Woke young people are once more flexing muscle to throw that hoary adage about youth being wasted on the young out on its ear.
In mock elections held last month in certain universities, they upended the conventional wisdom of the administration’s anointed making a grand sweep of the Senate; they thumbed their noses at survey results showing ex-senators making a forceful comeback despite tainted backgrounds and newbies gaining easy entry with nothing more to show than the big guy’s backing.
They made the provocative choice of change: a wholesale ditching of barefaced liars, song-and-dance types, and other emblems of traditional politics.
This is not a surprising development. Young people, as everyone who has ever been young will truthfully attest (unless he or she is a willful idiot, trapped in self-deception, or intellectually savaged by hunger), are animated by a desire to fight injustice and change the world.
The late Abraham Sarmiento Jr., editor of the University of the Philippines’ Collegian in 1975-76, voiced the youth’s singular role in leading the charge against Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship, raising in a compelling and enduring cry the urgency of resistance in word and deed when the situation urgently calls for it: “Kung hindi tayo kikibo, sino ang kikibo? Kung hindi tayo kikilos, sino ang kikilos? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?”
When Malacañang, boosted by a ruling of the Supreme Court, greenlighted in November 2016 the interment of the dictator’s remains at Libingan ng mga Bayani — an important step in the Marcos family’s dogged striving for respectability — woke young people turned out in large numbers along with the aging survivors of martial law to protest the ignominy.
They gave the lie to the claim of the dictator’s eldest child—who is continuing her quest for a seat in the Senate despite, among other things, being revealed as a dissembler and a fraud regarding her academic records — that millennials have moved on in their lives vis-a-vis martial law and could, she suggested, teach their elders a thing or two in that aspect.
Now, in the face of a threatened assault on the check-and-balance function of the Senate, with the administration slate buoyed by its campaign manager’s pronouncement that honesty is not and should not be an issue in the elections, young people are showing through their mock polls the outcome they wish to see in the midterm exercise.
“People of the Philippines,” a netizen wrote in a pointed reference to survey results showing a public embrace of Malacañang’s gold standard, “rethink your senatorial choices!”
With almost 23 million voters aged 25-39 (the millennials) and over 10 million aged 18-24 (members of Gen Z), young people are in a definitive position to make things happen in the elections that will determine the composition of the legislature and that is seen as a referendum on the governance of President Duterte. It’s a crucial crossroads in the diminished democratic space, and they will spell the difference.
As they did in the 2016 presidential election in which, according to a TV5-SWS exit poll conducted among 45,123 voters from 733 voting centers, candidate Rodrigo Duterte scored a 33-point lead over his closest rival Mar Roxas in ages 18-24 and a 26-point lead in ages 25-34.
On the eve of that election, the Inquirer ran an editorial, “The millennial vote.” It said: “This is a moment of truth for Filipino millennials. Their numbers are of critical importance in the presidential election, and it behooves them to be aware not only of the burning issues but also of the significance of their vote in their country’s progress.”
That was then, and this is now. Much has happened during the watch of the man who, visiting his parents’ crypts shortly after his victory as president was announced, was heard weeping as he sought their help.
In its eve-of-the-election editorial in 2016, the Inquirer, cognizant of the prevailing indifference among young people and their disillusionment with political institutions, urged them to vote, to “grasp the necessity of participation in the nation’s collective destiny.” But, it said, “critical awareness is required of them, a correct perspective on where we all stand.”
“Sooner or later,” it said, “they will learn how dreadful it is to bear the crushing outcome of a mistake, and how demanding it is to undo damage where it counts.”