Is it a Reawakening or another case of Performativism?

 Is it a Reawakening or another case of Performativism?

A wave of public anger is again sweeping the streets. After years of simmering frustration, the revelation of widespread corruption in the government’s flagship infrastructure initiatives—particularly the so-called “flood control projects”—has ignited a fresh round of protests across the country. Activists and citizens alike say the projects are unfinished, substandard, and riddled with anomalies, wasting billions of pesos while leaving communities defenseless against recurring floods.

Civil society groups, student organizations, and faith-based movements are demanding urgent government action: investigate irregularities, punish those responsible, and redirect public funds toward real and lasting solutions rather than token projects. “Our communities drown every rainy season while contractors and officials enrich themselves,” one organizer said. “We are tired of promises and commissions—we want accountability.”

The protests are part of a mounting wave of public dissent. On September 11, hundreds gathered at the EDSA Shrine to denounce the questionable flood control initiatives. On September 12, students and faculty from the University of the Philippines staged a “Black Friday” walkout, condemning both government corruption and deep cuts to the education budget. And yesterday’s protest—held on President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s birthday—marked another flashpoint, coming just a week before the major nationwide mobilization planned for September 21, the 53rd anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law. Organizers expect September 21 to be a convergence point. The “Trillion Peso March,” or the "Bilyon People March", spearheaded by various groups including Tindig Pilipinas and the Clergy for Good Governance, will gather at the People Power Monument and at Rizal Park, seeking to evoke the historic spirit of 1986 while focusing attention on the present-day crises of graft and inequality. A large police deployment is already anticipated.

Yet even amid the surging crowds and slogans, questions are emerging about the protests’ authenticity and direction. For some, these actions represent a genuine reawakening of civic consciousness—an echo of past struggles for accountability and democracy. For others, they risk slipping into performativism or factional politicking. Attempts to redirect the narrative—such as calls to “Bring Duterte Home” or to “Replace Bongbong Marcos with Sara Duterte”—threaten to dilute the protests’ core message and transform them into power plays rather than movements for reform.

And here lies the deeper question: why the concern over whether this wave is serious or performative? Because history shows that public outrage can become fashionable without becoming transformative. It can be a trend to be “concerned,” yet, when election day comes, many voters still return the same traditional politicians to power, citing “winnability” or “continuity.” This contradiction—fervent protest by day, old loyalties by election—raises doubts about whether the public truly wants structural change or whether it is resigned to a cycle that benefits the entrenched and the corrupt.

In fact, the corruption exposed in public works today is not a new phenomenon but the continuation of practices stretching back decades. It only appears “sudden” because of recent high-profile hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives. These exposes also aggravate other longstanding corruption issues—such as the controversy over the Office of the Vice President’s intelligence funds and similar opaque allocations—which feed the perception of a state apparatus bloated and compromised by rent-seeking networks.

As an observer, the demand for accountability appears to be evolving into something far more urgent and combustible than routine calls for reform. The anger of the people is no longer a distant murmur but a swelling insistence that justice be delivered, and delivered quickly. One only has to look at Indonesia or Nepal to see how, when institutions falter and legitimacy collapses, pent-up frustration can turn into a powerful, sometimes uncontrollable force. In both cases, popular movements initially framed around anti-corruption and democratization eventually swept aside entrenched systems, not simply because citizens lost patience but because those in power underestimated the depth of public rage.

Most citizens today still prefer due process, constitutional procedure, and the rule of law. Yet that patience is not infinite. If entrenched corruption networks and their political patrons actively sabotage investigations, obstruct reforms, or weaponize propaganda to muddy the waters, then the social contract begins to tear. When ordinary people feel they are being mocked, gaslit, or treated as pawns by elites who remain untouchable, their willingness to abide by procedural justice erodes.

And if supporters of the status quo succeed in diminishing or deflecting calls for accountability—turning protests into partisan spectacles or smearing them as destabilizing acts—then the legitimacy of the system itself becomes suspect. History suggests that, under such conditions, a blunter, more disruptive solution may emerge: mass resignations, street uprisings, a wholesale restructuring of institutions, or extralegal reckonings that bypass the very mechanisms elites thought would protect them. This is the outcome most feared by those in power, because it represents not merely a change of leadership but a rupture of the old order’s protections.

But, given that situation and in this current scenario, will the people truly wanting to overhaul the entire system that's corrupt and cruel? Again, there are those who wanted to restore a disgraced personality to power- and they're trying their best to use the scenario to appear "clean" despite fact that they're profiteering as well in their actions: whether this matter on public works, the intelligence and confidential funds, or the rewards system that encourages those who sworn to upheld the law to go against the law for order's sake- and that action of theirs who cry "change"? That's a case of political performativism. 

The coming weeks will test whether these mobilizations can transcend old political rivalries and partisan maneuvering. Will they consolidate into a broad-based movement for accountability and structural change, or will they fracture into competing camps and opportunistic spectacles? For now, the images of crowds massing at the People Power Monument and EDSA Shrine evoke a nation at a crossroads, haunted by its history but also grappling with its future.