After failing to assemble a critical mass that aggressively rallies for his policies, Duterte is leading a top-down insurgency to overturn to overturn the liberal-democratic establishment.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJoshua Makalintal<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t13 June, 2019\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/em><\/p>\n The use of digital technologies at a time of crisis can stir heightened ambivalence among Filipinos. On the one hand, greater online connectivity affords the maintenance of intimate ties transnationally. However, it is the same connectivity that can potentially be used to distort understanding of social welfare, human rights, and personal and familial futures through the lens of fear. Akin to the pandemic, widespread disinformation is slowly but effectively killing mutual trust and civic participation in Philippine society. It does this by eroding Filipinos\u2019 access to reliable information and their right to thrive in democratic spaces. Crucially, disinformation hinders Filipinos from seeing the structural inequalities, marginalisation and exploitation that implicates us all. \u00a0There is neither one person nor a \u201csilver bullet\u201d that can magically vanquish\u2014in six months<\/a>\u2014what has been built over decades by political and economic systems in the Philippines. It will take care, collective action and mutual responsibility. Crises can provide windows of opportunity to overhaul ossified harms done by this government, and repair what good is left. Deaths and killings may be mundane now but they do not have to be acceptable: not now and not in the future. There is a need to develop antidotes that can reclaim, secure and protect democracy. As the COVID-19 pandemic intersects with Duterte\u2019s murderous plague, Filipinos are faced with clear lessons that can be brought to bear in the next election.<\/p>\n First, there is no path to \u201crapid\u201d recovery and it takes inclusive governance and leadership to realise long-lasting and \u201ccrisis-proof\u201d reconstruction. Moving forward, Filipinos might be more sceptical and suspicious of leaders promising to do everything without demanding shared responsibilities and recognising diverse expertise from the Filipino public. Globally, we are also seeing youth-led protests both from afar such as in the US, and closer in neighbouring Thailand<\/a> and Myanmar<\/a>, against police and military violence as well as outdated styles and systems of militarised authority. While their rule may seem inescapable at present, young people are taking the lead in sending a clear message: the myth of the \u2018strongman\u2019 is no more.<\/p>\n Second, the killings were indirectly enabled by the political fragmentation and societal division accelerated by digital technologies. What proved most effective in stifling collective action was the framing of political engagements in terms of \u201ccamp\u201d politics and loyalties\u2014us versus them \/ DDS versus Dilawan<\/em>\u2014instead of under a unifying identity of \u201cthe Filipino people.\u201d<\/em> Duterte\u2019s success in fulfilling an initial populist desire for a \u2018strongman leader\u2019 is an outcome of previous failures in crisis response under the Aquino government. Rather than see Duterte and Aquino as oppositional, we need to see the violent continuity between the two different models of leadership.<\/p>\n Third, the rise and resilience of Duterte\u2019s strongman rule is connected with his leveraging of underlying sexism, misogyny, class and regional prejudices in Philippine society. Clearly, Duterte\u2019s misogyny is no laughing matter. Rape jokes are neither humorous nor harmless. His speeches form part of, and feed, societal violence. Finally, the path to stopping the killings will be long and difficult, but necessary. The governance challenges ahead will be more complex and difficult. An indispensable step in this direction is recognising and healing from collective grief on a transnational scale. Then the task of refocusing energies toward building new leaders and political agendas can begin.<\/p>\n The post A Murderous Plague in the Philippines<\/a> appeared first on New Mandala<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on New Mandala<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the COVID-19 pandemic intersects with Duterte\u2019s murderous plague, Filipinos are faced with clear lessons that can be brought to bear in the next election.<\/p>\n The post A Murderous Plague in the Philippines<\/a> appeared first on New Mandala<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3434,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[796],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3434"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90632,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90631\/revisions\/90632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\nStop the killings; stop the strongman<\/strong><\/h4>\n