Part 1 of 3 I was stuck in traffic the other day—which, let’s be honest, is where all great Filipino philosophical crises begin—and I found myself looking at the back of a jeepney plastered with religious stickers and colonial-era slogans. It hit me: so much of what we call “Filipino Tradition” is actually just a leftover colonial hangover we’ve mistaken for a personality. We pride ourselves on being a conservative society. We hold onto “the way things were” like a life raft. But if we look closer at the conservatism rooted in our religious and colonial history, you have to wonder: is that raft actually a weight pulling us under? It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? We defend certain values…

Part 2 of 3 In my last rant or whatever that one was, I talked about the “what,” this part is about the “how.” How did we get to a point where, in 2026, our political landscape still looks like a series of family reunions punctuated by prayer meetings? When you look at the results of the 2025 midterms, it’s easy to get discouraged. Despite some cracks in the old walls, about 80% of our lawmakers still belong to political dynasties. It makes you wonder: why do we, the “masa,” keep voting for the same surnames? The answer isn’t that the voters are “uninformed.” It’s that conservatism in the Philippines has been weaponized into a very effective political product. 1.