I vote, therefore, I am

Rather than focus on those we’ve voted into office and upon whom we’ve surrendered our future and the powers of the governed, allow us to reflect inwardly instead, if only to see in our vote the mirror image of ourselves. 

Life is after all an on-going journey to discover who we really are beneath the imagery we conjure up, our pretensions and affectations, and the person we seek to be. Between reality and the ideal, somewhere we might discover the truth. As in a mirror, in our choices of leaders we might see who we are. Ego suffragium, ergo sum.

We kick start and extrapolate from Descartes’ existential postulate, “Cogito, ergo sum” as the first step in self-actualization and as a basic and fundamental requisite before we can even start to understand the world around us, because, indeed, what we are, given the accuracy of our faculties in determining that as a basis, defines how we see the world and what that world is.

Who are we that we’ve conferred upon former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte the highest and most powerful office in the archipelago against one who’s promised us a compassionate government, or another who’s promised competence and prosperity similar to that he’s achieved before, and finally to a third who promised us more promises in addition to the unfulfilled promises his presidential sponsor has promised before?

Downtrodden in many ways, we wanted to feel important; we wanted to know that we mattered to the powerful; that we were worth their time. Grace Poe-Llamanzares offered us the empathy, compassion and endearment she inherited from the celluloid persona of her father. It was a powerful come-on made even more potent from its utter lack in the exiting administration and in the empty promise of continuity by the administration candidate.

We saw the same deep empathy in Duterte where he was quick to take our side and the people’s perspective in such trivial matters as traffic, tanim-bala (bullet-planting), everyday injustices and minutiae inequities, and the economic issue of labor contractualization, where, in each, the triviality aspect actually brings the issues closer to our personal realities, thus, inter-relating more, bonding us and creating relevance where soundbytes, motherhood statements and campaign promises fail.

Duterte’s abhorrence of political correctness was integral to that. His abhorrence is ours. Even his sense of humor, the self-deprecating ironies he spews forth almost as naturally as he cusses much like Joseph Estrada’s own self-deprecation in a time long gone. Do we not all wish that we could tell all our government officials to go to hell? Do we not all secretly wish that we could take them aside and beat the shit out of them, as Duterte often threatens? For a public long victimized as we are, it’s easier to relate to Duterte than it is to stupidly fall for hollow sound byte promises of continuity from a politically pedigreed blue-blooded politician who does not feel the way we do and is not hurting the way we are.

Ironically one of the most important characteristics of the Filipino electorate is its myopia. This has upsides where it is employed to vest elected officials their powers. Duterte’s focus on everyday criminality is an example of similar focus and commonality. Consider Duterte’s principal platform. Criminality spawned by the weaknesses of the police under the former Interior secretary’s ineptitude was central to our rejection of one candidate in favor of Duterte.

Lastly, after serial ineptitude, failures, bungling and buffoonery scarring the exiting administration, the electorate wanted someone with proven administrative skills, experience and an “alpha personality” to get things done. We love macho plus. More than our rejection of corruption, we value an iron will, balls, competence and emphatic leadership. Hence, Duterte. We voted, as we are.