The Forbes Flop: When Their Protest Becomes Performance
Last Sunday night, October 12, about a hundred "Diehard Duterte Supporters" (DDS) gathered in Forbes Park, led by Cavite Representative Kiko Barzaga, ostensibly to demand accountability from the Marcos administration over alleged corruption. They chanted, waved banners, and made a show of defiance—but let’s call it what it was: a flop.
From the start, things were telling. The “rally” didn’t kick off until 11:00 p.m.—apparently, traffic delayed the revolution. The streets were crawling with police and vloggers, yet the actual rallyists were scarce. Barzaga himself arrived late, gave a quick interview, and was gone in under an hour. By midnight, the square had emptied, leaving only a handful of content creators to document the ghost of a protest. Across Manila, there were minor demonstrations elsewhere, but nothing that remotely resembled a movement in Forbes.
To top it off, diehard DDS influencers are pointing fingers at Chavit Singson for failing to send ships to transport “thousands” of supporters to Manila. And when the numbers didn’t materialize, they turned to fake videos and photos—some from last September 21, some from as far away as Nepal—trying to convince the world that the streets were teeming with these self-proclaimed "revolutionaries". Spoiler alert: they weren’t. The noise was online, not on the streets.
And here’s the irony: they claim to be “against corruption,” yet their loyalty remains with a regime that is itself steeped in it. Being “opposed” seems less about justice and more about factional allegiance—protesting not because officials are implicated in scandal, but because they dared investigate a favored patron. That’s not dissent; that’s theater.
If these self-proclaimed diehards were serious, they would take a page from history—where the brave didn’t just post online or pose for cameras. Think of Guatemala’s Jueves Negro, when ordinary citizens, armed with machetes, clubs, and even guns, descended on the capital in a violent, merciless push for power. The diehard, in those moments, was remorseless, uncompromising, and utterly committed to the cause, come what may. That kind of grit—the willingness to risk everything—is what separates true rebellion from performativism.
Or perhaps one should ask—was it almost? If to recall, one speaker at Liwasang Bonifacio last September 21 was caught on camera declaring, before the group proceeded to Mendiola, that they were “ready to storm the gates” and “willing to die for their cause.” Another voice followed, urging the crowd to “prepare your lighters.”
Later, when a riot broke out in Mendiola and their attempt to unseat the President failed, the same group suddenly played innocent. They claimed that the earlier call to “prepare the lighters” was only meant for a candle-lighting and prayer vigil.
But really—if it were just that, they could have said “light the candles.” Why, then, were so many carrying lighters, and why use the word storm? The language itself betrayed their intent. No one storms for prayer; people storm for confrontation. And in that brief, televised moment, their own words ignited more than any candle ever could. But in fairness, that expresses something beyond the parameter "prepare your lighter" and "willing to storm the gates".
But back to the main point—their actions amounted to nothing. It was noise masquerading as conviction, a spectacle staged for relevance. They seized on the corruption scandal as a convenient excuse to call for their patron’s “return home,” or worse, his “return to power,” dressing up nostalgia as righteousness and glorifying a past that was anything but clean—an “order” built on blood, fear, and scandal. Yet in the end, it was a flop, plain and simple. No matter how hard they spin it, the public saw it for what it truly was: barely a hundred diehard loyalists meeting for an “eyeball,” not a movement.
What happened in both Rajah Sulayman Park in Malate and Forbes Park on October 12 was less a protest and more a parody—a hollow echo of defiance. The Alsa Masa spirit they so proudly invoke? It flickered for a moment, then disappeared before it ever truly began.