Fractured

EYES WIDE OPEN

- IRIS GONZALES

It feels like 2016 all over again — so much hatred spreading around, antagonistic netizens lashing out at each other and all that gutter-level language filling our timelines.

How easy it is again to dish out sexist remarks and criticize the lawyers, the EJK victims and the female journalists covering former president Rodrigo Duterte's detention and looming trial at The Hague.

But I'm not just referring to some of Duterte's supporters. People from all sides of the political spectrum — Pinks, Yellows and Reds — are also responding with as much vitriol and toxicity.

What a deeply fractured and divided nation we are. This was exactly how 2016 felt. When Duterte became president, it was as if troll farms upon troll farms were activated to fill social media with profanity and hatred.

This surely is not the kind of society we want to bequeath to our children and our children's children. Or is it?

When President Marcos became president, he promised two big things — unity and rice at P20 per kilo.

I thought then that at least, there would be a semblance of stability in the country as both political clans would finally work together to move the country forward.

But alas, how wrong I was!

UniTeam, as we now know, was the biggest joke in recent history and we ordinary Filipinos are suffering from their big, bad and ugly breakup. The second remains a promise unfulfilled until now.