Comrades and friends: I am certainly honored that you have asked me to keynote this year’s Akbayan Congress. But I am not very sure it is wise to invite an academic like myself to speak at gatherings like this.
Let me tell you why. Instead of rousing speeches, academics tend to give dry lectures. When an academic makes a mistake in his analysis, a hypothesis is merely disproved. In contrast, a political leader’s analysis may often spell the difference between victory and death. An academic reckons outcomes not in terms of success or failure, but only as answers to the puzzles he poses. They bring him neither joy nor disappointment, but at best only clarity to the questions he asks. An academic is answerable only to his mind, and maybe to his peers; but a political leader is always accountable to the constituency he leads and to the groups that support his vision. An academic need not choose his words carefully for he doesn’t have to please anybody, but the political leader must constantly weigh the practical implications of his statements. Having said this, I hope you do not regret having invited me.
If an objective observer of Philippine society were asked to point to anything new in today’s national landscape, I am quite sure it would not be the persistent poverty of the vast majority of Filipinos, or the irresponsibility of the rich, or the incurable corruption of top government officials. Indeed we have lived with these realities for a very long time, and perhaps have grown so used to them that we can no longer imagine our collective way of life apart from the dysfunctional forms it has taken.
What is new, I think, is the sense of futility and cynicism that today seems to mark our people’s attitude towards anything political. In fact, I do not remember a period in our history when a comprehensive distrust for politics, for politicians, and for government itself has gripped our people the way it does today.
This distrust — and the corrosive political indifference and personal inwardness it breeds — can only come, I believe, as the logical end-point of an exhausting process that has kept the whole nation on its toes in the last three decades. The period I am referring to here has taken our people on a roller-coaster ride of willful and risky experiments that include Martial Law in 1972, People Power in 1986, a series of failed coups in the late ‘80s, the election of a populist president in 1998, a second People Power uprising in January 2001, a third People Power attempt in May 2001, a suicidal mutiny of young idealistic officers in July 2003, a fraudulent presidential election in 2004, and a continuing crisis of presidential legitimacy ever since. In short, a series of intense upheavals consumed the political energies and passions of our people, and raised their expectations to very high levels, only to let them down every time. Today we are harvesting the bitter fruit of sustained political disillusionment.
Our people are exhausted and demoralized. They feel betrayed by their leaders. They have become distrustful of everything political, and pessimistic about the long-term prospects of the country as a whole. They see the Filipino nation as a sinking boat, with no hope of re-direction, and they are ready to abandon ship at the first opportunity. Over the years, they have become increasingly unwilling to hitch their personal futures and those of their families to the nation’s collective fate. Higher ideals no longer inspire them. They look at politics as no more than a market transaction devoid of higher values. Successive disappointments have taught them not to place any hope on the healing power of social solidarity or the magic of nation-building, but to place their bets solely on the practical relief offered by the selfish strategies of private survival. Overseas migration is only the most dramatic form of this tragic change of heart.
Clearly the situation we face is more than just the crisis of a president whose legitimate entitlement to the position she has occupied since 2001 continues to be challenged. This is not just the crisis of an equally discredited political opposition, nor of a constitutional system that can no longer call upon its institutions to resolve an electoral protest. The crisis is larger than this. This is the crisis of a middle-class-led nation-building project that has crashed on the shoals of modernity. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s contested presidency is but a tiny footnote in this still unfolding narrative of societal failure.
Let me elaborate. From the moment of its independence in 1946, the Filipino nation’s aspirations have consisted of four basic objectives, namely: political and economic modernity, social equity, national sovereignty, and democracy. These national objectives have been the historic task primarily of the country’s educated classes, notably its young people, with every generation placing its distinctive accent specifically on one or two of these motifs. The Sixties generation, for example, was torn by the twin tasks of social equity and nationalism. The youths of the Seventies were consumed by the quest for social equity and national sovereignty. The Eighties focused on the struggle for democracy and human rights in the context of a dying dictatorship. The late Eighties to the mid-Nineties, on the other hand, revolved around the agenda of political and economic modernization in the wake of Edsa 1. Social equity became the dominant motif in the period leading to the short-lived Erap presidency. But this was quickly replaced in 2001 by the emphasis again on the need for modern governance and competent leadership – a logical reaction to the crisis of Erap’s traditionalist populism. This crisis paved the way for the rise of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose academic credentials and scholarly appearance gave her the aura of a modern technocratic leader.
Today the Filipino middle and educated classes (we can use the terms interchangeably) realize that the highly-educated economist they carried to power on the wings of a second popular uprising is herself a creature (and a far more sophisticated player) of the same obsolete political system they had been battling. They have completely overlooked her political biography – her penchant for changing party affiliation whenever it suited her political ambition, her assiduous courtship of local leaders, her clever use of her father’s surname and political connections even as she abandoned the party he had once led, her crafty repackaging as the movie actress Nora Aunor look-alike in campaign posters in order to achieve a mass appeal, and her careful projection of an image of Catholic piety and moral conservatism.
All these should have alerted the middle classes to what was to follow next when she finally decided that she would seek a fresh 6-year term in the 2004 presidential election. But they became willfully blind. The bishops, the businessmen, the civil society stalwarts, and the public opinion makers constituting the core of the middle classes allowed themselves to be so terrorized by the prospect of another move icon ascending to the presidency in 2004 that they could not see the monster they were harboring in their own midst. Suddenly everything became permissible so long as it would stop FPJ from becoming president. Massive cheating and manipulation of the voting process became morally justifiable as a means of preventing what they assumed was going to be a looming moral disaster if FPJ got elected. The elders of the Catholic Church rushed their affirmation of what they perceived to be a generally honest and fair election in order to pre-empt the explosion of a volatile mass constituency that was being robbed of its vote for the second time. It was as if the failed mass uprising that was Edsa 3 had permanently traumatized them, seeing it as a threat to the very foundations of their way of life. The moral arrogance of a paranoid middle class was shamelessly put on full display during this crucial period.
Less than a year after the 2004 election, the monster’s tricks began to test the patience of even her most loyal apostles. They had closed their eyes to the wanton expenditure of public funds to ensure her election. But, as they were soon to find out, this was nothing compared to the brazen deals and appointments that were being made in the payback process that unfolded in the aftermath of the election. When the “Hello Garci” tapes suddenly materialized from nowhere and laid bare the sordid story of the massive cheating in Mindanao, and the crucial role played by the armed services in the whole process, the reformists in Mrs Arroyo’s administration tried to salvage the situation by formulating a way out for their beleaguered leader. This included a “lapse-in-judgment” apology on national television, followed by the voluntary exile abroad of the First Gentleman. This formula, as we all know, quickly backfired; the reformists lost their footing, resigned, and demanded the resignation of Gloria. And as a final act signifying a shift in the rules of the game, the beloved husband was quickly recalled and reinstated as the chief handyman in the leaking ship that was Malacanang.
Mrs. Arroyo barely survived that difficult period. Today, Mrs Arroyo does not bother to cloak her power with any pretense to moral authority. As a survivor in the ruthless world of Philippine politics, she has shed off the moral shield, and now deals with her enemies only with two choice weapons: coercion and remuneration. This violates the moral sensibilities of the middle classes and exposes the ugly side of power. But I think that in the long run, this is good for the resolution of the political crisis because it forces us to resume the quest for intelligent political solutions to our problems, and to forego the instant satisfactions offered by moral labeling.
There is no effective way of dealing with a government that misuses the vast coercive and remunerative power of the State except by the painstaking work of grassroots organizing and public advocacy based on an alternative vision. This is thankless but necessary work that groups like Akbayan must relentlessly pursue. It is risky; the terrain is booby-trapped with temptations aimed at coopting all radical projects. Having established a combat position within the State, Akbayan has to be careful not to end up serving as a decoration in an edifice it cannot hope to shake up.
Of the middle class instincts that have animated political adventurism in our country in the last three decades, none perhaps has been as powerful as the romantic utopianism that predisposes many of us to short-circuit democratic politics by resorting to people power upheavals or coups to wrest state power. Although some may be driven by the highest aspirations and purest motives, they are counter-productive in the long run because they are not anchored on the active support and engagement of the working classes. Too often, they pre-empt the slow-boil of popular protest and patient organizing among the poor and the working classes, relegating them once more to the role of spectators in the re-making of society.
When I am with my middle class, middle-aged, mid-lifing friends who are active in the fight against the Arroyo regime, I am often asked what is to be done, rather than what I think is the national situation. Instead of proposing anything that would please an oppositionist heart, I sometimes reply by asking another question – “What is the problem?” I know that this is a conversation-stopper, but I mean it in all seriousness. I think we cannot begin to think what we should do until it is clear in our minds what the problem is. Is this really just about Gloria? Or is it about a more encompassing system in whose reproduction we all unwittingly play a part? My friends usually retort by saying: “Of course, it is both, but right now she’s the main problem; let’s start the cleansing of the system by getting rid of her.” But what assurance is there that we will not get a replacement who will turn out to be just like her? We said more or less the same thing about Marcos and about Estrada in their time. While their ouster gave us the fleeting feeling of being relieved of a painful thorn, their exit from the political stage only set us off on another cycle of crises and contradictions. Could it be that we have been expelling the incumbents in order to prolong the life of a dying system?
Marcos and his band of technocrats saw the crisis of this system in the early Seventies, and became convinced that the decadent politics of the elite was the main obstacle to the country’s development. They watched with envy while our neighbors in Asia surged forward under the banner of a strong state. In 1972, Marcos capitalized on the feeling of public insecurity brought about by the disorder in the streets and took a bold leap by declaring Martial Law. That single act set Philippine politics on an irreversible course. On this basis, he launched a program to build a New Society founded on discipline, national pride, economic growth and social equity.
But instead of being the harbinger of sustained economic growth, the strong State under Marcos became exclusively associated with human rights violations and massive corruption. And so when we got rid of it in 1986, we swore never again to concentrate political power in any single branch of government. We found ourselves swinging to the opposite model of a minimalist government that fastened its own decision-making powers to a rigid system of checks and balances. Indeed the euphoria over the restoration of democracy perked up the economy and released productive capacity that had lain idle in the final years of Marcos. But the experience with corruption under the Marcos regime made the new government extremely cautious about starting large-scale infrastructure projects. One day, towards the end of Cory’s administration, the country woke up to the reality of a severe power shortage that required costly emergency measures to address.
Threatened by a coup-prone military that had tasted power, and faced by a surge of populist expectations from all directions, the government found itself unable to sustain its initial experimental stance towards the country’s old problems. Troubled by chronic political instability, the Cory government came to rely more and more on the advice and services of traditional politicians who kept their constituencies silent by the tested methods of personal patronage. With every election, the old political families that had dominated pre-Martial Law politics came back to power, virtually halting the momentum of political and economic reform.
The substance of political rationality lies in the strengthening of institutions, beginning with the modernization of elections, the insulation of the courts and the civil service from politics, and the replacement of patronage mechanisms with institutional means for delivering basic social services. It also lies in the insulation of the government’s regulatory powers from vested interests. Many thoughtful Filipinos are aware of these problems and the solutions they require. Perhaps the problem is not indifference, but rather impatience for change. The question often asked is whether we can change the present state of affairs by the slow route of elections and constitutional revision, or by the fast route of another extra-constitutional intervention. Our inclination to resort to the latter at the drop of a hat is what has kept the political system trapped in cycles of instability.
Our present leaders are too distracted by politics to be able to govern well, too short-sighted and too afraid to take political risks. Their insecurity prevents them from rising above their narrow political alliances, and so they cannot stop repaying short-term political debts at the expense of the country’s long-term interests. Unsure of their mandate, their principal concern, then as now, is political survival.
The root of this, in my view, takes us back to the basic structure of our society. It is a highly unequal society, whether measured in wealth, or power, or opportunity. The political and economic elites that decide the nation’s destiny constitute a very thin layer of the population – no more than 3%. For lack of access to capital, the middle class is not growing as fast it should. Finding their children’s future blocked in this country, middle class families opt to work and live abroad. We are losing a great number of talented and educated Filipinos in this manner. It is true that the money they send home, about $10 billion a year, keeps the economy afloat. But the paths to growth that this dependence on labor export forecloses, not to mention the untold social consequences on the families left behind, cannot be ignored. One does not have to be a sociologist or a political analyst to know that this state of affairs is not economically or politically sustainable in the long term.
No matter how one looks at it, the backbone of any economy is ultimately the quality of the human resources it can tap. If a society does not invest in its people – in their education, in their health, living conditions, etc. – it will wake up one day to realize that no matter how strong its will to succeed, it simply won’t be able to move forward. But more than this, it will be confronted by the recurrent explosion of resentful majorities, of citizens that have been excluded from the system.
There are two reasons for this.
First, the obvious – a poorly educated, malnourished, morally broken, politically stunted and resentful population can never be tapped for the positive and demanding tasks of economic growth and political modernization. The country has no choice but to turn to its small educated middle class to harness them for the comprehensive tasks of national modernization. Yet every day, we lose thousands of our professionals to other countries.
Second, the less obvious one – when the State fails to take care of the basic needs of its people, and when the market systematically excludes those without money from the blessings of limited growth, the unfortunate ones among our people will find a way of meeting their needs informally and illegally, no matter who gets hurt or inconvenienced in the process. The huge squatter problem in our major cities is a grim reminder of this neglect. The social problems that the individual adaptations to poverty create pile up over time, spinning their own complications and eliciting reactive short-term program adjustments aimed at the political pacification of the poor. We see this especially during elections, when palliatives with high media mileage, and dole-outs addressing short-term needs, become the abiding tools of public administration.
The root of these problems is ultimately economic. I will not go into this in great detail. But let me just say this.
Our numbers are increasing at a phenomenal rate, especially among the lower strata of our population. Yet our ability to meet the basic requirements of a growing population is not expanding. The private sector is naturally focused on that segment of the population with the capacity to pay for its needs. But even here, the market is not all that big. Faced with low incomes and joblessness, our people have meager savings if any – unless, precisely, they go and find work abroad. On the other hand, the government, hobbled by declining revenues and rising debt payments, is hardly in a position to meet the basic needs of the poor. Declining revenues are mainly due to slow economic growth, although clearly corruption and inefficiency aggravate the problem. The problem of the debt burden, on the other hand, grows in relation to our inability to increase public revenue. It is also aggravated by corruption. We know we are in deep trouble when, as today, fully one-third of the national budget is allotted to interest payments alone. This amount is more than the whole government payroll, and totally dwarfs the provisions for education and health.
Clearly, we have been operating under a social system that can no longer serve the growing needs of our people. For 13 years, from 1972-1986, we tried authoritarian rule as an alternative to American-style liberal democracy, and found it intolerable. Having surrendered our liberties, we also failed to prosper because, as it happened, the crisis of the world economy in the early 1980s made it impossible for Marcos to achieve his vision of state-led development.
Everything we have done by way of reform since 1986 has been half-hearted – agrarian reform, democratization of our political system, electoral modernization, educational modernization, agricultural modernization, etc. Today, we are still desperately looking for an alternative blueprint. What that is, is not certain. But not a few otherwise sensible people have raised the option of a benevolent strongman.
My own view is that we have not really given democracy a chance to work in our society. I am not very sure at this point what kind of political system exactly will work for us, but I think there are a few basic lessons we cannot ignore, regardless of the political choices we make.
First, in the present state of the world economy, we cannot hope to gain anything unless we can first unify our people around a clear vision or set of purposes, and engage their energies and enthusiasm in the pursuit of these goals. Far from receding in value, the State has to take a larger role in charting a roadmap for the whole country and coordinating the efforts of its various constituencies.
Second, development has to start from the development of the people – through the provision of the minimum living conditions for sustained personal growth through quality education, and their meaningful inclusion in various aspects of the national life. In the short and medium term, we must provide the poor with all the acceptable means necessary for them to be able to plan their families and live a decent life.
Third, the private sector must be brought to an awareness that the period in which we live is an unusual one. Those who have more in life are called upon to help those who have been excluded and denied opportunity, without waiting to be prompted by the government. We may not like the government of the day, but it would be fatal to abandon the nation altogether.
Fourth, corruption is certainly a big problem in our country, but it is not the most important of our problems. It is rather an expression of our most urgent problems – mass poverty and ignorance, patronage politics, expensive elections, and an underdeveloped economy.
Fifth, our private initiatives as citizens are valuable, but the crucial terrain of social change is the public arena, where policies and programs are decided. Whether we like it or not, the State remains our principal instrument for growth in the modern world. That is why the quality of governance remains our most crucial concern. This means combating patronage and celebrity politics, and encouraging and supporting those who genuinely champion the best interests of our people. We cannot achieve this if we do not take the first step towards emancipating our voters from their basic needs, and without launching a sustained campaign to form intelligent voters.
Sixth, there is no shortcut to development. Many attempts at changing society drastically and fundamentally lead to violent civil wars from which too often nations are unable to recover. I do not believe that genuine social change has to mean “an all-or-nothing, cataclysmic regeneration of society.” In these times, we need a civil war like we need a bullet in our heads.
Seventh, some of our problems require simple and straightforward solutions, but many are multi-layered and complex. Every initiative rests on certain preconditions. It’s like rebuilding an old house – every part of the house you tear down exposes new hidden weaknesses. We are often told that it is better to tear down an old house and build a totally new one. Yet it is hard to imagine how you can do that with a whole nation. We must have more patience, and patience is quickly running out.
And finally, no nation can progress without first instilling national pride and love of country among its people. National pride is to nations what self-respect is to individuals – a precondition for self-improvement. We must arrest our people’s dangerous descent to demoralization, and appeal to those who have made good here and abroad to help lift the morale especially of our young people in these critical times.
In bringing up these scattered notes on nationhood, I naturally have Akbayan in mind. For I place tremendous faith in the capacity of its cadre of creative young leaders to initiate the long overdue re-invention of Philippine politics. Akbayan has no choice but to define the party’s historic mission in terms of the growth requirements of the nation’s young people. Akbayan must work hard to be a party of hope, a party of renewal, a national party that seeks the return of self-esteem and honor to a betrayed nation.
Thank you.