a numbness to realities seen; also reality fatigue

A perennial complaint against UP activists - and, I guess applies to activists in general - is that they've over-used mobilization as a form of activism, so that people are now tired or are unattracted to join this kind of activity.

It may be true that constant exposure to something may rob that something of its novelty and attractiveness.
People are bombarded everyday by news and stories of gloom that is called the world, such that they can't stand it a second longer. People can only take so much reality. It partly explains why people turn to escapist entertainment like movies and fashion and gossip magazines.
It is in this sense that there is mobilization fatigue, or issues exposure fatigue.

Yet that doesn't rub mobilization off from being a valid form of call to action, or that it shouldn't be constantly launched as issues arise. Rallies show a mass of people collectively acting to speak out their issues and concerns; it is a show of force, of unity, a possibility. That is something that has never been fully understood by its critics.
The rants against rallies are making a virtue out of an ostensible necessity. Or throwing the baby out with the bathwater, such that rallies are now declared passe, invalid forms of action. There is also a false counter-posing with direct lobbying.

But it also seems, coming as the rants are from so-called intellectuals, that it's mostly a cover for intellectual laziness and, as UP's own history suggests, an excuse for these people's inaction in light of pressing social and university concerns.

Well, that's why there's what's called 'consciousness-raising,' of making people awaken to the realities surrounding them, that these realities are not necessary and need to be changed, and calling upon them to act.

And it must never be forgotten that even the most unnoticed rights that UP students have been used to - such as the non-need to stand up when reciting - were products of very determined struggle. And that is a lesson: Rights are struggled for and won, not given by benevolent authorities. That goes for every right that was achieved throughout history, be it women's suffrage, the dismantling of apartheid, or workers' rights.

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It's important to keep that in mind, because in a country where resources are scarce, and where wealth is so concentrated in a few local and foreign hands, it seems a necessity that rights are more or less struggled for also outside the medium of the legal courts and parliamentary forums, and into the arena of public opinion and action. That's because judicial reform for the benefit of the marginalized is lacking or non-existent.

In Australia, for example, some (State) governments have enacted land rights legislation, such that, though limited, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law is now recognized as a source of rights within the wider Australian legal system.

Contrast that with the fact that Cordilleran and Moro indigenous rights still remain a pipe dream, despite the recent legislation of the Indigenous People's Rights Act (IPRA), which has been criticized as serving as a facilitator for the exploitation of indigenous lands by multinational mining and timber companies.

Again, in a country where social and economic contradictions are so glaring, it is no wonder that activists hew more to the Marxist precepts of changing the world. Which makes it necessary for local sycophants to make themselves immune to the realities that threaten their privileged positions in society. In the end, the constant rapping against mobilizations flows from and aids reaction.