Some people are asking others and themselves this question: “How come, despite all these scandals, there is no outrage? How come we are not out in the streets, protesting these fools?” One sociology professor from a Catholic university says it is because of people power fatigue.

For me, it is plain and simple rationalization, a defense mechanism triggered to defend the ego. In this case, let me give way to Siege Malvar (quoting him in full):

I think what’s keeping Gloria in power is the Filipino hardheadedness to swallow his own pride. After all, you guys made all that noise in Edsa to put her in power.

Now, you just don’t want to admit you made a mistake.

So, on, and on, we wait for something from the machine to arrive. We wait for a God-given disease to consume her flesh, we wait for an assassin’s bullet to pierce through her vest, we wait for other people to take courage and rise up. We wait. Because we don’t wanna say “I told you so” to ourselves.

You disgust me, Philippines. You with all your “blogging” “for peace”, “for unity”, for all the fucking causes you can think of next.

You disgust me because you are letting this happen. You made this monster, gave her executive powers, and you’re too proud to admit it.

Corruption is staring at you right in the face, Philippines, and what are you doing about it?

(If you want to comment on his blog post, please go to this link.)

Last night, TV Patrol had this report, where they asked people who were waiting to get in as contestants for their turd-of-a-noontime-show WoWoWee about the Lozada expose. The answers are, I think, symptomatic of the defense mechanism stated earlier. The comments were funny, serious, agreeable, and detestable, all at the same time. (As a side note, there was a pro-Gloria amongst them, and she must be glad she was not mugged he he.) But most of them said that “wala rin namang mangyayari” (nothing will come out of it).

That is people power fatigue. That is rationalization.

The problem is that defense mechanisms can be unhealthy. In our case, the unhealthiness stems from the fact that we have virtually abdicated our roles as citizens. We ALLOW these things to happen because “wala rin namang mangyayari” if we acted on these things. Yet we don’t want to admit that EDSA 2 is a mistake. This is another form of defense mechanism, and psychologists call it denial – one of the most unhealthy among the defense mechanisms. Read Siege’s post above. And wala talagang mangyayari because WE CHOOSE TO DO NOTHING. As we say in computing, GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.

And there is a more subtle form of rationalization that is creeping the Interwebs. You can recognize this form easily. It begins with someone justifying his/her participation on EDSA 2 – a simple rationalization. Then, when asked about the current situation, another rationalization comes up. He or she will say that there are more better ways to affect change yada yada et cetera ad infinitum, without even saying what are those ways. And the most sinister amongst these is the implication that we should just move on and let things be. Yes, even if there is corruption, let it be. We might as well have no laws, right?

Why are these rationalizations unhealthy? Because we are hurting ourselves in the long term. What is happening nowadays (and what had happened before) will become templates for tomorrow – what has been done before can be done again. Because we are not addressing the issues, they will keep on hounding us again and again and again. Rationalizing might have swept the dust under the carpet, but the dust remains, only hidden.

And the worst thing? You may slug on your own (better?) way to affect change, but it may all be for naught since you chose to ignore the issue. Baka wala ring mangyari in the end.

PS: Actually, I would have wanted to use laziness as the thesis of this blog post, coupled by selfishness. Next time, maybe.