Trapo tricks, still trending | Daily guardian

From Herman M. Lagon

If politics were a school subject, the word “trapo” would have been one of my first unforgettable vocabulary. I heard it for the first time in a college class about the Filipino government in the early 1990s and scribbled as a short form for “traditional politicians”. It sounded almost innocent – a mere acronym, something that you could easily learn for the intermediate examination. But then Yano came. Her raw and raging hymn “Trapo”, which was blown up by the cassettes on the campus and protest of Caravans, his texts, Greek, unfiltered, unforgiving. Suddenly Trapo was not just a word; It was a worldview. I noticed it everywhere – in the sessions of the student council during solidarity marches in Am Radio -Pundititry. What was once a term classroom had turned into a cultural red flag. When I learned early, it also meant fit. The word was not simply descriptive; It was prophetic.

The real stab of the term came when I saw how close it was. Trapo politicians have led recycled promises like campaign pilots. They cried on Cue, kissed infants for the camera and prompted medical missions that acted as re -election strategies. They dominated the choreography of the charity, while their back rooms according to patronage, corruption and ambition that were disguised as concern. This was no coincidence. The sociopolitical substance in which she gave it, woven by Utang Na Loob, Pakikisama and Palakasan, had kept her untouchable for decades. It was harmful, like a short word – five letters, two syllables – could wear so much rotting.

Now, in 2025, after another cycle of intermediate elections, I wonder if Trapo still captures the political moment. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. The word has aged, but not expired. It developed like its subjects. Today's trapo no longer only drives with large hair and velvet flower in parades. He publishes TikKs of himself, feeding stray dogs, stupid dancing for a good atmosphere, starts “scholarship funds” from public health insurers and joins webinars to talk about empathy and sustainability – as they were not part of the system that made empathy and sustainability so difficult.

Some have become digital, even by AI. They set ghostwriters for their contributions, Deepfak Smiley Town Hall videos and seed campaigns through bots and trolls. But peel the polish back and the pattern is the same. The sound bites were renamed. As described in studies in the Ateneo School of Government, dynastic candidates still dominate more than 80 percent of the legislative seats and prove that this name and this matter have been adopted with more than invoices or gained debates.

What makes Trapo a sticky descriptor is not just the gimmicks, but the attitude. It is how to carry out politics like theater, confusing noise for vision, recall of the name for integrity and attention for credibility. The trapo is performative of design. He waves from tinted SUVs, cuts ligaments with exaggerated grin, finances birthday parties of Barangay captains and builds basketball spaces one week before the elections. And if caught in scandals? He accuses the opposition, pretends to remember memory losses or reads a legal explanation under tears, while he is flanked by his family, which is currently running.

Despite all these, many of them win. Again. And again. It would be tempting to blame the voters. But that would be too decent. The reasons are layered: institutional failures, poverty, protection culture, disinformation and a citizenship that has long been trained to equate help with love. As stated in the SWS survey of 2023, 41 percent of voters still identify “helpful for the poor” as the strongest sign of good government, an emotional metric, not empirical. This is not ignorance; It is a survival logic in a system that has repeatedly failed its population.

What worries me is how the term can adapt. In the future, the Trapo Barong could still wear, but also cited the philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt in campaign speeches. He could increase feminist manifest retweet, rainbow flags during the pride and use awareness of mental health – only for later budgets of intestinal training, the silence of student protests and vague laws to receive control. It may look waxed, but rule like a dictator. That would be the most dangerous version: a progressive outside, a patron saint from the inside.

But in this warning story I stay confident. If at all, the last interim elections have taught us that the change is not impossible as they are slow and bloody. The rise of voluntary campaigns, collective and youthful movements prove that we are not fully recorded. In 2022 and 2025 we saw the voters who were at sunrise, refused to pay out and visited house-to-house campaigns, which were led by unpaid students. Even Yano's “Trapo” was sung, no longer just a lawsuit, but a protest soundtrack that was reinforced by a new generation.

We have to take care of this spark. But this requires more than memes or moral superiority. It requires supportive platforms, not personalities. It means listening to those who coordinate and do not correct differently, but to understand the survival strategies that influence their decisions. It is about running for an office, looking after future managers or simply diving in local meetings, in which context -related decisions are often more important than national. And it definitely means naming the trapo when we see it not only during the elections, but long after the tarpaulin has been removed.

The word trapo in the core is a cultural mirror. It forces us not only to ask who they are, but who we are. What do we celebrate? What do we forgive? Which patterns do we immortalize through silence, cynicism or forgetfulness? The interim elections may be over, but it is not the story of the trapo. He is still among us, smiles in posters, tends online, shakes his hand and loosens oath.

And yet there may be hope in those who are ready to turn the script around – who treat the public service as a duty, not as a show. They call the chaos and dare to clean it up. It's never easy, but real changes start to tell things as they are.

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Doc H likes to describe himself as a “student of life”, which, like many others, is a lifelong and why driven world, which is based on social justice and striving for happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect that of the institutions with which he is busy or with whom he is connected.