a socio-political post part 2 of 5: the right's populism, fake news, propaganda and more
....mostly on Facebook
(Some information before we start this...err...rant or whatever this post in this series is: we, in the Philippines, are patient zero where fake news and its spread is concerned today. It's not long ago that news about us being so came out and thankfully, now, we have a good number of people fighting the spread of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda on a lot of social media platforms open to us here in the Philippines to use like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Tiktok. To know more about this, probably even how it came to be and confirm this, you check out articles about this like this one from Buzzfeed, this one from thenewslens, and even this one from the LA Times that says, well, definitely have troll farms here. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there're still many local or domestic and international news sites reporting about this as we speak.)
Let's recall quickly that in the first part of this blog series, we covered the fighting between the left and the left. This time, we'll talk about the left vs the right and touch up a bit more on the left vs left especially where populism is concerned because there's still something about this that bugs me a lot.
A Primer on the Right
While the left is on the side of truth and the people that see, hear, feel, smell, sense and experience it and speak of it, the right is all about twisting things around to suit their selfish purposes...as well as whoever it is they align themselves with in national, global, local politics and more.
They are the best at spotting the tiniest misstep the left makes and taking cue from the left's critiquing of about everything they find wrong in governance and such, they on the right would take that a notch up and twist a lot of things about such missteps to make people that especially follow them believe: ah, this is right when it's actually become so preposterous to the left they hardly believe it is so. It's hard to actually explain what the right does to whatever comes into their radar because...well...even they are really hard to understand and I wonder if they even understand whatever it is they spew to the public in their social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and more.
I'll give some examples instead to make things easier to understand.
Let's use Tishacm as an example on how the right view drugs and drug use:
This is her on drug use and on PRRD and his admin's war on drugs that is, by the way, still going on here. This was 2017.
If you find this difficult to read, it says: "It's irresponsible to glamoriaze the casual use of drugs to promote a low perception of harm. Such a shame that one has to resort to drug-iduced false sense of well-being. Good for her that she can afford her fix but some people would steal to fund their habits. All for naught..." This is a tweet rquoting a blog of Ilda's (Ilda_talk), the 1/2 of a DDS couple "blogger" based in Australia about Rapper promoting the use of illegal drugs (but are they, really?).
This is also her in just early to middle of last year talking defending PRRD admin's drug war about it being accused of targetting the poor...which is the truth by the way. Until now, we still haven't heard of news of any druglord's case being discussed in court televised here. There are many druglords here, too, that continue to freely roam around the country and even go in and out of it. Also, someone high up the Pharmally chain being talked of in the senate blue ribbon committee aired on tv is said to tied with the drug syndicate or industry here oh and worse, the killer of a girl artist, just got scott free of charges, imprisonment despite having been said to be using drugs. The surname of said killer? Ongpin.
Now that the PRRD admin is about to come to a close and we're about to welcome a new admin next year, after the May 2022 Philippine National Elections, this is her now about Bong Bong Marcos and PRRD's accusations or more like, shading of him in the media regarding his drug use (cocaine):
It's not even 2 or 3 years in since she condemned people, especially those who don't have much, for using and suddenly someone well-known for all the alarming and wrong reasons come in and run for the 2022 elections and get shaded by the current admin's head for using cocaine and she's all, it's alright to use?
The right and the pro-admin people here and especially abroad are known for mental gymnastics like this. This is a sad case because she, if I'm not mistaken, is a lawyer and she doesn't get it at all. Sometimes I wonder...Ilda and her husband, Benign0 are in Australia, this one is in Canada...they are miles and miles away from here, the Philippines and they like to talk as if they know a lot of what's going on here enough to express opinions on things that really aren't...very desirable and agreeable to a lot of us here in the Philippines.
The right like to twist things around and make stories that aren't at all true and use those to destroy people they don't like. Their primary targets are who are, to them, "dilawan" and just about anyone questioning what's happening in the Philippines, the opposition and just about anyone that do not side with them.
It's definitely not just these three that are based abroad but we have a good number like this here in our country, too. Mocha Uson is one, Sassot is another and more.
I don't get how anyone can buy into their peddled lies and the likes although I do understand the Filipino community abroad being out of touch especially the immigrants, like the ones that married foreigners and settled there for example. But yes, a lot of people do buy into whatever it is they say on social media, their blogs and more as if they're gospel truth. The truth is: they're not. They're all really very faulty opinions, facts twisted all devoid of good, desirable values plus all they know is to incite troll armies to do the same: attack people who go against them, their beloved admin and more.
These people are the face of the right here in the Philippines and they, if I'm not mistaken, have been around since 2016 or maybe even before 2016.
I'm not saying they fully caused the downfall of the Liberal Party sometime between 2015 and 2016 because it was this time that a lot of destructive memes, slogans and the likes were vigorously, continuously, constantly thrown against them to discredit their good work and values, even their very progressive platforms. What I'm saying is that they played a large part in the LP's downfall and demonized good people that only sought to serve others, their consitituents well once elected.
The lies and such they spew continue today because it seems that through all of this, they've effectively built an alternate reality they live in completely opposite of the one a lot of us are in. Clearly, they've ceased living in the real world with every false thing they throw out eating them every tweet, every post and more they put out in social media, their blogs and more.
There are some good people fighting against them and fact checking them as constantly and consistently possible but way back 2015-2016 and even 2017, these weren't as much as they are now especially in the Twitter landscape. I only know of one so far, Pinoy Ako Blog or PAB ( @PinoyAkoBlog on twitter) and she and Sassot are constantly headbutting one another merely because the latter is envious of some international news outlets like BBC reaching out to her (PAB, definitely, not Sassot).
One thing though is that I hope we are quick to go after these people the minute they speak such vile things about the opposition and us here in the Philippines that are actually in touch with reality. Or at least, we are quick to understand that there are a lot of lies they speak of and we take it upon ourselves to fact check those they say ASAP before things get worse or we get eaten up in their web of lies as well.
I know more people that I can count with my fingers who have been eating up by the lies they spread. I think there's even more especially in the public workplaces here in the Philippines. A lot of them are in the public schools, the state universities (as per a friend of mine revealed to me on discord. She works in a state university), and even the government hospitals (I have some friends there too that tell me the same or at least, I can deduce from what they say to me when we hang out and chitchat or so somewhere). Most of these people I know of have one thing in common: facebook accounts.
Destructive, Fake News-carrying Facebook/Social Media Memes
This circles us back to how Philippines is patient zero in the spread of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda. You actually get a feel of this there well because you first hand see a lot of destructive memes passed around targetting people who have nothing to do with anything or anyone---those that are minding their own and doing their jobs as asked of them (and even very efficiently so, I might add). I've seen those a lot in comments sections of news beats posts from news outlets like here in the locale, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (the PDI, which is a newspaper), Rappler and more. I betcha even the lot of tiny alternative media coming out these days have those in their comments section too. Examples of some alt news media out today are Altermidya, Bulatlat and more. They're especially in large among commenters in the presidential polls. A lot of these memes, if they're not attacking anyone, carry a lot of "facts" that aren't at all true.
This one is an example:
Well, it's not exactly a meme but close. It's a facebook post and I can tell a lot of these are lies from the Tallano Gold thing to the Nostradamus prohecy of his win on number 8. I have a book of Nostradamus' prophecies and while I'm really too lazy to read all of that (the book is quite thick and also, a lot of it seem to be written in old english so someone used to modern english like me may have a difficult time understanding its contetns) to see if indeed, his running for elections and winning 2022 Philippine Nationa Elections is indeed prophesied in there...I'd read from someone who reviewed an ebook or was it an app? that contains Nostradamus' prophecies on google play that his candidacy and subsequent win were never prophesied in there. lol.
It's not just PAB now who's doing the calling out, fact checking and more of these people---whether they are big personalities with equally huge followings or regular, everyday people with smaller followings to match in social media---now. There are also the likes of Salt and Reality ( @SaltandReality on Twitter) and BIENsays ( @BIENsays on twitter and facebook and even now on youtube!!) fighitng them off with a lo of well-researched twitter threads, facebook posts, youtube uploads and more that are more factual than the pro-admin social media people put out. Salt and Reality focuses on exposing the Marcoses for what they truly are: a vile family. He uses tidbits of what he can find about them in books, firsthand accounts recounted in blogs of dealing with a member of their families and supplements them with articles from reputed news sites like the Washington Post and more to support such bits and pieces of exposes. BIENSays is all over the place but mostly targets some shady personnel in the admin and especially those that are talked of in the news here and there that may slip one's radar.
I do kind of do the same but I prefer to just quote retweet, retweet, screenshot tweets and post them on instagram stories (sometimes on facebook but most of the time, I'm not really there at all anymore now anyway and am looking to deactivate soon so...lol) and comment on them along the way. Kind of like a news commentary of some sort but not really because most of what I say are what I think of them (opinions). You can follow me on Twitter ( @kg_0917) for such tweets, qrts, commentaries and my instagram at @kristagraces_17 for the instagram stories. This is my tiny contribution to the fight against disinformation, misinformation, fake news and propaganda in addition to...well...this series of blog posts.
How to Deal with such Comments, Memes etc.
Okay, so how do we deal with such people like the Filipino couple that are Australia-based and the Canadian TishaCM? We ignore them like we ignore the likes of Mocha Uson, Jam Magno, and even MMDA's Pielago.
Some of their tweets do make it into my feed but mostly it's the screenshots of those said tweets with the lies they spew and peddle to people (those eaten up so easily by the very gullible, too) and they usually come with snarky commentary from people who've learned to criticize and question whatever they say in there. lol. I usually prefer not to give them any mileage in my feed and keep my twitter account, the one linked here, be about all the good things: fandom, fangirling, some real life tidbits and some socio-political or political tweets, commentaries and the likes here and there.
*****
On Populism and Radical Love
Before we go onto the next one which is populism, I'd like us to look into what exactly populism is first:
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I just googled it and this is the first thing that came to my attention.
Populism is a fairly new term and even I find this one difficult to understand at times, still. Like, I would consider PRRD's views on drug use (his "I HATE drugs" which something he always says when asked about the drug war or just to say something about it and its state or how it is in the country now) and his drug war which has a lot of people agreeing with him and even admiring him for this being populist. Only a few of us ever consider the drug war a vile thing that targets only the poor and never really favors them at all. I would also consider PRRD's promises, like, about traffic in the National Capital Region (NCR) being fixed in 6 months quite populist. He made the latter promise along with some others early into his presidency and even during the 2016 Philippine national elections campaign period.
With this in mind, I wouldn't exactly think of radical love (or simply, just showing people kindness or being kind to people) populist, as the extreme left claim it to be.
I had to comment or speak up my mind about this one because I came across some people on twitter criticizing this of VP Leni and company's to be quite populist because I don't really see it being so. Some people have been linking others to this opinion piece on the National News on how radical love or simply just being kind to people around you might be pushed back on or may fail as a political strategy to win a lot of people over. The ones that were buzzing around about this are from the extreme left as I've mentioned earlier.
I do agree with the opinion piece here, if it is insincere and just done for the sake of politics, winning the elections, primarily, and alienates one camp, the other one, two, maybe more against them, then it may fail. It can happen here in the Philippines. Rather than radical love, however, I think the version of this here under the PRRD admin is discipline. I know many people who like PRRD and the admin voted for them in 2016 because they wanted a more organized, disciplined Filipino nation or society and many look to how Davao City is under the Dutertes for this. Well, how did that one fare, exactly? It's already falling apart now that we're nearing 2022 and a new admin is about to come in once national election winners are decided next year.
Our VP and the volunteers are working under this, radical love and showing kindness to people. You can tell so because they're helping one another on social media just as they are out of it, calling onto many to raise funds for people who have very little that they care about. Some don't even try to incite trouble or arguments with the ones from the other camp and instead engage them and invite them to whatever drives they do like the pa-lugaw (this is where people, VP's volunteers cook rice porridge or lugaw and feed a lot that they can with them, especially the less privileged) events that are happening all over the Philippines today. There are more, of course.
This kind of radical love, I think, is the one preached by the Roman Catholic church here because in the time I was kind of a devout, way, waaaayyy back in the distant past, I recall a lot of Jesuit priests and scholars I admired and continue to admire 'til now talking about and preaching this to people in their mass' homilies. It is genuine, to me, most of it, and it reflects also the decency of our VP, her running mates (those mostly in the Liberal Party or the LP) and the people that support them (their volunteers and more). I don't feel it at all being quite alienating. If it were, I don't think much of us would be here, doing what we can to fight of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, propaganda and the likes. This is also part of radical love. To call out someone when someone does wrong like spreading lies and twisting things around is radical love.
In the Philippine context, it definitely doesn't feel like it's only for politics. To me, specifically, it is a way of life. I'm pretty kind and agreeable to or with a lot of people, for example (someone even mistook it as me liking him. lol. when I'm really just like that, in real life. I try to take care of people when I can, however way I can). It is something that people practice actually and I'm not entirely sure for the pro-admin people but I'm sure they may be practicing this as well...in some way.
It is not inclusive to just the VP, her running mates, her supporters, volunteers and all but I'm seeing it as something more exclusive. Painting the Philippines pink is something I can truly get behind because my values align with it...even if pink isn't my favorite color and blue is. lol. So no, I don't think I'll ever understand people from either the extreme left or the right criticizing this movement our VP's supporters started (it never started with her, by the way, it started with the volunteers and it has been going on for a while, maybe since last year that I was on Philippine socio-political and/or political Twitter).
To me, it's definitely something quite admirable and I think should be so especially to those Roman Catholics like me who've heard of this at church, too. It definitely is something that we should embody and live, too, as we go on our day to day lives like normal. Random acts of kindness. It doesn't really take that much to be kind like this and decent to people, as well, is what I think.
I think a lot of things can be populist like radical love, disciplining people, and so on. I don't think, however, here in the Philippines, radical love that's also taught by the Roman Catholic church can be populist and used merely for personal gains by politicians in office and those running for office. There are exemplars I'm seeing that actually make this a lifestyle in government and one of those is VP Leni and Pasig City's Mayor Vico Sotto. I'm sure there are more I failed to mention here but those two are the ones that truly stand out on this I am easily aware of because of what they do in real life and what they say or report in social media as well as the demeanor, faces they show us in the news or mainstream media. It wouldn't take that much to click for most that this isn't elitist at all and alienating. It's actually warm and pretty inclusive here and it's extendable to just about everyone including those who are, let's say, pretty much against us from the get-go (those bloggers I've talked of here, included).
(Some information before we start this...err...rant or whatever this post in this series is: we, in the Philippines, are patient zero where fake news and its spread is concerned today. It's not long ago that news about us being so came out and thankfully, now, we have a good number of people fighting the spread of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda on a lot of social media platforms open to us here in the Philippines to use like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Tiktok. To know more about this, probably even how it came to be and confirm this, you check out articles about this like this one from Buzzfeed, this one from thenewslens, and even this one from the LA Times that says, well, definitely have troll farms here. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there're still many local or domestic and international news sites reporting about this as we speak.)
Let's recall quickly that in the first part of this blog series, we covered the fighting between the left and the left. This time, we'll talk about the left vs the right and touch up a bit more on the left vs left especially where populism is concerned because there's still something about this that bugs me a lot.
A Primer on the Right
While the left is on the side of truth and the people that see, hear, feel, smell, sense and experience it and speak of it, the right is all about twisting things around to suit their selfish purposes...as well as whoever it is they align themselves with in national, global, local politics and more.
They are the best at spotting the tiniest misstep the left makes and taking cue from the left's critiquing of about everything they find wrong in governance and such, they on the right would take that a notch up and twist a lot of things about such missteps to make people that especially follow them believe: ah, this is right when it's actually become so preposterous to the left they hardly believe it is so. It's hard to actually explain what the right does to whatever comes into their radar because...well...even they are really hard to understand and I wonder if they even understand whatever it is they spew to the public in their social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and more.
I'll give some examples instead to make things easier to understand.
Let's use Tishacm as an example on how the right view drugs and drug use:
This is her on drug use and on PRRD and his admin's war on drugs that is, by the way, still going on here. This was 2017.
If you find this difficult to read, it says: "It's irresponsible to glamoriaze the casual use of drugs to promote a low perception of harm. Such a shame that one has to resort to drug-iduced false sense of well-being. Good for her that she can afford her fix but some people would steal to fund their habits. All for naught..." This is a tweet rquoting a blog of Ilda's (Ilda_talk), the 1/2 of a DDS couple "blogger" based in Australia about Rapper promoting the use of illegal drugs (but are they, really?).
This is also her in just early to middle of last year talking defending PRRD admin's drug war about it being accused of targetting the poor...which is the truth by the way. Until now, we still haven't heard of news of any druglord's case being discussed in court televised here. There are many druglords here, too, that continue to freely roam around the country and even go in and out of it. Also, someone high up the Pharmally chain being talked of in the senate blue ribbon committee aired on tv is said to tied with the drug syndicate or industry here oh and worse, the killer of a girl artist, just got scott free of charges, imprisonment despite having been said to be using drugs. The surname of said killer? Ongpin.
Now that the PRRD admin is about to come to a close and we're about to welcome a new admin next year, after the May 2022 Philippine National Elections, this is her now about Bong Bong Marcos and PRRD's accusations or more like, shading of him in the media regarding his drug use (cocaine):
It's not even 2 or 3 years in since she condemned people, especially those who don't have much, for using and suddenly someone well-known for all the alarming and wrong reasons come in and run for the 2022 elections and get shaded by the current admin's head for using cocaine and she's all, it's alright to use?
The right and the pro-admin people here and especially abroad are known for mental gymnastics like this. This is a sad case because she, if I'm not mistaken, is a lawyer and she doesn't get it at all. Sometimes I wonder...Ilda and her husband, Benign0 are in Australia, this one is in Canada...they are miles and miles away from here, the Philippines and they like to talk as if they know a lot of what's going on here enough to express opinions on things that really aren't...very desirable and agreeable to a lot of us here in the Philippines.
The right like to twist things around and make stories that aren't at all true and use those to destroy people they don't like. Their primary targets are who are, to them, "dilawan" and just about anyone questioning what's happening in the Philippines, the opposition and just about anyone that do not side with them.
It's definitely not just these three that are based abroad but we have a good number like this here in our country, too. Mocha Uson is one, Sassot is another and more.
I don't get how anyone can buy into their peddled lies and the likes although I do understand the Filipino community abroad being out of touch especially the immigrants, like the ones that married foreigners and settled there for example. But yes, a lot of people do buy into whatever it is they say on social media, their blogs and more as if they're gospel truth. The truth is: they're not. They're all really very faulty opinions, facts twisted all devoid of good, desirable values plus all they know is to incite troll armies to do the same: attack people who go against them, their beloved admin and more.
These people are the face of the right here in the Philippines and they, if I'm not mistaken, have been around since 2016 or maybe even before 2016.
I'm not saying they fully caused the downfall of the Liberal Party sometime between 2015 and 2016 because it was this time that a lot of destructive memes, slogans and the likes were vigorously, continuously, constantly thrown against them to discredit their good work and values, even their very progressive platforms. What I'm saying is that they played a large part in the LP's downfall and demonized good people that only sought to serve others, their consitituents well once elected.
The lies and such they spew continue today because it seems that through all of this, they've effectively built an alternate reality they live in completely opposite of the one a lot of us are in. Clearly, they've ceased living in the real world with every false thing they throw out eating them every tweet, every post and more they put out in social media, their blogs and more.
There are some good people fighting against them and fact checking them as constantly and consistently possible but way back 2015-2016 and even 2017, these weren't as much as they are now especially in the Twitter landscape. I only know of one so far, Pinoy Ako Blog or PAB ( @PinoyAkoBlog on twitter) and she and Sassot are constantly headbutting one another merely because the latter is envious of some international news outlets like BBC reaching out to her (PAB, definitely, not Sassot).
One thing though is that I hope we are quick to go after these people the minute they speak such vile things about the opposition and us here in the Philippines that are actually in touch with reality. Or at least, we are quick to understand that there are a lot of lies they speak of and we take it upon ourselves to fact check those they say ASAP before things get worse or we get eaten up in their web of lies as well.
I know more people that I can count with my fingers who have been eating up by the lies they spread. I think there's even more especially in the public workplaces here in the Philippines. A lot of them are in the public schools, the state universities (as per a friend of mine revealed to me on discord. She works in a state university), and even the government hospitals (I have some friends there too that tell me the same or at least, I can deduce from what they say to me when we hang out and chitchat or so somewhere). Most of these people I know of have one thing in common: facebook accounts.
Destructive, Fake News-carrying Facebook/Social Media Memes
This circles us back to how Philippines is patient zero in the spread of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda. You actually get a feel of this there well because you first hand see a lot of destructive memes passed around targetting people who have nothing to do with anything or anyone---those that are minding their own and doing their jobs as asked of them (and even very efficiently so, I might add). I've seen those a lot in comments sections of news beats posts from news outlets like here in the locale, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (the PDI, which is a newspaper), Rappler and more. I betcha even the lot of tiny alternative media coming out these days have those in their comments section too. Examples of some alt news media out today are Altermidya, Bulatlat and more. They're especially in large among commenters in the presidential polls. A lot of these memes, if they're not attacking anyone, carry a lot of "facts" that aren't at all true.
This one is an example:
Well, it's not exactly a meme but close. It's a facebook post and I can tell a lot of these are lies from the Tallano Gold thing to the Nostradamus prohecy of his win on number 8. I have a book of Nostradamus' prophecies and while I'm really too lazy to read all of that (the book is quite thick and also, a lot of it seem to be written in old english so someone used to modern english like me may have a difficult time understanding its contetns) to see if indeed, his running for elections and winning 2022 Philippine Nationa Elections is indeed prophesied in there...I'd read from someone who reviewed an ebook or was it an app? that contains Nostradamus' prophecies on google play that his candidacy and subsequent win were never prophesied in there. lol.
It's not just PAB now who's doing the calling out, fact checking and more of these people---whether they are big personalities with equally huge followings or regular, everyday people with smaller followings to match in social media---now. There are also the likes of Salt and Reality ( @SaltandReality on Twitter) and BIENsays ( @BIENsays on twitter and facebook and even now on youtube!!) fighitng them off with a lo of well-researched twitter threads, facebook posts, youtube uploads and more that are more factual than the pro-admin social media people put out. Salt and Reality focuses on exposing the Marcoses for what they truly are: a vile family. He uses tidbits of what he can find about them in books, firsthand accounts recounted in blogs of dealing with a member of their families and supplements them with articles from reputed news sites like the Washington Post and more to support such bits and pieces of exposes. BIENSays is all over the place but mostly targets some shady personnel in the admin and especially those that are talked of in the news here and there that may slip one's radar.
I do kind of do the same but I prefer to just quote retweet, retweet, screenshot tweets and post them on instagram stories (sometimes on facebook but most of the time, I'm not really there at all anymore now anyway and am looking to deactivate soon so...lol) and comment on them along the way. Kind of like a news commentary of some sort but not really because most of what I say are what I think of them (opinions). You can follow me on Twitter ( @kg_0917) for such tweets, qrts, commentaries and my instagram at @kristagraces_17 for the instagram stories. This is my tiny contribution to the fight against disinformation, misinformation, fake news and propaganda in addition to...well...this series of blog posts.
How to Deal with such Comments, Memes etc.
Okay, so how do we deal with such people like the Filipino couple that are Australia-based and the Canadian TishaCM? We ignore them like we ignore the likes of Mocha Uson, Jam Magno, and even MMDA's Pielago.
Some of their tweets do make it into my feed but mostly it's the screenshots of those said tweets with the lies they spew and peddle to people (those eaten up so easily by the very gullible, too) and they usually come with snarky commentary from people who've learned to criticize and question whatever they say in there. lol. I usually prefer not to give them any mileage in my feed and keep my twitter account, the one linked here, be about all the good things: fandom, fangirling, some real life tidbits and some socio-political or political tweets, commentaries and the likes here and there.
*****
On Populism and Radical Love
Before we go onto the next one which is populism, I'd like us to look into what exactly populism is first:
I just googled it and this is the first thing that came to my attention.
Populism is a fairly new term and even I find this one difficult to understand at times, still. Like, I would consider PRRD's views on drug use (his "I HATE drugs" which something he always says when asked about the drug war or just to say something about it and its state or how it is in the country now) and his drug war which has a lot of people agreeing with him and even admiring him for this being populist. Only a few of us ever consider the drug war a vile thing that targets only the poor and never really favors them at all. I would also consider PRRD's promises, like, about traffic in the National Capital Region (NCR) being fixed in 6 months quite populist. He made the latter promise along with some others early into his presidency and even during the 2016 Philippine national elections campaign period.
With this in mind, I wouldn't exactly think of radical love (or simply, just showing people kindness or being kind to people) populist, as the extreme left claim it to be.
I had to comment or speak up my mind about this one because I came across some people on twitter criticizing this of VP Leni and company's to be quite populist because I don't really see it being so. Some people have been linking others to this opinion piece on the National News on how radical love or simply just being kind to people around you might be pushed back on or may fail as a political strategy to win a lot of people over. The ones that were buzzing around about this are from the extreme left as I've mentioned earlier.
I do agree with the opinion piece here, if it is insincere and just done for the sake of politics, winning the elections, primarily, and alienates one camp, the other one, two, maybe more against them, then it may fail. It can happen here in the Philippines. Rather than radical love, however, I think the version of this here under the PRRD admin is discipline. I know many people who like PRRD and the admin voted for them in 2016 because they wanted a more organized, disciplined Filipino nation or society and many look to how Davao City is under the Dutertes for this. Well, how did that one fare, exactly? It's already falling apart now that we're nearing 2022 and a new admin is about to come in once national election winners are decided next year.
Our VP and the volunteers are working under this, radical love and showing kindness to people. You can tell so because they're helping one another on social media just as they are out of it, calling onto many to raise funds for people who have very little that they care about. Some don't even try to incite trouble or arguments with the ones from the other camp and instead engage them and invite them to whatever drives they do like the pa-lugaw (this is where people, VP's volunteers cook rice porridge or lugaw and feed a lot that they can with them, especially the less privileged) events that are happening all over the Philippines today. There are more, of course.
This kind of radical love, I think, is the one preached by the Roman Catholic church here because in the time I was kind of a devout, way, waaaayyy back in the distant past, I recall a lot of Jesuit priests and scholars I admired and continue to admire 'til now talking about and preaching this to people in their mass' homilies. It is genuine, to me, most of it, and it reflects also the decency of our VP, her running mates (those mostly in the Liberal Party or the LP) and the people that support them (their volunteers and more). I don't feel it at all being quite alienating. If it were, I don't think much of us would be here, doing what we can to fight of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, propaganda and the likes. This is also part of radical love. To call out someone when someone does wrong like spreading lies and twisting things around is radical love.
In the Philippine context, it definitely doesn't feel like it's only for politics. To me, specifically, it is a way of life. I'm pretty kind and agreeable to or with a lot of people, for example (someone even mistook it as me liking him. lol. when I'm really just like that, in real life. I try to take care of people when I can, however way I can). It is something that people practice actually and I'm not entirely sure for the pro-admin people but I'm sure they may be practicing this as well...in some way.
It is not inclusive to just the VP, her running mates, her supporters, volunteers and all but I'm seeing it as something more exclusive. Painting the Philippines pink is something I can truly get behind because my values align with it...even if pink isn't my favorite color and blue is. lol. So no, I don't think I'll ever understand people from either the extreme left or the right criticizing this movement our VP's supporters started (it never started with her, by the way, it started with the volunteers and it has been going on for a while, maybe since last year that I was on Philippine socio-political and/or political Twitter).
To me, it's definitely something quite admirable and I think should be so especially to those Roman Catholics like me who've heard of this at church, too. It definitely is something that we should embody and live, too, as we go on our day to day lives like normal. Random acts of kindness. It doesn't really take that much to be kind like this and decent to people, as well, is what I think.
I think a lot of things can be populist like radical love, disciplining people, and so on. I don't think, however, here in the Philippines, radical love that's also taught by the Roman Catholic church can be populist and used merely for personal gains by politicians in office and those running for office. There are exemplars I'm seeing that actually make this a lifestyle in government and one of those is VP Leni and Pasig City's Mayor Vico Sotto. I'm sure there are more I failed to mention here but those two are the ones that truly stand out on this I am easily aware of because of what they do in real life and what they say or report in social media as well as the demeanor, faces they show us in the news or mainstream media. It wouldn't take that much to click for most that this isn't elitist at all and alienating. It's actually warm and pretty inclusive here and it's extendable to just about everyone including those who are, let's say, pretty much against us from the get-go (those bloggers I've talked of here, included).