‘The stars align’: A pink president in 2028?

OXFORD—”Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Thus said the key character in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” (Act 2, Scene 5). When it comes to nations, though, none is exactly ”born” with greatness–a feat that is rather achieved, either through collective sacrifice and focused discipline or, as in the age of empires, on the ruins of traditional societies and the stolen lands of indigenous polities.

Contrary to romantic narratives, modern nation-states were mostly constructed through brutal campaigns of political aggregation and, across the post-colonial world, on the carapace of hollowed-out empires. Nation-state-building, in short, has been a bloody prose shaped by the poetry of geopolitical chance, existential conflicts, and idealistic convictions. Just think of the world’s biggest nations. China, for instance, emerged out of the centuries-old Darwinian struggle of ”warring states”– the actual oriental version of the “Game of Thrones,” which culminated in the hegemony of the Qin dynasty. Over the next 2,000 years, ruling dynasties expanded beyond the Yellow River to eventually absorb, most dramatically, the Tibetan empire and Turkic lands in Xinjiang.

Unbeknownst to most, Russia’s more contemporary emergence as the world’s largest nation—expanding from the Muscovite Duchy all the way to Alaska and modern-day San Francisco—coincided with America’s emergence as the other major continental-sized polity at the expense of preceding British, French, and Spanish imperial projects in formerly indigenous lands in North America. As for smaller ”great” nations, such as Switzerland, Singapore, or South Korea, their success was built on the back of a long history of collective sacrifice and commitment to national survival. Our beloved nation was a product of the heroic sacrifices of some of the greatest minds and most courageous men and women of the 19th century. In short, the path to national ”greatness” is tortuous.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to ignore the pull of patriotism, which renders meaning to the life of a modern citizen. In nation-states, we find a concrete articulation of our shared dreams, sacrifices, and glories. A deeper understanding of the extreme contingencies of history allows us to see beyond the mist of contemporary political morass. Roaming through Edinburgh’s breathtaking cityscape last week—a dreamy blend of gothic spires, dark stones, and picturesque winding streets—I could imagine the spellbinding beauty of Old Manila during the time of Rizal. History, however, conspired against both our ilustrados and our early republics.

Having survived World War II, which decimated our capital and hammered our most precious heritage sites, the Philippines fell victim to vicious dynastic politics after a brief spell of economic boom in the 1950s. Then came the Asian financial crisis, which torpedoed hard-earned developmental gains during the reformist Ramos administration. And then came a decade of the Duterte-Marcos axis after six years of relatively decent governance and undeniable economic boom under the Benigno Aquino III administration.

But the two Edsa revolts showed us that the dream never died. We all remained haunted by Rizal’s vision of national greatness—a free, independent, and informed republic—against all odds. This was precisely the spirit that animated the Pink movement in 2022, as millions of Filipinos took to the streets in support of a better and more beautiful Philippines. I feel immensely privileged to have directly witnessed that political moment of unbounded hope and unquestionable patriotism!

We often imagine change as a tsunami—a single wave that upends everything. But real, transformative change—as in nation-building—is more like a tectonic shift: a product of sustained mobilization and structural trends mixed with random chance. Confronting the combined resources of UniTeam mega-dynasties in 2022, the Pink movement didn’t achieve its immediate goal of landing former Vice President Leni Robredo in Malacañang. Her campaign, however, sowed the seeds of positive transformation.

With the Dutertes facing accountability for their crimes and our folks waking up to the ”budol” politics of our demagogic and rapacious dynasties, I would say that, ceteris paribus, there is a greater chance that we will get a progressive president in 2028 than not. Almost all private and public surveys I have analyzed show that someone like Robredo could, once again, inspire a national struggle for a better and more beautiful Philippines. Beyond surveys, one can sense the profound national hunger for positive change in the air—for Rizal’s dream lives on!