By Kiara Tan
In the Philippines, politics has become a war of colors. Election campaigns are led by vibrant hues — with pink-hued motorcades around the city, blue waves visiting corners, and small towns painted in red. The color of each candidate decides the history that precedes them and the future that they promise. It is their way of imprinting their collective identity and sending a message. Every action of theirs, down to their chosen color, is a chess piece in political warfare.
However, people have always painted Philippine politics in broad strokes. It is always only red and yellow dominating and upending each other. For years, political division and unrest have been prevalent under the guise of two warring colors. It is within the intention of our current presidential candidates to either continue such legacy or start anew with finer strokes.
A Filipino politician should know how to play the game. Specifically, how to create an identity, void of loyalty to a party-list, but rather suiting their necessity at any given time. They will assume a color, and this will either enrage or sway the people. Key figures know that colors evoke emotions — it is a natural response to us, and a political tactic to them.
The shared human memory associates color to specific feelings, events, and things present in our landscape. While an individual’s perception of different hues may be seen as subjective, some colors always have a universal meaning. It is in this that politicians utilize them as leaders of their unified campaign to move the voting public.
It begs to ask a question — what identity is created with every color?
Yellow
Yellow stains the color of the elite. It often represents affluence, freedom, and optimism — it is a happy privilege.
In the Philippines, yellow is the infamous badge of honor of the Liberal Party and the Aquino family. In the beginning, waves of yellow filled the streets in protest against the Marcos dictatorship. It was a symbol of resistance. Soon after, the first Aquino stepped into power, and the amber hue represented the elitism, oligarchy, and neoliberalism in the nation.
What precedes the color is a diversity of privilege — powerful landlords, the Catholic Church’s social conservatism, majority of the petit bourgeoisie in Metro Manila, political dynasties, and allies that have also once kept the Marcoses afloat.
In the 2022 presidential race, no candidate has chosen yellow.
Red
Red is the political color of rage. It is often associated with power, energy, and passion — it makes the heart beat faster.
This color is preceded by an apparent history of manslaughter and suppression under the still influential and affluent family of Ferdinand Marcos. Because of the iron-fist rule during his regime, the color has been associated with a ruthless and oppressive brand of conservatism.
The color’s reputation was only further cemented by the Duterte administration. The populist leader’s regime is infamous for the war against drugs, extrajudicial killings, attacks on press freedom, baseless arrests, and police & military corruption. Under Duterte, the blue of police uniforms has long been washed out with red. For the past six years, red has bathed our political landscape.
The late dictator’s son campaigns under the same scarlet hue. Currently, he is a popular candidate with a string of tax, corruption, and evasion controversies. He carries with him an uneventful senatorial career, a reputation for what his last name entails, and another dynasty-born politician as his vice presidential partner.
In the world’s attempt at irony, red is also historically associated with socialism, communism, and other left-wing ideologies — the supposed enemy of the conservative red governments and their reason for establishing suppressive agencies and policies. Currently, Ka Leody De Guzman, a leftist candidate and labor unionist, also uses the color in his progressive campaign. His color has been debased by several leftists as “rejectionist” for his involvement in Popoy Lagman’s Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and not aligning with the national democratic movement.
Blue
Blue is the warring color of stability and sickness. It suggests freedom, intelligence, and peace. However, it also represents melancholy, aloofness, and neutrality. Where red rages on, blue softens. At times, it instills peace. Other times, only indifference and wreckage in the face of adversity.
Tinges of blue were flushed into the Arroyo administration. For the defamed former president, blue represented her severe lack. With political unrest plaguing her first term, she took to solutions that deemed her indifferent and uncaring to the public. The color painted a sickly status of her administration and its alleged crimes in electoral fraud and foreign bribery. Despite this, she remains free as a blue bird — an ally of the current president.
Isko Moreno and Ping Lacson weren’t always blue. The color only marks a few spaces in their technicolored political canvas. What occupies most of it is years of changing hues to appease the masses, or rather, to maintain their brand of self-preservation. Both presidential hopefuls have been adamant in not representing just one political color, deeming themselves as a neutral ground for truth and justice.
Blue is their steady survival in politics amid questions of morality and competence. Lacson, who has strived to paint over shades of his past cancerous deeds as a police general, a fugitive, and a member of the Military Intelligence Security Group (MISG) — the unit behind many human atrocities during Martial Law; and Moreno, the popular actor-turned-mayor, who is followed by a performative reputation of beautification projects and lack of genuine poverty reform. However controversial, both figures are confident in politicking. A new coat of blue does not stop both from being dangerous.
Pink
Pink is the shade of empowerment. The color often brings feelings of hope, kindness, and love. It is a hue marked by femininity and strength.
In Philippine politics, pink is a rare sight to see in an ocean of red. For the few politicians that wear the novelty, it is their particular brand of political femininity in a male-dominated field. For Risa Hontiveros, the rosy hue paints her senatorial career as a feminist and progressive movement. For the late Miriam Defensor Santiago, it represents her iron strength and values — that of which also helped her in bringing the public to acceptance of the Marcoses.
Unlike other colors, pink is not prejudiced and imbued with a faulty political history, but rather by its immediate connotation to women. It is not a matter of loyalty to a principle or partylist, but solidarity with a marginalized sector. Albeit, it is also in this patriarchal realm that the color can easily be weaponized against the validity of women in government.
In favor of shedding a yellow outer skin, Leni Robredo chose pink as her campaign color for the presidential elections. The public has already tied her to an image of feminine competence. With the color sealing such a reputation, it has become a core component of her appeal. Pink represents her serenity and diligence amid a terror-laden national government. However, her rose-colored identity has come with the notion of safety to appease the majority.
Every voter becomes a brush of hue in an intricate political painting — every stroke counts. The politicians know this to be true, because they’ve played this game before, and we’ve bore witness to their ever-changing colors. It is in this that we are called not to choose a singular color, but to choose a future for the masses.
Sources:
https://www.colorsexplained.com/color-blue-meaning-of-the-color-blue/
https://www.colorpsychology.org/pink/
https://www.rappler.com/nation/elections/past-haunts-lacson-gma-interview-january-22-2022/
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/the-ever-changing-hues-of-philippine-politics
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