Youth flex muscle

Youth flex muscle | Daily Tribune

A fear of young Filipino voters is now out in the open following the surprising results of the midterms.

If it were otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a manufactured frenzy of Facebook posts discrediting Senator-elect Bam Aquino, who ascribed his victory to the youth vote, even before he took his oath.

As early as 13 May, suspiciously coordinated FB posts insisted the former strongman should be credited for institutionalizing free college education instead of frontrunner Aquino, who campaigned under that slogan.

The stomping of Aquino quickly died down. But not before evidence was conspicuously shown for why the Duterte fandom was nervous: Aquino’s outsized influence on the youth.

The anxious Duterte fans, however, their beady eyes keenly focused on 2028, weren’t the only political camp or sector that failed miserably to see that the young voters had emerged as the new demographic center of power in Philippine politics.

Included in that anxious sorry bunch were both traditional and social media mavens, complacent survey firms, and smug political strategists.

Undoubtedly, the young voters did have a broad, decisive, and profound impact on the midterms.

“The youth vote was a really big factor for the (historic) turnout. In our initial assessment, the youth really turned out in droves. They really wanted their voices heard. I believe the youth vote mattered,” Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia said in hindsight, echoing other flabbergasted political figures.

While, of course, there’s a need for further detailed research into the generational zeitgeist of young Filipino voters, it can generally be said that the youth now have the momentum to decide elections.

And there’s no use denying the fact that they have become a formidable force in future elections.

Millennials and Gen Z voters by 2028 will account for the largest cohort of the Filipino electorate, with millions more young Gen Zers eligible to vote in the next two years.

These projections can readily be seen in this year’s midterms, where the Gen Z and millennials made up 63 percent of the 68.3 registered voters, with Gen Z (18 to 22 years old) accounting for 18.3 million, while millennials (aged 29 to 44) were at a hefty 23 million.

Gen X (age 45 to 59), meanwhile, only numbered 15.5 million, while the fading baby boomers (age 60 and above) managed only 11.5 million.

What then does this all mean?

For starters, it means that we would do well to recognize and adapt to this new generational dynamic now shaping our country’s politics.

And this new generational inflection point means the old political categories simply won’t work.

Take the case of the young voters summarily dumping celebrities gunning for various posts.

Still, it may be too early to tell if the young voters are sufficiently disillusioned with their atrophied elders and their old ways.

It is highly likely they’ll be more receptive to and will gather around issues directly addressing what they believe needs to be done about the country’s pressing social and political challenges.

Embracing the new idealist worldview that the young voters have decisively imposed on the rest of us, therefore, calls for new policy ideas that appeal to and engage them.

As such, the practical harnessing of their fresh energies may well involve consulting them on the development of political platforms, effectively organizing them into advisory youth councils and utilizing their social media expertise in forging new electoral strategies.

But whatever is done to engage the young voters, they need foremost antidotes to their growing sense of existential dread that they’ll end up paying for the sins of their elders.

They need an inspiring vision, in short.