When moths get attracted to the light
Recently, there was a video footage that went viral online showing a protest march inside the UP Diliman campus, specifically at the university oval. The marchers had courageously chanted their piece. They carried placards and banners. As a former UP Diliman student, I understand the value and importance of such a democratic exercise. I am also aware and understand that activities such as these are protected under the UP-DND Accord that allows activities exercising our freedom of speech and academic freedom.
However, to the general population who are not familiar with the UP-DND Accord, it might give them the wrong impression. This could probably imply that the Marcos, Jr. Administration is friendly or soft, the very exact opposite of the old Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. No doubt, BBM has not inherited the dictatorial tendency from his father’s genes nor the political legacy of the old Marcos. Nevertheless, such an activity is nothing more than an exercise of political freedom.
One of the achievements of Mindanao in the recent decade was the election of the first ever Mindanawon into the presidency in the person of Rodrigo Roa Duterte. This was seen as a new turn in the country's politics since Duterte belongs to the peripheries. He is local, that's what he said. Yet, it should be known that it was through Duterte that Marcos Sr. was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. In fact, his alliance with the Marcoses that resulted in the Uniteam paved the way for BBM to get into Malacañang.
It was then that the Liberal Party fanatics and others in the political spectrum, started attacking everything connected with the Dutertes, including scholars and academics. Yet, Duterte allowed the other members of the political spectrum to be part of his cabinet. The problem, it appears, is ideological on the part of others. They want to impose their politics, even in academia, so that they target people with vicious personal attacks. Imposing their Pinklawan politics is contradictory to the ideals of democracy.
Some of these people are thinking blindly. They believe that they are the only ones who know the real solutions to this country’s problems. In their desperate state of mind, they exclude or cancel those who do not share their limited ideological leanings. It might be true that no government is perfect, but it does not necessarily mean that we must destroy each other. As a matter of fact, it has become a trend for some to become online activists or keyboard warriors, acting like the tools of woke culture.
Of course, student activism can be noble and heroic, but it is also risky, like a moth getting burned in the light. I am again reminded of my favorite quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.” The problem, however, with woke culture and activism is that they make people very close-minded as if they are like horses with blinders, seeing nothing else but just one direction.
It has come to the point that they do not see anything good in humanity anymore, except with what they believe, or think to be true, good, or important. The root of the problem is, these people will refuse to believe in any philosophy except their own. Such a kind of attitude is very awful and pathetic. They live in their tunnel vision, so myopic and often refusing to see a larger, brighter, or other perspectives of the world around us. Again, what are these people actually doing in the enterprise we call thinking?
