Thread by @mlq3

Take a deep breath and step back. There is a logical explanation for (most) everything. You just have to look hard enough with an open mind and ask the relevant questions. So, here are some readings (quotes) to help in post-mortem each voter should undertake after each election.

First start with Randy David and his summary of where he believed we, as an electorate/society, stood back in 2009. Ask yourself if the fundamental tensions/problems he identified have been resolved or gotten more intense. Note David's and Mangahas' observations on protesting.

Consider political dynasties having an increasingly difficult time surviving, even if they cut deals with each other to reduce competition (when they fail, they go extinct, see Estrada in San Juan/Manila). Some years back Randy David suggested dynasties aren't the core problem.

Consider a Filipino historian, Mina Roces, who asked: why do corrupt win when the public says it's anti-corrupt? She suggested looking at our entire society, rich and poor, through the prism of "Malakas at Mahina," our real, age-old values. (Long but thoughtful read!)

You also have to consider that for all presidents and administrations from day one, the measure of achievement and success are twofold: "fixing" problems and maintaining order (both, incidentally, are also considered proofs of empathy). This cuts across classes. Here's why:

Final point, logistics: all we have are official numbers, everyone else has partial numbers, so all non-administration groups are blind men describing the elephant. Who registered? Where? Did they show up? Who were paid, how much, did they carry out the corrupt bargain? Who knows

and there lies the ultimate problem and why still no solution. Yet in a kind of organic, but slow, yet steady seismic shift, we're seeing signs of the Old Guard being increasingly uncompetitive locally, at the very least to the extent they are cannibalizing each other but each

dino left standing is actually weaker as the other dinosaurs went extinct. We know, not specifically, but have a hunch, there were times even the admin got nervous so that they had to keep lashing out and may have done more (Go might be explainable; Tolentino is not) to slam-dunk

Doesn't seem productive to lash out at the very electorate you were encouraging to discover the merits of an independent senate. Three years is both a long and short time in politics --and we may all have to go out and campaign in a Constitutional plebiscite soon enough.

So the collision between the old and the new is what Randy David calls "The Crisis of Modernity." It is larger than mere clashes of personalities. It's a fundamental fork in the road about what we will become. To understand it is to start seeing what a way forward will require.

As I said in my pre-election thread, this is the collision taking place within the ranks of the admin and the larger game plan that led to that admin winning and where it will focus its energies in years to come: to keep us in the past to defeat modernity. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1127082…

P.S. I do think Randy David was too hopeful in one respect: the effect exposure abroad would have on OFWs. If OFWs were in Western Europe maybe. But instead, foreign exposure has been to dictatorial regimes in Asia and the Middle East and an America lurching to the right.

P.P.S. To cheer you up, read what Luigi Barzini wrote about his countrymen, the Italians (and the Chinese). We're not alone. quezon.ph/2007/03/26/we-…