‘Paasa’and the Duterte mirage

THAT is the word they use nowadays. The young ones use it to refer to the heightened disappointment of expectations that are not met. For the millennial generation steep in the ways of instant gratification, the let down of disappointment is to be avoided at all costs. That is why the young of today consider it a scourge to fall victim to someone who places others in such a sorry position.

The sociology behind this is easy to understand. It is all about the management of expectations in a world in constant social and economic crisis. The daily grind bring people from one state of emergency to another whether it be flooding or typhoon from an increasingly precarious environment modified by climate change or it could be the hurdles of the daily commute in the urban metropolis that is overpopulated and bursting at the seams.

A promise of reprieve no matter how brief or fleeting is an oasis in the desert, a welcome and necessary respite. And if this offer of relief turns out to be dud, can you imagine the political potential of such a backlash?

The “paasa” experience can also be easily transposed to analyze the current political field with Duterte at the helm. For many, especially coming from the progressive bloc, he has many expectations left unmet. He still enjoys a high degree of satisfaction from a citizenry on the edge with the ongoing Marawi siege but the fundamentals of a terrorized public and the same neoliberal policies that have created a persistent inequality in the population the past few decades are sure to break the mystification sooner or l at er.

Duterte did not come from out of the blue or fell from heaven as god’s gift to a broken political system. He is the main character at the tail-end of a finishing political narrative where he stands as the most recent representation of elite interests. The long story which has brought him to the presidency raised expectations and the high degree of disappointment when he failed to deliver are also indications of the special hope people placed on him. The Filipino people has suffered enough and far too long under the hands of the various iterations of the Philippine elite that anyone,

even a swearing self-confessed socialist from Davao will do when he was catapulted to office.

At the onset, he seemed like a fluke, a maverick when a section of the elite failed to place their scion to Malacañang. But predictably, it did not take long for the same interests to find their way into the new president’s graces. There is still no end to contractualization; the landlords still enjoy their hacienda; and the attacks on Lumad communities continue. It is actually better now that a supposed champion of the masses is pushing their agenda under the cover of his charisma. In order to become as such, he had to amp up his folksy appeal and court the military. In what is emerging merely as a ploy to deodorize his rightist policies, he has recruited personalities from the left to his cabinet. But while doing so, he also had to satiate the bloodthirsty camp among the population whose idea of order was the elimination of social undesirables through a kill list.

In the context of much progressive hope placed on the current administration at the onset, and how it has careened disappointingly to a militarist path one year hence, the political stakes are now so much higher and way more serious. Prodded by his difficult military campaign at present in Marawi where many of his soldiers have perished, he has asked them to prepare to train their guns on the other enemies of the State once the city is taken over.

To offer hope and promise and then squash these without regard for the pining and optimism of others and instead impose the iron hand as a fix-all measure actually opens up a critical avenue for deep-seated social disappointment to finally vent. The Filipino people are learning with every misstep and are merely biding their time. The “paasa” nature of this administration and the political backlash it is currently courting can actually lead to its own undoing in the near future. — Arnold P. Alamon