The silence of the Leni people

Observing the posts in the facebook I notice a tendency. Those who really want Leni Robredo to win never ever…I mean never…discuss the possibility of the Smartmatic “breach of protocol”. That there is the possibility of manipulating election returns, as presented by IT experts, is not mentioned at all. In fact they post declarations of Leni winning already.

I think that there is an inner mechanism of “buffering brackets". First of all, it is their stand that Bongbong Marcos should not ever win. This accent has influenced their minds from the start. Now the counting of votes early on showed Marcos winning. When news broke out that possibly the system was manipulated by Smartmatic and that possibly Marcos was being cheated, there was no response from the Leni lovers. They were all mum. Then when unofficial announcements showed Leni winning these Leni lovers started to post them on their walls. Meanwhile the numbers were questioned and contested by different sectors.

At one point a Eucharistic mass was organized and held, without surprise,  at the Ateneo. Of course it is the Ateneo, a "yellow" university. 
I think it has been very difficult to aceept that Marcos was winning and to accept that cheating may have transpired. A “bracketing” was fixed in people’s minds to buffer against a possible truth. In this bracketing is the avoidance of all talk of cheating and the secret desire that, even if there is a possible cheating, Leni should win. Never mind if there is an injustice done to Bongbong Marcos; just let Leni win. A whole lot of energy is spent to bracket the idea of possible cheating and injustice and to impose upon themselves (through the Ateneo gesture) the belief that Leni has indeed won.

I am not for Leni, neither am I for Bongbong. But I am against cheating. If Leni is to win and Bongbong is to lose because of cheating then there is an injustice. People from both sides, the Leni side and the Bongbong side, have the duty to be vigilant against any possible cheating. They have the duty to raise voices against Comelec and Smartmatic. The silence of the Leni people is so eerie. Leni herself says nothing. I wonder if she would be willing to accept winning thanks to cheating.       

Duterte

     There is so much effort to "unify" parties opposed to Duterte. It appears that PNoy wants Poe to give way to Roxas for "the sake of the country." Of course Poe will not give in to this invitation. She is ahead in the poll surveys. She has her own political stand and even if that stand is similar to that of Roxas it is still a unique and different stand. Also, why shouldn't Roxas give way to Poe?

     This behaviour of PNoy reveals what has always been the problem with his six-year mandate. He and his cohorts have run the country by being too full of themselves. They refused to listen to real and solid criticism. They refused any form of opposition. They believed too much in themselves they refused to even see that something wrong was going on in their ranks. 

     Reality, as phenomenology would put it, is marked by the "accent of belief". Alfred Schutz has well described this in his "provinces of meaning". Each province has its accent of belief. Thus while watching a film we get carried away with the scene--we may get angry or feel sad--because at that particular moment we endow the scene with an accent of belief.  We believe in what is happening. Of course if we tell ourselves, in the middle of the scene, that "this is only a movie", we step out of it (and spoil the fun too). When we step out we go elsewhere. This time we enter into the accent of believing that "this is only a movie". While watching the scene and being so carried away with it, we bracket aside the "this is only a movie" belief. If we say "this is only a movie" then we bracket aside the emotional impact of the scene; we "neutralize" it.

     Pnoy and his cohorts got caught in a specific accent of reality and have bracketted aside all other avenues and horizons. This may have been strategically necessary for some time but reality is always horizonal and requires different sets of belief accents. To claim that only one province rests valid is to close the doors to the many other horizons.

     Meanwhile people have felt that they were part of the bracketted reality. Their horizons did not exist. They have been consistently "neutralized". They were not real, that is, they were not believed. The slogan "kayo ang boss ko" resonated only within the halls of Malacanang. It was pure propaganda. 

     Hence people got frustrated. Now emerges a man named Duterte who appears to be in touch with the bracketted horizons. Here is a man who appears to share the belief accent of the people. Of course it remains to be seen how Duterte himself organizes his view of reality; the evidence so far is unsettling.

     Up until now Pnoy and his cohorts do not seem to see the frustrations of people. It is so late in the day that Mar Roxas talks of correcting the shortcomings of the current administration. Who trusts this talk at this point in time? 

     Had PNoy listened more to criticism, had he opened horizons beyond those that fit his belief accent, had he not "neutralized" authentic opposition, the Duterte phenomenon would not happen.