When exactly did doubling down on a public mistake become such a virtue in our politics? And on a related note, when did actually knowing things become some sort of elitist vice that ought to be mocked rather than respected?

The past three weeks in the Senate have offered a depressing masterclass on both. We have seen clowning, grandstanding and the sort of chest-thumping nonsense that turns public office into a poorly conceived reality show.

And in the middle of all that, we have also seen something more corrosive: public officials making plainly erroneous statements, getting called out for them, and then responding not with correction or humility, but with louder bravado.

The latest exhibit is Senator Robin Padilla. In trying to justify his support for amending the Senate rules to allow remote voting — a move transparently aimed at accommodating Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa while he remains out of sight — Padilla argued that remote participation was already allowed in cases of force majeure. He then tried to bolster the point by saying that we are effectively in a state of force majeure because of the El Niño phenomenon and the conflict in the Middle East.

People were quick to point out the obvious. “Force majeure” in this context is not just any bad thing happening somewhere in the world. Under the Senate’s rules, remote sessions are allowed when force majeure or a national emergency actually prevents senators from physically attending sessions — the Covid-19 pandemic being the clearest recent example.

Heat, geopolitics, and generalized anxiety do not automatically qualify. Neither does a colleague who is in hiding because he is wanted for crimes against humanity.

A normal public official, on realizing he had spoken loosely or incorrectly, would simply acknowledge, clarify and move on.

But, no. Instead of conceding the point, Padilla blasted the “geniuses” criticizing him and basically suggested that the issue should be judged by the people “sa kalye.” What should have been a straightforward correction became yet another performance of anti-intellectual swagger.

Some have called this smart-shaming, and they are not wrong. But it is worse than that. It is a sitting senator taking a factual and legal question, one with a well-established meaning in both law and practice and turning it into a popularity contest. The implication is toxic but clear: facts are subjective, expertise is pretentious, and if enough people agree with your mistake, then maybe it stops being a mistake.

Let’s be clear. That is not democracy. That is intellectual rot.

And it says a great deal about how dysfunctional our public discourse has become. We are no longer just debating policy choices or competing priorities. We are now asked to pretend that terms with settled meanings can be stretched like rubber, twisted into whatever shape suits the political need of the moment. If you push back, you are branded as one of the smug “geniuses.” If you insist on basic accuracy, you are somehow the problem.

This road leads nowhere good. When politicians are too proud to admit their error, and when ignorance is not corrected but glorified, what follows is almost always the same: bad leaders, bad policies and bad outcomes.

A functioning democracy does not require that its leaders know everything. It does, however, require that they admit when they are wrong. And right now, that seems to be exactly the lesson too many of them are determined never to learn. We should not let them get away with it.