos would vote them back into office. The Marcos who won in 2022 is Junior. Not Senior. The burden of proof is now on him. This is no different than how the electorate repudiated Noynoy Aquino in 2016 with the loss of Mar Roxas. Like George Garcia said, 2022 was a continuity election. It was not a change election.
A fourth direction is towards defending civil liberties and human rights. A president who feels no remorse for his father’s dictatorship and a vice president who shares her father’s tyrannical style and disdain for human rights is a double whammy for democracy. A surefire way to prevent the democratic space from further shrinking is to transform a portion of the Kakampinks and their energy into the civil liberties and human rights movements. It goes without saying that such a movement would necessarily include holding the outgoing president accountable for his human rights atrocities, to include his investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Defending civil liberties and human rights would refer to the usual leftist-miliitant crap about tyranny, dictatorship and authoritarianism. It remains to be seen what Marcos’ policy will be against the insurgency. He has not nominated a Secretary of National Defense and National Security Adviser yet. That remains to be seen given this.
Casino obviously wants Duterte to be prosecuted by the ICC for the alleged extra-judicial killings in the drug war. Marcos has categorically stated that this will not happen. We are not a failed state and our Judiciary is functional even if it it is a bit slow. I am quite sure Casino’s opinion would change if the Anti-Terror Council were to actively go after the front organizations of the CPP-NPA-NDF like Bayan-Muna which Casino belongs to. This goes both ways.
Fifth is towards fighting corruption and abuse of power. Corruption and impunity were the hallmarks of the previous Marcos and Duterte regimes. With the incoming Marcos-Duterte government enjoying a huge mandate, a more than super majority in both houses of Congress, and practically all senior justices appointed by the older Duterte, it is vulnerable to the kind of corruption that absolute power brings. When the three branches of government connive with each other, rendering the system of checks and balances ineffective, the effective antidote is the people’s vigilance.
This situation would not have become a reality if only the opposition was more responsible and acted as a fiscalizer and a critical collaborator instead of constantly trying to destabilize and overthrow the duly-elected government. Think of how Duterte gave leftist-militants the Cabinet posts at the beginning of his adminstration. Did they embark on systemic reforms? Did they exert their utmost effort to come to a peace agreement with the government which had Duterte bending over backwards in accomodating all their requests?
The same is true with Robredo who gladly accepted the budget provided for her office but functioned like her office an independent agency of government when it is part of the Executive branch. She did nothing when she was Housing Czar. The same is true when she was appointed Drug Czar. Her approach is always bureaucratic. It is always no action, talk only.
Casino talks of people’s vigilance but the best way is always to have an opposition in the Legislative branch. In a mature democracy it is incumbent on the people and politicians to be responsible for the consequences of their actions. Clearly, they do not want to admit their blunders in dealing with Duterte. Instead of beating him at him at his own game, he took them to school.
The leftist-militant groups have never won a race in any direct election office they ran for. They have always lost. In this election, only three of their party-list groups made it. They are blaming their loss on electoral fraud.
Sixth is towards a just and sustainable economy. This is probably where the Angat Buhay NGO could make a difference. But more than jobs and livelihoods, such a movement should push for policy changes favorable to workers, farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, and the urban poor who comprise majority of our people and to whom the constitutional provisions on social justice would apply. This would include policies favoring progressive taxation, wealth redistribution, food sovereignty, industrial development, environmental conservation, and rehabilitation.
How to achieve this when they do not have the numbers in both the House of Representatives and the Senate? Even when they were in power, nothing came out of their efforts. They have just been using the poor as cannon fodder in the streets and the in the mountains for protests and fighting the AFP and PNP in the regions. The leftist-militants have always used the votes they control as leverage for Senators, Vice-Presidents and Presidents.
In 1998, they rode on Erap’s jeep. They dumped him for GMA. They sided with the Yellows and rode on the coattails of Noynoy. They dumped Mar Roxas for Jojo Binay. They ended up dumping Binay for Grace Poe in 2016. They did not formally endorse Leni in 2022 but that was all that was lacking as Robredo feared being painted red. Leftist-militants are no different from oligarchs except for the amount of power and money they have.
Seventh is towards developing a powerful, inclusive and democratic electoral movement. An offshoot of the abovementioned efforts should be an electoral movement that can challenge the Marcos 2.0 regime, if not in the 2025 then in the 2028 elections. This would require the building of grassroots-oriented electoral parties and coalitions that can work together to overcome the challenges of disinformation, vote-buying, red-tagging, and electronic cheating that were used against the opposition in 2022.
While there is nothing new in these advocacies, it is the Kakampink’s participation that can give them a needed shot of adrenaline. What new forms this will take and how will have to be determined by the key players in the Kakampink movement plus others who share its advocacies. There will be need for even more dialogue and collaboration, and an openness to the various forms of struggle already existing and to be developed. In this sense, the call for unity would be appropriate.
The work is cut out for those ready to take the challenge. Time starts now.
Fifteen millions votes will not be enough to elect a Senator in 2025. Even factoring the number of first-time voters in 2025 and 2028, they would still come up short and this is assuming all first-time voters will go for the opposition.
Even after a New York vacation, Robredo is still too punch-drunk because of the landslide knockout punch voters delivered against her. She did not have her wits about her before her defeat and she just lost more wit in the process. The opposition has serious problems because they refused to recognize the reality on the ground. What is worst is they refuse to admit their mistakes.
I do not think they will be able to come up with a cohesive strategy to become credible again. They will think that they have because they always know better even if they do not. I find it really ironic that Teddy Casino is writing for Rappler as a “Thought Leader” when he is supposed to be vehemently anti-American and Rappler is very much an American front.
This only serves to confirm that US monies have been funneled to various NGOs identified with civil society and leftist-militant groups. The opposition will still make noise for and in behalf of their patrons. But more than likely, they will follow the strategy of Juan Tamad just waiting for the bayabas to fall into his mouth by lying under the tree.
Leni Robredo did not do anything in the past six years as the leader of the opposition. How can you expect her to do better after the humiliating defeat she experienced from voters? Unfortunately, she is all the opposition has which confirms the shallow bench they have in terms of new leaders. This was supposed to be the primary function of Kaya Natin.
What we will go by again is the definition of stupid – doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome each time. There is nothing new in the seven point agenda outlined by Casino. This is simply more of the same.
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