INTERSECTION OF POLITICS AND CULTURE: WHY SINGAPORE OBEYS AND PHILIPPINES RESISTS
“Politics is downstream of culture” means culture influences politics, or politics reacts to culture. The words can be played around to mean the same stream -- like culture is upstream of politics, or culture is the mainstream. The idea is shifts in cultural values, norms, and narratives gradually shape political priorities, policies and ideologies. Put another way, it means one can GAIN POLITICAL POWER BY CAPTURING CULTURE.
Culture is the battleground where ideological power is won. The 3 pillars of culture – mass media, entertainment and education, deeply influence consciousness long before political structures do. They shape the mood of a society which eventually spills into elections, laws and policies. Politics reacts to culture which influences policies. By the mid 1960s, it became apparent in U.S. the left (Liberals) had captured the cultural high ground. Hollywood, academia, mainstream media, music industry, had all skewed left ideologically. In the long run, conservatives will keep losing unless they fight back in those arenas.
I penned an article called “How institutional capture, cultural radicalism and nationalism are reshaping the liberal world order” in which I explained how Obama captured the culture war. With Democrats’ base of labour unions and working class white folks shrinking, he turned to the cultural left. Obama did not invent the ideology of wokeism, DEI, and trans-activism, but his presidency mainstreamed it. He gave radical academic concepts a centrist stamp of legitimacy and inserted them into federal rule-making. Obama basically was in the same camp as the thuggish radical progressive Democrats such as the Quad, but his genius is his oratorical prowess to speak radical ideas in a centrist language. So he came across as a cool guy. Bottom line is, in Obama era, as well as Biden, politics became MAINSTREAM as Democrats controlled culture.
The idea of “Politics is downstream of culture’ is a useful lens to understand the world, but it is not a universal law. Let’s look at how culture interacts within different political systems.
In Liberal Democracies (US, UK, most Western countries) which are open societies with free media and expression rights, culture influences public opinion which then influences policy and electoral outcomes. For example, the civil rights movement led to the Civil Rights Act. In media-saturated societies (Sorkor, Japan, US, Philippines), cultural values reshape national conversations much faster than politics can respond.
US is a democracy, but in Obama and Biden admin, politics was mainstream. Both regulated progressive ideologies of wokeism, DEI and trans-activism into policies in the same way authoritarian states mainstreamed culture. Karl Marx created the culture of two classes of people, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, In similar mould, Obama helped create the culture of multiplicity of identities of people. Along came Trump who is dismantling the policies of cultural controls, thus returning to the liberal democracy model where culture is upstream of politics. And some call him authoritarian. Strange.
In authoritorian regimes (China, Russia, Iran, North Korear), politics is upstream which shapes culture deliberately. State control of media, religion, education and entertainment industry creates a top-down imposition of values. The regime ideology curates the cultural life for political hegemony.
In a strongmen regime most would align with the authoritarian model even though it may be a democratic country. For example Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Rodrigo Duterte of Philippines.
SINGAPORE: ENGINEERED OBEDIENCE
In Singapore, it is more accurate to say that politics is upstream of culture — or, at the very least, that the state has engineered culture through political will, especially in the post-independence era. Unlike many nations where culture shapes politics, Singapore’s government has actively shaped cultural norms to support its political project of stability, development, and national survival.
Culture was a blank slate when Singapore gained independence in 1965. It was a new nation without a unified national identity. It was a plural society (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian) with no common culture. It lacked natural resources and was geopolitically vulnerable. Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP leadership understood that to govern effectively, they could not rely on inherited cultural cohesion. Instead, they had to create one — through policy, law, education, and media.
In Singapore, politics is not a reflection of culture — it is the creator of culture, ie politics is upstream of culture which is against the norm of a democratic model. Singapore is uno numero of state-driven cultural engineering. The PAP government implements deliberate political programs to shape cultural behavior:
1. National Education:
Civics education, National Day, Total Defence Day — all taught obedience, pragmatism, and loyalty to the state. The national pledge is recited daily to instill unity. Multiculturalism itself became a state ideology, not an organic cultural reality.
2. Asian values campaign :
Promotes “Asian values” (Confucian, hierarchical, family-centric) to counter Western liberalism. Recasts political obedience as cultural virtue, even though such values are politically instrumental.
3. Housing and Social Policy:
The HDB public housing model do not just provide homes — it engineers ethnic integration by ensuring use of quotas in housing estates to reflect the demographic distribution. Religious harmony laws, Sedition Act, and censorship policies are political controls that slowly normalise social deference and restraint. The political system uses policy to rewire social instincts — from who your neighbors are, to what you say in public.
4. National Service (NS):
In Singapore, NS plays a crucial cultural-political role in shaping obedience, discipline, and national identity. In fact, NS is one of the clearest examples of politics being upstream of culture in Singapore. The state uses political power to manufacture a cultural norm. It represents the politicisation of identity and masculinity, turning every Singaporean son into both a soldier and a citizen. It reinforces the idea that citizenship is earned through service, and that obedience, discipline, and national loyalty are not just values—they are cultural expectations built by law. Introduced in 1967, NS was a political decision made not just in response to the need for a credible defense force, but also to foster national unity in a newly independent, multi-ethnic society. It was by design, a deliberate cultural intervention beyond military necessity. Over time, NS has become so normalised that many Singaporeans view it as part of their cultural identity—even if it was originally a political imposition. This reinforces trust in the state -- the government demands much, but does so in the name of security, unity, and equality.
5. Culture as a Tool of Political Survival:
Singapore’s ruling class sees culture not as a constraint but as a means to political ends: Obedience, meritocracy, and stability are recast as cultural traits, but are really political imperatives.
Public behavior (cleanliness, queuing, low crime, no jay-walking) is not a spontaneous cultural trait — it’s a result of decades of social campaigns, enforcement, education, and fines even though it was politically constructed. This top-down creation of culture allowed Singapore to legitimize soft authoritarianism as “uniquely Singapore".
6. Culture Eventually Stabilizes Politics:
While politics is clearly upstream in shaping early Singaporean culture, over time :
- The engineered values became internalized by the population.
- A feedback loop emerged -- citizens now genuinely believe in the moral value of pragmatism, technocracy, and law-abiding behavior.
- So, today, Singaporeans often describe themselves as culturally obedient or conflict-averse — even though these are not traditional cultural traits, but state-engineered habits.
The Singapore story challenges the Western liberal notion that culture always precedes politics. It shows that under conditions of urgency, with a centralized and trusted leadership, a nation can politically construct the culture it needs to survive.
PHILIPPINES: CULTURE OF DEFIANCE
As a constitutional democracy with a vibrant pop culture and free-wheeling press, Philippines tends to be where CULTURE SHAPES POLITICS in the Western sense. But it is more than these. Philippines culture is also shaped by its geography, historical past, religion and educational system..
The political system does not create or shape Filipino culture as much as it mirrors, adapts to, and is constrained by deeply rooted cultural patterns — historical memories, communal structures, and moral instincts — that predate and outlast any administration. Filipino politics is often described as chaotic, patronage-driven, or populist—but these are not failures of policy design alone. They are expressions of a cultural logic.
1. Historical Origins: A Culture of Resistance, Not Statecraft
The Philippines was never a centralized, state-building civilization like China or France. Instead, it was an archipelago of local communities (barangays), subject to external colonial rulers (Spanish, American, Japanese), and formed not through internal consolidation, but through resistance to foreign rule.
2. Culture of Localism
The archipelago nature of the country tends to fragmentation where there is no strong central. Filipino culture developed around local loyalty, oral traditions, moral kinship, and resistance to imposed authority.
As a result:
Authority from the centre (Malacanang Palace) is often viewed with mistrust.
Political power is treated as transactional, not institutional.
Personalism and local networks override formal bureaucracies.
3. Culture Creates the Stage on Which Politics Plays
* Family and Kinship over Institutions - Political loyalty is familial, not ideological. Dynasties thrive because voters relate more to clans than parties. Politicians are expected to act like padrinos (patrons) — not just lawmakers, but providers. The political system bends to a cultural script of utang na loob (debt of gratitude).
* Moral Politics and Drama - Filipino culture frames politics as a moral story — with heroes, traitors, redemption, and spectacle. Elections are not policy debates — they are narratives of identity, loyalty, and emotional appeal. This is why movie stars win Senate seats and rallies feel like religious revivals. It is a celebrity-embracing culture where cultural icons gain legitimacy and translate it into political power.
From Movies - Joseph Estrada, Vilma Santos, Isko Moreno, Jinggoy Estrada, Lito Lapid, Bong Revilla Jr, Alfred Vargas.
From TV - Tito Sotto, Lucy Torres-Gomez, Loren Legarda. (Loren is a curiosity. She has media credibility, more intellectual and policy-driven face of cultural capital. However, it is nevertheless entertainment glamour that gave her political capital.)
From Sports - Manny Pacquiao, Robert Jaworski.
* People Power as Cultural Ritual - The repeated use of mass uprisings (e.g., EDSA I, II, attempted III) is not just political strategy. It is a culturally encoded form of public judgment — the crowd as moral court. The ballot box is not always trusted. The street remains sacred.
4. Why Politics Cannot Easily Override Culture
Attempts to reform or modernize Filipino politics often fail not due to bad ideas, but because they clash with deeper cultural expectations:
- Anti-dynasty laws don’t pass—because voters choose family names.
- Federalism flounders—not because of theory, but because localism already dominates informally.
- Technocratic governance struggles—because trust is relational, not institutional.
In the Philippines, political reforms are filtered through a culture that resists abstraction and prefers familiarity.
5. Philippines Education System Shapes Culture — But in Contradictory Ways
The Philippine educational system plays a major role in culture-building, but its impact is deeply conflicted, often reinforcing cultural fragmentation rather than cohesion. While schools are one of the most powerful tools for shaping national identity and civic values, in the Philippines, the education system reflects the country’s colonial legacy, unequal development, and conflicted cultural narratives.
* Colonial Curriculum Legacy:
The system was shaped first by Spanish religious education, then by American public education, which introduced English, individualism, and liberal democratic values. This created a cultural split between Americanized elites (who dominate institutions) Vernacular masses (with folk, Catholic, and local cultural frames) The result is an educational system that teaches Western civics in a society that runs on kinship, moral loyalty, and localism.
* Weak National Narrative:
Despite teaching Philippine history and civics, the curriculum often lacks a coherent, emotionally resonant national story. Heroes are taught abstractly (e.g., Rizal, Bonifacio) but without moral framing relevant to present struggles (e.g., corruption, injustice, inequality). There is no compelling national myth that unites young Filipinos beyond vague patriotism.
* Language Confusion and Cultural Alienation:
The “Mother Tongue Policy,” Filipino, and English are all in play — but poorly implemented. English dominates elite schools and global mobility. Filipino is Manila-centric, alienating Visayan, Ilocano, or Moro identities. Mother tongues are marginalized in higher education. The result is cultural incoherence — students are educated in a language that doesn’t match their lived experience, deepening disconnection.
6. Philippines is religion and media-saturated
Religion and media — especially social media and entertainment — are the two most powerful cultural forces in the Philippines today, often more influential than education or formal politics. Together, they shape values, behavior, national imagination, and political instincts. Their influence can be both empowering and destabilizing.
* Religion the moral foundation of Philippines culture:
- Catholicism as Moral Compass - The Church influence plays strongly in policies relating to abortion, divorce, same sex marriage, LGBTQ issues.
- Church as Cultural Anchor - Public morality is often defined by religious sensibilities more than constitutional ideals.
- Resistance and Compliance - Religion promotes both resignation to suffering (“bahala na”) and resistance to injustice. People Power revolutions had strong Church support that strengthens Philippines DNA for resistance.
* Socia Media & Entertainment - Culture on demand:
- Social Media is the new cultural town square. The Philippines is one of the most active social media users in the world. Platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube have become sources of news and misinformation, stages for political mobilization and performance, and arenas for moral outrage, humor, and virtue signaling. Social media amplifies emotional politics in Public Shaming (hiya), Call-out Culture. Online tribalism mirrors offline regionalism and personality-driven loyalties. Culture is no longer passed down—it is streamed, shared, and performed. Digital culture exaggerates the moral and personal logic already present in Filipino society.
* Entertainment as Political Education :
Teleseryes, noontime shows, and variety programs teach emotional scripts about family, betrayal, justice, and loyalty. Filipino political culture is shaped as much by Eat Bulaga as by textbooks. Celebrities often cross over into politics, not just because of fame, but because they embody idealised traits of the Filipino hero (e.g., humble origins, personal struggle, moral strength). Political legitimacy is earned in the realm of spectacle in a media-saturated, personality-driven environment such as Philippines.
The Filipino does not merely consume religion and media—they live inside them, and through them, they interpret the world.
7. A Forgiving Culture
Lee Kuan Yew once said Philippines has a forgiving culture, and he meant it in the negative sense in reference to the return of strongman Marcos' family to Philippines. This culture stems from a convergence of religion, kinship-based social norms, and patronal politics. It is not forgiveness in the Western liberal sense (e.g., reconciliation through justice), but rather a culturally rooted mix of fatalism, relational loyalty, moral flexibility, and emotional nostalgia.
Here's how these forces work together:
* Forgiveness as a Christian Virtue:
Catholic teaching emphasizes mercy, redemption, and second chances. Filipinos are taught to “hate the sin, love the sinner” — making it culturally acceptable to separate wrongdoing from the person, especially if the person shows humility or familiarity. Even the gravest abuses can be absolved in the cultural imagination if the figure is seen as repentant—or misunderstood.
* Redemptive Narratives:
Leaders fall from grace but can return through narratives of suffering, prayer, and destiny (e.g., Erap Estrada’s comeback, Bongbong Marcos’ "historical revisionism" as vindication). The public craves drama with moral arcs, and redemption is part of the plot.
* Culture of Kinship, Loyalty, and Personalism:
Utang na Loob and Pakikisama - Social relationships in the Philippines are governed by reciprocity, loyalty, and smooth interpersonal relations. If a family or clan has ever “helped” a community, its sins may be forgiven out of debt of gratitude (utang na loob) or loyalty. Politics is not about abstract right or wrong — it’s about who stood by you, or who you belong to.
* Forgiveness as Avoidance of Conflict:
Filipino culture values harmony and non-confrontation (hiya, pakikisama). Holding grudges or pursuing justice too aggressively may be seen as disruptive or “too much.” Forgiving powerful figures allows closure without confrontation, which many communities prefer over drawn-out conflict. Cultural forgiveness is a way of maintaining peace — even if it means forgetting injustice.
* Patronal Politics and the Return of Dynasties - Political Families as Cultural Icons:
Dynasties like the Marcoses are not just political brands — they are cultural symbols with emotional resonance. For many voters, Marcos Sr. represents a mythologized “golden age”, and Bongbong’s return taps into longing for order, pride, and strength, regardless of historical fact. In a system where politics is personal, accountability becomes negotiable.
* Weak Institutional Memory:
The Philippines lacks strong civic education, independent historical archives, and legal closure on past crimes. This vacuum is filled by storytelling, media spin, and inherited loyalties, allowing past wrongs to be reframed as misunderstandings or smear campaigns. The absence of institutional reckoning makes cultural forgiveness more likely.
* Cultural Forgiveness vs. Justice
In the end, it is just a structural trade-off with one party being suckered, the maasa.
* Catholic mercy of “Let God judge” : there is avoidance of accountability. There is in fact no acts of redemption to earn that forgiveness. The Marcoses, Jingoy or Revilla did nothing to earn the forgiveness
* Kinship loyalty “They helped us before” : Tolerance of corruption, promoting a culture of corruption
* Political nostalgia “He was strong”: Promotes revisionism and myth, cult- building
* Moral drama “He paid his dues”: Oversimplification of history, but consumed easily by the massa
* Harmony ethics “Let’s move on”: Justice sacrificed for peace
Lee Kuan Yew’s critique points to a real phenomenon: in the Philippines --- forgiveness is often not restorative but escapist. It allows society to emotionally move on without institutional closure, enabling the return of political figures who, in a rule-of-law system, might be permanently disqualified.
This forgiveness is not weakness—it is survival behavior in a culture that lacks trust in institutions and prefers relationships over rules. To change this dynamic, the Philippines doesn’t need to abandon mercy — it needs to ground it in justice, memory, and civic consciousness. That means strengthening historical truth, institutional accountability, and public ethics—not just waiting for another act in the national drama.
8 Feedback Loop: Culture Shapes Politics, and Then Reinforces It
The cultural trait of Personalism manifests in Dynasties & Patronage resulting in Weak Institutions.
The cultural trait of Localism manifests in Regional Voting Blocs resulting in Fragmented Governance.
The cultural trait of Moral Drama manifests in Populist, Charismatic Leaders resulting in Policy Volatility.
The cultural trait of Distrust of elites manifests in Anti-Intellectualism resulting in Weak Technocracy.
The cultural trait of Collective Memory of Betrayal manifests in Street Protests resulting in Coups and Instability Cycles.
The cultural trait of Forgiveness manifests in Political Comeback and Historical Revisionism resulting in Historical Amnesia and Non-Accountability.
A CULTURAL DEMOCRACY WITH POLITICAL STRONGMEN.
In strongmen politics, populist leaders such as Rodrigo Duterte, reshapes the national tone through brash rhetoric, project street credibility through street slang and macho persona. This gets filtered down into popular discourse. Politics actively reshapes cultural norms, and this is no where better exemplified than in Duterte’s presidency where he reshaped ideas on law and order, drug policies and trust in police. Duterte cultivated a “macho populist” cultural persona tied to his political brand. Before Duterte there was strongman Ferdie Marcos.
Cultural democracy with political strongmen can be found in many countries in Latin America and Africa. In such regimes, there is a feedback loop : Culture - Politics – Culture. Politics is not downstream of culture, it is also a producer of culture. The two feed each other in a circular, mutually reinforcing loop.
Despite a democracy with a strong cultural mainstream, strongman can reshape the culture, as both Lee Kuan Yew and Duterte show. It is a question of whether the cultural changes are benevolent or malevolent.
WHY SINGAPORE OBEYS AND THE PHILIPPINES RESISTS
The contrasting political behaviors of Singaporean obedience and Filipino resistance are not merely functions of governance or leadership. They are expressions of deep-seated cultural foundations — norms, values, collective memory, and national identity — that shape how societies perceive power, authority, and the individual’s role within the state.
Historical Culture Shapes Political Habits
Singapore: Harmony Before Politics
Singapore’s political obedience reflects a cultural foundation rooted in Asian communitarianism, especially Confucian values. In this worldview the group is prioritized over the individual, stability is moral, authority is parental and benevolent.
The People’s Action Party (PAP) did not invent obedience — it tapped into existing cultural norms of deference, hierarchy, and consensus. When Lee Kuan Yew warned against “Western-style democracy,” he was not resisting democracy per se, but asserting a culturally coherent alternative -- one where order is a cultural virtue, not just a political strategy.
Cultural obedience made political centralization legitimate and sustainable.
Philippines: Resistance as Moral Culture
In contrast, Filipino resistance is not simply anti-authoritarian — it is culturally ingrained dissent. From the Katipunan revolutionaries to contemporary people power uprisings, the Filipino has historically equated resistance with righteousness.
The Spanish friars were tyrants. The Americans were manipulators. Postcolonial elites are corrupt.
Catholic moral individualism and American democratic ideals taught generations of Filipinos that to speak out, protest, and even rebel is to act morally and patriotically.
Cultural defiance preceded political dysfunction—it is a form of identity, not an effect of policy.
Trust, Identity, and Authority: Cultural Filters for Political Power
Singapore: Politics as an Extension of Social Trust
Singaporeans do not obey blindly. They obey because the government acts within a culturally validated moral framework. The state performs, so it earns legitimacy. Performance is part of the Confucian idea of the "Mandate of Heaven."
Institutions are competent. Elites are meritocratic. Obedience is rational.
The success of the Singapore model lies in cultural alignment - political authority fits cultural expectations.
Philippines: Politics as a Site of Suspicion
In the Philippines, government is too often seen as alien, self-serving, or captured. This is not merely a political problem — it is a cultural script.
Power corrupts. Public office is for personal gain. The real Filipino hero is outside the palace.
So resistance isn’t just reaction — it’s the culturally appropriate stance when faced with institutional failure.
In this culture, resistance is virtue; obedience is submission to betrayal.
Media, Expression, and Civic Rituals
Singapore: Silence as Virtue
Singapore’s political discourse is restrained, not because of censorship alone, but because the culture esteems discretion over confrontation. Media is calm. Public discourse is neat. Civic obedience is part of national identity. Dissent, when it occurs, is procedural and quiet — J>B Jeyaratnam, Chiam See Tong, not street protest.
Philippines: Noise as Patriotism
The Philippines, by contrast, dramatizes its politics. Politics is performative, because culture values:
Spoken truth to power. Public moral witnessing. Emotional authenticity.
This is why Filipino elections feel like soap operas, and political resistance takes the form of mass mobilization, satire, music, prayer, and rage.
Bottom line:
Singapore: Politics is upstream of culture. Singapore’s high-functioning technocracy thrives not just because of good policy, but because the culture already values deference, order, and group success.
If you want to sustain Singapore’s governance, you must keep reinforcing the moral compact of service and performance, not merely obedience.
Philippines: Politics is downstream of culture. On the other hand, Philippines struggles with governance not only because of corruption, but because cultural memory reveres the rebel more than the ruler.
If you want to change Philippine politics, you must first reimagine the cultural hero — not just the policies.
SUMMARY
A comparison of Singapore and Philippines helps one to see clearly the impact of how politics control culture vs how culture controls politics can shape nations.
State-sponsored culture as in Singapore can achieve rapid cohesion and national survival — but it risks creating a society that is compliant rather than confident, orderly but not resilient.
For long-term sustainability, there must be space for organic cultural growth, contestation, and authentic pluralism — even if these introduce messiness. A nation that engineers its soul must also learn when to let culture breathe.
There are certainly many downsides to the Singapore model. But that's for a different article.
On the other hand, culture-sponsored politics, as in the Philippines, breeds a political system that is emotionally resonant but structurally fragile. It prioritizes familiarity over function, relationships over rules, and symbolism over solutions.
Unless cultural norms evolve alongside political reform, the system remains locked in a cycle of Charisma, Collapse, and Compromise—making nation-building uneven, reactive, and vulnerable to manipulation.
In the Philippines, culture is the operating system; politics is just the app. You cannot fix Filipino politics by only changing rules—you have to understand and engage the moral, relational, and symbolic logic of Filipino society. Until political structures account for and work with cultural forces, culture in Philippines will continue to override and outmaneuver politics.
This is why “good governance” efforts often fail — they approach politics as a machine, but Filipino political life is more like theater, kinship, and lived story.
What this means is there is no place for technocrats in Philippines politics. It is a culture that does not pay attention to political platforms or a candidate’s credentials. Technocrats have no chance with their message of anti-corruption, reforms, good governance, technology, management, data-driven, GDP, inflation, etc. These are messages for the elites only and do not resonate with the massa. Technocrats like Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo have no chance against populists and celebrities that are deep into the cultural ethos of the land. To have a fighting chance, technocrats must do battle in the cultural terrain, they need to fight to become culturally visible beyond the elite echo chamber. How to do this with the appropriate strategy makes for another article fit for the Filipino audience only, so I am unlikely to follow up.
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* Catholic mercy of “Let God judge” : there is avoidance of accountability. There is in fact no acts of redemption to earn that forgiveness. The Marcoses, Jingoy or Revilla did nothing to earn the forgiveness
* Kinship loyalty “They helped us before” : Tolerance of corruption, promoting a culture of corruption
* Political nostalgia “He was strong”: Promotes revisionism and myth, cult- building
* Moral drama “He paid his dues”: Oversimplification of history, but consumed easily by the massa
* Harmony ethics “Let’s move on”: Justice sacrificed for peace
Lee Kuan Yew’s critique points to a real phenomenon: in the Philippines --- forgiveness is often not restorative but escapist. It allows society to emotionally move on without institutional closure, enabling the return of political figures who, in a rule-of-law system, might be permanently disqualified.
This forgiveness is not weakness—it is survival behavior in a culture that lacks trust in institutions and prefers relationships over rules. To change this dynamic, the Philippines doesn’t need to abandon mercy — it needs to ground it in justice, memory, and civic consciousness. That means strengthening historical truth, institutional accountability, and public ethics—not just waiting for another act in the national drama.
8 Feedback Loop: Culture Shapes Politics, and Then Reinforces It
The cultural trait of Personalism manifests in Dynasties & Patronage resulting in Weak Institutions.
The cultural trait of Localism manifests in Regional Voting Blocs resulting in Fragmented Governance.
The cultural trait of Moral Drama manifests in Populist, Charismatic Leaders resulting in Policy Volatility.
The cultural trait of Distrust of elites manifests in Anti-Intellectualism resulting in Weak Technocracy.
The cultural trait of Collective Memory of Betrayal manifests in Street Protests resulting in Coups and Instability Cycles.
The cultural trait of Forgiveness manifests in Political Comeback and Historical Revisionism resulting in Historical Amnesia and Non-Accountability.
A CULTURAL DEMOCRACY WITH POLITICAL STRONGMEN.
In strongmen politics, populist leaders such as Rodrigo Duterte, reshapes the national tone through brash rhetoric, project street credibility through street slang and macho persona. This gets filtered down into popular discourse. Politics actively reshapes cultural norms, and this is no where better exemplified than in Duterte’s presidency where he reshaped ideas on law and order, drug policies and trust in police. Duterte cultivated a “macho populist” cultural persona tied to his political brand. Before Duterte there was strongman Ferdie Marcos.
Cultural democracy with political strongmen can be found in many countries in Latin America and Africa. In such regimes, there is a feedback loop : Culture - Politics – Culture. Politics is not downstream of culture, it is also a producer of culture. The two feed each other in a circular, mutually reinforcing loop.
Despite a democracy with a strong cultural mainstream, strongman can reshape the culture, as both Lee Kuan Yew and Duterte show. It is a question of whether the cultural changes are benevolent or malevolent.
WHY SINGAPORE OBEYS AND THE PHILIPPINES RESISTS
The contrasting political behaviors of Singaporean obedience and Filipino resistance are not merely functions of governance or leadership. They are expressions of deep-seated cultural foundations — norms, values, collective memory, and national identity — that shape how societies perceive power, authority, and the individual’s role within the state.
Historical Culture Shapes Political Habits
Singapore: Harmony Before Politics
Singapore’s political obedience reflects a cultural foundation rooted in Asian communitarianism, especially Confucian values. In this worldview the group is prioritized over the individual, stability is moral, authority is parental and benevolent.
The People’s Action Party (PAP) did not invent obedience — it tapped into existing cultural norms of deference, hierarchy, and consensus. When Lee Kuan Yew warned against “Western-style democracy,” he was not resisting democracy per se, but asserting a culturally coherent alternative -- one where order is a cultural virtue, not just a political strategy.
Cultural obedience made political centralization legitimate and sustainable.
Philippines: Resistance as Moral Culture
In contrast, Filipino resistance is not simply anti-authoritarian — it is culturally ingrained dissent. From the Katipunan revolutionaries to contemporary people power uprisings, the Filipino has historically equated resistance with righteousness.
The Spanish friars were tyrants. The Americans were manipulators. Postcolonial elites are corrupt.
Catholic moral individualism and American democratic ideals taught generations of Filipinos that to speak out, protest, and even rebel is to act morally and patriotically.
Cultural defiance preceded political dysfunction—it is a form of identity, not an effect of policy.
Trust, Identity, and Authority: Cultural Filters for Political Power
Singapore: Politics as an Extension of Social Trust
Singaporeans do not obey blindly. They obey because the government acts within a culturally validated moral framework. The state performs, so it earns legitimacy. Performance is part of the Confucian idea of the "Mandate of Heaven."
Institutions are competent. Elites are meritocratic. Obedience is rational.
The success of the Singapore model lies in cultural alignment - political authority fits cultural expectations.
Philippines: Politics as a Site of Suspicion
In the Philippines, government is too often seen as alien, self-serving, or captured. This is not merely a political problem — it is a cultural script.
Power corrupts. Public office is for personal gain. The real Filipino hero is outside the palace.
So resistance isn’t just reaction — it’s the culturally appropriate stance when faced with institutional failure.
In this culture, resistance is virtue; obedience is submission to betrayal.
Media, Expression, and Civic Rituals
Singapore: Silence as Virtue
Singapore’s political discourse is restrained, not because of censorship alone, but because the culture esteems discretion over confrontation. Media is calm. Public discourse is neat. Civic obedience is part of national identity. Dissent, when it occurs, is procedural and quiet — J>B Jeyaratnam, Chiam See Tong, not street protest.
Philippines: Noise as Patriotism
The Philippines, by contrast, dramatizes its politics. Politics is performative, because culture values:
Spoken truth to power. Public moral witnessing. Emotional authenticity.
This is why Filipino elections feel like soap operas, and political resistance takes the form of mass mobilization, satire, music, prayer, and rage.
Bottom line:
Singapore: Politics is upstream of culture. Singapore’s high-functioning technocracy thrives not just because of good policy, but because the culture already values deference, order, and group success.
If you want to sustain Singapore’s governance, you must keep reinforcing the moral compact of service and performance, not merely obedience.
Philippines: Politics is downstream of culture. On the other hand, Philippines struggles with governance not only because of corruption, but because cultural memory reveres the rebel more than the ruler.
If you want to change Philippine politics, you must first reimagine the cultural hero — not just the policies.
SUMMARY
A comparison of Singapore and Philippines helps one to see clearly the impact of how politics control culture vs how culture controls politics can shape nations.
State-sponsored culture as in Singapore can achieve rapid cohesion and national survival — but it risks creating a society that is compliant rather than confident, orderly but not resilient.
For long-term sustainability, there must be space for organic cultural growth, contestation, and authentic pluralism — even if these introduce messiness. A nation that engineers its soul must also learn when to let culture breathe.
There are certainly many downsides to the Singapore model. But that's for a different article.
On the other hand, culture-sponsored politics, as in the Philippines, breeds a political system that is emotionally resonant but structurally fragile. It prioritizes familiarity over function, relationships over rules, and symbolism over solutions.
Unless cultural norms evolve alongside political reform, the system remains locked in a cycle of Charisma, Collapse, and Compromise—making nation-building uneven, reactive, and vulnerable to manipulation.
In the Philippines, culture is the operating system; politics is just the app. You cannot fix Filipino politics by only changing rules—you have to understand and engage the moral, relational, and symbolic logic of Filipino society. Until political structures account for and work with cultural forces, culture in Philippines will continue to override and outmaneuver politics.
This is why “good governance” efforts often fail — they approach politics as a machine, but Filipino political life is more like theater, kinship, and lived story.
What this means is there is no place for technocrats in Philippines politics. It is a culture that does not pay attention to political platforms or a candidate’s credentials. Technocrats have no chance with their message of anti-corruption, reforms, good governance, technology, management, data-driven, GDP, inflation, etc. These are messages for the elites only and do not resonate with the massa. Technocrats like Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo have no chance against populists and celebrities that are deep into the cultural ethos of the land. To have a fighting chance, technocrats must do battle in the cultural terrain, they need to fight to become culturally visible beyond the elite echo chamber. How to do this with the appropriate strategy makes for another article fit for the Filipino audience only, so I am unlikely to follow up.
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