The ad hominem habit

By Herman M. Lagon

There was a moment during the recent Senate tensions when the debate suddenly stopped being about rules, quorum, online voting, or constitutional procedure. It became about credentials. Senator Rodante Marcoleta, in the middle of a heated exchange with Senator Risa Hontiveros, remarked that discussions become difficult “kung wala tayong legal background dito.” Senator Erwin Tulfo immediately called it out as ad hominem. The clip spread online within minutes because many instantly recognized the move. Not necessarily because they studied philosophy or formal logic, but because they have lived through it. Teachers hear it in faculty meetings. Employees hear it in offices. Students hear it in classrooms. “Ano ba alam mo?” “Hindi ka naman lawyer.” “Hindi ka graduate.” “Hindi ka taga-rito.” The real issue suddenly gets buried, and attention shifts to attacking the person instead. That is the essence of ad hominem: turning debate into personal demolition.

Most of the time, it surfaces when somebody feels cornered by the discussion. Instead of responding to the point, people attack credentials, motives, or character. The tactic is ancient. Long before trending hashtags and livestreamed hearings, political figures were already using personal attacks to escape difficult debates. Yet Filipinos encounter it less in textbooks and more in ordinary life. A barangay resident complains about flood control spending, and someone replies, “Eh kasi talunan ka sa election.” A teacher questions a school policy, then gets dismissed as “negative,” “toxic,” “bitter,” or “pasaway.” A parent raises concerns online and is mocked for grammar mistakes instead of being answered properly. The issue quietly shifts from evidence to ego.

That is partly why the Senate exchange resonated. The disagreement was never simply about legal training. Nobody disputes that legal expertise matters in legislative debates. Lawyers understand constitutional nuance differently because that is their field. The problem begins when expertise is weaponized to silence participation rather than deepen discussion. The Constitution does not require all senators to be lawyers. The Senate was designed precisely to combine different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Some legislators come from education, labor, medicine, journalism, business, agriculture, or grassroots activism. The point of democracy is not to create an exclusive club where only one profession is allowed to speak intelligently.

Many probably understood this instinctively because they have seen how expertise can sometimes be used as social intimidation. In faculty rooms, some teachers remain quiet during meetings because someone always says, “Hindi mo naman specialization iyan.” In government offices, junior employees are occasionally made to feel that asking questions is disrespectful. In local politics, ordinary residents raising concerns are brushed aside as “walang nakahibalo sg proseso.” It is a subtle form of power. Once people feel intellectually inferior, they stop asking questions altogether. And that silence becomes dangerous in democracies.

The Senate itself has a long history of ad hominem moments, some subtle, others painfully obvious. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, brilliant as she was, sometimes crossed into deeply personal territory during debates. Senator Antonio Trillanes was frequently branded as merely a “mutineer” instead of having his arguments answered directly. Leila de Lima was repeatedly attacked personally during investigations instead of having legal claims confronted point by point. Senator Kiko Pangilinan has often been reduced online to “lugaw” jokes rather than serious engagement with agricultural policy. Risa Hontiveros gets dismissed by critics as “dilawan” even in discussions unrelated to partisan politics. On the other side, Senator Ronald dela Rosa is frequently caricatured solely through his police image instead of being addressed on the substance of his positions. Senator Robin Padilla often becomes the punchline before people even evaluate what he says. The pattern cuts across political lines. Ad hominem is bipartisan because insecurity is bipartisan.

Personal attacks thrive in politics because emotions heavily shape public conversations. Labels like “DDS,” “Dilawan,” “bayaran,” or “woke” spread faster than facts because they instantly divide people into camps. Once labeling begins, listening usually stops.

Social media accelerated this pattern. Viral insults now often gain more attention than calm and reasoned debate. A Facebook debate about traffic becomes a fight about educational attainment. A discussion on classroom shortages suddenly turns into attacks about appearance, accent, or family background. The internet has normalized humiliation as entertainment. Communication scholar Zizi Papacharissi argued in 2015 that online politics increasingly rewards emotional performance, where public attacks often gain more attention and approval than careful discussion.

Still, fairness matters here. Not every criticism involving a person is automatically ad hominem. Credibility can legitimately matter depending on context. Courts, for example, examine witness credibility all the time. If someone has a documented history of lying under oath, that becomes relevant. Likewise, pointing out a conflict of interest is not necessarily ad hominem if it directly affects the issue being discussed. The distinction is important. A valid argument addresses how a person’s credibility connects to the issue. A fallacious ad hominem merely uses personal traits to dodge the argument entirely. Saying “you are wrong because you are not a lawyer” is very different from saying “this legal interpretation conflicts with constitutional jurisprudence.” One attacks the person. The other addresses the claim.

What made Senator Tulfo’s intervention significant was not necessarily his politics, which many still debate intensely, but the larger principle behind the callout. Many saw themselves in that moment. The reaction online and offline revealed something deeper than partisan cheering. Even commenters who admitted disliking Tulfo politically still agreed with the criticism of ad hominem. That says a lot about public exhaustion. People are tired of debates that feel more like verbal wrestling matches than serious governance. They are tired of credentials replacing clarity, and insults replacing substance.

Teachers probably feel this fatigue most sharply. In classrooms, educators constantly encourage students to defend ideas with evidence, not mockery. Debate competitions penalize personal attacks precisely because they weaken reasoning. Yet students eventually turn on the television and see national leaders interrupting one another, throwing insinuations, weaponizing credentials, or reducing disagreements to personality contests. The contradiction is hard to ignore. A teacher spends all morning discussing critical thinking, then hears a public official dismiss criticism through ridicule on the evening news. One quietly undermines the other.

Perhaps this is why logic still matters more than many realize. Not the cold, robotic version people fear, but the everyday kind that helps ordinary citizens slow down and ask simple questions. Is the speaker answering the issue or attacking the person? Is evidence being presented, or merely emotion? Does the response clarify the discussion, or simply embarrass somebody publicly? Even beside coffee table conversations, TikTok debates, and livestream politics, Fr. Andrew Bachhuber’s old logic lessons still hold true. Democracy depends not on agreement, but on the ability to disagree without tearing people down.

The real threat of ad hominem is not simply emotional hurt. Politics has always been rough. The real damage happens when public discourse slowly teaches citizens that evidence matters less than dominance. Once debates become personality wars, institutions weaken quietly. The loudest voice wins. The clever insult trends. The actual issue disappears beneath applause, memes, and factional cheering. And perhaps that is the uncomfortable lesson hidden beneath the recent Senate tensions. A democracy does not collapse only through corruption or violence. Sometimes it erodes one insult at a time, one lazy fallacy at a time, until citizens stop asking who made the better argument and start asking only who delivered the meaner attack.

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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 that is grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views here do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed by or connected with.