The Society of Honor by Joe America

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1. Irineo B. R. Salazar says:

   February 22, 2026 at 3:27 pm

   OT: Prof. Vicente Rafael died yesterday aged 70. His life partner Lila Shahani posted this:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_L._Rafael – this is his biography. I have read one of his books, Motherless Tongues, and found the chapter on 1970s Pinoy slang amusing. The chapter “The Cellphone and the Crowd” about EDSA Dos was also great.

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   • Irineo B. R. Salazar says:

     February 22, 2026 at 3:34 pm

     and again from Gerry C: https://www.facebook.com/gerrycacanindin/posts/pfbid02ZbVW35bMKkpVGLvfbq9tU2bL8m997uNox3NPMUn28qUheknfYdmguQttNBsnk7Hfl

     To those who still believe this country can be better, this is written with both care and candor. Because 2028 will not be easy. If anything, it will be harder. And before we talk about strategy, machinery, or messaging, we need to talk about ourselves.

     Because the most important work doesn’t start onstage or online. It starts from within. So hear this in the spirit it’s meant. Not as an attack, not as self-flagellation, but as preparation.

     Last time, we did many things right. The volunteers showed up, the energy was real, the conviction was phenomenal. No one can say the movement lacked heart.
     But somewhere along the way, we misread the terrain. The problem wasn’t what we believed in. It wasn’t the lack of people and volunteers, either. It certainly wasn’t the lack of passion. The problem was that we fought a moral crusade in what was ultimately a power contest.
     And those are not the same battlefield.

     We made the election feel like a referendum on goodness, on intelligence, and who was on the “right side of history.” It felt righteous and urgent. And yes, it felt necessary.

     But to millions of voters, it also felt like a test they didn’t sign up for. And when people feel judged, they don’t convert. They simply harden.

     Because when someone senses, even subtly, of being told “you were fooled,” or that “you voted wrong before,” or “you just don’t get it,” the brain doesn’t go, “Oh okay, thank you for correcting me.” It goes into defense mode. It locks in identity and allows pride to kick in. And before you know it, walls have gone up, perhaps never to come down again.

     We energized our base. We inspired the already convinced. We created something beautiful, electric, historic. But elections in this country aren’t won by inspiration alone.

     They’re won in sari-sari stores, in kitchens, in provinces where Facebook is the news. In households where the only political question that matters is, “Magkano na bigas?”

     People weren’t waking up thinking about disinformation ecosystems or democratic backsliding. They were waking up thinking about food on the table, fuel for their tricycles and jeepneys, tuition fee hikes, remittance delays, sudden hospital bills. So when the campaign felt like a moral lecture instead of a practical lifeline, the emotional middle drifted away. Another thing…

     Once reform starts sounding like it belongs to the educated, the urban, the “may alam,” “may natapos,” it becomes easy to caricature. Conyo. Preachy. Self-righteous. Elitista. Kahit hindi totoo, once a label sticks, it spreads. And when we sound elite, even accidentally, we lose the people who most need to feel seen. By the way, here’s the part that stings…

     Unintentionally or not, the campaign felt optimized for being correct, being decent, and for being on the right side.

     We missed that part about real-world dynamics that winning actually requires something colder and straightforward. That winning is about optimizing for power. Not dirty nor corrupt power. Just the discipline of understanding that elections are not moral debates but rather emotional security contests.

     Because voters don’t want to prove they’re good people. They want to feel safe, stable, heard, and less anxious about tomorrow.

     If 2028 becomes another “prove you’re morally awake” campaign, we will lose again. But if 2028 becomes “Let’s fix what’s making your life hard,” spoken calmly, firmly, without superiority, without internal purity wars, without online pile-ons, then it becomes competitive. Not a sure win, but a contest with a real fighting chance.

     So starting now, make it a habit to lower the temperature, to kill the moral and purity test, to speak like a neighbor and not a professor, to build machinery like it matters. Sound strong without sounding cruel. Win first, debate later. Because history doesn’t reward the most correct movement. It rewards the one that actually rises to power.

     https://www.facebook.com/gerrycacanindin/posts/pfbid0shz88zvkaaRRx5o1o2we4QqfKdozX7wCFrmnP7Vxmf1ncAaBXiBicVUCwk41VUFgl P.S. also this:

     Tomorrow will be the first day of the confirmation hearing of the ICC on the case of Rodrigo Duterte. The hearing is spread out over several days, lasting roughly five hours per day. This is huge as it will be the first time a former Asian president is in The Hague, going through the legal process in a crimes against humanity case.

     If you’re going to watch the confirmation hearing, and actually, you should, it’s worth remembering to not watch it like it’s a boxing match. Rather, watch it like you’re trying to understand how power is examined.

     First, remember what this stage actually is. This isn’t even the trial yet. The judges will simply be asking whether there is enough evidence to move this to a full trial, that’s all. The question that will be figured out Is whether there’s enough evidence to proceed to a trial.

     Second, listen to how the prosecution frames the case. Are they saying there was a pattern? A policy? A chain of command? The ICC won’t be looking for one isolated incident. It will try to determine whether something was systematic and whether leadership can be linked to it.

     Third, pay attention to how responsibility is argued. Even if a leader didn’t personally carry out an act, the issue is whether they knew, encouraged, or failed to stop it. That’s where things will get serious, and will shed light on the usual DDS narrative that since Duterte never pulled the trigger in any of the EJK deaths, he should not be blamed or convicted for the deaths.

     Fourth, watch how the defense responds. Are they challenging the evidence? Questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction? Arguing that Philippine courts should handle it? Their strategy tells you what they think is weakest in the case.

     Fifth, observe the judges. Sometimes their questions reveal more than the actual discussions. If they keep pressing one issue, that’s probably where they see gaps.

     And finally, try to separate emotion from process. You can support or oppose Duterte and still understand what’s happening legally. Focus on the structure. What is being alleged? What evidence connects it? Do the judges seem convinced there’s enough to move forward?

     The hearing is good way for us Filipinos to actually see how trials and legal processes are carried out, which we rarely witness first hand and in real time, if at all.

     So Duterte’s non-appearance doesn’t really matter and personally, I think it’s better as Pinoys can focus on the facts and the arguments rather than on, in his own words, “old and tired” former president. Because really, the law doesn’t care what you feel. It only cares about the case.

     The case will be streamed with a 30-minute delay on ABS-CBN starting at 5PM tomorrow, February 23.

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     • JoeAm says:

       February 22, 2026 at 3:37 pm

       Extraordinarily well said.

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     • kasambahay says:

       February 24, 2026 at 7:10 am

       dead at only 70yrs! professors usually live longer than ordinary people who are now living close to their 90s and sometimes up to their 100s. in this day and age, people are living longer and looking after them is a lucrative and booming industry. I so hope the good professor has ticked all in his bucket list and can now rest in peace.

       sa kabilang dako, where all pretenses are shed he will be meeting not just the victims of duterte’s drug war, but our long gone heroes whom he can only write about in his books. all is well that ends well? some of his books dont have happy ending.

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   • JoeAm says:

     February 22, 2026 at 3:42 pm

     Ahhhh, I crossed paths with Lila Shahani in 2010 or thereabouts. Classy, intelligent woman. I didn’t know her husband/partner. The condolences roll through on FB and you gain an appreciation for the Filipino heart.

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     • Irineo B. R. Salazar says:

       February 22, 2026 at 4:19 pm

       Quoting from Vicente Rafael’s book Motherless Tongues (published in 2016), page 72, Chapter 3 “The Cell Phone and The Crowd” about EDSA Dos:

       Aside from TV and radio, another communication medium was given credit for spurring the coup: the cell phone. Most of the accounts of EDSA II available to us come from middle-class writers or by way of media controlled by the middle class and with strong nationalist sentiments. Nearly all accounts point to the crucial importance of the cell phone in the rapid mobilization of demonstrators. “The phone is our weapon now,” we hear from an office worker quoted in a newspaper article. A college student in Manila was quoted as saying that “the power of our cell phones and computers were among the things that lit the fuse which set off the second uprising, our People Power Revolution II.” And a newspaper columnist advised “would-be foot soldiers in any future revolution that as long as you[r cellphone] is not low on battery, you are in the groove, in a fighting mood.” A technological thing was thus idealized as an agent of change, invested with the power to bring forth new forms of sociality.

       Introduced in the second half of the 1990s, cell phones in the Philippines had become remarkably popular by 1999. There are a number of reasons for their ubiquity. first, there is the perennial difficulty and expense of acquiring landline phones in the Philippines, and the service provided by the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company is erratic. Cell phones offered the promise of satisfying this need for connectivity. in addition, cell phones cost far less than personal computers, which in 2001 were owned by fewer than 1 percent of the population (though a larger proportion had access through Internet cafes). By contrast, in the same year, there were over 10 million cell phone users in a population of about 77 million during the year of the uprising..

       P.S. about EDSA III, page 93:

       Other accounts qualified these depictions by pointing out that many in the crowd were not merely hired thugs or demented loyalists but poor people who had legitimate complaints. They had been largely ignored by the elite politicians, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the middle-class-dominated reformist groups, and the NGOs. Even though Estrada manipulated them, the protestors saw their ex-president as a patron who had given them hope by way of occasional handouts and who addressed them in Tagalog. The middle-class media treated Estrada’s supporters as simpletons deficient in moral and political consciousness but worthy of compassion..

       ..it is important to note, however, that the protestors were not, in fact, voiceless. While marching to the palace, the masses chanted slogans. Newspaper reports quoted these slogans and in doing give us a rare change to actually hear this other crowd: “Nandito na kami, malapit na ang tagumpay!” [We’re here, our victory is close at hand!]..

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       • JoeAm says:

         February 22, 2026 at 4:42 pm

         Ah, very good, thanks.

         Reply
   • Karl Garcia says:

     February 22, 2026 at 5:24 pm

     Thanks I was able to offer my confolences just now.

     Reply
2. CV says:

   February 24, 2026 at 1:15 am

   Years ago, I had a run in with Filipino “Hispanistas.” They are a strange group who lament the loss of the Spanish language in the Philippines and their main conversation piece is to bash Americans for “banning” Spanish. Needless to say, they didn’t like me because I would point out facts like the flowering of Filipino literature in Spanish reached its peak in 1924, smack in the middle of the American period. That happened largely because the Spanish censorship on what Filipinos could write about was gone.

   One of their more level headed members is a professor at the Ateneo. I confronted him with an essay by Dr. Rafael, a Spanish speaker himself, where Dr. Rafael claimed that Spanish speaking Filipinos generally had a very shallow understanding of the language. This was at their Hispano-Filipino forum. He of course ignored me, despite repeated follow-ups. Imagine a professor refusing to talk about a work by a fellow professor.

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   • Irineo B. R. Salazar says:

     February 24, 2026 at 2:45 am

     “Hispanistas.” They are a strange group

     Joey has mentioned them unfavorably as well. Weirdos for sure. People with no real idea of what Spain is like much less Mexico as well as their people.

     the flowering of Filipino literature in Spanish reached its peak in 1924

     The late Vicente Rafael also notes in the intro of Motherless Tongues that his father (born in 1896) spoke Spanish because he had to as a lawyer, and a lot of legal proceedings still were in Spanish until 1941. Factoids: (1) some of the proceedings of the Nalundasan trial against Ferdinand E. Marcos in the 1930s were in Spanish. (2) I also have an official receipt of the Insular Government from the 1920s from family land records in my possession that is bilingual Spanish/English, so even the colonial government itself knew that Spanish was the main language of many (3) of course Spanish was still one of the official languages of the Philippines as per the 1935 Constitution, only the 1973 Constitution did away with it.

     MLQ3 says the peak of speaking Spanish in PH was the 1930s but that is of course an elite perspective.

     Dr. Rafael claimed that Spanish speaking Filipinos generally had a very shallow understanding of the language

     He definitely mentions in Motherless Tongues that is was still a subject in school during his youth (he was born in 1956), but was taught extremely badly. My Spanish isn’t that good, I failed the B-level medium exam at the Instituto Cervantes in Munich in 2004 and then stopped as the weekend course I was in only continued for those who passed and I was working during the week of course, but it is a very nuanced language especially its two past tenses.

     There is an error in some early Noli translations about the blonde youth (el joven rubio) in Chapter 3 – even that of Charles Derbyshire which translates it to “rubicund youth” meaning red-cheeked, and some with translate it to red-haired youth (Spaniards can of course have blonde hair but red hair is more common among the Irish) while anyone who knows a bit of Latino music knows that chica rubia is a blonde woman, so yes how well did many Filipinos really understand Spanish?

     I also tried reading some Spanish novels and discovered that the Spanish of novels is extremely metaphorical, almost dreamy, one cannot take it fully literally. Is that the reason so many Tagalog translations of the Noli are just BAD?

     He of course ignored me, despite repeated follow-ups.

     That is what Joey has also mentioned, the gatekeeping so common in the Philippines.

     Imagine a professor refusing to talk about a work by a fellow professor.

     Prof. Rafael used to teach at Ateneo originally. But what I can tell you about Philippine academe is that it is often as much about in-groups as the rest of the country. If you contradict some of them, they will treat you like Padre Damaso would treat an excommunicated person, literally.

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