Discontent

Discontent | Daily Tribune

No other famous phrase encapsulates the darkening mood of our present days than Shakespeare’s “the winter of our discontent.”

Suggesting a bleak, restless period of time the phrase is often used as a metaphor for political and social unrest.

Undeniably, the present month has a certain degree of bleakness and restlessness to it. Mere days following the reckless sensual abandon to the holiday spirit, most are presently grappling with empty wallets, unpaid debts, and galloping food prices which in turn feed their collective despair about the country’s state of affairs.

Such a moody state of mind is not unexpected, however. Historically, the first months of any year are always a time of reckoning for most, wherein taking stock of the present situation often includes renewed keen awareness, sometimes even seething anger, about the ills of our society and politics.

Still, there’s a somewhat different tonality this year. Noticeable is the seething anger that comes especially from our articulate thinking class, with many of its prominent personalities vociferously calling upon the other classes to break their silence about what is going on.

There is a need to break the silence, since as former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio put it in a viral social media post, “silence makes us complicit… our silence feeds their arrogance,” referring pointedly to what he believes is an increasingly corrupt and rapacious political class.

Carpio’s thoughts have been shared on many social media channels. So much so that in the diverse chat groups I’ve encountered many are urgently asking what is to be done, whether personally or as a group.

And, in light of the forthcoming midterms, many are similarly asking what can be done against a malevolent thieving political class that all but threatens to bring the country to ruin.

Surprisingly, despite such a desperate call, many are expressing caution and reservations about employing radical solutions, like a military intervention or another People Power-like revolution, to effect change.

On this, likely because many fear military adventurism, while People Power, as former economic planning czar Cielito Habito recently asked: “Where has our own EDSA revolution brought us, nearly four decades later?”

Habito’s frustration has a certain ring of truth to it. Post EDSA-revolt politics, for instance, effectively restored a patronage-driven political class that not only hadn’t moderated its greed but continued to treat politics as an ongoing family business concern.

Meanwhile, the mustering of crowds to protest government anti-people policies or to call for reforms too have been so bastardized that, of late, huge crowds have become human shields to protect corrupt officials, most of whom are wary of being held accountable for their wanton misuse of public funds.

Still, despite the brewing anger over such horrendous impunities in our politics, many nonetheless prefer non-violent variations of Mao Tse Tung’s often quoted organizing dictum, “a single spark can start a prairie fire.”

In this case, the single spark being bruited about comes mostly in the form of active civic engagement and grassroots work in local communities to effect change.

And, in the context of the midterms, walking the talk means immediately conducting personal campaigns against political dynasties, showbiz personalities masquerading as politicians, and suspect partylist groups.

Judging from what I’ve seen so far about these efforts, it seems such campaigns are snowballing in the thinking class, raising the prospect their calls might burst the confines of that class and spill over into the other classes.

Intriguingly, too, their campaigns are also calling upon senior Filipinos to again do their thing.

So much so that seniors are being exhorted to gain some fluency on how to effectively launch protests in our youth-driven digital era by actively engaging with “content creation, audience engagement, social media campaigns, online organizing, and analytics and metrics.”