ON HINDSIGHT: COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

The landslide victory of President Duterte at the polls point to that collective endeavor to seat a person who embodies what their view of a savior is. How did this come about?

Actually there was a confluence of factors that contributed to it: all the presidential candidates, except for one decried the lack of feeling for the masses by the past administration of PNoy. A series of mishaps of that regime forwarded the sentiments of the people to look for an alternative. 

Now the presence of Grace Poe made the image of FPJ, her father rise in their consciousness. He was the epitome of the defender of the weak, the oppressed and the losers in his films. He ran for president in 2004 but was cheated of his victory. When he had filed a protest, he died prematurely. 

So when Grace ran her campaign all over the country, the people liked her very much, initially. But towards the end, they could not see the FPJ image in her, save in her printed posters. I suggested one time in this blog that the voice and image of FPJ could be resurrected in her ads but nothing came out of it. 

And so when Mayor Duterte then arose and then began to speak out against the criminality and druglords and the dire conditions of the country, the masses' collective feelings for FPJ rose up. Here was the guy who epitomized all that FPJ stood for in his movies. He was the guy!,

Then Chiz sadly did not fare well anymore towards the end. His opponents were swapping scathing remarks about the administration but he did not mouthe anything and even said that "i don't want to say bad things about my opponents." and so towards the end, he lost his ranking and ended up in the second or third level.

I think we can learn a lot from the last presidential campaign. When candidates stand for values, they should realize or make those values real in the minds of the people. Pres. Duterte was the simple guy, poor man who rose from the ranks and achieved political power. He is the typical rags-to-power guy, the winner at the end of the movies of FPJ.

Hindi naman sayang ang pagkakaboto kay Pres. Duterte. His background as a lawyer, prosecutor and mayor all prepared him to handle the nitty-gritty problems of running a city, and now multiplied thousands of times over. His environment full of armed groups -- the MILF, the MNLF, NPA and Abu Sayyaf groups -- has steeled him politically. He know the psychology of the masses now. Talk tough and you get their attention. Speak and act mighty. Siga. He did. And so he won. 

Let us mull over the words of a sociologist:

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.

— Emile Durkheim

Have a good journey, President Duterte and may you earn the accolades of the people till the end of your administration.