THERE are days when I feel I am about to give up on democracy.
Not because I have become enamored with authoritarianism, nor because I have lost faith in constitutional government, but because I increasingly question whether democracy can survive when so many citizens reward conduct that should, in any functioning republic, provoke outrage rather than admiration.
Democracy ultimately rests not only on institutions, elections and constitutions, but on the judgment of the people. When that judgment becomes detached from evidence, facts and reason, the system itself begins to strain.
We keep voting. Election after election, we are told democracy works because the people decide. But what happens when the people repeatedly elevate those who appear least deserving of public office? At what point do we stop blaming politicians alone and begin asking difficult questions about the political culture that produces them?
Take Sara Duterte. Survey after survey continue to rank her among the country’s most trusted political figures, with many respondents approving of her performance. Yet she has been impeached by the House of Representatives on charges involving betrayal of public trust, including irregular use of confidential funds, questions surrounding unexplained wealth, and threatening the lives of the president, the first lady, and the former speaker of the House. Whether these charges ultimately lead to conviction is for the impeachment court to decide. But that such serious accusations appear to have done so little to diminish public confidence is deeply unsettling.
The disconnect becomes even more troubling when we examine attitudes toward the impeachment trial itself. Robin Padilla, the top vote-getter in the 2022 Senate elections, publicly warned the prosecution not to be “one-sided,” revealing a misunderstanding of the prosecutor’s role, which is precisely to argue the case it has filed. His interventions also reflected confusion about the role of a senator-judge, whose neutrality lies in evaluating evidence, not balancing competing narratives.
Yet surveys place Padilla among the three senators most trusted to decide the impeachment case fairly. He is joined by Alan Peter Cayetano, whose interventions often resemble defense advocacy rather than judicial detachment, and Bong Go, who openly defended Sara Duterte and even justified her assault on a sheriff performing his lawful duty. That these figures are widely perceived as impartial says less about them than it does about us. It suggests that political loyalty has become more important than competence, integrity or fidelity to institutional roles.
The irony deepens when Padilla and Cayetano also emerge as strong contenders for reelection in 2028. Their conduct has not diminished their popularity. If anything, it appears to have reinforced it. Facts are acknowledged but stripped of consequence. Public memory resets after every election cycle, leaving little accumulated judgment to guide future choices.
This contradiction becomes even more evident when surveys show that about 71 percent of Filipinos believe impeachment should be decided based on law and evidence rather than politics. On paper, this is reassuring. But many of these same citizens dismiss Sara Duterte’s alleged grave threats as mere free speech. Principles seem to change depending on who is involved. Identity overrides consistency.
This is more than ordinary partisanship. It reflects an erosion of rational judgment. Democracy gives power to the people, but that power assumes citizens will exercise it responsibly. The legitimacy of democratic outcomes depends not merely on counting votes but on choices grounded in evidence and reason. Without these anchors, democratic participation becomes detached from accountability.
Democracy depends on citizens who are willing to change their minds when confronted with evidence. Otherwise, elections become rituals rather than accountability.
Classical thinkers understood this danger. From Plato to de Tocqueville, scholars have warned about demagogues who manipulate public emotion. Twentieth-century theorists examined propaganda, agenda-setting and the manufacture of consent. They recognized that public opinion could be shaped.
What they could not fully anticipate was today’s information ecosystem. Social media has not merely accelerated communication. It has transformed truth itself. Algorithms reward outrage over accuracy. Falsehood spreads faster than correction. Emotional narratives outperform evidence. Entire communities now inhabit parallel realities where repetition substitutes for verification.
When facts become optional, democracy loses the common reality that meaningful debate requires.
The result is not simply polarization but a distortion of reality itself. A citizen who knowingly chooses a flawed candidate still exercises judgment. But a citizen whose perception has been systematically manipulated no longer operates under the conditions democracy was designed to assume. Democratic decline today appears not as collapse but as confusion.
And yet, I cannot bring myself to abandon democracy.
There are still signs of resilience. The Senate, despite its flaws, continues to function. Constitutional processes, however imperfect, still matter. Even damaged institutions remain capable of producing moments of accountability.
Then came a glimmer of hope. The latest OCTA Research Tugon ng Masa survey suggests that public opinion may finally be shifting. Between the first and second quarters of 2026, Sara Duterte’s trust rating fell from 55 percent to 47 percent, while her performance rating dropped from 50 percent to 45 percent, slipping below majority approval for the first time. It is only one survey, and trends can certainly reverse. But perhaps public debate, congressional investigations and the impeachment proceedings are finally penetrating the public consciousness. Perhaps facts and evidence are beginning to matter again.
If that is indeed the case, democracy may still have an immune system. That possibility is reason enough not to surrender.
Democracy demands patience because it relies on persuasion rather than coercion. It is slow, uneven, and often frustrating. It may even reward the wrong people at times. But as long as facts can still persuade citizens, as long as evidence can still shift public opinion, and as long as reason is not entirely extinguished, democracy deserves another chance.
Saving democracy therefore means restoring respect for evidence over blind political loyalty. It also requires the courage to hold our own leaders to the same standards we demand of everyone else.
Perhaps the latest OCTA numbers are telling us something profound: that sanity is not yet dead. If so, then neither is democracy.
The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of PTVNI.
