I was having a conversation with a couple of close friends from way back the other day, and as usual, the topic turned to how things are changing as we age. This time, instead of talking about our health and maintenance meds, we discussed political leanings.
One friend said he felt like he was turning conservative as he became older, which makes sense as most of us do seem to lean that way with age. However, when he said it out loud, that was when I paused to think about my own political ideology and realized that at this point in life, I identify more with socialism. The interesting thing was when I said that out loud, our other friend laughed and said that he also thinks he is a socialist.
Filipinos do not really think in terms of political ideologies, but I guess we more or less have an idea what we are talking about. Every country has its conservatives, liberals, and socialists I guess. I think my friend and I may have gotten our idea of socialism wrong, and I think we both referred to a social democracy, or a Nordic style welfare state, which would probably qualify us as liberal in this society.
That conversation was interesting because here in the Philippines, such terms don’t really apply because all our politics is personality-based. There are no conservatives, liberals, or socialists, and the communists are all armed rebels. There are just Dutertards, Dilawans, Pinklawans, or believers in the legendary Tallano Gold. On the local end, there is the Love Negros or UNegA, Pulahan or Putian. But aside from the colors, personalities, and family names, we have to admit that we don’t really know what those groups and their leaders really stand for.
Maybe I’m just dissing Philippine politics too much, because if you come to think of it, things don’t seem to be all that different in the USA these days, with the Republican Party turning into the personal party of Donald Trump, and nobody but him really knows what it stands for anymore, right? But still, when you know that a person is Republican, you’d probably get a general idea of what he believes in, which in today’s case, would be a conservative who is probably against immigration, abortion, universal health care, and free university education.
Compare that to the regular Pinoy voter, where there is really no way to tell what they stand for or what kind of ideals they look for in a candidate. Since we neither have political parties, nor any shared ideologies, all our voters probably want is someone who either looks good on stage or can bring along someone popular on that stage, and more importantly, has a war chest big enough to buy votes.
Anyway, I never really thought political ideologies would be a topic among my friends, but I guess that goes with the territory of aging. They say that a person is usually more liberal when younger, and then turns conservative as they grow older, but I guess Filipinos haven’t really felt the need to tell for ourselves because it hasn’t been necessary.
Another thing that disappointed me, after realizing that I’m more of a social democrat, is that I don’t even know who among our politicos share the same ideology, both at the local and national level. Although we may be able to can tease it out from their statements, advocacies, and the pieces of legislation that they support, the ambiguity of what our politicians stand for gives us an idea of the unremarkableness of the kind of people in this country who vie for public office and win.
Well, if you come to think of it, we can’t really ask those things from our politicians at this point, because we should still be focusing on demanding the basics, like competence and integrity. Because what good is it if we know their political ideology when the politicians and public servants we have are not equipped to do their jobs properly and do not even have the moral backbone to stop themselves and their colleagues from stealing from the country that they swore to serve and defend? At this point, we should just be happy when our voting population gift us leaders that don’t embarrass us every time they open their mouths.
Some people see themselves as conservatives, others are liberal, and there are also nationalists, along with socialists and communists as well. The ideology of a person only matters when they are somehow put in charge of a country, or are in a position to wield influence. For now, our voters don’t really look into the ideologies of our politicos and candidates because we just look at name recall, catchy jingles, slogans, and the effect of massive propaganda/misinformation/disinformation campaigns when choosing our leaders. Maybe that is a good thing for our beloved Philippines because giving our voters one more thing to think about might just end up confusing them.
Until we choose to change things, the current ideology that rules the country is the dynasty-building kind, because that’s what most of our politicians seem to be in power for anyway.*
