WE HAVE always known how to laugh in the face of hardship. From the streets of Quiapo to small-town plazas, humor has never been just pastime; it has been survival and protest rolled into one.
That is why the uproar over Vice Ganda’s “jet ski holiday” skit feels exaggerated — and frankly, ironic. The same crowd that once defended Duterte’s jokes about rape, killings, or threats as “hyperbole” now cries foul when a comedian pokes fun at his broken promises. To laugh at the powerless was fine. To laugh at the powerful suddenly becomes blasphemy.
Satire has always been more than laughter. Scholars like Dieter Declercq remind us that it is both critique and entertainment: it helps us cope with political absurdities without losing our sanity.
Our history proves this. Severino Reyes’ sarswelas and Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s satirical essays, mocked Spanish friars; editorial cartoons in the media and campuses, from pre to post martial law years, skewered politicians; and Willie Nepomuceno’s impersonations of presidents and Mr. Shooli’s (Jun Urbano) banters exposed truths we could not always say aloud.
The humor softened the sting, but the truth cut deep. Vice’s parody belongs to that same lineage: a modern sarswela staged in Araneta, with pop culture flair as its vehicle.
His “promo” joke was simple but sharp. By turning Duterte’s infamous jet ski promise into a travel ad, Vice distilled years of frustration into one absurd image. It worked because everyone remembered the promise and the later admission that it was just a joke. A parody like this does not invent anything — it only mirrors reality. That some found it offensive shows it hit the mark.
Political humor unsettles precisely because it reminds us of contradictions we would rather ignore.
Around the world, satire has always played this role. Londoners once flew the giant “Trump Baby” balloon, and Americans tuned in to Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, or Trevor Noah for nightly doses of wit that doubled as critique.
Chaplin mocked Hitler in The Great Dictator when most feared confronting fascism. In Eastern Europe, cabarets whispered truths in codes, while cartoons slipped past censors.
And before all this, there were Aristophanes, Chaucer, Swift, and Voltaire — writers who proved that laughter could outlast fear. To discredit satire now, simply because it lands on the “wrong side,” is to erase the very history that shaped us.
What makes this controversy disturbing is not the outrage but the hypocrisy. Duterte’s fans once excused his tirades as humor, yet they cannot laugh when humor turns on him. That reveals the real issue: power wants the monopoly on laughter.
But satire exists precisely to break that monopoly. As political scientist C. Edwin Baker once noted, free speech is not only about talking; it is about ensuring that public discourse remains open to discomfort. Satire forces that discomfort, whether in classrooms, jeepneys, carinderias, coffee tables, or online feeds. (To be continued)/PN
