16/05/2026
In the middle of the political chaos unfolding in the Philippines today—from the ongoing conflict between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties, impeachment trials, corruption allegations, ICC-related controversies, political theatrics, the recent shooting incident in the Senate, and the endless cycle of propaganda—there is one question every ordinary Filipino should ask themselves and each other:
IF YOU ARE STILL NOT ANGRY, WHY?
Not the kind of anger that is blind or purely emotional. This is the kind of anger born from awareness—an anger that comes from recognizing that the country’s entire political system seems to revolve around the power struggles of a few elite families, while ordinary citizens like you and me continue to suffer under the same broken conditions, generation after generation.
While millions of Filipinos squeeze themselves into overcrowded public transportation every day, endure low wages, rising prices, and collapsing social services, the national conversation constantly revolves around which political personality or elite faction will dominate the next election cycle. Politics has become a television drama of surnames and personalities instead of a democratic process genuinely centered on the people.
The current conflict between Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte is not simply a battle between “good and evil,” nor merely the shallow rhetoric of “darkness versus evilness” often thrown around in public discourse. It is a clear example of a struggle within the ruling class itself—a competition for control over the state and political power. The state, from the very beginning, has never been entirely neutral. It functions as an instrument of power: a mechanism used to preserve authority and the dominance of ruling elites in society.
When we look at the current situation, the cycle becomes painfully obvious: political dynasties exchange positions, alliances shift, and rival factions rise and fall—yet the lives of ordinary people remain largely unchanged.
If you are allied with the administration, it is called the “rule of law.”
If you are in opposition, it becomes “political persecution.”
But if you are an ordinary citizen, you lose either way.
Meanwhile, as the Senate increasingly turns into a stage for political drama surrounding Sara Duterte’s impeachment issues and ICC-related controversies involving figures like Bato dela Rosa, the crisis of credibility and legitimacy within our institutions only deepens.
What is even more alarming is not merely corruption or incompetence—but the normalization of both. Filipinos are slowly becoming desensitized to absurdity itself. Scandals become memes. Abuse becomes viral content. National crises become algorithm-driven entertainment while the public waits for the next trending topic to replace the previous outrage.
And this leads to the most important question of all:
Why does our collective anger seem to be disappearing?
Perhaps because we have long been conditioned to believe that politics belongs only to politicians—that the people’s role is merely to vote every three or six years and then return to silence afterward. Citizens have been reduced to passive audiences, encouraged to remain dependent on political patronage instead of becoming active participants in shaping society itself. Over time, this has produced widespread political numbness.
This is precisely the criticism long emphasized by libertarian democratic thought: that genuine democracy cannot be reduced merely to elections and representation. The moment people surrender direct participation to a handful of “representatives” who endlessly recycle promises about serving public interests, political power and decision-making begin drifting farther away from the people themselves.
What is happening in the Philippines is neither accidental nor new. Most political parties in the country revolve around personalities and family brands—as though political loyalty has become a form of worship. Ideology and principles are weak because patronage politics dominates the system. The state no longer functions as a collective instrument of the people but as a network of political sponsors, business interests, and survival mechanisms for elites.
Meanwhile, ordinary Filipinos are constantly taught to endure: endure hunger, endure corruption, endure low wages, endure the loss of dignity, endure the failures of society itself.
And when people become angry, they are labeled “negative” or immediately branded as radicals. When they ask questions, they are accused of destabilizing the nation. When they demand accountability, they are told they are dividing the country.
But no real change has ever happened without anger.
It was the people’s anger that fueled the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the father of Bongbong Marcos. It was anger that awakened many Filipinos to oppose the extrajudicial killings during Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war. And it may be this same anger that once again forces people to realize that simply replacing one ruling family with another will never be enough.
From a libertarian democratic perspective, the problem is not merely Marcos or Duterte as individuals or families. The deeper problem is the very structure that continually produces leaders like them—a centralized, elitist, bureaucratic political system built upon dynasties, patronage, and massive social inequality.
As long as power remains concentrated in the hands of a few families and institutions, the country will continue moving in circles, trapped in recurring crises regardless of which political faction is currently in power.
So perhaps the real question is no longer:
“Who should lead the country to fix it?”
But rather:
Why do we keep waiting for someone to save us from collapse?
What if genuine change will not come from Malacañang, the Senate, or Congress?
What if it begins from below—from communities, workers, students, teachers, farmers, fisherfolk, and ordinary citizens learning to organize for themselves and for one another without depending on traditional politicians, political messiahs, or the machinery of the state?
Because if there is one thing the current political circus in the Philippines should teach us, it is this:
When politics is controlled by a handful of powerful families who weaponize the state for their own interests, democracy risks becoming little more than an illusion—a performance staged for the public.
And if you still are not angry after seeing all of this…
perhaps we have already become too accustomed to decay.
