A KEEN observer of Philippine politics will not miss this particular irony: a red-tagged group, the Makabayan bloc at the House of Representatives, has been doing the yeoman's job of making democracy work over the past eight years. Remember how former Bayan Muna representative Carlos Zarate challenged the many policy decisions of the Duterte administration while every peer at the House, except for Edcel Lagman, literally genuflected before the former president and meekly marched to his every word and bidding?

Mr. Duterte took everything personally and got personal with Mr. Zarate. He questioned where Mr. Zarate got the money to fund the overseas schooling of his son, suggesting unexplained wealth on the part of the party-list congressman. It turned out that Mr. Zarate's son did attend a foreign tertiary school for one year. It was, however, an obscure university in Poland, not one in the league — and the cost — of Kenyon College, the pricey liberal arts college in the US. And what father would not dream of sending a son to a foreign university if given the chance, and also considering the mediocre state of Philippine tertiary education?