The Politics of Madness

Th political rhetoric of mental illness uses a government officials mental fitness as an insult to
question their ability to carry out their duties.
However, it creates an unfair and insulting stigma on mental illness in general.
The Philippine Statistics Authority revealed that 1 in 5 adult Filipinos suffer from some form of
mental illness, translating to 88 cases of reported psychiatric or psychological disorders per
100,000. The 2010 National Census recorded that out of 1.4 million Filipinos with disabilities,
more than 200,000 of them or 14% suffer have some form of mental health problem.
In the previous Congress, lawmakers like former Senator Pia Cayetano and Vice President Leni
Robredo, when she was still a House Representative then, filed mental health bills in the
previous Congress but to no avail.
Now, The government is beginning to recognize that mental health is a serious public health
issue. The Department of Healths mental health program budget was raised from 36 million
pesos in 2016 to 220 million pesos in 2017.
Well change this landscape and this paradigm. We are in the process of advocating for the
passage of the first ever Mental Health Law in the Philippines, Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial
said.
Last October 2016, Liberal Party Senator Risa Hontiveros, who ran under a platform of
promoting universal healthcare, filed Senate Bill 1190, which sought to establish a national
mental health policy.
The bill includes provisions that recognizes the rights of persons with mental health needs,
improves government and community facilities, and requires medical students to take subjects
in neurology and psychiatry.
One small thing they could do to bring the conversation into the fold is to remind their
colleagues in government about the consequences of using mental illness as a political insult.
A recent example is Senator Leila de Lima, also a Liberal Party colleague of both Hontiveros
and Robredo, who has been reported to string the words sociopathic serial killer, and fentanyl
addict together to describe President Rodrigo Duterte.
While the senator has legitimate criticisms against the human rights abuses brought about by
Dutertes campaign against illegal drug trade, the mental illness rhetoric should stop.
Now, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, when sought for comment about Senator Delimas
arrest on charges alleging her involvement in the illegal drug trade, said that she should be
detained in a mental hospital.
These statements have the effect of stigmatizing mental illness. It also hurts the conversation
that Secretary Ubial and Senator Hontiveros are pushing.
The political rhetoric of mental illness is nothing new.
During the presidential campaign trail, President Dutertes psychological report over his
annulment case was leaked to the media. The psychologist described Duterte as suffering from
antisocial narcissistic personality disorder.
Former president Benigno Aquino III was suffering from depression and melancholia, according
to a fake psychological report leaked during the presidential campaign in 2010.
Even the late Senator Miriam Santiago was dogged by issues concerning her mental health
throughout her political career.
In the United States, some psychologists have analyzed President Donald Trumps personality
from a distance, with some going as far as saying he is suffering from a mental illness. This has
sparked a debate among therapists and psychologists concerning the ethical issue of
diagnosing public officials without seeing them in person.
Psychiatrists and psychologists diagnosing Trump from afar argue that he has caused so much
unapologetic distress to people that he must have this narcissistic personality disorder.
Mental health professionals in the U.S. take this issue seriously because it had legal
consequences that affected the professions integrity.
In 1964, Fact magazine published an article concerning Republican presidential candidate Barry
Goldwaters mental health. The article included a survey from 2,417 psychiatrists of the
American Psychiatric Associations (APA) 12,356 members.
The survey the magazine circulated asked whether Goldwater was mentally fit to serve as
president. Of the respondents collected, 1,189 or nearly half of them thought that Goldwater
was psychologically unfit. Some have went as far as saying that Goldwater was a
megalomaniac, or paranoid.
Some even diagnosed Goldwater with narcissistic personality disorder, the same diagnosis
given to Rodrigo Duterte.
Goldwater did not take the issue lightly. He sued the magazines publisher for libel and won the
case.
Since then, the APA had issued a code of ethics, known as the Goldwater Rule, by declaring it
unethical to offer professional opinion about public figures that they have not examined in
person.
Sought for comment about the current debate among psychiatrists and psychologists over
Trumps mental health, Allen Frances, the psychiatrist who wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders, simply called the debate bullshit.
In a letter to the New York Times editor, Frances argued that while Trump may truly be a
narcissist, but it does not make him mentally ill. People with mental disorders, Frances
explained, suffer from distress and impairment.
Frances reminded the public to stop confusing bad behavior and mental illness. It is a
stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be
lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither, he said.
He added: bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only
rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trumps attack on
democracy.
In the same way, critics who like to use Duterte or Delimas mental health to insult them is not
protecting democracy at all, but rather adding noise to an already noisy debate.
Mental health is a vital public health issue that should be taken seriously, especially today where
our everyday environment s increasingly becoming stressful. The hour-long of bumper-to-
bumper traffic, the menial wages and long hours of work, and the high workload in school are all
stressful situations that could potentially trigger mental health problems.
To move this conversation on mental health, it is time to end the madness of using madness as
a political insult.