Where Is The Anger2?

 

The recent episode in which Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Robin Padilla expressed indignation toward Commodore Jay Tristan Tarriela’s use of a caricature of China’s president provides fertile ground for a satirical yet academically minded reflection on political performativity. 

Their argument—that criticism of a head of state invites an understandable rebuke from the embassy—adopts a veneer of diplomatic common sense. 

Equally notable, however, is the conditionality of that common sense: a professed pledge to exhibit the same fury should caricatures of President Marcos (PBBM) emerge from Chinese media. 

The rhetoric here is ritualized, rehearsing norms of reciprocity while simultaneously staging a moral test that invites public scrutiny for consistency.

What follows in the public record resembles a parable of selective outrage.

Caricatures of PBBM allegedly emanating from Chinese outlets have proliferated, as seen on Facebook, yet the promised tempest of anger remains conspicuously absent to mild. 

The gap between vow and response yields satirical possibilities: senators who thunder in privileged speeches about mutual respect appear to misplace their thunderbolts when the foreign press does the very thing they warned against. 

This discontinuity is not merely theatrical; it is diagnostic, revealing priorities that may be political, pragmatic, or performative rather than principled.

An analytical reading suggests several structural dynamics at work. 

First, outrage functions as a political instrument, calibrated for domestic audiences more than for foreign interlocutors; its intensity is adjustable according to partisan calculation and media payoff. 

Second, diplomatic sensibilities are unevenly applied, often subordinated to considerations of power, economic ties, and narrative control. 

Third, the invocation of empathy for a foreign leader can become a rhetorical shield, deflecting attention from more salient domestic responsibilities. 

Viewed satirically, the scene resembles a moral marketplace where indignation is a currency dispensed with selective generosity.

To conclude with academic irony: if political anger were a policy instrument rather than a performative prop, it would benefit from clearer benchmarks, transparent criteria, and consistent application. 

Satire exposes how public commitments—especially those issued from positions of privilege—are vulnerable to the same cognitive biases and strategic calculations as any other political posture. 

The interested observer might therefore propose a modest reform: an "outrage charter" with reproducible metrics and an obligation to publish after-action reports. 

Until then, citizens must remain attentive to the difference between principled diplomacy and rhetorical spectacle, and to the comic incongruity that results when promised fury turns out to be merely situationally fashionable.