From ‘Hosanna’ to ‘crucify’

It is often said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. “Vox populi vox Dei.” Yet was it not the people who killed the son of God? The same people who welcomed Jesus with tons of praise called for his crucifixion just five days later.

Fickle. Erratic. Downright inconsistent, if not hypocritical. There is no controlling the pendulum swing. Alas, that is democracy at work.

Etymologically rooted in the Greek terms dēmos (“the people”) and kratia (“power”), “democracy” is a portmanteau for what we in the Philippines more popularly refer to as “people power.” And as we’ve seen this past 36 years, democracy can be an incalculably empowering thing. So forceful it could topple the powers that be, yet also so unpredictable that it can always bring them back.

Today, with upwards of 31.1 million votes counted in his favor, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. takes his oath as the nation’s 17th president.

How has it come to this?

Intuitively, perhaps, we would blame the paid trolls and fake news. To an extent, we would be right to! The role that lies have played in our political lives, more so in this digital age, can neither be denied nor overstated. Straddling our high horses, we could find solace in their disingenuity and in our “knowing better.”

But there is something much more to the election of Marcos Jr. than the half-truth or untruth. Behind them, there is the sad truth: The Marcoses knew that if the people could write them out in 1986, then it is also the people who would write them back into power just three decades later. In this way, perhaps, Marcos Jr. understood people power better than anyone else did.

“People power” is an over-romanticized but under-theorized concept in our country. To many, it refers to a particular moment in history, as if the only way the people can exercise power is in revolt on Highway 54. But power can also be exercised through our votes. And in the presidential election of 2022, it appears that the pendulum has swung in this opposite, unfortunate direction.

“Vox populi vox Dei” may just be Marcos Jr.’s mantra of choice, but he should be cautioned. The Latin phrase was first used by Alcuin of York as a warning to King Charlemagne: “Nec audiendi qui solent dicere vox populi vox Dei quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.” (“And those people should not be listened to who keep on saying, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God,’ since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”)

People power may have been the death of Marcosian rule in 1986. Today, it is its resurrection.

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