This column comes out a week after the 2025 Midterm National and Local Elections were held. The results of the Senate race (five from the administration Alyansa, five from the Duterte family-endorsed slate, and two liberal opposition senators) upset pre-election survey predictions. It casts the Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. presidency in the latter half of its term on shakier ground than expected. The defeat of a number of political dynasties throughout the country is also welcomed — with the victors being neophytes or proven advocates of more programmatic governance.

While Filipinos tend to see our engagement with elections as an obsession for pageantry, cynical eyes criticize it as the latest entry in a catalogue of long-running disappointments. While this election cycle has begun spurring hope for the rallying of a more genuine political opposition to the feuding Marcos and Duterte dynasties, it is my desire instead to offer a more forward-looking perspective.

Electoral exercises should ensure that governance (the process of collective and mutual policy-making between state, vested interests, and the public) be made smoother and inclusive. It is easier to get what we want from the government if the people we are talking to are already on the same page as we are and hold the same ideological position or policy perspective. At the same time, we have tended to make voting the be-all and end-all of citizenship. Doing this is electoralism, the flawed idea that we only have a say until we’ve voted — then we have to uncritically follow. This makes us neglect (if not abandon) other, more life-changing spaces for citizen participation.

The debate on what “representation” means is deceptively simple, but contentious. Do we simply wish to look at leaders that show us “something to aspire to,” regardless of whether they care about us (symbolic representation)? Do we seek, primarily, that “one of us” (be it gender, ethnicity, occupation, or whichever identity) be at the levers of power, regardless of how inclusive those power structures are (descriptive representation)? Or do we ultimately wish for leaders who are not only honest about who they are and what they stand for, but are actively making government work for the people who most need help, even if it is not necessarily ourselves (substantive representation)?

It is the third that we tend to emphasize, especially in voters’ education programs. The victory of senatorial oppositionists and reformist local officials suggest we’re beginning to mainstream this perspective. But we do tend to preach to the choir here. A larger section of our population is too socially and economically vulnerable to bother with the demands and commitment of political participation.

Loath as we are to admit it, the absence of inclusive development gives people an economic incentive to stick to patron-client ties. To echo Francis Fukuyama’s old argument in his 2014 book Political Order and Political Decay, “[patronage] is based on a relationship of reciprocity and creates a degree of democratic accountability between the politician and those who vote for [them].” Our politicians need our votes and loyalties as much as we need the pamudmod/handout — however miniscule that “democratic accountability” may be. What is worse is not only are we caught in this dilemma, the costs of political opposition and activism have been fatal — if only because of the monopoly of wealth and violence enjoyed by political dynasties willing to crush their opposition.

Hence, many of our kababayans (fellow citizens) are stuck with — or are actively being deluded by — shallow interpretations of symbolic and descriptive representation. This is why many of us would be driven towards flawed, demonstrably corrupt, if not flat-out treasonous and criminal politicians. It is less about what they actually do, but what they arouse in us — real or imaginary. Despite the victories of reform-oriented candidates in this election cycle, this reality still holds true (be it in the other senatoriables or local dynasts).

The perennial temptation is to blame the “stupid voters” (the bobotantes, as bandied by terminally online smug people). The stereotype is that lower class, “uneducated” Filipino voters keep voting against their interests in voting for familiar faces, celebrities, and overstaying political dynasties. Even overseas Filipino workers, instead of gaining a more “cosmopolitan” perspective through exposure to better-governed societies, still double down voting for the same traditional candidates over-marketed to them by relatives and disinformation networks. This prejudice is being reinforced by the results of the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), which claims that 18.9 million Filipinos from the ages of 10 to 64 are classified as “functionally illiterate.”

This assumption has long been held by sneering middle-to-upper class voters claiming superiority. Interpretations of despair and cynicism regarding the Filipino voter have persisted across some newspaper columnists over the past weeks. Yet polling data from over the years show these income brackets are not immune to the same celebrity, dynasty, and/or clientelist pattern. The Marcos disinformation myth that returned them to Malacañang in 2022, plus the persistence of the Duterte family’s narratives, suggests as much.

It’s easy to fall into despair, that the Philippines is caught in a chicken-and-egg situation. We can only change with good leadership, but it is not chosen due to a hamstrung, and compromised citizenry. Yet uplifting our citizenry requires good leadership and systemic change, the very thing we keep failing to get.

In reality, working leadership and an informed citizenry is already here. They just need to keep being engaged, made to care, made to meet, and be cultivated. Substantive citizenship, in tandem with substantive representation, requires a people that remains conscious of their needs, unafraid of engaging with their leaders whenever they are, and tirelessly creating opportunities to educate and learn from each other. It also requires communal connections that would band and protect each other, precisely when the state is bearing down to intimidate us to silence or capitulation. Personality and ideology-oriented partisanship cannot be the only ones expected to engender this. It must empower and protect even those outside their inner circles.

Genuinely transformative politics adds, not contracts. Vitally, it needs to be humble enough to not claim to have all of the answers but offer a wide enough space that those who are scared can be emboldened to take the plunge of discovering those new answers. Realizing this, and how it can be leveraged to other forms of engagement, is ultimately what can be our way out. This is just the first meaningful step on the longer marathon of citizenship.

Hansley A. Juliano serves as instructor with the Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University. He is finishing his doctoral research at the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University. He also serves as a radio show producer for Radyo Katipunan 87.9, Jesuit Communications Foundation.