Neither Marcos nor Duterte: Grassroots Politics vs. Managed Dissent

Neither Marcos nor Duterte: Renewing Calls

for Grassroots Politics vs. Managed Dissent

The Philippine political stage today is dominated by spectacle and illusion.

In a recent broadcast excerpt, former senator Antonio Trillanes laid bare what he described as the agenda of the so-called mainstream opposition: an attempt to forge an alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.—a maneuver that, to many observers, appears deeply embarrassing for a faction that purports to oppose his administration.

Labeling this opposition as “dominant” may sound paradoxical at first, yet within the Philippine political landscape, it is accurate. This faction represents the acceptable face of dissent, a performative opposition whose primary function is less about transformative change and more about containment. By framing the political battlefield on terms convenient to itself, it channels genuine discontent into safe, manageable outlets, ensuring that truly transformative forces from below never gain meaningful traction.

Trillanes himself, in an interview, reduced the Philippine political scene to a quartet of forces: the pro-Marcos camp, the pro-Duterte camp, the Kakampinks—a coalition of Liberals and social democrats—and the so-called “unaligned” masses. From the perspective of political theory, this is a textbook example of what Antonio Gramsci termed a passive revolution: a strategy whereby dominant groups absorb dissent, control the narrative, and exclude radical alternatives from legitimate discourse (Gramsci, 1971). Similarly, Chantal Mouffe’s work on “hegemonic pluralism” underscores how liberal democracies often manufacture consent through a controlled opposition that prevents the emergence of antagonistic politics capable of disrupting entrenched hierarchies (Mouffe, 2005).

Yet this manufactured framework conceals more than it reveals. Opposition is not monolithic. Many reject both Marcos and Duterte outright. It is unsurprising, some argue, that such citizens are willing to go beyond the narrow parameters of legality if that is what is required to realize true nationalism and systemic reform. Trillanes, it seems, has forgotten that he was once a coup‑plotter inspired by the ideas of a “Filipino Ideology” and a “National Recovery Program”—visions in which the ills of society, including systemic corruption, were to be surgically excised. Ironically, his current rhetoric minimizes the very principles he once embraced.

Perhaps, however, his strategy is calculated: a “revolution from the center,” an attempt to rescue the political center by performing the appearance of radical opposition while preserving the underlying system. In this light, Trillanes’s maneuver resembles a neo‑Marcosian tactic: aligning the so-called “liberals” and “pinks” with a figure he opposed as recently as 2022, while framing it as principled resistance. By doing so, the dominant opposition claims moral high ground, yet in practice leaves the deeper structures of corruption untouched.

This is consistent with wider patterns identified in comparative political science. As James C. Scott has observed in Domination and the Arts of Resistance, state power often relies on controlling the visible and symbolic forms of dissent, while quietly neutralizing the capacity of the subordinate to mobilize transformative change (Scott, 1990). Similarly, the work of Boaventura de Sousa Santos reminds us that dominant legal-political frameworks often marginalize “subaltern counterpublics,” rendering their knowledge and praxis invisible, even when their movements embody systemic critique (Santos, 2002).

Not surprisingly, when Marcos is positioned as the lesser evil relative to Duterte, the administration’s past misdeeds are quietly relegated to footnotes—convenient omissions in a narrative that prioritizes political optics over accountability. The result is a theatre of controlled dissent: citizens are presented with the illusion of choice while the entrenched elite maintain their grip on power. The radical aspirations of students, workers, and organized communities are marginalized, dismissed, or pathologized as “extreme”—even as these very forces confront the systemic failures left unresolved by both Marcos and Duterte.

The irony is sharp: Trillanes, a coup plotter during the Arroyo era, once sought to surgically remove corruption, to confront systemic injustice decisively. Today, by performing a safe, centralized opposition, he may be inadvertently perpetuating the very problems he once vowed to eradicate. The gap between past principle and present strategy is stark, and it is being noticed—by citizens who refuse to be contained within the narrow parameters of elite-managed politics.

At present, countless citizens are actively engaged: students, farmers, workers, women, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQIA+ communities, faith-based groups, and professional associations. The mainstream opposition, Trillanes included, seeks to shrink politics to a comfortably abstract game, one that ignores the concrete conditions shaping people’s lives. As Gaston Bachelard observed, “the world in which one thinks is not necessarily the world in which one lives” (Bachelard, 1984). This disconnect explains why these factions dismiss massive, sustained mobilizations—from the September 21st actions to the approaching “Baha sa Luneta 2.0” on November 30th—movements fueled by floods, government scandals, and a growing awareness of Marcos Jr.’s central role in the nation’s crises.

Established powers—from Malacañang to the Kakampinks, including the police and military—view these grassroots forces with suspicion. They are accustomed to dealing with compliant masses: bodies to be swayed, ridiculed, disciplined, or suppressed. These organizers are different. They are aligned, principled, and refuse to become collateral damage in a decayed political system. The only concession to Trillanes’s framework is his critique of the Duterte faction; a resurgence on their part, he warns, would bring devastation.

Observers note a troubling pattern: a tendency to see politics as a choice between lesser evils, arguing that removing Marcos alone is insufficient because Duterte’s faction remains a looming threat. Yet corruption thrives across both camps, often shared by the same personalities who benefited under both administrations. Selective finger-pointing obscures the systemic rot at the heart of governance.

The grassroots are resolute. By refusing to name them, dominant forces hope to erase them from the narrative. But they will make themselves visible—vivid, undeniable, and unignored. Their presence will be felt in Luneta on November 30th, as students, workers, organizers, and citizens converge to demand justice, accountability, and systemic change. They demand neither Marcos nor Duterte. In doing so, they embody a politics that the mainstream opposition cannot contain: a vision of nationalism, reform, and systemic justice that refuses to be hemmed in by legalistic limitations or performative politics.

As Helmut Schmidt dryly observed, “Those who don’t talk won’t be heard” (Schmidt, 1987). In the streets, in the barrios, in factories and campuses, the people intend to make themselves heard. They will not settle for the hollow scripts of the established “opposition.” In this city of power and performance, they remind the nation that true politics emerges from below, not from the carefully curated illusions of privileged dissent—a truth echoed by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, who argued that liberation arises from the conscientization of the oppressed, not the benevolence of the powerful (Freire, 1970).

In the Philippines today, the question is not simply who governs, but whether governance will ever be accountable to the people themselves. And in the streets of Luneta, the answer may finally be making itself unmistakably clear.

***

References

Bachelard, G. (1984). The New Scientific Spirit. Beacon Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers.
Mouffe, C. (2005). On the Political. Routledge.
Santos, B. de S. (2002). Toward a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization, and Emancipation. Butterworths.
Schmidt, H. (1987). Memoirs: Politics and Power in Germany. Pantheon.
Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press.

“The Coffee, the Night, and the Unspoken”

“The Coffee, the Night, and the Unspoken”

 “To Love Quietly, While the City Screams”

The noontime coffee still cold
Sitting on the wooden table,
Ice making the latte colder.
Kaughter drifts from the market below,
Shouts of vendors, clatter of carts,
Voices bouncing off brick walls
Like children chasing echoes.

I sip slowly, pretending the warmth
Fills more than my cup.
But inside, a quiet gnaw,
A hollow carved by your absence,
Folded into the foam,
Hidden behind a smile that no one sees.

Somewhere in the crowd
Someone’s fingers brush,
Hands lift a glass,
Toast to a neighbor’s bargain—
I imagine your hand instead,
Fingers grazing mine
In a private ritual no one witnesses,
A secret carved in the margin of this ordinary day.

The breeze carries the smell of coffee grounds,
Grilled meat, and sunlight—
The smells that once could summon you
from memory,
And I clutch the cup tighter,
Afraid if I let go
Even a drop of longing might spill
across the tiles,
Visible to the world.

Afternoon drifts into evening,
The market fades, lights flicker on,
Music pulses from a nearby rave.
The bass shakes the pavement,
And a drunk tries to dance,
Stumbling, arms flailing,
But still laughing—
And I watch him,
Letting the chaos pull at the edges of my mind
While your absence settles deeper in my chest.

The night smells of sweat and fried food,
Plastic cups clinking,
Voices overlapping like broken harmonies.
I pretend the bitter taste of my coffee
Is all there is,
Yet behind my ribs
The echo of your voice
Threads the gaps between the thump of bass,
Pulling at me like a hidden chord,
A melody no one else hears.

Stars prick the black sky,
Lights swinging from rigged scaffolds,
I fold the heat of the day
And the pulse of the night over my shoulders,
Pretend it is enough,
Pretend I am full,
Pretend the memory of you
Is just a shadow in the crowd.

But when I close my eyes,
Your face drifts past the drunken laughter,
Past the thrumming speakers, past the swaying bodies—
And I let the silence hold me
Because silence is the only place
Where longing can breathe
Without being noticed,
Without betraying itself.

The cup is empty now,
The rave fades toward midnight,
I rise slowly,
Smoothing the table,
Letting the hours spill forward
While I carry the weight behind my chest,
A quiet love no one will touch,
A farewell that never names itself,
The secret pulse of the world
That I leave behind in every breath.

 

“Questions Left on a Coffee Rim”

When was there room to see your presence—

Not wrapped in offerings or easy gestures,

But standing on its own,

Weight enough to anchor a trembling day?

Your voice once softened the sharpest hours,

A low flame moving through the air—

I search for it now

In the hush between breaths.

Coffee cools against my palms,

Steam already surrendered.

The rave’s distant bass

Presses against the walls and ribs alike,

A borrowed heartbeat

That will not settle.

A drunk man sways beneath neon,

Arms opening to no one—

His laughter fracturing,

Yet he keeps time with a rhythm

Only he can hear.

I study him like scripture,

As if he might teach me

How to hold desire without breaking.

You brought music once—

Not the kind that ends with applause,

But the kind that stains the silence after,

Leaving the room forever changed.

No courtesy could compare.

I sip what’s left,

As if warmth might return,

As if memory could be reheated.

Inside, an ache curls inward,

Small, disciplined, obedient—

A guest who knows it will never be introduced.

Night gathers its shawl.

Windows glitter,

The bass deepens into something tidal.

I follow your outline through the dark—

Not a body, not a face,

Just a familiar shift in the air,

A note held too long,

Unresolved.

The dancer refuses gravity,

Spinning grief into comedy,

And for a moment I wish

I could be as unashamed—

To stagger toward joy

Without fearing who might watch.

I close my eyes.

The music dissolves into drone,

Into prayer,

Into an incantation that knows my name.

You return there, briefly—

Not as memory,

But as possibility.

I open them again

And find you scattered—

A car’s passing gleam,

A silhouette blurred by strobe,

A stranger’s half-forgotten laugh.

Each vanishes before I can touch it.

The cup is empty.

The night thins.

The dancer disappears into shadow.

I rise without ceremony,

Folding the moment closed.

No confession.

No plea.

Only the quiet,

Only the breath,

Only the love carried inward—

Unwritten, unnamed,

But tuned perfectly

To the key of goodbye.

“Dancing Alone in the Echo of You”

The noon sun slants across the table,
Coffee cooling in my hands,
The foam a pale memory of warmth.
Bass hums faintly down the street,
A pulse that moves like blood
Through the veins of the city.
Your absence hovers over it all,
More tangible than any gift,
More insistent than any friendly gesture.

When was the time to see your loving presence,
To feel the quiet weight of you
Press against the ribs of my day,
More than laughter, more than smiles,
More than a fleeting “hello”
That can be cast aside like a leaf in the wind?

The music grows,
Staccato lights slicing through shadows,
A drunk man tries to dance,
Arms flailing, feet stumbling,
Yet he moves with a strange courage
I cannot summon.
How easily joy can slip from the sober heart,
How lightly it can be worn by someone who does not know longing.

I sip, pretending the warmth fills more than my cup,
But inside, a quiet gnaw—
A hollow carved by your absence,
Folded into the foam,
A secret I hide even from myself.

Your voice, if it came now,
Would thread through the bass like a silver thread
Through black silk—
An elegy, a song too fragile for the clamor of the world.
When did you bring music to my life,
True music,
That lingered longer than laughter
And stronger than the friendliness
That others give without thought?

The shadows lengthen,
The sun dips behind rooftops,
Strobe lights begin to pulse,
The rave grows into a living tide of sound.
I watch the drunk man again,
His body a clumsy river flowing in rhythm
With a tide only he feels.
I envy him the simplicity of his surrender,
While I clutch memory like a talisman,
Afraid to release even a note of longing
For fear it might vanish into the night.

And yet, I hear you in the pauses,
In the silence between beats,
A lament drifting over the pulse of bass,
Soft as a sigh in a Heian garden,
Delicate as cherry blossoms
Falling into a pond that reflects nothing but emptiness.
Your face drifts past the flashing lights,
Past the sweating bodies,
Past the echoing laughter,
And I let the silence hold me,
Because silence is the only place
Where love can breathe,
Without being stolen,
Or mistaken for mere friendship.

The coffee cup is empty now,
The bass fades to memory,
The drunk man stumbles into the darkness,
And the world exhales its pulse.
I rise slowly,
Smoothing the table with careful hands,
Letting the hours spill forward
While carrying the weight behind my chest—
A love no one will touch,
A farewell never named,
The secret pulse of longing
That threads through every breath I take.

And though the night stretches toward its end,
The memory of you moves through it like smoke,
Tender and relentless,
A lament half-spell, half-song,
A melody of what was never ours,
Yet remains mine,
In every shadow, every echo, every sigh
Between the beats of a rave
And the cooling rim of a coffee cup.

When Family Members Also Show Rift — Resulting in Desperate Measures

When Family Members Also Show Rift — Resulting in Desperate Measures

In the life of a nation, as in the life of a ruling family, unity is never a luxury. It is a structural requirement for stable governance. A household divided—especially one that sits at the summit of state power—weakens institutions, invites opportunism, and endangers the collective well-being of the people. Today, the Philippines confronts a perilous spectacle: a ruling family ruptured from within. 

Speaking before a rally of Iglesia ni Cristo devotees assembled allegedly "against corruption in government" at the Quirino Grandstand Monday evening, the nation watched as Senator Imee Marcos publicly accused her own brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., of a supposed long-standing struggle with drug dependence. She went further, implicating the First Lady by asserting that his alleged condition had worsened because “they were both the same.” Her plea—“end your suffering and the suffering of the nation, come home and seek treatment”—was delivered in full public view. 

On its surface, such a statement may pass as maternal concern. Yet the timing, the political environment, and the public stage chosen reveal far more: a calculated blow presented as compassion, an internal strike shrouded in the language of moral intervention. 

Malacañang’s Firm Response 

The Presidential Communications Office, through Undersecretary Claire Castro, condemned the senator’s statements as a “desperate move” and demanded clarity regarding her motives. 

She noted that the rally in question was about alleged corruption—not personal attacks against the President. Her question cut directly into the controversy: “What reason does Senator Imee have to malign her own brother?” 

Castro reiterated the verified facts: President Marcos voluntarily underwent a drug test before the 2022 elections, with results confirmed negative by St. Luke’s Medical Center. She cited the official statement: “President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did test negative for cocaine in 2021.” 

Her reminder of the senator’s selective outrage was pointed: “Why is she now concerned about alleged drug use when former President Duterte openly admitted to marijuana and fentanyl? She never called him out.” 

Thus, the claim of moral urgency collapses under the weight of political context. 

The Political Context of 2025 

This breakdown within the ruling family did not emerge from chance or emotion. Its roots lie in the political maneuvers surrounding the 2025 elections. Senator Marcos withdrew from the coalition supported by her brother—the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance for the New Philippines)—shortly after the government surrendered former President Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court. Long known as a staunch Duterte ally, she repositioned herself almost immediately, securing the endorsement of Vice President Sara Duterte, with whom President Marcos had already experienced a profound political rupture.

The pattern reflects calculation rather than conscience. It is a familiar choreography in Philippine politics: ambition clothed in the language of concern, rivalry disguised as duty. Her decision did more than create a split within the ruling family—it fractured the loyalist bloc itself. The once-unified constituency that had supported both Marcos and Duterte in 2016 found itself divided, with many choosing to align with the former president out of sentiment, grievance, or ideological convenience. Some even rationalized this pivot as an act of “true loyalism,” arguing that Senator Imee’s siding with the Dutertes carried greater legitimacy precisely because she bore the Marcos name.

Such a realignment reveals the deeper truth: this was not a moral stand but a political wager, executed in full awareness of its consequences for both family and nation..

The Son’s Response: A Defiant Stand for Family and State 

If the senator intended to weaken her brother, she underestimated the resolve of the President’s immediate family. House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos responded with clarity and firmness. 

He expressed sorrow over the senator’s descent into fabrication: “It pains me to see how low she has gone, resorting to a web of lies aimed at destabilizing this government to advance her political ambitions.” 

He called the allegations dangerously irresponsible, noting that they now targeted not just the President and First Lady, but himself and even younger family members. The betrayal was personal as well as political: “We always agreed that whatever happened between our parents, we would not drag ourselves into it. For her to betray her own family brings me great sadness.” 

He delivered the final judgment with unequivocal severity: “This is not the behavior of a true sister.” 

The Lesson for the Nation 

History has repeatedly shown that divided leadership results in weakened governance. When a family entrusted with power fractures, the consequences extend far beyond private grievances—weakening state structures, emboldening opportunists, and attracting foreign exploitation. 

Senator Imee Marcos’s accusations were not an act of familial concern. They were a deliberate escalation of political conflict, concealed beneath the language of public duty. Her alignment with the Duterte bloc intensifies the implications. 

Yet nevertheless, this rift does not erase a deeper reality: the members of this ruling family swore to uphold an order that has long been corroded. As the late Senator José Avelino once remarked, there are “Good Crooks” and “Bad Crooks” within the bureaucracy—if not within society as a whole. This maxim, cynical yet accurate, illuminates the present moment: internal strife does not exempt the ruling class from complicity in a system already bent under the weight of its own decay. 

Even so, desperate measures—once unleashed—never remain confined to the family. They spill outward, eroding governance and fraying the unity of the state itself. 

Thus, the President, his family, and those loyal to the stability of the state must had to stand firm—undeterred by internal efforts at destabilization. 

Let the public record stand: Loyalty, integrity, and unity remain the pillars of legitimate authority. Betrayal, even from within the same bloodline, imperils not only a family but the nation it governs. 

For a people to endure, their leaders must endure together. And when internal fractures threaten national coherence, the guardians of the order must act decisively against those who divide for private gain.  

Accountability for Show, Corruption as Usual: Joyriding the Public Outrage in the Republic of Good Crooks and Bad Crooks

Accountability for Show, Corruption as Usual:

Joyriding the Public Outrage 

in the Republic of Good Crooks and Bad Crooks

In a political landscape where every faction claims moral high ground and every leader wraps themselves in the banner of public virtue, it becomes harder to distinguish principle from opportunism. The sudden surge of “anti-corruption” rhetoric has not clarified the nation’s crisis—it has only exposed how every camp weaponizes outrage when it suits them. What should have been a unified demand for cleansing the bureaucracy has instead become another battlefield for competing interests, each louder than the last, each pretending to speak for the people while guarding their own turf. 

If one would wonder—are they truly against corruption? Are they genuinely for transparency, accountability, justice? Or are they simply defending those implicated, those whose interests happen to align with theirs at the moment? The recent demonstrations made one thing unmistakably clear: they are joyriding on the public’s anger, hijacking legitimate outrage to shield their own networks of power. 

Suddenly everyone is “patriotic.” Suddenly every faction is shouting “transparency” and “accountability” as if the words alone could wash their records clean. Even the notoriously corrupt are pointing fingers at their fellow thieves in suit and in uniform, prompting ordinary people to ask: Who, exactly, is the real crook here— and why does every whistleblower seem to be carrying his own share of stolen goods? 

It is all painfully Avelinian: the nation is again confronted not with the choice between honest and corrupt officials, but between good crooks and bad crooks, each insisting they are the lesser evil. Look at the spectacle of Zaldy Co—long painted as corrupt—suddenly recast as a hero by the Duterte bloc the moment he turned his accusations toward Marcos and Romualdez. Have they forgotten that this same “hero” amassed wealth through bureaucrat capitalism while helming the congressional appropriations machinery for years, under both Duterte and Marcos? 

And what of the senators now implicated—men who speak the language of accountability only to avoid being called what they are? Villanueva who's supposed to be pious also has significant corruption allegations involving the misuse of public funds and alleged kickbacks from government projects. Escudero, the once-poster boy of politics also implicated in corruption charges with recent news accusing him of systematic corruption, misappropriation of public funds, procurement fraud, and gross neglect of duty. Not suprised that Bong Go, a Duterte stooge, also implicated in procurement deals during the pandemic to that of anomalies involving government contracts. These solons, like Co, would try to assume they're innocent- or to sound Avelinian, a "good crook" pointing against the "bad".  

But nevertheless, they're still crooks and those who supporting crooks trying to appeal to many whether it is appeal to morality, reason, heck even patriotism. But such joyriding makes their statements ring hollow. Their indignation is to protect themselves. Their crusade is performance. And so the public again hears echoes of Avelino’s cynical proclamation: some of them are “good crooks,” others “bad crooks”—but crooks all the same. 

From the congressman to the undersecretary, from the agency clerk to the private contractor in cahoots with them, they all siphon public resources while delivering half-baked “services” meant only to impress the world—or pretend to. Infrastructure is built to be photographed, not to last; programs are launched to be announced, not to be felt by the people. Everything is done for optics, never substance. 

These bullshitteries only confirm what the masses increasingly feel—that the system’s hypocrisy is absolute. To borrow Stirner’s words: the state calls its own violence “law,” but the individual’s resistance “crime.” When the powerful plunder, it is “budget utilization,” “public-private partnership,” “program expansion.” When the poor protest, it becomes “instigation,” “unrest,” “destabilization.” 

And so the people look around and see not a government fighting corruption, but factions fighting over corruption—each one desperate to control the narrative, the purse, the power. 

The crisis, then, is not just moral. It is structural. And everyone who feeds on the system—good crook or bad crook—knows it.   

Transparency? Accountability? Or Defending Interest in a time of Controversy?

Transparency? Accountability? 

Or Defending Interest in a time of Controversy?

For three straight days, Manila’s Luneta Park is scattered by white-clad mob. Thousands of devotees, moving in near-militant synchrony, marched under banners and chants orchestrated by their religious leaders. The message from the pulpit was clear: this was a “show of strength” in response to recent political turbulence. 

Officially, the leaders insist their intentions are spiritual, not political. “We do not seek to interfere with governance,” they proclaimed, “but to lend the voice of faith to the calls of many of our countrymen condemning the enormous evil involving many government officials.” 

But the optics tell a different story. Anyone observing the chanting crowds, flags and placards raised high, and coordinated movements would be hard-pressed to see anything but politics in action. The sentiment is inherently political; the spectacle is inherently political. The call for “transparency, accountability, and justice” in flood control projects—though phrased in civic terms—cannot be divorced from the political alliances of the group itself. These leaders, and the flock that follows them, have long been associated with administrations now under scrutiny for corruption and mismanagement. 

At first glance, the demands appear reasonable. Who would argue against accountability? But context complicates matters. By aligning with past administrations implicated in questionable deals, and now positioning themselves as moral arbiters, the group’s actions raise questions about the sincerity of their calls. Can faith alone justify selective outrage? Or is the rhetoric a veneer for political continuity—supporting the interests they have historically endorsed? 

The streets near Luneta are crowded with white shirts, but the meaning of the march is anything but uniform. To outsiders, it may appear as a moral crusade, a showcase of unity that's been attributed to them especially during elections with their block voting. But to  those who remember the political loyalties of past years, it reads more like a carefully choreographed expression of partisanship cloaked in the language of piety. 

The timing of the demonstration—coinciding with renewed scrutiny of corruption scandals—hardly seems coincidental. While the leaders insist their aim is spiritual guidance, the political impact is undeniable. The message is being sent: their flock is united, visible, and vocal. The line between prayer and political statement has blurred, and in a city long accustomed to both, the distinction may be lost on few. 

Faith may light the torch, but in Manila, politics carries it through the streets. And in the end, white shirts may proclaim neutrality, but the past events, corresponding actions—and timing—speak louder, if not loudest than their features slogans.  

Reclaiming Moral Courage and Rebuilding a Nation

Reclaiming Moral Courage and Rebuilding a Nation

In today’s public discourse, one phrase is invoked with ritual predictability: that “change begins with the self.” It appears in classrooms, pulpits, speeches, and civic forums, spoken with the solemnity of moral doctrine. Yet, to many observers, its repetition has begun to sound hollow. The phrase demands personal virtue, but personal virtue alone cannot flourish in a sociopolitical environment designed to frustrate it. As Karl Marx once observed, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please… but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” The individual does not stand outside the system; he is shaped—sometimes constrained—by it.

Across the archipelago, Filipinos from every demographic call for integrity and honest governance. Students march for accountability; professionals write earnest letters to newspapers; business groups hold conferences encouraging ethical leadership; religious institutions issue pastoral statements. But despite these varied appeals, corruption grows more resilient. It does not retreat—it adapts, mutates, and survives.

A troubling trend becomes evident in the profiles of many who fall to graft. Numerous figures embroiled in scandals hail from elite educational institutions—schools that proudly proclaim themselves as builders of leaders “for others” or guardians of character. Their alumni networks form the very circles that often condemn corruption in eloquent terms, yet these condemnations rarely produce systemic change. The contradiction between doctrine and deed remains stark. It mirrors Max Stirner’s insight that “the state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime,” revealing how entrenched power shields itself while moral language becomes a tool of selective judgment.

National rhetoric frequently extols integrity, responsibility, and accountability. Still, these values are routinely brushed aside by entrenched interests. Grand state formulations—whole-of-government, whole-of-society, whole-of-nation—are invoked in policy memos and public addresses. Yet analysts note a chronic lack of strategic depth within many leadership circles, rendering these frameworks more ceremonial than operational.

Ordinary citizens, meanwhile, find themselves relegated to passive spectators, expressing grievances from the sidelines as the corrupt continue on their way—untouched, unbothered, and often enriched. Public morality becomes a spectacle rather than a standard. Stirner warned how “fixed ideas” can become empty idols when detached from reality; “The sacred is only a fixed idea, and every fixed idea is a spook.” Much of our public discourse has devolved into such spook-talk: slogans repeated without power, ideals invoked without consequence.

Society repeatedly arrives at critical junctures but chooses the easier path: the path of silence, convenience, and moral fatigue. Public advocacy remains largely confined to speeches, opinion columns, and symbolic gestures—insufficient to confront a deeply rooted system of patronage and impunity.

Here and there, individuals and small groups attempt reform. Civic activists, whistleblowers, reformist officials, and community leaders take risks. Yet these efforts are scattered and isolated, unable to form the critical mass necessary to shift national momentum. Minor successes are hailed as breakthroughs, but they seldom alter the broader landscape.

The persistence of corruption stems from more than flawed individuals; it reflects structural, cultural, and institutional weaknesses. Analysts argue that reducing the crisis to a matter of private moral failings risks obscuring its systemic nature. Marx, too, insisted that ideals cannot transcend their institutional base: “Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.” Without transforming the foundations of power, appeals to virtue remain aspirational but impotent.

Commentators of the period increasingly identify two parallel fronts requiring simultaneous advancement:

1. Socio-personal transformation, understood not as rhetoric but as sustained moral discipline.
2. Systemic overhaul, grounded in reliable institutions, a functional justice system, and a rule of law applied uniformly.

The nation’s future hinges on both. Neither alone is sufficient. Stirner’s exhortation—“Whoever will be free must make himself free”—captures only half the equation; personal resolve matters, but it cannot substitute for the construction of institutions capable of restraining impunity and empowering the public.

The path forward, as articulated by reform thinkers of the era, requires:

— a reformed and fully functioning criminal justice system,

— fearless, impartial law enforcement, free from social or political exemptions, and

— the cultivation of moral courage as a public standard, not merely a private virtue.

These elements must move in unison. Delay only deepens the burden inherited by future generations.

As time progresses, the country stands at a moral and political threshold. The slogans have been uttered, the manifestos published, the speeches delivered. What remains uncertain is whether the nation can transform moral conviction into collective action—whether it can transcend hollow exhortations and forge a movement strong enough to challenge and change the structures that have long resisted reform.

In this crossroads moment, the promise of genuine national renewal depends not on the repetition of familiar phrases, but on the capacity to rebuild the institutions, habits, and moral foundations of public life. Only then can the word change regain its meaning—no longer a slogan, but a shared destiny.

Of Riding the Tiger and the Politics of Appearance: Reflections on Power, Principle, and Survival

Of Riding the Tiger and the Politics of Appearance:

Reflections on Power, Principle, and Survival

Before asking whether today’s loudest voices are truly against corruption—championing transparency, accountability, and justice—it is necessary to understand the political environment that has made such claims convenient. The sudden wave of indignation, erupting in synchronized chorus, signals less a principled stand and more a moment of political “joyriding”: a calculated attempt to ride public anger without sharing its ethical burden. 

The recent demonstrations illustrate this phenomenon clearly. What should have been a sober reckoning with bureaucratic rot was instead seized upon as a stage for reinvention. Individuals who had long ignored institutional decay suddenly rebranded themselves as defenders of probity and nationalism. Their “patriotism” arrived not from conviction but from opportunity​—the kind that flourishes when the public eye is elsewhere. 

One would have said—were it not for the accident of his being Asian, specifically Filipino—that he could easily have passed for a pan-European ideologue of the Neue Rechte: a man whose rhetoric, posture, and provocation bore the unmistakable stamp of right-wing apologetics. His defenders cast him as a cultural critic; his detractors saw an opportunist in borrowed political clothing. Yet the contradiction remained: his identity marked him outside the European New Right’s ethnocentric fold even as his arguments aligned him intimately with its contours. That tension—between origin and aspiration—revealed not a thinker of conviction, but a figure searching for ideological shelter wherever it offered the most visibility. 

It is in this context that this note return to Juan Ponce Enrile, who passed on November 13, 2025, aged 101 (or 103 according to some). At first glance, the statesman’s life may appear simply a series of political maneuvers, legal victories, and national controversies. But those who listened closely to his 2012 UP College of Law Alumni Homecoming keynote will recognize a deeper, almost prophetic pattern. In that speech, Enrile—then 88—spoke not merely to alumni but to the existential challenge of modernity itself. 

Amid tributes to faculty, references to historic firsts in the Supreme Court, and recollections of his own formative years, Enrile invoked the Italian traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola. He warned that the forces of change—technological, political, and cultural—cannot be halted or resisted in conventional ways. Instead, one must “ride the tiger”: grasp the destructive currents of the modern world and let them carry you forward, remaining inwardly sovereign and unbroken. 

Perhaps the speechwriter behind that work captured what Enrile truly thought: being in an advanced age, trying to ride the tiger, it would not be surprising if Enrile had never read Evola. Yet his experiences—of wars survived, regimes navigated, coups endured, and revolutions witnessed—embody an Evolan mindset. He stood in the ruins of a world increasingly unmoored, as if living in what traditionalists might call the Kali Yuga, a Dark Age where materialistic appetites and unbridled desires reign supreme. Without needing to know the texts, Enrile’s life enacted the very philosophy Evola describes: the disciplined, sovereign individual confronting the inexorable currents of a collapsing moral and political order. 

Few men of his generation embodied this principle more literally. He survived wars, insurrections, coups, impeachments, and revolutions—not by fleeing, not by submitting, but by standing upright, mastering circumstance while retaining an unbowed interior life. The metaphor of the tiger, once philosophical, became autobiographical. The 2012 speech, in hindsight, reads as a quietly prophetic testament: a message to the legal mind, to the student, and to the citizenry—that survival in chaotic times requires discipline, clarity, and mastery of oneself. 

Enrile’s life, like Evola’s tiger, reminds people that modernity is a force that consumes the unprepared. He did not merely cope with it; he transformed its turbulence into endurance. As Constantin von Hoffmeister might have observed, he enacted a form of “aristocratic lucidity”: a conscious alignment of the inner self with the demands of the outer world, even when that world had grown unrecognizably fast and complex. 

And yet, as the political critique illustrates, such mastery is rare. Many today mistake proximity for principle, performance for conviction. The loudest voices in contemporary public discourse—rhetoricians of moral indignation—often ride the tiger of public sentiment without the internal discipline to survive its course. Their patriotism is borrowed, contingent, and performative; their courage, theatrical. 

Enrile’s example stands in sharp contrast. He demonstrates that the tiger may be ridden without surrender, that chaotic forces may be transmuted into stability, and that enduring institutions—whether a law school or a republic—require individuals capable of confronting the tempest without being devoured. 

The lesson is twofold: for the citizen, it is a warning to discern performance from principle; for the statesman, it is a summons to cultivate inner sovereignty. In a world of manufactured outrage, fleeting heroics, and ideological mimicry, Juan Ponce Enrile’s life and words remain a testament to a different mode of being: to ride the tiger, to endure, and to stand upright when all around him flails. 

In reflecting on both his life and the modern political moment, we are reminded that the true battle is interior. And so, it is not surprising that there are those honor him not merely for what he did in politics or law, but for the formidable interior courage that allowed him to survive, thrive, and leave a legacy of philosophical and practical insight—one that challenges the rest to confront the tiger with the same steadiness and clarity.