In a recent Facebook post, Inquirer columnist and former Undersecretary of Communications Manolo Quezon claims that an “Old Middle Class” that was “formed” by “Churches, Clubs, and Schools” had been supplanted by a “New Middle Class” that harbors a “great anxiety” and “votes accordingly, but without the civic engagement”.
If we have 70 million voters, what percentage are the OFWs in order to justify this interesting thesis? Manolo makes the all-too-predictable poltical connection here…
[…this New Middle Class had steadily] expanded since it came into being as a consequence of [former President Ferdinand Marcos’s] policy of exporting labor; how this New Middle Class has been remarkably untouched by the old arbiters of civic consciousness and national engagement, Churches, Clubs, and Schools…
It seems more like Manolo is being discriminatory in order to explain why Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte won in 2016 and the “decent” and “civic minded” Opposition hadn’t been able to win an election since.
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The analogy with India Manolo proposes is also false because of the difference in the size of population…
A recent article on India and how its population has cast off Western influence –or, to be precise, cast aside the old intellectual and political elite who had been accustomed to and identified with, Western norms and notions– struck me with the force of a Eureka! moment, and made me feel strongly that there are similar parallels in our ongoing national experience (the essential underpinning to the contempt and outright hostility to “disente.”)
The Indian elite still identifies with the West which is the same with the Filipino elite. What Bart doesn’t want to admit is even the elite didn’t feel safe during the Aquino administration which is why they also voted for Duterte.
It’s not as simple as he makes it to be and hardly falls into the category of a “eureka moment”. The problem with the Opposition is they always cast themselves as the elite even on social media which is why they continue to lose. It doesn’t help that they keep on sticking to their well-worn strategy of destabilization. How else can you explain their continuing reliance on socmed as their echo chamber which falsely leads them to believe they are the “silent majority”?
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