Revgov is the answer

For those still in doubt or hesitate to support Revgov for Duterte, remember that his dramatic election for change will fritter away unless he has the powers that he needs. Revgov opponents’ main concern is about the risks involved. But what human activity is without risk? None. The riskiest of all is having an unchanging status quo. We saw it. We experienced it. Corruption, crime and the war on drugs have been growing because of this reluctance to take the big step.

Duterte before his election as president thought so too. He did not want to be a candidate because he knew the risks involved and at the end of it he will be blamed no matter how hard he tried. But when he finally decided the Duterte crowds followed him everywhere to show their support. They wanted him to take up the challenge at whatever cost. They filled every space in his rallies to show that they were with him. He returned the compliment by saying to his supporters “If you want me to run all of you, must help. Walang atrasan, walang bibitaw mga ka DDS …”

Walang atrasan.

The Duterte crowds were everywhere, Filipinos fed up with the problems caused by the previous administration. Couple this with the effects of our colonization demanded a quick and effective response both from government and the citizenry. We have already been left behind by our neighbors in the region, and we have had a diminishing middle class but plenty of poor and our rich in Forbes list.

For me, Revgov began two years ago when I read about Iceland which crowdsourced for a new constitution.

“It was an innovation on how to use the Internet for a political revolution. It could be done they said because Iceland was a small country. When its citizens decided to unite to challenge its bankers and government leaders after the 2008 economic debacle (it all began in Iceland) it became a template for countries big and small on how to change government and reform it through constitutional change.”

I knew next to nothing about Iceland except it must be so cold it was covered with ice. When social activism first began there I saw pictures of its citizens seated around bonfires in the streets where they talked about what they could do together to help survive the crisis.

I had been an advocate of constitutional change for many years. Like many other advocates I thought this could be done through traditional means – by constitutional assembly (ie by Congress), constitutional convention (which would be manned by politicians or their relatives and friends), and people’s initiative, a version of the EDSA people power revolution by gathering a percentage of signatures. We tried it twice but found it could not be done. A congressman finally said to me, “this constitution cannot be changed.”

In hindsight, the groups who tried this route learned the precious lesson that it was a trick – the sovereign people would never be allowed to change the oligarch-designed and authored 1987 Constitution. We had tried. It was then that I thought of doing what was done in Iceland in the Philippines. Why not gather the people together who would suggest and propose the changes needed?

I read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change” in the New Yorker that said “a revolution cannot be tweeted.” He cited the Million March and the unforgettable speech of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream.” Gladwell believed there should be some physical connections before a crowd can be united into action for change. To me, that was the challenge.

Gladwell used the million march from Alabama to Washington for his argument. He said the people came together because there were physical connections between them.

Students from Greensboro’s “Negro” secondary school, Dudley High, joined in, and the number of protesters swelled to 80. By the following Monday, sit-ins had spread to Winston-Salem, 25 miles away, and Durham, 50 miles away. The day after that, students at Fayetteville State Teachers College and at Johnson C. Smith College, in Charlotte, joined in, followed on Wednesday by students at St. Augustine’s College and Shaw University, in Raleigh. On Thursday and Friday, the protest crossed state lines, surfacing in Hampton and Portsmouth, Virginia, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The political theorist Michael Walzer wrote in Dissent. “The answer was always the same: ‘It was like a fever. Everyone wanted to go.”

I am writing this column from a Facebook posting saying that “The Presidency will be won in social media.” (Either way he has already won even if he is cheated by Smartmatic PCOS.)

Like any mass movement, we do not know the formula for how and why it works. Is it a miracle or a series of coincidences? The Duterte campaign was like a fever. Almost everyone caught it.

The Aquino government despite its support from powerful sectors of the US government could not overcome the fever. Friends of Duterte groups spread out over Facebook and Twitter, liking and sharing Duterte postings. These were crucial because it makes Duterte omnipresent to at least to a third of the 100 million Filipinos who are connected by Internet every day and every hour.

The postings on Facebook said. “Keep SHARING Duterte stuffs! The fever online spilled outside social media into the real physical world.

Gone was the notion that the news distribution system that will determine the next Philippine President in 2016. Traditionally, the incumbent President has the upper hand in choosing an anointed one. But the Duterte crowd was everywhere.

Noynoy Aquino continued to fall due to among others, the Mamasapano incident, the slow Typhoon Yolanda rehabilitation, the Supreme Court losses regarding the PDAF and DAP pork barrel funds (both declared unconstitutional) and a general belief in his incompetence, presumptive Liberal Party nominee DILG Secretary Mar Roxas may not necessarily gain votes by being associated with and endorsed by P-Noy.

The next factor that determines outcomes in political exercises is the traditional mass media. However, due to the introduction and general acceptance of smartphones, laptops, tablets and other hand-held devices, online news is the default position mainly because it is free.

Facebook and Tweeter were also instrumental in mobilizing hundreds of thousands of protesters for the anti-pork barrel rallies in the Philippines in 2013.

Now it is our turn to ask Duterte on Nov. 30 with different sites all over the country. Walang atrasan. Walang bibitaw mga ka-DDS. Revgov ang kailangan.