WHY do people see the same politics so differently? This was asked by a young educator from Bulacan, Mark Francisco de la Cruz, and I am featuring him in this column.
He is 23 years old, and he comes from the Gen Z generation. There are approximately 27.9 million Gen Z Filipinos (those born between 1997 and 2010), representing about 25 percent of the Philippine population. Gen Z has become one of the country’s most influential demographic groups.
About 21.87 million Gen Z Filipinos were part of the voting-age population for the 2025 elections, accounting for 28.79 percent of voters. Together with millennials, Gen Z comprises the majority of the country’s workforce entrants, digital consumers and voters.
Seeing through different lens
One of the most fascinating — and perhaps frustrating — things about Philippine politics today is that people can witness the exact same event and walk away with completely different conclusions.
The same speech. The same election. The same news report. The same investigation. The same politician. The same set of facts.
Yet one person sees justice while another sees persecution. One sees accountability while another sees political revenge. One sees reform while another sees instability. One sees hope while another sees danger.
And perhaps what makes it even more complicated is that many of these people are not necessarily uninformed, irrational or acting in bad faith.
Many of them are intelligent. Many of them are educated with genuine care about the country.
A simple explanation
For a long time, Mark thinks many of us have assumed that political disagreements happen because one side simply lacks information. The assumption is that if everyone had access to the same facts, eventually everyone would reach the same conclusion.
But reality doesn’t seem to work that way.
In fact, one of the most overlooked realities in modern political discourse is that people often disagree not because they are looking at different facts, but because they are interpreting those facts through different values, experiences, priorities and assumptions.
In other words, many political disagreements are not really disagreements about information but about perspective.
Leadership lens
Consider how different Filipinos define what makes a good leader.
For some, leadership is primarily about results.
They care about whether crime decreases, whether infrastructure improves, public services function, roads get built, jobs are created and daily life becomes easier. From this perspective, effectiveness often becomes the primary measure of success.
Others approach politics from a different angle.
For them, leadership is not only about results but also about process.
Questions about accountability, transparency, constitutional limits, human rights, democratic institutions and ethical governance become equally important. For this group, a leader cannot simply be evaluated by what was achieved but also by how those achievements were pursued.
The questions we ask
Neither side is necessarily asking a foolish question. They’re simply asking different questions.
When people start from different questions, they often arrive at different answers, and political discussions have become increasingly emotional.
For some Filipinos, politics remains primarily a matter of preference. For others, politics has become deeply personal. Politics affects employment; education; health care; inflation; public safety; international relations; the justice system; and whether communities receive resources or are left behind.
Concrete lens
When viewed through that lens, political disagreements no longer feel abstract. They begin to feel connected to real lives and real consequences. This is especially visible in today’s political climate.
When discussions involve corruption allegations, human rights issues, public accountability, international investigations, economic struggles or institutional trust, many people stop seeing politics as merely a contest between competing candidates.
Instead, they begin seeing it as a contest between competing visions of what the country should become, where disagreement becomes much harder to separate from emotion. What one person sees as a political opinion, another may interpret as a statement about justice. What one person sees as pragmatism, another may see as moral compromise. What one person sees as loyalty, another may see as enabling. What one person sees as accountability, another may see as persecution. The disagreement often goes deeper than the issue being discussed.
It reflects different understandings of society itself.
Social media has only amplified this phenomenon. Platforms reward speed more than reflection. Reaction more than nuance. Certainty more than complexity.
As a result, people are often encouraged to choose sides quickly. Support. Oppose. Defend. Attack. Like. Cancel. Share. Condemn.
The space between those positions has become increasingly difficult to occupy. Nuance often struggles to survive in environments designed for instant judgment.
Yet real life remains stubbornly complex. Most people are not purely defined by a single political belief; not entirely black and white; and do not have simple solutions. And most citizens are trying to navigate uncertainty with incomplete information.
Understanding beyond winning
Perhaps this is why some of the most productive political conversations happen when people stop trying to win arguments and start trying to understand perspectives.
Understanding does not require agreement; does not require surrendering one’s principles. Understanding simply requires recognizing that people often arrive at their conclusions through different experiences and priorities.
A business owner worried about economic stability may evaluate politics differently from a human rights advocate. A parent concerned about public safety may view issues differently from a law student focused on constitutional principles. Someone who experienced poverty may prioritize different concerns than someone who experienced political repression.
These differences do not automatically determine who is correct. But they help explain why disagreement persists even when people share the same country and often the same hopes for its future — the most important realization of all.
Most Filipinos, regardless of political affiliation, want many of the same things.
They want safer communities. Better opportunities. Less corruption. More accountability. Stronger institutions. A functioning economy. A better future for their families. The disagreement often begins when people start debating how those goals should be achieved and which values should be prioritized when those goals come into conflict.
This does not mean all positions are equally valid nor does it mean criticism should disappear. Healthy democracies depend on scrutiny, debate and accountability. But meaningful debate becomes difficult when we assume everyone who disagrees with us is either ignorant, malicious or morally defective.
Sometimes people arrive at different conclusions because they prioritize different risks, interpret the same events differently; place greater emphasis on different values or are simply answering different questions altogether.
Perhaps that is why understanding political disagreement has become one of the most important civic skills of our time. Not because it will eliminate conflict. Not because it will create universal agreement. But because it may help us understand why people who share the same nation, the same institutions, and often the same aspirations can still see the same political reality through entirely different eyes.
Before asking why people disagree, perhaps we should first ask a more fundamental question: What exactly are they disagreeing about?
Because sometimes the answer is not politics. Sometimes the answer is how they understand justice, freedom, security, accountability, leadership and the future of the country itself. And until we understand those underlying differences, many political arguments will continue to sound like conversations between people speaking entirely different languages while believing they are discussing the same thing.
