@re-joyce 25 May 2026

One of the biggest reasons powerful people get away with murder, and almost every other illegal or criminal thing, is because ordinary people are kept too divided to focus on them for long. That’s the real power of “divide and conquer.” The strategy is actually very simple. If people ever become too united, too observant, and too focused on the same questions, even the most powerful politicians, dynasties, oligarchs, or institutions can be pressured. They can be investigated, exposed, and cornered. History has proven that many times. So the goal really is to make sure the public never stays united long enough. Instead of citizens collectively asking, “Who stole the money? Who approved this? Who benefited? Why does the same corruption keep happening? Why are abusive people still untouchable?”, people are encouraged to attack each other instead. DDS vs. Kakampink. Left vs. right. Rich vs. poor. Religious vs. secular. Province vs. Manila. Every issue becomes tribal. Every discussion becomes emotional warfare. And once emotions take over, focus disappears. Imagine may malaking krimen na nangyari sa classroom. Pero bago pa magtulungan ang students para alamin kung sino may kasalanan, pinagsasabong mo na sila sa ibang issue. Sino mas annoying. Sino mas bobo. Sino mas plastic. Sino mas “kalaban.” Eventually, the entire room becomes chaos. At habang lahat distracted at galit sa isa’t isa, the actual guilty person quietly walks out the back door. Flood control? Wala na yung outrage. Lifestyle checks? Slowly flexing again yung mga nepo babies. Ikulong na mga kurakot? Si Bong Revilla palang nakulong at dahil malas lang siya kasi hindi siya nanalo noong huling election. That’s how power protects itself. Because powerful people rarely survive through strength alone. They survive through confusion, through noise, and through distraction. Through actually making sure the public is too fragmented to sustain pressure and accountability. And social media made this system even more resilient. Because rage spreads faster than facts just as how insults spread faster than investigations, since algorithms reward outrage, and because outrage keeps people addicted and engaged. So instead of the public collectively looking into corruption, abuse, violence, or government failures, people spend hours every day humiliating strangers online who are also just ordinary citizens trying to survive. Meanwhile, many of the people with actual power remain insulated. That’s why you’ll sometimes notice something strange in politics. Supporters are willing to destroy each other over politicians who, behind closed doors, still attend the same weddings, business events, dinners, golf clubs, and family gatherings. Basically, the public treats politics like war. The elite often treat it like networking. And this is why truly dangerous moments for abusive power are not when one side “wins” online. It’s when ordinary people across different beliefs suddenly begin agreeing on one thing. Like, “Hold on, that person should not be above the law.” See, once people stop fighting each other long enough to collectively look upward instead of sideways, that’s when even the most untouchable people start becoming vulnerable. And maybe that’s the funniest irony of all. A lot of ordinary Filipinos now spend more energy defending or attacking political camps than demanding accountability from the powerful people who actually shape their lives.