Thread by @sejoalzir

AN OPEN LETTER TO ROBREDO

Dear VP Leni,

It was around this time in 2015 when I wrote an open letter to Roxas that went viral. I suggested that he should change his campaign strategies and political messages. Unfortunately, I was attacked by his supporters, so I silenced myself.

This time, I won't be quiet. I'll be exhaustive. I'll make sure that this open letter won't be dismissed as a mere plethora of personal opinions. I'm doing this because I don't want another government of liars and thieves. My insistence is noble since all I want is a good leader.

First, your TV ad is awful. It's not inspiring. It's a trigger for depression. You want to fix the dying economy, but your hair looks dead. You want to save the hungry and the oppressed, but your face is ghostly. You look weak, sick, and tired. Our hope shouldn't look hopeless.

If you have a campaign strategist who has advised you to either make people laugh or cry, fire him--as soon as possible. It's already 2021. That outdated campaign strategy will not work in an era of social media, fake news, performative communications, and mass disinformation.

Also, dump those who tell you that radical love and calm positivity will defeat populist, nostalgic, paternalistic, and strongman politics. A culture shaped by patriarchy and machismo doesn't consider love and positivity masculine or strong. They belong in churches and convents.

I don't want to believe that you're recycling Roxas' losing campaign strategies and messages that were also calm and collected, but your campaign looks that way. His "disente" and "tuwid na daan" were like your "radikal na pagmamahal"--virtuous, effete, conceited and ineffective.

Perhaps you're copying the calm strategies and positive messages of Noynoy Aquino in 2010 since Arroyo's and Duterte's administrations are models for corrupt governance and oppressive leadership, but there were no mass manipulations and political fakeries on social media then.

Noynoy Aquino won in 2010 also because his mother just died, and her death caused mass necrophilic political support from the voters who were entertained by emotional telenovelas and those heroes in their nostalgia and memory. VP Leni, you don't have that mourning scene for 2022.

It's possible that you want to do your calm campaign and positive messages in 2016 again, but your "Hail Mary" campaign then didn't make you win. Cayetano's candidacy defeated Marcos. The 2016 Davao Region election figures say so. Sadly, the Cayetano of 2022 already quit—Bong Go.

I'm not dismissing the fact that calm, loving, positive election campaigns do work, but that's for incumbents and current administrations' candidates like Arroyo in 2004 and Marcos now. They won't go berserk and negative. They have to project that they're above their opponents.

Winning positive strategies aren't really positive. In 2004, Arroyo ran a positive campaign, but his supporters did the dirty job of belittling Poe. The same thing will happen in 2022--Marcos is running a calm, positive campaign, while his rabid supporters are attacking Robredo.

A positive campaign strategy that's passive and doesn't attack or counter is for losers. Elections are wars without bombs and guns but minds and mouths. They aren't for saints. Even good, righteous leaders become sinners when they campaign and govern like saints after they win.

Now let me illustrate your ineffective campaign that'll only waste a political movement and suggest remedies using the cases in India and the US. Perhaps your people will defensively say that we're Filipinos, but the cases I'll cite are similar to what we have in the Philippines.

The 2022 election in the Philippines is following the Indian general election in 2019. There were two main contenders for prime ministership--Modi (paternalistic, nostalgic incumbent PM) and Gandhi (reformist, idealistic opposition leader), almost like Marcos versus Robredo now.

Modi and Gandhi projected love and positivity in their campaigns, but Modi's supporters used lies, insults, fabricated images, and fake news against Gandhi who didn't attack or counter. Like Robredo who is called "bobo", Gandhi, who went to Cambridge, was called pappu (child).

Like the education of Marcos, Modi's is so vague that many consider him semi-literate. Gandhi was so like Robredo--calm, love, positivity, reforms, development, etc. In the end, Modi won although his previous government reeked of corruption, cronyism, economic mismanagement, etc.

Two things can be learned from that Indian case: idealistic positivity and virtuous politics are losing strategies. Attacks and counterattacks are necessary to win an election in an era of social media, mass disinformation, and manufactured narratives. Passiveness is surrender.

Another thing happened in the 2019 Indian election campaign that sealed the win of Modi. There was a bombing incident in Kashmir. Before that, Gandhi looked competitive. After that incident, the majority of Indians opted for Modi. Gandhi's positivity and idealism came off weak.

I'm afraid the 2022 election will follow the path of the 2019 Indian election. An explosion in Manila will defeat Robredo who has been attacked as weak and dumb using manufactured images and fabricated narratives that are unanswered because of radical love and calm positivity.

Our country is misogynistic. Our culture demeans what isn't macho. Our collective consciousness degrades weaknesses. Our society is ruled by patriarchy. Oh, in our politics, women leaders are labeled as whores or lunatics and always as weaklings if they're not GROs of patriarchy.

VP Leni, you've been called "baliw" and "malandi", and the attacks have failed to define and ruin you because the people see what you really are as our vice president. Sadly, you still have another tag to deal with--"mahina". Radical love and calm positivity will reinforce that.

I'm not all about criticism. I also suggest. I offer alternatives. So, let me use Obama's campaign image and positive political campaign. Like you, Obama was a political outsider and he relied on his strong presidential image or on how people perceived him as a potential leader.

From the 2004 Democratic National Convention to the 2008 Presidential Election, Obama was about an image of strength--no drama, no clowning, but authenticity and audacity. During the 2008 election, he talked about hope and declared "Yes, we can", but he countered when attacked.

Obama's campaign in 2008 was, indeed, positive, inspiring, hopeful, and visionary, but his anti-Bush supporters were busy attacking Republicans and their capitalist allies and friends who made money out of coffins and body bags. They were noisy, livid, and effective. I was there.

Maybe your people will counter that my views are Americentric. Well, social media, black propaganda, fake news, manufactured images, and fabricated narratives are American inventions. Filipinos are just end-users. Political greed in Texas isn't different from that greed in Davao.

VP Leni, there's already a template for defeating populist demagogues and their hostile supporters like Trump and those MAGA "deplorables" in 2020, besides uniting. Movements, attacks and counterattacks online or offline and on social media or mainstream media worked for Biden.

Like you who are dismissed as "bobo" or "mahina", Biden was also attacked as old and senile, which didn't really spread and root even though it could be possible based on his age. That was so because anti-Trump forces weren't passive and weak. Every lie was countered with truths.

Biden had two movements: of blacks and of anti-Trump Republicans. Those movements were too far from radical love and calm positivity. Biden focused on policies and reforms, while his supporters made attacking Trump, Republicans, MAGA, QAnon their daily duty online and offline.

We should learn from Roxas' blunders in 2016. Because he believed in "disente" and "tuwid na daan", he and his supporters didn't attack Duterte's "3 to 6 months" and counter the fabricated images and narratives unleashed by DDS. Please don't let the Tallano Gold spread and root.

Here's my suggestion: Allow the Pink Movement to attack and counterattack. Separate yourself from that political aggression. Let that movement organize a Lincoln Project or Meidas Touch. Focus on policies and reforms. Your image should be of strength. After all, you are our hope.

I'm not really sure why you want radical love and calm positivity to define your campaign when you should be talking about corruption, cronyism, economic crisis, Chinese puppetry, mass hunger, ballooning poverty, etc. Any movement exists not for love and quiet. That's so sixties.

Even the silent salt march of the Mahatma or the non-violent protest of that black minister who had a dream wasn't passive or weak. Non-violence may be physically passive, but their struggle for freedom was aggressive. VP Leni, please don't waste the movement that's behind you.

Done.