Don’t Just Count The Youth – Listen to Them

In the wake of the 2025 midterm elections, the “youth vote” has been widely credited for catapulting opposition candidates like Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan back into the Senate. Some even called it a generational awakening.

But experts, including sociologist Athena Charanne Presto, and Daily Guardian analyst and lawyer Michael Henry Yusingco, urge a more critical—and respectful—take: the youth vote is not a monolith. And treating it as such risks flattening the very complexity that gives it power.

It’s tempting to cast the election as a coming-of-age moment for Millennials and Gen Z, especially when they now make up around 60 percent of the electorate.

But who exactly do we mean when we say “youth”? Pew Research Center defines millennials as those born from 1981 to 1996, which means the oldest are now 44. Gen Z spans 1997 to 2012. These are wildly different cohorts shaped by dissimilar economies, technologies, and political climates.

To treat them as a single bloc overlooks not just data—it overlooks struggle. Political behavior is not only generational but situational.

Presto, who studies youth political expression, warns that young people, particularly Gen Z, are often caught in silent negotiations within the family. “They’re limited by financial concerns,” she said. “They fear that expressing political opinions may cost them their allowances or make them appear disrespectful to parents.”

That kind of quiet resistance—filling out a ballot in silence, choosing courage over comfort—is a story that rarely makes headlines. But it should. It’s easy to valorize the loudest forms of activism and overlook the more subtle, strategic ways young people navigate hostile environments. Voting as a form of dissent, even under pressure, is still an act of agency.

Yusingco also noted that the political awakening among young voters is shaped not just by idealism, but by anxiety. “The youth today are genuinely disturbed about what lies ahead,” he said. “Their political experiences in recent years—from pandemic governance, to red-tagging, to climate inaction—have shaken their confidence in the system.”

He adds that this unease, rather than disillusionment, may be driving many of them to vote differently and explore alternative sources of political meaning.

Unfortunately, mainstream narratives often miss this nuance. Post-election coverage too quickly placed the youth at the center of the win-or-lose equation. Senator-elect Ping Lacson, who ran with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s slate, pointed to the youth as kingmakers. So did watchdogs like the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and NAMFREL.

But most statements stopped short of deeper analysis: How did young people access information? Were they swayed by influencers or disinformation? What roles did class, education, and geography play?

We already know that youth civic engagement remains uneven. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened the digital divide, with many students in rural or poor communities unable to catch up to their urban peers. While some organized online, others were left behind—cut off not only from school but from participation in public life. The literacy gap is real, and so is the emotional toll of exclusion.

And yet, even within these limitations, young Filipinos showed up. Not all of them, and not in one sweeping tide. But many voted with intention, despite fear, noise, or apathy around them. That courage deserves better credit—not romanticization, not tokenism, but real listening.

Our job is not to cheerlead for a demographic but to ask harder questions: What support systems allow young people to act? What civic infrastructure—education, safe spaces, digital protections—do we need to build so that participation isn’t just symbolic?

The 2025 elections may have revealed a shift, but it wasn’t just because of the youth vote. It was because parts of the electorate, including the youth, found ways to push through fear and fatigue. The rest of us must now meet them with less hype—and more help.