The continuing quest for a new brand of politics grows out of an overwhelming sense of disgust over traditional Philippine politics. But new politics has remained an amorphous proposition coming from a wide spectrum of political theorists and activists who have a penchant for emphasizing differences with each other than commonalities. Hence, people tend to put their bets on the kind of politics that they can understand and have a bit of control – traditional politics which is a combination of patronage, intimidation, personal charisma and the bandwagon effect. Successful politicians are those who are able to concoct and combine these elements into their campaign. Unfortunately for the reform-minded, there is not an alternative model that has any of the above, not to mention run an organized and sustained electoral campaign.
These disparate ideas about alternative models, however, are not entirely merely abstract ideas but are actually concrete lessons gathered from decades of experience in organizing mass movements. Experience shows that ordinary folks can be aroused to take action – even extreme actions – in matters affecting their survival, the well-being of their loved ones or their honor and dignity. It must be noted, however, that elections never deal with life-and-death issues or those that have an immediate impact on their lives. Small farmers, for example, might band themselves in a dangerous undertaking of protecting their farms against a government-backed mining company but would nevertheless vote for the same congressman who supports aggressive mining activities because they have been recipients of dole-outs and other favors from him.
Experience also shows that mass organizations are based on long-term strategic alliances along sectoral and class lines whereas electoral machineries are built on temporary, short-term and opportunistic alliances. Apparently, elections and traditional politics are like seeds in a pod. They are meant for each other, while mass movements and fundamental social issues are seeds of an entirely different pod. That is to say, new politics and elections simply don’t mix. Is this the final word in Philippine politics?
The experience of Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela would challenge that. There, various groups and organizations of a decades-old popular movement for basic change converted into a political electoral base that catapulted an unlikely politician to power. In the end, those who voted for him in the hope of achieving sweeping changes got shortchanged when only the oil industry got nationalized. Nevertheless, the face of electoral politics got a radical made-up. It’s a new development not foreseen by political analysts. For, predicting political developments is more like weather forecasting than plotting mathematical projections.
At this point, an alternative politics in this country has not matured to a level that would rival the sway of traditional politics. It’s not in the menu to choose from. It’s sort of still being cooked while a hungry customer is just about to make an order. So, what are the likely ingredients of an alternative politics?
First, people’s empowerment – its leading components are critical understanding of the situation, sense of the justness of the cause, confidence in the power of class/sectoral solidarity, capacity to make personal sacrifices, organizational loyalty and discipline. Second, people’s agenda – connecting specific short-term local issues with sectoral/class basic long-term inter ests. Third, volunteerism – willingness to invest time, energy and material resources in pursuit of common goals. Fourth, multi-layer organizing on the ground – organizing by trade, special interests, work place, geographical units. Fifth, communications networking – multi-media and internet. Sixth – alliances with people’s organizations, NGOs and service institutions. And seventh, a charismatic leadership that can inspire trust and hope among the followers and the larger public.
These are dynamic developing ingredients of an alternative political reality that is emerging, unfolding, in the making rather than prior full-blown pre-existing conditions. Hence, failures and learning from failures are an integral part of a new politics that seeks to challenge and overthrow the politics of old. Those who yearn for a new world to break out in the morning must have the patience and courage to journey in the night.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
A Private Corporation Called Government
21 Oct. 09
Should the government have its way, some 80,000 families (400 thousand individuals, mostly children) who took refuge in evacuation centers in Metro Manila will not be allowed to return to their homes or what’s left of them. It’s one of the measures being considered by government to prevent another flooding of the metro cities. The rationale is that these families inhabit the esteros and rivers banks, blocking the free flow of waters out to the sea. They are also said to be responsible for the huge amount of garbage thrown into the rivers. Therefore, they must go – “Balik Provincia” or by whatever name – or to some other places in the peripheries of the metropolis.
Government and private urban planners have this mindset that informal dwellers inhabiting city sectors labeled “squatter areas” are urban blights that make the city ugly and dirty, breed criminals and insurgents and impede progress. And so, while city development plans designate sectors for industrial, commercial, government, residential and recreation purposes – there is none for social housing. People from the provinces troop to the city centers mainly due to rural poverty and lack of opportunities for gainful employment and upward social movement in rural Philippines. These provincianos actually form the bulk of the city’s working force. They are the bakers’ helpers, construction workers, stevedores and porters, vegetable and fish vendors, bodega hands, waitresses and sales girls, drivers, janitors, yayas, lavanderas and maids. Some of them manage to get regular employment in factories and offices. They survive with very low wages and because of that the middle class people are able to enjoy a little comfort in life and the owners and managers of capital, rich. What would life of the middle class and the rich be without them?
And yet, they are treated like the garbage of Pasig River to be extracted from the clogged waterways and thrown out because they are standing in the way of the city’s development. Actually, there’s a law, the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992 that mandates each city to set aside land for social housing. But aside from giving the authors some “pogi” points for election purposes, nothing much has come out of it. Compare that with the Mining Act of 1995 that covers nearly all of the country’s mountain and hills for exploitation by foreign mining companies, and implemented before the legal processes are sufficiently complied with and under dubious circumstances. Or the various agreements with the Chinese government to devote a million hectares of the valleys and plains for crops that are bound for export to China. Why doesn’t the Philippine government give decent housing to its own citizens who truly carry the brunt of the Philippine economy?
It’s all a matter of perspective. And perspective is basically determined by the standpoint that one takes. Where we are looking to and what we see depend on where we stand. Those who are appointed by government to do urban planning and development are likely to have come from private planning and development companies. With this background, they don’t see government building houses for people. Their job as they see it is that of providing opportunities and incentives to private developers to invest in housing projects. Naturally for private developers low-cost housing for the poor does not appear in their investment scans. Not only that: these officials are likely to have established personal and business relationships with developers some of whom may be unscrupulous. And that’s what is happening – housing projects built on low-lying places and, in fact, catch basins for water overflowing from rivers and lakes.
The truth of the matter is that private developers don’t build houses for the poor, and in collusion with housing authorities construct houses on the most unnatural places, wrecking havoc on nature’s ways. And government does urban housing planning this way because of the principle that government is there not to compete with private business but to pave the way for it to flourish – without the highest good of the nation in mind.
To a certain extent, the Philippine government is a private corporation or at least run by officials who represent the interest of private companies. In that scheme of things, only a few are winners; the rest of the people are always on the losing end. Government position is a public trust. But this is fiction. Even elections are a private transaction between candidates and voters with the bigger spender winning most of time.
When are we going to wake up to this illusion?
Should the government have its way, some 80,000 families (400 thousand individuals, mostly children) who took refuge in evacuation centers in Metro Manila will not be allowed to return to their homes or what’s left of them. It’s one of the measures being considered by government to prevent another flooding of the metro cities. The rationale is that these families inhabit the esteros and rivers banks, blocking the free flow of waters out to the sea. They are also said to be responsible for the huge amount of garbage thrown into the rivers. Therefore, they must go – “Balik Provincia” or by whatever name – or to some other places in the peripheries of the metropolis.
Government and private urban planners have this mindset that informal dwellers inhabiting city sectors labeled “squatter areas” are urban blights that make the city ugly and dirty, breed criminals and insurgents and impede progress. And so, while city development plans designate sectors for industrial, commercial, government, residential and recreation purposes – there is none for social housing. People from the provinces troop to the city centers mainly due to rural poverty and lack of opportunities for gainful employment and upward social movement in rural Philippines. These provincianos actually form the bulk of the city’s working force. They are the bakers’ helpers, construction workers, stevedores and porters, vegetable and fish vendors, bodega hands, waitresses and sales girls, drivers, janitors, yayas, lavanderas and maids. Some of them manage to get regular employment in factories and offices. They survive with very low wages and because of that the middle class people are able to enjoy a little comfort in life and the owners and managers of capital, rich. What would life of the middle class and the rich be without them?
And yet, they are treated like the garbage of Pasig River to be extracted from the clogged waterways and thrown out because they are standing in the way of the city’s development. Actually, there’s a law, the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992 that mandates each city to set aside land for social housing. But aside from giving the authors some “pogi” points for election purposes, nothing much has come out of it. Compare that with the Mining Act of 1995 that covers nearly all of the country’s mountain and hills for exploitation by foreign mining companies, and implemented before the legal processes are sufficiently complied with and under dubious circumstances. Or the various agreements with the Chinese government to devote a million hectares of the valleys and plains for crops that are bound for export to China. Why doesn’t the Philippine government give decent housing to its own citizens who truly carry the brunt of the Philippine economy?
It’s all a matter of perspective. And perspective is basically determined by the standpoint that one takes. Where we are looking to and what we see depend on where we stand. Those who are appointed by government to do urban planning and development are likely to have come from private planning and development companies. With this background, they don’t see government building houses for people. Their job as they see it is that of providing opportunities and incentives to private developers to invest in housing projects. Naturally for private developers low-cost housing for the poor does not appear in their investment scans. Not only that: these officials are likely to have established personal and business relationships with developers some of whom may be unscrupulous. And that’s what is happening – housing projects built on low-lying places and, in fact, catch basins for water overflowing from rivers and lakes.
The truth of the matter is that private developers don’t build houses for the poor, and in collusion with housing authorities construct houses on the most unnatural places, wrecking havoc on nature’s ways. And government does urban housing planning this way because of the principle that government is there not to compete with private business but to pave the way for it to flourish – without the highest good of the nation in mind.
To a certain extent, the Philippine government is a private corporation or at least run by officials who represent the interest of private companies. In that scheme of things, only a few are winners; the rest of the people are always on the losing end. Government position is a public trust. But this is fiction. Even elections are a private transaction between candidates and voters with the bigger spender winning most of time.
When are we going to wake up to this illusion?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Celebrating Faith: A Reformation Sunday Sermon
Reformation Sunday, 2009
Text - Romans 3:21-26
Introduction: Ancient classical manuscripts are a source of profound insights. That’s why they are called classics. Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk found salvation for his anguished soul from reading the passage in Paul’s Letter to the Romans that was read to us just now. But one thousand five-hundred years separated Luther from Paul. Now, two thousand years later our Bible study group is re-reading Paul’s Romans for fresh insights that were not there during Luther’s time. For, insights are not timeless truths trapped in the pages of books. Insights are fresh discoveries that have to do with today’s living. An ancient manuscript, such as the Bible, is not really the true source of insights; it is but a medium of truth. For us who consider the Bible as sacred scripture, God is the source of truth that is mediated through human means, such as human words in the scripture. It is in this sense that the Bible is called holy – the Holy Bible.
Whether new insights were historically intended by the author is of course important but not crucial or necessary. But it is incumbent upon interpreters to try to bring out to the best of their ability and with all honesty what the writer had meant, to respect it and to be true to it.
Now back to Luther and to Paul. For Luther, the core problem that Paul’s Letter to the Romans dealt with was justification, that is, a person stands before God either just or a sinner; a person either has a right relationship with God or not. So, the question is: how does a person get God’s justice? Luther thought that in order to obtain God’s justice a sinner has to appease God’s wrath with good works. This he struggled to do all of his waking moments. But each morning he would wake up with dreams of God’s fierce anger and the terrors of hell. The stone walls of the monastery could not shut out the voice of the devil taunting him, driving him crazy.
Then in the darkness of the struggle of his soul, as he read a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he heard God telling him that he had it all wrong: God’s justice is not be found in the satisfaction of divine rage; rather, it is to be found in God’s mercy and forgiveness. Suddenly, he found himself free – the burden of his soul was gone and in its place came rushing in like cool breeze from the forest, peace that has eluded him all his life. After a long night, it was morning in his soul.
Luther rose and broke out of the monastery, out of the theology of the church called scholasticism and eventually out of the church called Roman. He came out with the insight that the only thing that a person burdened with sin must to do to obtain salvation is to accept the freely offered forgiveness of a merciful God. It’s true because in that he found freedom and peace. It’s true because there he gathered courage and strength to seek controversy with the church and to defy the empire. Even the devil had no power over him for God was his mighty fortress: “the powers of darkness grim, we tremble not for them; their rage we can endure, for lo, their doom is sure: one little word shall fell them” – Luther wrote this hymn at a time when the church declared him a “wild boar” in God’s vineyard and hunted down by the empire.
Did Luther read Paul rightly? Some Roman Catholic theologians say that Luther read the Romans through a tormented neurotic lens. Meaning, Protestantism is a result of one man’s neurosis. Impartial clinical psychologists confirm a streak of neurosis in Luther’s character as may be gathered from his writings. But Luther’s mental health is of no consequence. This man wrote the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and unleashed a torrent of creativity in music and literature unequaled in power and beauty. To Luther and the 16th century Reformation, the Christian world owes an insightful meaning of “faith”.
The years rolled by, and five hundred years later, new readings of Paul’s Romans. In the light of current developments in human civilization, it seems that Luther’s reading of Paul has apparently reached a dead end. Young and progressive theologians today tend to leapfrog over Luther as though he never existed or start their thesis by first demolishing him. Now and then preachers remember him but only during Reformation Sunday. Even then, they seem to labor hard to connect Luther’s faith with modern faith.
In my higher studies I focused on the Reformation classics and tried hard to build a bridge linking the Reformers’ main insights with liberation struggles. My dissertation was published into a book. I came across couple of reviews and I thought they regarded my work as a kind of oddity. There has been no request from my publisher for a second printing. Then, I came across a refreshingly new understanding of Romans. This time I’m reading it together with others in a Bible study group with insights coming from the works of American theologian Theodore Jennings via Karl Villarmea. Ted has visited Silliman a couple of times and had a conversation with our study group.
Dr. Jennings suggests that we read the word “faith” to mean loyalty. I thought that indeed loyalty is one of the qualities of faith but it’s not at the core of faith – still based on my education on the Reformation. Then I read Romans again, and again, and I have to concede that loyalty is really faith’s core meaning – at least for me and in so far as my Christian praxis is concerned. I’m not carrying Luther’s kind of spiritual burden – his fear of hell and God’s wrath – yet as a mature person I have been viewing my faith through Luther’s eyes. Now, I find that kind of strange. Luther and I are not soul-mates, although I admire him next to Paul and Augustine.
Like Paul and Luther, I regard the question of whether I’m just or a sinner before God as primary; every other question is remotely secondary. But how do I get to be just before God? Dr. Jennings suggests that it’s by the faith of Jesus – Iesou Kristou in the Greek grammar, which is in the possessive case, of. It is by operation of Jesus’ faith that we are made just or right before God, and not only us individually but society and the whole world as well. Greek grammar aside, it’s only logical and commonsensical that since we cannot save ourselves, it has to be an external agent that can save, and this external agent is Jesus’ faith, which is the gospel. As Paul said, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, and the gospel is not our faith but the faith of Jesus Christ.
Now, how are we able to benefit from Jesus’ faith that makes us just or right before God? It is by our loyalty to that faith. By being loyal to the faith of Christ, we are made just; by humanity’s loyalty to Christ’s faith society and the whole world is going to be made just. God’s ultimate purpose is that the whole creation is enveloped, bathed, saturated in God’s justice and holiness.
Have we been true to our vows to believe, or rather be loyal to Christ? I’ve made these vows three times in my life: during my baptism through my parents, during my confirmation and when I got ordained as a minister of the church. Following Christ is a matter of loyalty to him. Loyalty to the faith of Christ as the real test of faith is a very refreshing, meaningful and challenging truth for those who seek to live justly and to make this world just. And who doesn’t? Not for fear of hell but for love of God, for love of others, for love of country.
Conclusion: Augustine said, “Love God and do whatever pleases you.” We may also say, “Be loyal to Jesus and be yourself.” This is the freedom that gave Paul the boldness to speak new things about Christ. This is the freedom that gave Luther the audacity to speak against the errors of Rome. This freedom is above all laws – the laws of society, the obligations of religions, or creeds of churches.
And this is what loyalty demands: it demands obedience to Jesus; it requires leading a life worthy of our calling as Jesus’ disciples; it challenges us to resist the powers of evil and the lure of the devil as Jesus did; it invites us to pursue justice for as long as it takes until the Lord returns to vindicate us. And when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, may he find us … loyal! Amen.
Text - Romans 3:21-26
Introduction: Ancient classical manuscripts are a source of profound insights. That’s why they are called classics. Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk found salvation for his anguished soul from reading the passage in Paul’s Letter to the Romans that was read to us just now. But one thousand five-hundred years separated Luther from Paul. Now, two thousand years later our Bible study group is re-reading Paul’s Romans for fresh insights that were not there during Luther’s time. For, insights are not timeless truths trapped in the pages of books. Insights are fresh discoveries that have to do with today’s living. An ancient manuscript, such as the Bible, is not really the true source of insights; it is but a medium of truth. For us who consider the Bible as sacred scripture, God is the source of truth that is mediated through human means, such as human words in the scripture. It is in this sense that the Bible is called holy – the Holy Bible.
Whether new insights were historically intended by the author is of course important but not crucial or necessary. But it is incumbent upon interpreters to try to bring out to the best of their ability and with all honesty what the writer had meant, to respect it and to be true to it.
Now back to Luther and to Paul. For Luther, the core problem that Paul’s Letter to the Romans dealt with was justification, that is, a person stands before God either just or a sinner; a person either has a right relationship with God or not. So, the question is: how does a person get God’s justice? Luther thought that in order to obtain God’s justice a sinner has to appease God’s wrath with good works. This he struggled to do all of his waking moments. But each morning he would wake up with dreams of God’s fierce anger and the terrors of hell. The stone walls of the monastery could not shut out the voice of the devil taunting him, driving him crazy.
Then in the darkness of the struggle of his soul, as he read a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he heard God telling him that he had it all wrong: God’s justice is not be found in the satisfaction of divine rage; rather, it is to be found in God’s mercy and forgiveness. Suddenly, he found himself free – the burden of his soul was gone and in its place came rushing in like cool breeze from the forest, peace that has eluded him all his life. After a long night, it was morning in his soul.
Luther rose and broke out of the monastery, out of the theology of the church called scholasticism and eventually out of the church called Roman. He came out with the insight that the only thing that a person burdened with sin must to do to obtain salvation is to accept the freely offered forgiveness of a merciful God. It’s true because in that he found freedom and peace. It’s true because there he gathered courage and strength to seek controversy with the church and to defy the empire. Even the devil had no power over him for God was his mighty fortress: “the powers of darkness grim, we tremble not for them; their rage we can endure, for lo, their doom is sure: one little word shall fell them” – Luther wrote this hymn at a time when the church declared him a “wild boar” in God’s vineyard and hunted down by the empire.
Did Luther read Paul rightly? Some Roman Catholic theologians say that Luther read the Romans through a tormented neurotic lens. Meaning, Protestantism is a result of one man’s neurosis. Impartial clinical psychologists confirm a streak of neurosis in Luther’s character as may be gathered from his writings. But Luther’s mental health is of no consequence. This man wrote the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and unleashed a torrent of creativity in music and literature unequaled in power and beauty. To Luther and the 16th century Reformation, the Christian world owes an insightful meaning of “faith”.
The years rolled by, and five hundred years later, new readings of Paul’s Romans. In the light of current developments in human civilization, it seems that Luther’s reading of Paul has apparently reached a dead end. Young and progressive theologians today tend to leapfrog over Luther as though he never existed or start their thesis by first demolishing him. Now and then preachers remember him but only during Reformation Sunday. Even then, they seem to labor hard to connect Luther’s faith with modern faith.
In my higher studies I focused on the Reformation classics and tried hard to build a bridge linking the Reformers’ main insights with liberation struggles. My dissertation was published into a book. I came across couple of reviews and I thought they regarded my work as a kind of oddity. There has been no request from my publisher for a second printing. Then, I came across a refreshingly new understanding of Romans. This time I’m reading it together with others in a Bible study group with insights coming from the works of American theologian Theodore Jennings via Karl Villarmea. Ted has visited Silliman a couple of times and had a conversation with our study group.
Dr. Jennings suggests that we read the word “faith” to mean loyalty. I thought that indeed loyalty is one of the qualities of faith but it’s not at the core of faith – still based on my education on the Reformation. Then I read Romans again, and again, and I have to concede that loyalty is really faith’s core meaning – at least for me and in so far as my Christian praxis is concerned. I’m not carrying Luther’s kind of spiritual burden – his fear of hell and God’s wrath – yet as a mature person I have been viewing my faith through Luther’s eyes. Now, I find that kind of strange. Luther and I are not soul-mates, although I admire him next to Paul and Augustine.
Like Paul and Luther, I regard the question of whether I’m just or a sinner before God as primary; every other question is remotely secondary. But how do I get to be just before God? Dr. Jennings suggests that it’s by the faith of Jesus – Iesou Kristou in the Greek grammar, which is in the possessive case, of. It is by operation of Jesus’ faith that we are made just or right before God, and not only us individually but society and the whole world as well. Greek grammar aside, it’s only logical and commonsensical that since we cannot save ourselves, it has to be an external agent that can save, and this external agent is Jesus’ faith, which is the gospel. As Paul said, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, and the gospel is not our faith but the faith of Jesus Christ.
Now, how are we able to benefit from Jesus’ faith that makes us just or right before God? It is by our loyalty to that faith. By being loyal to the faith of Christ, we are made just; by humanity’s loyalty to Christ’s faith society and the whole world is going to be made just. God’s ultimate purpose is that the whole creation is enveloped, bathed, saturated in God’s justice and holiness.
Have we been true to our vows to believe, or rather be loyal to Christ? I’ve made these vows three times in my life: during my baptism through my parents, during my confirmation and when I got ordained as a minister of the church. Following Christ is a matter of loyalty to him. Loyalty to the faith of Christ as the real test of faith is a very refreshing, meaningful and challenging truth for those who seek to live justly and to make this world just. And who doesn’t? Not for fear of hell but for love of God, for love of others, for love of country.
Conclusion: Augustine said, “Love God and do whatever pleases you.” We may also say, “Be loyal to Jesus and be yourself.” This is the freedom that gave Paul the boldness to speak new things about Christ. This is the freedom that gave Luther the audacity to speak against the errors of Rome. This freedom is above all laws – the laws of society, the obligations of religions, or creeds of churches.
And this is what loyalty demands: it demands obedience to Jesus; it requires leading a life worthy of our calling as Jesus’ disciples; it challenges us to resist the powers of evil and the lure of the devil as Jesus did; it invites us to pursue justice for as long as it takes until the Lord returns to vindicate us. And when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, may he find us … loyal! Amen.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Excluding the People in Government
07 October 2009
Yesterday morning, it was broadcast live on TV a question-and-answer forum involving 100 LGU officials and 4 presidential aspirants – Sen. Manny Villar of the Nactionalista Party, defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro of Lakas-Kampi, Sen. Chiz Escudero of the Nationalist People’s Coalition and Senator Noynoy Aquino. The forum tackled very substantial issues on governance: (1) allocation of resources, (2) accountability, (3) local autonomy and (4) the peace process. The forum was a featured part of a 4-day workshop by local government executives. The LGU participants, of course, looked at the issues from the point of view of local government officials. The responses given by the presidentiables typically came from the vantage point of those sitting who have been sitting in high positions of government. It was, as can be expected, a dialogue between national and local government decision makers.
While such dialogues may remove obstacles to a smoother working relation between local and national offices or even improve government efficiency, the discussion is framed within an approach to governance that does not include the people as real, active players in the affairs of government. The discussants must have forgotten that in a democracy government is about representing and serving the people. In that forum the people were not represented, much less served by those who professed to be public servants.
For example, in the matter of allocation of resources: more than the problems attendant to the sharing of revenues between LGUs and the national governments is the actual use of government funds to benefit the poor and marginalized sectors. This was not addressed in a manner that would indicate the existence of an agenda for these sectors of the population. This means that between the would-be presidents and local government officials, there isn’t any agenda for the people. A people’s agenda would have a major share of government resources devoted to stimulate employment in the towns and cities; provide incentives to small farmers to produce more food crops; embark on a food security program locally and nationally; make public education, housing, health care and other social services more accessible to most people. Incidentally, the forum was held at the Asian Institute of Management.
Of course, a people’s agenda like that would undercut local and national officials’ control of government resources so necessary for political survival. The truth of the matter is that the Philippine government has never been short of money for national and local economic development. But what the government earns from the people in the form of taxes and revenues from state monopoly enterprises is basically regarded a means for political ends, that is, for their continuance in power. Whether it is by lawful or unlawful means, the purpose is the same: the maintenance of political machinery that is sustained by a broad and intricate system of patronage that cascades from Malacaňang down to the barangay.
The other very lively issue in the upcoming elections is public accountability. It seems that the question of accountability is simply left to the integrity of individual officials or the strict execution of laws. By international standards, the Philippine is not far behind in terms of laws against corrupt practices. In fact, we have an office of the ombudsman, an independent constitutional body especially created to prosecute erring public officials. Nevertheless, corruption in government continues unrestrained. This is because officials with connections to the powers-that-be conduct themselves in office with impunity, that is, with neither fear nor shame. It is quite ironic to have the Ombudsman herself face impeaching proceedings for complicity in high-profile cases of corruption.
Actually, public accountability is a political matter. It is about political relationship between leaders and people. Public officials don’t hold themselves accountable to a people who have no power over them. Only an empowered people can demand a clean government. It is by design, I suspect, that people are kept divided, dependent, inferior and hopeless so that the leaders don’t have to be answerable to them. Elections under these circumstances only abet the situation as people are rendered passive players in matters affecting their life and future. For an electoral exercise to truly matter, elections should be a means and opportunity for the people to actualize the power that democracy has reserved for them.
Yesterday morning, it was broadcast live on TV a question-and-answer forum involving 100 LGU officials and 4 presidential aspirants – Sen. Manny Villar of the Nactionalista Party, defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro of Lakas-Kampi, Sen. Chiz Escudero of the Nationalist People’s Coalition and Senator Noynoy Aquino. The forum tackled very substantial issues on governance: (1) allocation of resources, (2) accountability, (3) local autonomy and (4) the peace process. The forum was a featured part of a 4-day workshop by local government executives. The LGU participants, of course, looked at the issues from the point of view of local government officials. The responses given by the presidentiables typically came from the vantage point of those sitting who have been sitting in high positions of government. It was, as can be expected, a dialogue between national and local government decision makers.
While such dialogues may remove obstacles to a smoother working relation between local and national offices or even improve government efficiency, the discussion is framed within an approach to governance that does not include the people as real, active players in the affairs of government. The discussants must have forgotten that in a democracy government is about representing and serving the people. In that forum the people were not represented, much less served by those who professed to be public servants.
For example, in the matter of allocation of resources: more than the problems attendant to the sharing of revenues between LGUs and the national governments is the actual use of government funds to benefit the poor and marginalized sectors. This was not addressed in a manner that would indicate the existence of an agenda for these sectors of the population. This means that between the would-be presidents and local government officials, there isn’t any agenda for the people. A people’s agenda would have a major share of government resources devoted to stimulate employment in the towns and cities; provide incentives to small farmers to produce more food crops; embark on a food security program locally and nationally; make public education, housing, health care and other social services more accessible to most people. Incidentally, the forum was held at the Asian Institute of Management.
Of course, a people’s agenda like that would undercut local and national officials’ control of government resources so necessary for political survival. The truth of the matter is that the Philippine government has never been short of money for national and local economic development. But what the government earns from the people in the form of taxes and revenues from state monopoly enterprises is basically regarded a means for political ends, that is, for their continuance in power. Whether it is by lawful or unlawful means, the purpose is the same: the maintenance of political machinery that is sustained by a broad and intricate system of patronage that cascades from Malacaňang down to the barangay.
The other very lively issue in the upcoming elections is public accountability. It seems that the question of accountability is simply left to the integrity of individual officials or the strict execution of laws. By international standards, the Philippine is not far behind in terms of laws against corrupt practices. In fact, we have an office of the ombudsman, an independent constitutional body especially created to prosecute erring public officials. Nevertheless, corruption in government continues unrestrained. This is because officials with connections to the powers-that-be conduct themselves in office with impunity, that is, with neither fear nor shame. It is quite ironic to have the Ombudsman herself face impeaching proceedings for complicity in high-profile cases of corruption.
Actually, public accountability is a political matter. It is about political relationship between leaders and people. Public officials don’t hold themselves accountable to a people who have no power over them. Only an empowered people can demand a clean government. It is by design, I suspect, that people are kept divided, dependent, inferior and hopeless so that the leaders don’t have to be answerable to them. Elections under these circumstances only abet the situation as people are rendered passive players in matters affecting their life and future. For an electoral exercise to truly matter, elections should be a means and opportunity for the people to actualize the power that democracy has reserved for them.
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