Populist logic

PAREDES

In his trademark knack for making statements that may shock and yet also validate popular opinion, President Rodrigo Duterte recently admitted before a group of rebel returnees that, yes, he is a dictator and that he needs to be one in order to get things done.

It is an appalling admission, even if uttered tongue-in-cheek, given all his other authoritarian tendencies that critics find alarming. And yet, he could say such words with confidence, knowing that Filipinos voted for him exactly because they wanted a strong leader, never mind if that leader would turn out to be a dictator, to enforce his promised “change” with an iron fist.

He has been testing the waters since the start of his administration to see if Filipinos are ready for his brand of leadership, which he sampled in Davao City when he ran it as Mayor. To preempt critics of his brutal war on drugs, he positioned human rights in the public mind as an obstacle to the campaign against criminality. He publicly threatened every media outfit that is critical of his administration and even jailed a opposition senator who is one of his staunchest critics.

Taking advantage of the Presidential podium and his high popularity ratings, he made several revisionist remarks about history and allowed a hero’s burial for the deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whom he professed several times to admire and emulate. Following Marcos, he also made his own declaration of Martial Law, albeit only in Mindanao, extending it to one year in stark violation of what the Constitution mandates. And, recently, he wants to change that very Constitution, which for him was crafted out of the trauma and over-reaction to Martial Law.

Such deliberate attacks on the democratic institutions demand close scrutiny for one to be fully aware of their dangers. And yet, most people have no patience to go through the whole complexity of the issues. They are too impatient for analysis. Instead, they are drawn to all forms of oversimplifications and reductionist logic.

The public are easily hooked by anything that seems to support their own biases or reflect their sentiment, especially if they are articulated in the simplest language with even the least semblance of logic. This explains the popularity of fake news hiding in the form of memes, a viral video, or a short post from a widely followed but discreetly paid political influencer. One of these influencers, a staunch supporter of the President who claims to have millions of followers, now sits as top government propagandist.

Rousing public emotion in favor of the President is the main job of state propagandists. And, in order to achieve this with great results, combined use of government-owned media and the social network has been the preferred strategy. The choice of appeal is emotional, aimed at the heart more than the head. And when a position needs justification, a shortcut to the simplest conclusion, often employing fallacies that have the semblance of reasoning, is employed.

For example, as a matter of policy, the government insists on trusting China’s good faith that it will never occupy our islands even as it is very clear that it has continued to build military installations there. And as if to turn the other cheek after one has been slapped on the face, the government allowed China to conduct underwater exploration and reconnaissance in the guise of doing joint research inside our territories.

But the most glaring use of simplistic logic is when Malacañang said recently that the country need not worry about China’s Military buildup in the West Philippine Sea as they will eventually acquire those facilities after China will have abandoned them in the future. This is totally playing blind to China’s recent track record of aggressions and expansionist tendencies.

As when it was caught red-handed after satellite photos indicated it kept supplying North Korean boats with oil despite its official endorsement of the United Nation’s sanctions, we know we cannot always trust Beijing to keep her promises. But even that doesn’t shatter the President’s trust in the good faith of his newfound close friend. It’s not judgment formed by reasoning. It’s blind faith.

But whereas most statesmen of modern democracies aspire to the Enlightenment ideal of being men of reason fully committed to the rule of law, discernment is not usually a quality common among dictators or those wishing to be. They are skilled manipulators of public emotion and hate any claims to civility.

Apparently, the president delights at how the public are trying to figure out whether he is serious or not in his shocking sound bites and punchlines. Let’s what this self-proclaimed dictator aims to get done.