The Philippines is ailing, almost lifeless to witness hope that soon we will become a great nation. What is deplorable about our nation is we are not even close being a novice with political turmoil. We already endured a long history of political mayhem, we even had more serious disarray than this but never in the history of the Philippines had that political unrest caused unimaginable degree of economic impact to the nation - specifically to the poorest of the poor. The Filipino people turned out to become poorer and much less reasonable. Our country is already a splitting nation and death as a nation is already knocking at our doorstep.
To split a country constitutes a major disagreement between opposing factions. Nevertheless, to distinguish a death or rebirth of a nation requires an even more than understanding of the results and measurable outcome of how these are affecting the majority. Historically, other nations underwent worst political turmoil as well – killing each other before they became an imposing nation. Democratic super powers like USA, France, Great Britain, and etc. during their time were in great mayhem of domestic struggle as well – all tasted the bitterness of civil wars.
A Functional Democracy is an Operative Catalyst in Building a Nation
Although many might disagree, I always see that democracy, democratic governance that is based on a country’s culture and economic modalities, is an operative catalyst in building a nation. Despite the passionate debate on how much credit the democracy can claim for prospering a democratic country, various theories have been put forth, all of them controversial. It has been argued that, “it is not democracy that causes economic prosperity, but rather the other way around: prosperous nations will tend to become democracies.”
One great example is the Philippines, a bastion of democracy in South East Asia. It is saddening to see how the Filipino people suffer excessive misery due to poverty. Forget the GNP and GDP as the economic indicators, forget the inflation rate, forget other socio-economic indicators that determines the ability of the people to buy goods that we always hear during SONA or read in press releases, what is more important to know now is how capable are the Filipino people to live conveniently. How many Filipinos, regardless of the supposedly “class-less society” in the Philippines, are now more capable to bring decent food into their tables and provide the most basic necessities in order to live?
Chaotic Version of Democracy
The problem in the Philippines is that the kind of democracy we practice is at its crudest form, almost dysfunctional. Our democracy becomes the very cause of political chaos not because of the system per se but the very people who promulgate chaotic version of democracy.
When a democratic country, combined with the sense of political valuing of its people is based on greed and selfishness, liberty and freedom are naturally taken out of context. The democracy is then subjected to an open abuse. It becomes ultimately problematic because the distribution and ownership of freedom becomes unilateral, no party would want to have less freedom thereby causing a great imbalance.
The point is the Filipino people are less likely to give, unwilling to concede personal advantages in order to achieve equilibrium in the exercise of roles in a democratic society. The results are an endless protest, sometimes superfluous and mostly devoid of legitimate patriotic intentions. Then the exercise of democracy is no longer positive, it becomes detrimental to the society, affecting the economy of the nation.
The Price to Pay in Democracy
Many political scientists believe that democracy has a high price to pay. Sarah Mitchell in their article entitled “Evolution of Democracy-War Dynamics” have proposed that, “democratization tends to follow war, that democratization decreases the systemic amount of war, and that the substantive and pacific impact of democracy on war increases over time.” All Kantian thinkers on political science declared that democracy lessens the possibility of war between “democratic countries” but there is very scant information whether a nation has to undergo a civil war before they reach a functional democracy.
Splitting a nation is tantamount as engaging in civil war except that maybe, arm conflict at this time, Heaven forbids, is still far fetch considering the current lack of support from other sectors of the Philippine society.
In “The Democratic Peace and a Sequential, Reciprocal, Causal Arrow Hypothesis” article of Karen Rasler and William R. Thompson of Indiana University, they explained that, “One of the democratic peace puzzles is the question of whether and to what extent the democracy peace relationship underestimates the possibility that peace precedes democracy: the reversed causal arrow hypothesis. From a war making–state-making perspective, democratization needs to be viewed as a partial function of external threat and domestic power concentration.” Almost as a predecessor to attaining democracy, it seems that war is in the offing.
Then the question should be, is civil war the answer to end this dilemma? That do we need to kill each other first to achieve the golden age of Philippine democracy? I believe that what must be answered first is “where do we stand in the brink of splitting our nation?” To see the Philippines divided over many issues is not something unsullied.
If you will take a quick historical tour, our nation is one of those countries in the world that have fought each other over many political differences that could have been resolved in a “more mature” democratic settings. Although the Philippines have reaped international admiration for toppling the dictatorship during the mid 80’s peacefully by exercising the power of the people, nothing remarkable enough to call our country prosperous have happened next. Have we become more civil and united and in tackling more vital issues to help build our nation? No. It is because the Filipinos have a very peculiar political attitude each brought by our degraded values with regard to self-interest, lack of discipline and poverty-related mind-set. The Filipino people have become, unfortunately – a malevolent race.
The Death of the Philippine Nation
In every death comes resurrection, at least which is a Christian way of looking at life.
In a political showground however, rebirth is a possibility but only after undergoing sinister human sufferings first. At the rate our political situation is going, it is not very far for the nation to meet death.
What else is good left for the people? The government is already engrossed with defending their seats from the bickering and nasty political warfare of their enemies. The very essence of governance now lies between who is more powerful and who is more “cunning” in evading public prosecution for their respective plunders and heists. The civil society has found a new, more exciting and thrilling hobby – joining the oppositions in rallying the poor masses to the streets, particularly not sure whether it is driven by their libertarian patriotism and love of the county or otherwise.
The poorest of the poor have become more succumbed to the false pretense of the politicians as champions of their cause. The number of street children and vagrants have increased tremendously that even the NGO’s taking care of these kind of people are now incapable to handle such increase, yet the government have done so little to even better the lives of these deprived members of our society. The unemployment rate has continuously walked up high its peak. While the rest of the countryside remains to be poor, under developed and neglected because their “representatives” are much busier lately in pondering whether to vote against or for the impeachment process.
The judicial system is even less helpful to indict the corrupt and the criminals to keep our society from hotshot frauds and hoodlums. Instead of dancing against or with the administration to help protect or undermine important faces, the legislators seems to be less occupied in promulgating laws that will aid in building our nation.
Should there be death waiting at the end of the rainbow for the Filipino people, one thing is for sure. It is brought by the collective contribution of everyone in our country. Death becomes us because of our sheer interest with personal favors even if it becomes utterly unfair to other people, because of our disrespect to constitution and value of fair judgment, because of the commercialism of our mass media that promotes further instability brought by their irresponsible reporting, because of our lack of discipline to obey simple traffic rules and keeping our surrounding free of litters, because of our lack of taste in mode of entertainment.
The Philippines may be one of the countries in the world with a high literacy rate but also has a very poor understanding of what is morally beneficial and wrong. Take for example the basis of the people in supporting candidates during elections. The popular and the bad-boy with mass appeal tend to be the champions, never mind if they are incapable, never mind if they have moral flaws, never mind if they do not know the basic difference of running a government or a Sunday cock derby.
Building a Nation: The Rebirth of the Filipino People
What is required in building a nation? What rebirth then? Rebirth is about changing even the smallest aspect of our lifestyle, sense of valuing and moral judgment. Rebirth means a radical shift of our already corrupted attitude about governance. Rebirth is such a profound word that might be excessively difficult for many of the Filipinos if not impossible to mold out to. Rebirth is about instilling each self with a basic discipline and a more stringent, dedicated will to become more productive citizens of the Philippine nation.
What makes nation? I believe, its citizens. The discipline and their communal interest to better each other’s lives constitute a good nation. Ironically, the Philippines is the stronghold of Christian faith, where we are supposed to be more tolerant, where we are supposed to be less judgmental, where we are supposed to be more helpful and charitable. Look at our nation? A nation full of scum, full of cheaters and liars, what happened to our being religious and prayerful people?
A nation becomes a nation because of its moral strength. A nation becomes one because it upholds the law and sees it in black and white and not because he is an Uncle or a contributor or because I owe him back. No nation has been or will ever be spared from political turmoil. Even the greatest of the greatest, every one will be subjected to open opposition, that is the basic component of a democracy. No nation has become perfect but there are nations that have great determination to rise and become imposing that they are now the countries where every Filipino aspires to work for.
Loyal Opposition in a Democratic Culture
There is an opposition for all reason. Although the concept of a "loyal opposition" is one of the key aspects of democratic culture, this is an especially difficult cultural shift to achieve like the Philippines where transitions of power have historically taken place through a very divisive modality like a people power. This crude exercise of democracy does not necessarily means it is wrong but because the Filipino attitude of being revengeful and self-centered especially when it comes to unseating someone from power made unity even harder than landing on planet Mars, it is even becoming counter productive.
Loyal opposition tells us that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to uphold the nation’s welfare. Political competitors may disagree, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge the legitimate and important roles that each play - something that many Filipino politicians would not just relent.
What is very unfortunate in Philippine democracy is our inability to concede to the election winners and the ability of whoever is in the position to rig votes. These are two main recipes for political chaos and blunder in democracy.
Never since the Philippines elected their presidents after the Marcos regime that no electoral protest were ensued after every proclamation. It has never occurred in the political history of our country since the 1986 revolution that the losers conceded defeat.
What Then?
What is more miserable is these losers take their battle to the masses, to the chambers of the judiciary and loudly under their immunity and privilege in the legislative branch. All are in sheer abandon of colluding to promote further chaos and confusion. What do we get? We get nothing but a vicious cycle of political bickering and faultfinding. We get a splitting of a nation.
So as to whether a splitting of a nation means death or rebirth, come on, it is a rudimentary principle that there will never be rebirth without death. Death is already at hand and rebirth may even be unattainable at this time – unless we collectively become radically new Filipinos leaving those spiteful political attitudes and lack of personal discipline, rebirth will never see its chance in our sorry grimy horizons. If this fail to happen, can we all blame it to the elusive miracle?
