The Marcos Mystery

 

Photo from Rappler.com

The latest survey released by Social Weather Stations, one of the more respected research institutions in the Philippines, shows that if a Presidential Election were held today (or well, a month ago if we want to be more exact), then Ferdinand "Bong Bong" Marcos, Jr. ("BBM" to friend and foe alike) would easily win, with 47% of the national vote. Granted, there is absolutely no guarantee that this trend can and will be sustained until the actual elections come May of 2022. But the fact remains, undeniable and unquestionable, that at the time of the survey, roughly half the country would vote for him to be President. This, in itself, is already a bit of mystery. It is a mystery because according to official history, his family, led by his father Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, was driven from power and out of the country by an uprising of the "people" (suggesting a vast majority of the nation's citizens). By extension it is also strongly implied that his family is the most evil in Philippine history, its biggest thieves, its most horrible citizens, the root cause of all the nation's suffering, and yet here we are, with roughly half the "people" now ready to make him President.

Contrary to the insistence of some sectors that his popularity can be explained by a savvy (and expensive) use of social media (doubtless true) to expose our young to a sort of creeping historical revisionism, it has also been independently established that he has a base with the 60-and-older demographic. (See this 2016 piece from Rappler.com, when he ran for VP and garnered 14M votes in a losing cause.) - and this is an even bigger mystery, because one would think that the 60-and-older generation, having actually lived through BBM's father's rule, would have some level of immunity versus the oft-mentioned historical revisionism. My personal experience jibes with this phenomena - amongst friends and acquaintances who are from households of mixed political colors, it is often one of the elder members of the family, i.e. the grandfather or grandmother who experienced life before and after the 1986 EDSA "People Power" Revolution, who is the BBM supporter.

I sat down to thresh out my thoughts on explaining this mystery, why Filipinos who support BBM might feel the way they do. I make no claim that they are right, and no claim that they are wrong. I pass no judgement on whether their feelings are justified or not. Mine is only to think of possible reasons for this glaring incongruence that I see.

Have you done any better?

I suspect that some of the support for BBM arises from the fact that some voters have grown uncomfortable with the narrative arising from the events of 1986. We had this president, who did both good and bad, and we demonized him together with his family. We judged them and shamed them, and claimed that if not for them, the Philippines ought to be a land of milk and honey. Perhaps they deserved it, because it was undoubtedly true that they hung on to power for too long.  But even assuming that they did, now, almost 40 years later, has all the verbal umbrage actually produced a better life for the ordinary Filipino? The politicians who speak the loudest, repeat the accusations most often, they've had their chance to govern, but has corruption been solved, much less eliminated? Are we any closer to having quality education and a decent life for all? Is social justice anywhere in sight? Again, I am not here to argue. I am here to put forth what may be on the mind of the average BBM supporter, and thus why they feel the way they do - what incentive do they have to vote for the disente, the pure, the prayerful, the supposedly incorruptible? They have voted such people into power before over the last thirty-some years, but life has remained the same for most of them.. If no one is now stealing all the vast amounts we say the Marcoses stole during their 20 years in power, then this country ought to be rich by now, right? But well..

Democracy, you say?

We say we restored democracy in 1986, and in the next breath say our opponent shouldn't be allowed to win. In short lahat pwedeng tumakbo, pero ako lang ang karapat-dapat manalo. Perhaps there is a bit of irony there. Again, we are not here to argue the validity of this claim of  irony, in fact one might argue that a stand should always be made against evil by good, but at the very least this raises the question of who is to be the final judge of good and evil? And if anyone amongst us is indeed the representation of good, why have a democracy to begin with? Shouldn't this shining light of goodness be made to govern us forever? This contradiction does bother me, and I believe it bothers others, even if they are unable to articulate their feelings exactly.

Who is more Feelingero / Feelingera?

I deliberately used the Filipino slang for "conceited". The mere fact that a Filipino slang word exists for such an attribute - perhaps this reveals that the Filipino psyche dislikes feelingeros and feelingeras. When a candidate projects that he/she is righteous enough to pass moral judgment on his/her opponents, perhaps some Filipinos recoil at that...

We are all Sons and Daughters

Lastly I suspect that the very act of running, the very act of putting himself out there, already wins BBM votes. We say his family has amassed vast amounts of ill-gotten wealth. I personally believe this to be true; but in an unexpected way it also produces a strange kind of respect for what he is now doing. He does not have to do this. He can just sit back and live out his days in materialistic splendor, and yet he chose to be in public life, knowing the amount of ammunition that can and will be used against him. I, personally, know I would not have the constitution for that kind of onslaught. He does, he has. And if he is doing this to redeem their family name and his father's legacy, all the more, who among us doesn't have some appreciation for that? In the end, we are all sons and daughters. Perhaps voters feel this, even if they are totally unaware of the emotions they are experiencing.

Finally, the one thing I wanted to take away from this is that there are important life lessons here - too many to fully explore, but I'd like to raise, briefly, two here:

As a society we should consider that the developments we see today are the consequences of non-inclusive development. The notion of the Marcos years being some kind of "Golden Age" is often pooh-poohed to be propaganda from the current Marcos myth-making social media machine, but I think it would be wise for us to consider the possibility that while it might not be true for us, it might be true for certain sectors. If the years after EDSA have been good to us, it might not necessarily have been good to others, and this may be why we see this wave of rejection of the ideals that EDSA supposedly represents. More succinctly, there are consequences when we think only of ourselves, and do nothing to lift the members of the human village to which we belong.  

Lastly, we ought to at least realize this: It is tremendously easy to judge and to judge simplistically, especially if we have not been exposed to the same kind of temptations and pitfalls. While it is always important to take a stand against evil, let us also be watchful that we view things through the prism of our own weaknesses and frailties.    

Pondering Trump

 I had a bit of an epiphany today.

By now most of us are aware that recent revelations by journalist Bob Woodward showed that President Donald Trump was privately telling him one set of things about COVID-19 back in January and February this year, but publicly telling the American people quite another.

Because the things Trump told Woodward more closely resembleds what we have consistently heard from mainstream science, most of us have automatically assumed that this set of statements was what Trump "knew", and that therefore he had been untruthful to the American people. Add to this Trump's own "admission" to Woodward that he liked "playing it down", and it does seem all the more logical to conclude that Trump was lying to the American people. Still, there was a little kernel of discomfort I have always had churning inside me with this intuitive inference - a logical disconnect if you will - and today I finally realized why.

Listen thoroughly to the conversations and you will realize that way back on February 7 2020, when much was yet unknown about the virus, Trump was definitively telling Woodward that it was airborne. "It goes through air Bob.. You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed..." If mainstream science had not yet established this back in February, where was Trump getting his information? In fact, even to this day, I don't think it has been established that COVID-19 is airborne in the traditional sense of the word. Technically, "airborne" means it can hang and travel through air for long distances and long periods of time. While not a doctor, I believe this has not been concluded regarding COVID; rather, what has been concluded is that it can behave as if it is airborne when "aerosolized" indoors.  Granted, back in February, Trump might have heard speculation from his medical advisers that the virus may be airborne, but certainly not with the degree of certainty with which he communicated this to Woodward. This leads me to conclude that perhaps we should not reach the instinctive conclusion that Trump knew the science and lied to the American public; because it is equally likely, in fact more likely, that he did not know the science and was lying to Bob Woodward.

Now, why would he do that? Well, Woodward was writing a book about him, and if that book were to frame the virus as this potent, invisible, irresistible, unstoppable foe, imagine how heroic Trump would look if and when, as he truly believed, the virus just disappeared (aided by warm weather and a few million doses of hydroxychloroquine).

So in my opinion, it actually makes a lot of sense that Trump was lying less to the American people than he was to Bob Woodward, with his goal being to provide a preferred historical narrative regarding the health crisis to be delivered by Woodward's book.

And that, is actually more troubling than the realization that the POTUS was lying to the American public.

If Trump did indeed lie to the American people, I maintain that it certainly wouldn't be the first time an American President has done so. Arguably, it is sometimes a necessary element of leadership. But what is truly worrisome is having a leader who buries his head in the sand, believing simply what he prefers to believe, either unwilling or incapable of processing new information and assessing scientific and empirical evidence.

Such a leader, if he were to come into the belief, either out of preference or convenience, that the proper way to navigate a minefield is to close one's eyes and walk confidently through it, would in all sincerity lead his followers through a minefield this way, totally oblivious to the resulting destruction and carnage. And that, is truly frightening.

The idea that the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on earth has a firm grasp on the science, but chooses to lie to his people, even with the knowledge of resulting collateral damage, because of some higher plan or vision, is far less terrifying to me than the realization that what we see is truly all that we are getting. It is infinitely more horrific to me to realize that this commander-in-chief will really willfully disregard scientific evidence because hydroxychloroquine is such a convenient answer to the problem he is tasked to solved; that his level of intelligence finds the idea of  injecting disinfectant into the human body a promising and plausible alternative.

I would really rather learn that Donald J. Trump lies all the time, because what is truly scary is that he isn't lying.

And yet, if we look at his history, how he, for instance, destroyed the United States Football League while still insisting that he was the best thing that had ever happened to it, how he went into Atlantic City and arguably left a path of destruction in his wake; and well, I can't help but reach the conclusion that a stronger case can be made for the latter: Donald J. Trump really does believe most of the things he tells us.

Except things are so much different now, he is no longer leaving his distinctive indelible mark on a football league or even a city, he is leaving it on a large, influential country, and thus the global village to which it belongs.

None of us will remain unaffected.  

My Shopee Mysteries

I "discovered" Shopee during this pandemic. In the early days of the lockdown I was in search of essential supplies and thus went on Shopee aside from Lazada. I say "discovered" because I had heard of the platform before (who hasn't) but had never gotten around to actually using it, until the desperate search for supplies in the early days of ECQ forced my hand. I had used Lazada before and also used it during the lockdown, but found myself relying quite a bit more on Shopee. My experience with the platform has been satisfying and I must say, unexpectedly fulfilling.

There were, however, some things I did find confusing about the app (since resolved) and I thought I'd share my discoveries and realizations here so that others can, perhaps, benefit from them.

 Mystery # 1: The product does not support the selected shipping option. Sometimes when checking out, you might encounter the error "the product does not support the selected shipping option". This can prove particularly confusing because you weren't asked to select a shipping option and have no way to do so, so you will find yourself questioning why they are telling you that the selected shipping option isn't supported when they didn't even have you select one. To make a long story short, this error shows up when Shopee cannot deliver to your address via its usual delivery/courier partners. Some sellers may have an option "seller's own shipping" activated and you can choose that. This would mean that the seller might have its own in-house delivery or its own delivery partner, in which case you would pay for the product on the Shopee platform and chat with the seller to figure out the logistics of how to have the product delivered to you. My very first Shopee purchase was made under such circumstances. I bought three 6L containers of drinking water on the app, paid for the water on the app, and then chatted with the seller regarding delivery. He arranged for a rider to deliver, and I paid the delivery fee, in cash, to the rider. In short, when you encounter this error, it means Shopee cannot deliver to your address via its usual means, and you should chat with the seller to explore possible delivery alternatives.

Mystery #2: Free shipping and/or shipping discount that isn't given to you. Many times when shopping you will see something like "P50 off shipping with min order of P199." but seem to receive no shipping discount upon checkout. Sometimes you will even see "P50 off shipping with no minimum" or something like that, but seem to receive no discount. This is because the discount is given only if you have the right voucher. Shopee, as a part of its promotional efforts, gives out vouchers that give buyers free shipping or shipping discounts. I have posted below images of two such vouchers that I have received and successfully used:

 If you'll notice, the two particular vouchers I posted above are not applicable to all sellers on the Shopee platform but only to "Free Shipping Special Shops". How then would you know if the product you are interested in is being sold by one of these special shops? You would know because the product page would have the "P50 off shipping with... something" statement described in the paragraphs above. That statement marks, or indicates, that the product you are viewing is eligible for a Special Shop Free Shipping Voucher. Some might find this just a wee bit misleading, but well, the way I have come to see it, it is what it is. True, it would perhaps be clearer if the product pages instead say something like "Eligible for Special Shop Free Shipping Voucher." instead of a seemingly more definitive "P50 off shipping..." but at least I now know exactly how to understand the app and maximize my use of it. Note that there are also more special vouchers that get you free shipping for all shops, but keep in mind that if the voucher you have covers only "special shops", then to apply it to a purchase you will need to find a product that has been marked as being eligible.

Mystery #3: The mystery of the disappearing shop voucher.Shops or sellers within the Shopee platform also give out their own discount vouchers, and one of the the most frustrating experiences I encountered was when the shop voucher I received had been successfully applied (as shown on the left side below, P25 discount applied, bringing the price of a P110 item down to P85) only to have it disappear upon trying to checkout (as shown on the right below, price back to P110.00).  




After being unable to understand this behavior on the app I was very curious and waited through a queue 407 long to finally reach a live agent on the Shopee help chatline. The gentleman I reached provided excellent service, really took the time to understand the situation, but found himself as stumped as I was. After a while we left it be.

I got obsessive of course, and finally was able to figure it out. It turns out my default address was un-deliverable, and so the app removed the shop discount, and its behavior was such that even after I picked an address from my list of delivery addresses that was deliverable, it could no longer return the removed shop voucher. There was an easy fix to this of course - I changed my default delivery address to one that I knew was deliverable, and wa-la! Discount applied.

Aside from the store voucher I also found two more Shopee vouchers, bringing my total to three as pictured, which could be used concurrently with the shop voucher, before finally finalizing my purchase.

 I ended up getting these three mini-figures for the grand total of P196.00, shipping included. And while I admit it may seem a bit unbecoming for a 50 year old man, I found the process strangely fulfilling. 👴😁