Manila, 18 May—It’s been almost a week since the midterm elections, and I’m still heartbroken at the results, no matter how unsurprising. I mean, how could it be a surprise, when this has been the result that the pre-electoral surveys had been preparing us for all along since the start of the campaign?
I think this has been a weak midterm campaign—the slate even doesn’t get to 12 nominees—but I say ‘weak’ in the sense that it seemed like they had little to no institutional support from an organized opposition party. Which is sad, considering that the people on this slate were rather individually strong and sound, judging from their respective performances during the debates. Time and again, I have hoped that our elections would eventually make issues as barometers; time and again, I have been failed.
Since Monday, we have entertained thoughts of massive poll fraud, thanks to a 7-hour glitch concerning what had been promised to be a ‘transparency server’ from Comelec, and several reports of vote counting machines malfunctioning throughout election day.
I have participated in these automated elections since 2010, and I’ve always thought they were rather difficult to manipulate; the real-time vote count provided by the transparency server, no matter how partial and unofficial, was a big part of that impression.
I’m just sad that the Comelec’s inability so far to sufficiently explain what went on during the seven hours that the transparency server had been technically ‘opaque’ has now cast doubt on that process. I can’t help but think that this is all in service of a long-term game plan that involves a return to manual elections come the next presidential elections in 2022.
Speaking of 2022: The results of the midterm polls are often a preview of the upcoming presidential race. I’m not really surprised that the topnotcher is an incumbent senator who is also the wife of one of the country’s richest businessmen, and that all of the administration-backed candidates—including one who has been charged with plunder and 16 counts of graft for embezzling public money and the unapologetic daughter of the late former strongman who plundered this country and committed human rights atrocities for two decades—made it to the winners’ circle.
It takes a lot of money and resources to mount national campaigns—I’m just pissed that the winning candidates used our taxes, whether provided by the current administration or amassed at various points in the past half century, to further their own selfish agenda. It’s our taxes literally working against us. If there was a way to make paying taxes optional, I would definitely take it. Truth be told, the government probably has enough money to go around for its infrastructure projects, if only the current officials would just return what is not rightfully theirs.
But yeah, at the moment the wounds are too fresh, and the conversation has devolved, expectedly, into finger-pointing. I agree for the most part—it is exhausting to seek to understand voters who voted for the chief architect of the drug war, or the president’s main lackey. I find it exhausting to think about how this system empowers plunderers who happen to be good dancers. But it is what it is.
What is even more migraine-inducing is the fact that it doesn’t seem to be lack of education that is at fault—there are self-proclaimed post-grad degree holders who are proud supporters of this administration. That taken into consideration, it doesn’t seem entirely accurate to attribute the election results solely to the uneducated and the poor, and just dismiss it as the D-E segment just not knowing any better. That’s simplistic and undeserved.
The fact is that the D-E segment is the most vulnerable to on-the-ground voter manipulation and intimidation. It also bears remembering that this same segment has been bearing the brunt of the administration’s brutal anti-poor drug war. In some areas, voters have been instructed to vote a certain way in order to not be driven away from their homes. With something as vital as that at stake—what’s a vote worth, really? And viewed this way, isn’t the ability to vote as freely as possible such a precious privilege?
So maybe it’s not about getting more people more post-grad degrees—maybe it has a little more to do about kindness and compassion. I think the only way to truly discern right from wrong in this age of algorithms and the attention economy is to build our own moral compasses so that when the time comes, we would not rely on—or be swayed by—somebody else’s.
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Speaking of endings: Game of Thrones is airing its finale this Monday, and last Monday’s episode still has me reeling. I’ve been reading a lot of criticism regarding how this final season has been written, most of them negative, and most of them I agree with. I’ve said before that I think this series has made most of its strong women into monsterous villains while redeeming many of its male characters. Season 8 episode 5 has further solidified this; I’m more than greatly annoyed, but I never really managed to put it all into words.
Thankfully, this Scientific American article explains the real reason why fans hate the last season of Game of Thrones—at the core of it, it’s storytelling. The piece accurately points out why I loved Game of Thrones in the first place—its unflinching willingness to kill off main characters, which signals to me that the overall story is bigger than its heroes and villains. It also points to the shift in storytelling perspective as the culprit: The show-runners changed their perspective from one that focused on context (sociological) to one that focused on personalities (psychological).
Quote from the article:
“The appeal of a show that routinely kills major characters signals a different kind of storytelling, where a single charismatic and/or powerful individual, along with his or her internal dynamics, doesn’t carry the whole narrative and explanatory burden… In sociological storytelling, the characters have personal stories and agency, of course, but those are also greatly shaped by institutions and events around them. The incentives for characters’ behavior come noticeably from these external forces, too, and even strongly influence their inner life.”
In a world filled with stories of heroes who single-handedly defeat all ills, it is easy to get jaded when we find out that there are no more heroes left and everyone is basically a disappointment. That’s what happens in psychological storytelling—and this is where our dissonance where Season 8 of Game of Thrones comes in. We came for the sociological storytelling, and now we’re getting short-changed because the once complicated story, built within a world so rich with politics and incentives and consequences, has now stopped making sense.
“The hallmark of sociological storytelling is if it can encourage us to put ourselves in the place of any character, not just the main hero/heroine, and imagine ourselves making similar choices. “Yeah, I can see myself doing that under such circumstances” is a way into a broader, deeper understanding. It’s not just empathy: we of course empathize with victims and good people, not with evildoers.
But if we can better understand how and why characters make their choices, we can also think about how to structure our world that encourages better choices for everyone. The alternative is an often futile appeal to the better angels of our nature. It’s not that they don’t exist, but they exist along with baser and lesser motives. The question isn’t to identify the few angels but to make it easier for everyone to make the choices that, collectively, would lead us all to a better place.”
Perhaps it is time to tell ourselves different stories.
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Related readings
In the end, Game of Thrones finds a way to make its women problem worse via The Hollywood Reporter
Game of Thrones just utterly betrayed Daenerys Targaryen and Jaime Lannister last night via Forbes
Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 5, The Bells review: The series has been ruined beyond repair via The Telegraph
Other things of note this week
Carly Rae Jepsen’s new album is out and it is everything this week needs. Choice track: Want you in my room, of course.
Caught Detective Pikachu at the cinemas and it is adorable!!!
I am so invested in this upcoming Netflix rom-com like you won’t believe.
Hope the week ahead is better.
xo,
K