Color-coding politics
dent Duterte’s rule, this must come from victims of collateral damage associated with the war on drugs and his empathy for Marcos. Some columnists call them the yellow horde (of the Mongolian era?) or the yellow (plague or fever?) that decimated the world’s population or simply the yellows (cowards?). This is clearly absurd as we all belong to the brown race, and if there are of the yellows in this, it is a tiny minority which include the Koh Huang Cos.
The assertion that the new opposition is now church-led rather than yellow-spearheaded is probably not accurate. To be sure, there are princes of the church and excellencies who are biased in favor of or against President Duterte but to say that the church, that Catholics in the country, are now oppositionist, seem not supported by the facts given that he continues to enjoy a hightrust rating, according to the surveys, even if a minority decry his coarse language and criticism of some of the clergy.
Color- coding politics came about when the sympathizers of the martyred Ninoy used the ballad “Tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree” to express their welcome of his return to the country. Henceforth, Coryites adopted yellow as a color of opposition to martial rule.
In recent Thai elections, the right— the” yellows” associated with royalty and the generals— were pitted against the “reds” led by the populist-leaning op- position. During the Russian revolution, the Reds overthrew the Whites. In this country we have labeled the communists as Reds.
In sum, color-coding politics has become a shorthand to describe the complexities of politics!
In recent years, there has been much public debate on the role of religion in politics. Does religion play any part in the dynamics of politics and do believers have the right to impose moral values on the state?
The short answer is that citi deeply held moral and religious beliefs on the altar of public policy. In fact, it requires exactly the opposite. San Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, used to say that a Christian should not leave his moral principles at the door as he enters a public place as he would his hat.
Since even government officials are fallible and voters have been shown time and again to be ignorant, capricious and simply uninformed and biased, people of character, including religious their beliefs in the political arena with vigor. Anything less would be unworthy of a citizen. As the saying goes, it just takes the silence of the citizenry for evil to thrive.
Indeed, Christians must play their God-given role in society, which is to take an active, vocal and morally consistent role in public discourse.