The Essence of Democracy

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By Janua Cunanan

I don’t understand why the people who believe in the very essence of democracy are the same ones who question the masses going to the streets to fight for their causes.

How is it that when they express their views online, you call them trolls, telling them straight to their faces, “Lowkey keyboard warriors lang kayo. You don’t have the numbers kasi bayarang trolls lang kayo.”

And when they take to the streets, you mock them, saying, “Akala ko ba ayaw ninyo ng rally?”

Let us not be consumed by ourselves and our own personal opinions. Let us not frown upon the very fact that, at the very least, Filipinos are beginning to understand how democarcy truly works.

But you know what’s even sadder? These are the same people who always believed in the essence of democracy, freedom of expression, and all those freedoms granted in the Constitution.

Yet now, they are the ones who belittle acts that embody it.

- Janua Cunanan teaches political science at Ateneo de Davao University 

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