BY the time this column is published, we will have gone to the polls, cast our votes for the people who will determine our country’s future, and the fraught process of counting those votes will be under way. As I write, however, Rodrigo Duterte, the presidential candidate who has admitted to murder, jokes about rape, and has thuggish, dictatorial tendencies, holds a steady double-digit lead against the other candidates and is likely to be our next President. His most diehard supporters have threatened to spill blood should he lose.

Away from the whooping Duterte followers, the mood is one of alarm and dread. There is cynical talk of getting the government we deserve. There is sarcasm toward bobotantes, an insulting term for the mass of poor voters who are blamed for taking money for their vote, or for voting unthinkingly on the basis of personality and name. There is a creeping fear that the electoral process will be hijacked. There are rumors of a possible post-election coup, the imposition of military rule, and the enactment of martial law, similar to what happened in Thailand in 2014. Most of all, there is a seeping, spreading sense of uncertainty, despair, and disillusionment over Philippine democracy. The emergence of a Duterte, it seems, is due to our dysfunctional system.

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