By Herman M. Lagon

Somewhere between the wet market and the comment section, the word “Makapili” crawls back into Philippine conversation like an old fever. People use it too easily sometimes, the way we toss “traydor” in a barkada argument. Still, the return of the label signals something real: The quiet dread that betrayal is no longer a wartime uniform or a bamboo mask, but a well-lit press conference, a privilege speech in the Senate halls, a polished sound bite, a verified account, and a swarm of paid voices telling Filipinos to stop “overreacting” while our own fisherfolk get shoved away from waters they have worked for generations. In World War II, the Makapili made themselves useful to an occupying power by identifying, intimidating and informing on fellow Filipinos, a collaboration widely remembered as a national. The modern version rarely needs a basket over the head. It just needs plausible deniability, selective outrage and the confidence to speak about freedom while serving narratives that shrink it.

History does not repeat with identical costumes, but it often repeats with familiar incentives: fear, money, status, and the seduction of being “close to power.” If you read the old stories of turncoatism — from the petty to the grand — you notice the same pattern: Betrayal is frequently sold as practicality. A pay dispute becomes a disclosure, a promised reward becomes a confession, a seat in government becomes a reason to “stop fighting.” The names change across centuries, but the logic stays: survival first, conscience later, and country as collateral. That is why the wartime Makapili became infamous: Collaboration was not framed as collaboration; it was framed as “order,” “peace” and “realism,” while it placed Filipinos at the mercy of the occupier’s violence. In today’s disputes, especially in the West Philippine Sea, the same marketing exists. We are told to be “mature,” “quiet” and “diplomatic,” while coercion at sea escalates and propaganda on land becomes louder. Nobody sensible wants war. But surrender dressed as “prudence” is not peace. It is a bargain that always sends the bill to the poorest.

The modern Makapili is not always someone who openly praises a foreign power. That would be too obvious. The modern type is often the person who plays referee in a game where one side brings water cannons and lasers while the other side brings fishermen and radio calls. The modern type is the official or influencer who repeats embassy framing word-for-word, then scolds Filipinos for “noise” when Filipinos name bullying as bullying. The modern type is the professional whataboutist: “Yes, China harassed our boats, but what about corruption?” as if a nation must choose only one wound to treat. It is possible to demand clean flood-control budgets and demand that foreign aggression stop. The real trick of the modern collaborator is not to defend a foreign bully outright, but to exhaust the public into resignation. That resignation has a soundtrack: “Walang mangyayari,” “Resolution lang,” “Huwag na lang,” “Tayo pa mapapahamak.” The goal is not to convince you China is right; the goal is to convince you speaking up is pointless.

One of the sharpest ironies in the recent flare-ups is the lecture on free speech coming from those who benefit from limiting it. In late January 2026, news reports described Philippine officials and lawmakers pushing back against public statements from the Chinese Embassy, with the Philippine side warning that the escalating war of words could undermine diplomatic space while also defending the right of Filipino officials to speak about sovereignty. The Chinese Embassy’s own posts included lines that sounded like a civic lesson — “no one wants to silence you” — paired with the warning that freedom of speech is “not a license,” a framing that drew heated responses from senators and intensified the public debate. This is where Filipinos bristle, and understandably so: When a foreign mission sounds like it is grading our democracy, it touches a nerve deeper than politics. Diplomats have protections and duties under the Vienna Convention, including the basic expectation of respectful conduct and non-interference in domestic affairs, even as they represent their state’s interests. The question is not whether diplomats can speak. The question is whether a foreign mission should posture as a moral tutor about freedoms it does not practice at home while pressuring a smaller country to lower its voice.

This is the part where prudence matters, because critics of loud responses have a point, and it deserves to be admitted plainly. Diplomacy is real work, not a TikTok clapback. A careless statement can corner negotiators, harden positions or trigger retaliation that hurts ordinary workers first. The anxious comments online about OFWs, trade and retaliation are not hallucinations; they are survival math. A recent Pulse Asia national survey on WPS reflects that Filipinos want firm assertion and stronger defense capability and partnerships, but public opinion also carries fatigue and realism about risk. Even the Department of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly emphasized disciplined language and diplomatic channels in disputes, precisely because words can tighten or preserve the room for negotiation. So yes, the “be strategic” camp is not automatically pro-China. Many are simply pro-survival. The problem is when that legitimate caution gets weaponized into silence, and silence becomes habit, and habit becomes policy.

The legal spine of this issue remains stubbornly clear, even when politics is noisy. The 2016 arbitral award ruled on July 12, 2016, among other findings, that China’s “nine-dash line” claim had no legal basis for historic rights beyond what Unclos allows. The award cannot magically enforce itself, but it anchors the conversation in law rather than volume. It also explains why transparency matters: When smaller states rely on evidence and documentation, the bully’s greatest enemy becomes an informed audience. That is why Commodore Jay Tarriela’s insistence on documentation has drawn both support and pushback, and why public discourse has recently flared. The modern Makapili instinct is to downplay the award as “useless,” not because it is legally trivial, but because law disrupts the story that only power matters.

Now bring this down to the level teachers understand: the classroom. A WPS dispute arrives in school the way weather arrives — through small talk, memes and casual certainty. A student says, “Sir, gina-provoke ta lang sila,” with the confidence of a 30-second clip. Another says, “China man gapanghatag trabaho,” as if dignity is a payroll item. A third asks, “What is the point of international law if nobody follows?” The teacher who tries to answer with pure sermon loses them. The teacher who models a habit — pause, check sources, separate fear from facts, ask who benefits from your anger — does something more durable. It is discernment without religious packaging: Choose what is true, choose what builds the common good, and do not let noise hijack judgment. That habit matters now because information warfare thrives on speed. Education is one of the few institutions designed to slow the mind down.

This is where the troll economy enters the story, not as a side plot but as infrastructure. The country has been studied as a global case of “networked disinformation,” where political operators hire and manage online labor — fake accounts, coordinated amplification, and content production — to shape narratives, harass critics and simulate public consensus (Ong & Cabañes, 2018/2020). When foreign policy becomes content, the modern Makapili does not need to stand in the Senate to betray. The betrayal can be outsourced: Paid trolls flooding comment sections with “tayo ang agresor,” “wala tayong laban,” “tumahimik na lang,” or the more sophisticated “both sides are wrong,” timed perfectly to dilute outrage and confuse the undecided. The tragedy is that many of these voices are Filipino. They are not occupied by soldiers; they are occupied by incentives.

So what does it mean to “identify” modern Makapili? It means watching for behaviors, not faces. Watch who consistently repeats foreign embassy lines while dismissing documented harassment. Watch who treats fishermen as expendable “collateral” in economic arguments while never proposing real protection or diversification. Watch who uses diplomacy as a shield for laziness, but never shows up with actual diplomatic work. Watch who weaponizes fear — OFWs, trade, cheap goods — to argue that rights should be discounted. Watch who demands patriotism in slogans but panics at the cost of it. Watch who wears blue “WPS” shirt in a UAAP game, yet easily turns red for the Red. In late January 2026, public reporting captured how our government lodged “firm representations” with China’s embassy over escalating rhetoric, while still emphasizing diplomacy; that dual posture — assertive but measured — is the template collaborators try to sabotage by pushing the country either into reckless heat or cowardly silence. Extremes are easier to manipulate than steady resolve.

The last lesson from the old Makapili is not that every disagreement is treason. It is that collaboration often hides inside respectable language. It speaks in the voice of “peace,” “pragmatism” and “economic reality,” while quietly accepting humiliation as normal. A nation does not need chest-thumping to resist that. It needs adults: Citizens who can hold two truths at once — that economic ties matter and sovereignty matters, that diplomacy is necessary and intimidation is unacceptable, that corruption at home is urgent and bullying at sea is urgent, too. It needs teachers who can train students to detect propaganda without turning them into xenophobes. And it needs public servants whose loyalty is not for rent. The modern Makapili fails that test in one simple way: when the country is being pushed, they do not ask, “How do we stand?” They ask, “How do we stop complaining?” That question, asked often enough, becomes a national habit. The goal of any freedom-loving people is to break that habit before it becomes our new normal.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with./WDJ