(Philippines Free Press editorial cartoon by the late E.Z. Izon, circa 1961)
To all readers, may the New Year bring you all you wish for, and for all of us, may it bring peace, a measure of prosperity, amity and understanding.
By all accounts this will be a tough year for everyone, may we mind a way to restore a sense of community that crosses class, religious, ethnic, and other divides. But not at the expense of recognizing there are things important enough to require fighting for.
I apologize, without any mental reservation or equivocation, to those I have offended among my readers this past year. We will probably continue to disagree in the coming months but yes, let us remember to agree to disagree when called for. Better one day red than three days blue, but best of all is finding a way to be tolerant of each other’s opinions while remaining intolerant of those who would use force to blunt the power of public opinion.
I thank you for your readership, the time you take to express your opinions, and special thanks go to those who drop by and read, but who don’t comment.
Gentility is supposed to permeate places like country clubs and golf courses. They are the places where the hoi polloi are kept out and where everyone else can see and be seen. When someone like Bambee dela Paz and her family collide with official thugs, the collision isn’t just physical, it’s cultural. The set of rules that keeps the plebs in their place is never supposed to intrude into places where gentility matters.
But power, which relies on armed might to enforce obedience and simulate public respect, by it’s very nature isn’t genteel, can never be civil, will always ride roughshod over others.
I fully sympathize with dela Paz, her father, and her brother: bravo to her for raising hell and bravo to all those who’ve taken up her call for there to be consequences for what happened to them.
There is an irony here, of course: several, actually.
One irony is that gentility is the last thing that really matters in the supposed enclaves of the middle and upper classes, where the old days of black balling potential members because they were scandalous or generally socially unsavory individuals has long disappeared and been replaced by the sort of entitlement culture where mere possession of wealth or influence (the two are joined at the hip like Siamese twins) trumps all other considerations (how obtained and how used?) is what matters.
Another irony is that this incident could only have happened in the national capital, where an altercation in one place can safely be reported by someone when they get home: the metropolis is vast enough for you to be able to get away with blowing the whistle, everyone has kinship ties extended enough, at least among the middle and upper classes, to neutralize those belonging to those with whom you’ve collided.
There is a reason rallies tend to take place in national capitals; there is a reason a young lady can go and blog and have people rally to her cause in sympathy, both expecting something to be done and not having to think through whether the call and rallying to that call will have fatal consequences. It is the existence of a civic culture which is still powerful enough to compel limits on official impunity.
So we have here a clear clash of civilizations: between the entitlement and warlord culture of the provinces, which compels obedience by force, and which doesn’t hesitate to use that force to compel submission by anyone who isn’t part of the ruling clan’s pecking order of enforcers; and the national capital culture which expects self-control of officialdom, which doesn’t think twice about standing up to official bullying; which, even if beaten to a pulp thinks it’s possible to rally support from like-minded people who actually believe in justice and notions of equality -because there are more decent people than the bad.
Still another irony is that People Power is now being mobilized -its first stirrings being the sharing of officially embarrassing news, the stoking of popular outrage, the expression of public opinion, the coming together of a constituency mobilized by shared values- among the sort of people who’d shrugged off so many other acts of official impunity. There is a lesson here somewhere: and it’s a simple one. Impunity eventually sows the seeds of its own destruction. There will always come a time when a line will be crossed, and it’s a line too far.
Which is not to say that this incident will cause a revolution; but it is proof of how reality will always intrude into even the politest of conversations.
The coming year is going to be a showdown, of sorts, between the exponents of the culture of impunity, from the President to her allies on the official and local level. It is a showdown between those who furiously resent a political culture where public opinion matters, where impunity is challenged, and where privilege is supposed to be something subjected to questioning.
In Resistance isn’t futile, I mentioned just one way I oppose impunity: by blowing my horn at official convoys. This holiday season, I had the satisfaction of doing so, to the president’s convoy itself, twice. The second time around, the President passed within spitting distance and the PSG actually craned their necks to get a view at whoever was committing this act of lese majeste. They genuinely seemed startled. I myself was startled to see that the President no longer uses license plate No. 1 on her car. Her limousine has no license plate, at all.
My point is we see this impunity all the time, in small ways, and shrug it off -oddly enough, in the same manner we shrug off the big, spectacular, cases of impunity, too- when we ought to start tying it all together.
And their project next year is to basically abolish public opinion; to reduce it to its component local parts, where public opinion has been muted, and where it can be treated in such a way and such a manner as to be beyond questioning, court cases, heckling, letters to the editor or blog entries demanding resignations: because the trump card of an official when it comes to the provinces is the message every bodyguard represents: you can run, but you can’t hide.
Wait till the Nasser Pangandamans of this country are both members of parliament and ministers of state, ruling over Federal states where their writ is literally and not just figuratively, the law.
You’ve seen what has been unfolding over the past few years and what is out to entrench itself over the first quarter of this year.
The danger is to confuse the forest for the trees. We are susceptible to doing this: shrieking over Estrada’s threatening to run for office, while overlooking the President who cynically released him with a pardon; twisting Cory Aquino’s comments out of all recognition while overlooking how truly mistaken everyone was, to think the President would be a stateswoman and not a thug in skirts; wringing our hands over Mar Roxas’s cussing when no government since martial law has so thoroughly justified cussing because of it’s crossing every line, written or not, expected of officialdom; placing traffic and corporate premiums over public demonstrations of outrage; venomously scorning Jun Lozada while overlooking the officials who wanted him rubbed out and who very nearly managed to do it.
The Japanese had a chance to be welcomed to the Philippines, as they were in many other parts of Asia, as liberating heroes, except they proceeded to slap Filipinos who refused to bow to them; and so, resistance was immediately sparked, even among those disillusioned with the Allied cause. Again, I’m not saying this appalling incident will accomplish anything more than inspire horrified tut-tutting over how tasteless, and ungentlemanly, the President’s official family is. But you never know.
Season’s Greetings to all regular and occasional readers! Thank you for keeping me company during 2008 and here’s to 2009!
There’s are some changes and such in store for this blog in ‘09. But until then, this blog is going on holiday hiatus until the first or second week of January.
I hope everyone gets to spend time with friends and family.
The Speaker has declared a ceasefire but that’s far from raising a white flag of surrender as Doronila thinks is the case. I had my misgivings about the rally, and the way it turned out, despite the bravura of all present, can only give the proponents of amendments before 2010 increased optimism. Before the rally took place, Mon Casiple had this to say:
The rally is not yet THE people power that would decisively settle the political crisis. Its importance is not yet in its number. Its significance is in its broad participation–ranging all the way from the Left to the anti-GMA groups in the Right of the political spectrum. GMA and her allies stand all alone, by their lonely selves, dancing in the twilight of power.
The rally throws the political gauntlet before the Arroyo administration. The line is drawn. Henceforth, all attempts to pursue the GMA charter change and imperil the holding of the 2010 elections will be met by a combined people’s opposition. Such is the stuff people power is made of.
Unfortunately, this situation also invites desperate countermoves. The people should be prepared for the possibility of violent reprisal by Malacañang as it confronts a wall of protests. The stakes are simply too high for GMA to back down gracefully without a compromise or a try at victory.
Picking up the gauntlet means setting the stage for some form of martial rule to disorganize the charter change opposition and terrorize the people. This means battening up to weather a coming storm.
Not picking up the gauntlet means powering down the charter change train and letting election scenario to develop peacefully.
Either way, the GMA administration loses.
Which may be so, and despite the lack of numbers, most groups were, indeed, represented and the message was sent that here was a dry run, and if the Palace wants more, the various opposition groups are prepared to put up a fight.
The question is whether the fight will be pursued to the bitter end; and in such a fight, not everyone in the ruling coalition has an incentive to fight to the bitter end.
Then again, sensing an opportunity for extracting concessions, there’s no reason to quit the fight while mercenary motives are still in play, as Mon Casiple broadly hints at in his follow-up post to the above:
This week counts as the last days of Congressional session before the holiday break. If Con-Ass is not passed now, it will have a more desperate timeline in the first quarter of 2009. It may require the iron hand then.
There is the suspicion that various accommodations by the GMA administration of Danding Cojuangco’s San Miguel point to a negotiated political agreement to use the Cojuangco influence in the AFP to augment its own. GSIS and other government shares in Meralco were given to the conglomerate. A favorable Sandigangbayan decision on the coco levy issue was then issued.
It may be that the GMA group is being taken for a ride on this but there is a need to be vigilant about military and police moves in the coming weeks. We are certainly entering a critical period in the political crisis.
Critical in the sense that everyone can thereafter relax and focus on the presidential campaign, or critical in that instead of limping along to 2010 in expectation of the President stepping down, she will, instead go for the constitutional jugular.
Meanwhile, she’s not the only one averse to permanently closing off options.
In fact, what the Speaker is preparing to do is to take the fight to the country-at-large, in the hope that provincial and municipal councils can arm the House with a mandate to pursue Charter Change. This helps explain his statement that the House will fight it out until March.
But then a report says the House isn’t inclined to immediately impose a ceasefire, and that there may be fireworks tomorrow in the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, whose chairman, Rep. Victor Ortega, is supposed to be miffed over the way the Villafuerte-led Kampi campaign is being waged in such a way as to ignore his committee altogether, a galling prospect for a veteran legislator and who has some pretty strong ideas of his own about the process.
It seems to me the stubborness of Rep. Ortega has to be taken in the context of his feeling slighted by the Villafuerte effort. Committee chairman are zealous over the prerogatives of their committees and the need for any proposed legislation to go through the committee wringer prior to being reported to the floor for plenary debate. It would seem logical, too, that if Ortega has his own preference for a constitutional convention, and if that preference is in harmony with other party leaders, including the Speaker himself, then stubbornly insisting on the prerogatives of his committee makes sense from the perspective of every chairman’s desire to guard his turf, as well as from the general procedural points senior legislators take pretty seriously. Nor does this stubborn insistence close off other, perhaps more face-saving options. Including the option of a convention, yes, but prior to 2010 and composed of appointed commissioners as proposed by the President’s personal lawyer, Romulo Macalintal.
My column today, Like herding cats, tackles the ongoing debate over Charter Change from the perspective of a cultural difference between the two main factions of the ruling coalition: the take-no-prisoners approach of the President’s pet party, Kampi, and the more pragmatic wait-and-see attitudes of Lakas-CMD. By all accounts, solidarity within Lakas is stronger now that de Venecia is out of power, with Speaker Nograles running an apparently smoother and more consultative House leadership.
From that perspective, the point of division within the ruling coalition, is that Lakas can ultimately afford to bide its time, while Kampi is approaching the zero hour of its political life expectancy as the President’s pet party. And yet both sides of the ruling coalition have an incentive to cloak their own desire for a parliamentary government and even term extensions (more precisely, the lifting of term limits) beneath the President’s vast unpopularity. The whole thing boils down to calculating political risk, including the prospects of electoral blowback from pursuing a Charter Change gambit if it fails.
Now the question on everyone’s minds is, can the President afford to fail? On one hand, proving her critics wrong by stepping down in 2010 has to be tempered with avoiding the disgrace of arrest or years of being bogged down in legal cases -with the risk of arrest- after she leaves office. Since the President has always been inclined to game out various scenarios, all the better to take advantage of whatever possibilities open themselves up to her, it’s worth looking at what former Chief Justice Panganiban, as studied by Dean Jorge Bocobo, put forward as the President’s present menu of options:
ART PANGANIBAN (formerly Chief Justice of SCoRP, turned PDI Pundit) addresses Arroyo’s Options in case the chacha choo choo fails to leave the House. She could (1) declare martial law; (2) assume emergency rule; (3) run for Vice President in 2010 and assume the Presidency, again, like she did in 2001; or (4) play the new Kingmaker and control the next admin.
Caveats in reverse order:
Option 4 would be the conventional dismount and is probably the safest course. But it is fraught with risk because if her horse doesn’t win, and stripped of Presidential immunity, Gloria Arroyo could face years of prosecution.
Option 3 is interesting for its novelty and would be legal. She could run with Noli de Castro for example, win the Vice Presidency and have Noli resign for her to have six more years. (Yippee!)
Option 2, as Panganiban points out, would be highly unpopular and even face international censure.
Option 1 – the martial law option — is the most important and fascinating. Long before either the writ of habeas corpus is suspended or martial law imposed, Filipinos ought to familiarize themselves with the following provision of the Constitution. Although the 1987 charter is reputed to be full of anti martial law features, the reality is, under the present provision, the Lower House, by itself, in conspiracy with the President, COULD impose martial law indefinitely.
Option 4 could also be called the Mexican Model, which is how the ruling party in Mexico took care of its own for close to three generations. We also had a pretty well-developed tradition of leaving ex-presidents alone, however much they were demonized by those who eventually replaced them. Even Marcos was allowed, indeed, given no choice, to flee to avert a potential civil war and avoid the thorny problem of what to do with him.
When Joseph Ejercito Estrada was arrested, all the old rules were broken and every president thereafter, including Estrada’s successor, will have to live with the possibility of a post-presidential political vendetta being pursued. Another precedent established by the President -pardoning her predecessor, with conditions- may provide ultimate comfort but still leaves the possibility of detention for a politically-determined and convenient duration. When Edsa Tres took place, it gave us a glimpse of what might have happened had Marcos remained in the Philippines after Edsa, and how much worse it might have been, had that happened in 1986, and how much more violent it could have been in 2001 if led from the front and with more tactical cunning and resolution.
If you assume -as I assume- that there are two main camps within the President’s circle of advisors, the hard-liners, led by the President’s husband and her Secretary of the Interior, with their associated retired military and police generals, on one hand, and the pragmatists, composed of the other politicians in her orbit but who are also interested in cutting deals with a new administration, on the other, and if you were the President, who likes to explore all her options, the menu above sounds about right.
I think only lawyers will make distinctions about the emergency rule versus martial law options, rather, one will merge with the other: a crisis situation could create the conditions for emergency rule which would, in turn, lay down the basis for imposing martial law. The latest news on the Palace drum-beating a revival of the peace process in Mindanao, and the MILF making a ritual rejection of the prospects of a resumption of talks, helps expand the options for such scenarios to unfold, too. Solving, incidentally, along the way, the thorny question of the armed forces being more of a stickler for constitutionalism than the civilians who command them. A sudden deterioration in law and order, in Mindanao or elsewhere, opens up the military being trapped by their obligation to maintain law and order, and obey instructions from a government armed with legitimately-derived emergency powers. And it doesn’t require violence to accomplish: Boo Chanco (see below) describes Senator Angara’s budget sponsorship speech as saying, in so many words, “what may be described as the economic equivalent of a national emergency.”
Option three, to my mind, is remote: the President would be better off running for the House to represent her son’s district or for a seat as convention delegate for her region, enjoying parliamentary immunity until she could run for a seat in parliament.
But also, much depends on the composition of the Supreme Court, which already has a fairly reliable number -7- of Justices who vote along the administration’s lines in cases that count, with the prospects of appointing an almost equal number of dependable justices in 2009 (and if you recall the Kampi spokesman’s scenario, accomplishing Charter Change prior to 2010 might include putting in the Chief Justice as Acting President during the transitional period from the ratification of the amendments, to parliamentary elections in 2010, to the first few months of that new government, as parliament sorted out the election of the new Prime Minister: this would also, incidentally, purge the Court of a Chief Justice considered hostile to the President). Today’s column by Jarius Bondoc gives us a glimpse of why the Chief Justice is considered a thorn in officialdom’s side. More significant, though, is how heavily politicized the selection process for new Justices is becoming, with so much at stake, not only for the President but those putting forward particular candidates.
In such matters what’s actually going on is less important than what is perceived to be going on. Whether say, Chavit Singson, a force to reckon with inside the President’s official circle, is actually pushing forward the candidacy of one potential Justice while the President tries to pay old debts by going through the motions of supporting the candidacy of the Solicitor-General (if the President was hell-bent on appointing her, she would have been required to settle all her pending cases prior to entering the appointments process) is less important than legal circles avidly discussing the matter, putting pressure on members of the Judicial and Bar Council along the way, either to toe the administration line, or show independence. The postponement of the JBC’s decision on the matter can only raise eyebrows.
But rather than explore those darker scenarios, it’s easier for all concerned in the ruling coalition, to weigh its options concerning amending the Constitution ahead of the 2010 elections.
Going back to the House, the remainder of the week then, will be dedicated to tackling two pieces of legislation: the national budget and the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. The former will be required to fund Charter Change and provide the basis for a government stimulus package for what everyone expects to be a lean 2009. In his column, Boo Chanco speaks glowingly of Senator Edgardo Angara, who says:
Our problem is serious because “by next year, of the 5.1 million Filipinos working abroad, 590,000 are at risk of losing their jobs.” Senator Angara identified the groups most vulnerable among our OFWs:
• 129,000 in the US under temporary working visas, particularly those in hotels, casinos as well as agricultural workers;
• 48,000 seafarers in cruise ships;
• 268,000 factory workers in South Korea, Taiwan and Macau;
• 130,000 household service workers in Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong;
The senator said some 50,000 to 100,000 are losing their jobs now to include:
• 30,000 to 40,000 holders of temporary working visas in the US;
• 5,000 to 15,000 seafarers in cruise ships and 15,000 to 30,000 factory workers in South Korea and Taiwan.
Strangely enough, the Secretary of Labor recently said we are still okay because the crisis has not affected the oil rich Middle East. He should subscribe to the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal or tune in to Bloomberg TV. Last week, it was reported that massive lay-offs have begun in Dubai. Nakheel, a major property developer that built the Dubai Palm, recently shed 15 percent of its workforce, a bit of news Sen. Angara shared.
How should we react? Sen. Angara suggests “a two-pronged strategy: first, we focus our country’s limited resources to job creation and investments in human capital.” Recall that Gov. Joey Salceda also prescribed a big investment in human capital.
Secondly, the senator stressed the importance of coordinated spending among agencies. It was suggested that we should target our spending on basic infrastructure, education and health, housing and the environment. Impeccable coordination where government agencies work together like a well oiled machine to maximize benefits from our limited resources isn’t normally associated with our government today. We also need a minimum of corruption, another impossibility. Crisis requires good governance!
Sen. Angara thinks the 2009 budget debate is the best platform to warn our citizens of impending trouble. He has actually studied the budget submitted by Malacanang which the puppet House of Representatives passed by rote after assuring that their pork is protected. He shifted spending priorities to send a clear message that we are girding for a coming storm. Even if OFW remittances will be at a record high this year, the senator wants us to prepare for slowed remittances and weak export markets next year.
Sen. Angara wants government to pump prime the economy by investing in infrastructure. “Infrastructure spending is the best way to create jobs and stimulate consumption, especially in the rural areas where we need it the most. Public Works put money in the pockets of our citizens. This will provide us with a safety net for our people.”
He gave some specifics. “For 2009, we allocated P177 billion for infrastructure projects. Of this amount, thirty percent (30 percent) or P54 billion will be for direct labor. Since every P100,000 creates one job, this P54 billion means that 540,000 Filipinos will be employed.
“The same approach applies to housing, whose total budget for 2009 is P5.3 billion. By using data provided by the shelter agencies, an additional 607,003 jobs will be created. These domestic employment opportunities will serve our people well in the coming year, when working abroad will start losing its luster and the outsourcing jobs we currently rely on will slowly shrink.”
Regarding the latter, blogger Jae Fever says the law’s in danger of being watered down:
After twenty years, the agrarian reform law is once more on the threshold of uncertainty. Without a new law, funding for land acquisition and distribution is set to expire. After December 31, 2008, the DAR will no longer be granted funds to continue the process of redistribution. After December 31, 2008, farmers who do not own the land they till will have no more hope of owning it. After December 31, 2008, yet undistributed landholdings will never go to the farmers and will forever be held by the original landowners.
Last week, on Wednesday, landed congressmen floated a new proposal, said to be their quid pro quo for passing the law: take away COMPULSORY ACQUISITION. My head spun upon hearing this. Without the compulsory nature of agrarian reform, agrarian reform is dead.
Agrarian reform is precisely the act of a State exercising its power to break up elite interests over huge landholdings, even amidst opposition of a self-interested few. Without compulsory acquisition, the Constitutional mandate of agrarian reform is rendered nugatory and the gains that can still be expected shall no longer be reaped.
It also bears emphasizing that most of the lands yet undistributed are located in agrarian reform hotspots, where landowner resistance has resulted not only in non-redistribution but also in oppression and outright violence. If they have succeeded in retaining their lands under a legal regime where compulsory acquisition is worded into the law, it is sheer foolishness to expect them to give up their lands when acquisition and distribution is at their option.
The thing is, does the reform constituency lobbying for land reform still have clout? Two Catholic bishops are going on a hunger strike to lobby for passage of the law.
There’s an intriguing item in Mindanews on the President saying Qatar could be a new ally in the peace process. Almost immediately, though, Ding Gegelonia blogged that the Palace was spurned not just by the MILF, but by Malaysia, too. But as I mentioned above, this may simply be playing into the Palace’s hands.
My column yesterday was Christmas tragedies. Read Tony Abaya’s column Consuelo’s Stimulus where he says the real economic hammer blow’s going to be on the electronics exports sector, and he calls for scrutiny of public spending. See also Lito Banayo’s column, Gloom. For the global situation, see 8 really, really scary predictions in Fortune.
And the administration, besides embarking on borrowing money at a time when people aren’t inclined to lend (for its stimulus package, and here the ongoing investigation of the Fertilizer Scam is extremely relevant), is frittering away its remaining political capital on Charter Change.
Let my put forward two concepts I’d like to return to, in the near future: “Honest Graft” vs. “Booty Capitalism”. The American Tammany Hall politician George Washington Plunkitt called it Honest Graft: to my mind, this was the model for Filipino politicians during the American era. What followed, the innovation under Ferdinand Marcos two generations later, was what has come to be called Booty Capitalism. A column by Clarence Henderson back in 2001 put it all in the context of Philippine business.
This topic comes to mind as the President’s poised to go off to Qatar, as part of her (and every president’s need to conduct economic diplomacy) but piqued my interest because there’s also news of the plans of San Miguel Corporation to aggressively expand in the power and energy sectors and telecoms, too (tie this in with Transco’s privatization, and the ability of power lines to carry data, as well as provisions existing in infrastructure such as the MRT to carry data through the power lines) and how this can all be aided or hindered depending on the attitude of the administration to such potential investments and expansions. It seems the two groups poised to establish a strong presence in the power industry are the Aboitz and San Miguel groups, squeezing out the Lopezes (and here, an interesting alliance is in the making between Roberto Ongpin and Eduardo Cojuangco’s interests).
The President’s husband, for his part, is in hot water in the United States, according to the scuttlebutt, fueling even greater speculation on the various firms in which they’re alleged to have pecuniary interests (an “A List” that includes everything it seems from Chevron to Ashmore. See Why was there no Mike in Manny’s fight? and Diarrhea in the Air and FG’s costly bout with diarrhea .
And then tie this in with Charter Change, where there was also talk that the President’s sons have been courting first term congressmen to hop onto the Charter Change bandwagon.
Meanwhile, as the President’s preparing to go overseas, in Makati City, the protest rally versus the House’s moves to propose amendments is set to take place today. While being portrayed as the showdown, or, as Doronila puts it, a test of the remaining viability of People Power, it may be more realistic, as Ellen Tordesillas points out, to view the Makati protest today as the “opening salvo” in what may have to be a sustained confrontation. The timeline for forcing through Constitutional amendments stretches into the first quarter of next year, at a minimum.
You cannot find a more eloquent explanation of why it matters to go to Makati City today, than what caffeinesparks has written in her blog.
The Secretary of the Interior (and a key player in the President’s political team, and who has been maneuvering the revival of Charter Change since 2006) for his part says the push is on, and it comes at the heels of the posturing of one of the nabobs in the President’s pet party, Kampi, going on a media offensive.
Rep. Villafuerte, also of the President’s pet party, has been cruisin’ for a bruisin’ with the leadership of Lakas-CMD in the House.
Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco, however, said it would be best for the House to sit down with senators to discuss convening a Constitutional Convention (Con-con) because the upper House has declared its openness to it.
“We’re banging our heads to the wall,” he told the committee on constitutional amendments. “If we have our own way, our own separate way, we’ll get nowhere.”
The committee, chaired by La Union Representative Victor Ortega, has already decided to suspend deliberations on Speaker Prospero Nograles’s House Resolution 737, which seeks to allow foreigners and foreign corporations and associations to own land.
“Next week, we’ll vote on what committee thinks and whether to have amendments or not,” Ortega said after the panel wrangled on which mode should be adopted in proposing the amendments.
Or then again Ortega could simply be tipping the ruling coalition’s strategy, and thus, Puno might just be telling the truth. Veteran newsman Ding Gagelonia in fact thinks the Palace is poised to push forward a Convention -but before 2010, and possibly appointive in composition, as trial ballooned by the President’s personal lawyer and possible Supreme Court nominee, Romulo Macalintal- and indeed, according to the Star (December 6), the President’s pet party has it all planned out:
Kampi spokesman Jose Solis told The STAR in an interview the other day that the installation of the chief justice would be done once they succeed in amending the Charter through a Constituent Assembly, which he said is just 14 votes short of the needed approval to convene Congress into a Constituent Assembly.
“If the people will approve the shift of the parliamentary system during the 2010 elections, the chief justice may act as the head of state because by that time the term of President Arroyo will already expire,” he said.
He said the Chief Justice may sit as the head of the head and may call for a general election for the new members of Parliament.
“Within three months the chief justice may call the election for the members of Parliament and once convened they can elect the Prime Minister,” Solis said.
He said however that the installation of the Chief Justice is only among the options they will tackle once they convene into a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution.
Solis said as of Friday they have already gathered 173 signatures but their political game plan may be derailed after Speaker Prospero Nograles announced his full support to Constitutional Convention as the mode to amend the Constitution.
Note: the above includes scenarios and a situation that most definitely goes beyond merely amending the existing Constitutional provisions on land ownership and foreign participation in businesses. Another factor to consider is the wrangling within the ruling coalition might also include jockeying for advantages for particular leaders. Rep. Villafuerte, for one, is widely seen to want the Speakership very badly, and that there is a corresponding move to offer the current Speaker, Nograles, a seat in the Supreme Court as a face saving way out of office.
For those interested in the legal niceties of the whole issue, the report in the Sun Star puts forward the constitutional interpretation of the President’s pet party:
Camarines Sur Representative Luis Villafuerte bared this recently, anchoring his arguments on his interpretation of the intent of Article 17, Section 1 of the Constitution, which provides that “any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by Congress upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members.”
He believed that so long as the constitutional requirement of three-fourths vote is met, it is enough to start the process of proposing amendments because the Constitution does not mention the words “House” and “Senate” and merely states “Congress.”
“It is not the institutional representation that they make. It is as members of Congress, because in proposing amendments or revisions, the Senate and the House, as an institution, cannot act as members of Congress in that context,” Villafuerte, proponent of the resolution calling for Congress to convene into a Constituent Assembly (Con-ass) to propose changes in the Charter, said.
He also admitted that his interpretation would be enough to force the Supreme Court (SC) to finally rule on the issue of whether Congress should vote jointly or separately in proposing amendments.
According to him, the Constitution clearly delineates Congress’ legislative ordinary function from its power to amend or revise the Constitution and therefore, there is no need to seek the Senate’s concurrence if it does not want to participate.
Villafuerte, however, told Parañaque Representative Roilo Golez, who engaged him in a plenary debate Monday night that “it will require the participation of the Senate, if they are so willing to participate.”
“But what if they (senators) do not (agree to Con-ass)?” Golez asked to which Villafuerte replied, “We should not impel the concept of three-fourths of all the members of Congress.”
He added that when it comes to amending or revising the Constitution, there is no institutional participation. “It is the participation of congressmen and senators acting as members of Congress for the purpose of exercising not a legislative power as in the bicameral system but in exercising a constituent power for proposes of amending the Constitution.”
Villafuerte said the framers of the 1987 Constitution adopted a procedure, which “conforms to a unicameral system but adopted in a bicameral system.”
Golez, who is also the spokesman for the House minority, said by forcing his issue, Villafuerte was offering a “very creative interpretation of the Constitution.”
“That to me is quite shocking,” he said. “Because when we speak of constitutional change by Congress, we are talking of institutional intervention, not individual intervention.”
“This is very misleading,” Golez said to which Villafuerte replied, “The word whole is equivalent to the word all just to distinguish from voting separately and as a whole.”
Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco, however, said it would be best for the House to sit down with senators to discuss convening a Constitutional Convention (Con-con) because the upper House has declared its openness to it.
Of the accounts and commentaries on the Pacquiao-de la Hoya fight, I enjoyed those of The Warrior Lawyer -first on the boxing of the thing (see the links in The Age of Brillig, too), then the economics of the sport and the match- and the broadside against the actual broadcasting of the match, by Bong Austero, the most. Former Socialist rebel and priest Edicio de la Torre (hat-tip, GlobalVoices) ties in the match with the death of a young actor that marred what was otherwise a morning of national rejoicing (see also A Filipina Mom Blogger).
No one has pointed out what a remarkable image, and what a remarkable campaign, this was:
Here in one image, all the the things that people think matters to people (including themselves):
1. Faith and Hope
2. Perseverance of the Underdog
3. The will to win of the Champion
4. Community & Solidarity
5. Material Success & its Manifestations
The website featuring this image, takes it even further. People were given the option of adding their personal “prayers, wishes or dedications” for Pacquiao. In one fell swoop, popular instincts were marshaled and put on display:
In contrast to all the positive things above, take a look at this remarkable video:
All the negatives, in contrast, are on display:
1. Class Resentment
2. Mistrust of Officialdom and the Institutions they Dominate
3. The Language and thus, Educational Divide
4. Citizens’ Feelings of Powerlessness
5. The Absence of a Genuine and Legitimate Rule of Law
Both campaigns, mind you, are highly effective, and are brilliant messaging efforts. But to my mind, the power of the first -based on aspirations- trumps the power of the second, based on reality on the ground.
A proposed solution will always be stronger than a non-solution; by this I mean that a proposal for change will have greater drawing power than a stubborn insistence on the status quo.
Since 2005, let’s not forget that the House of Representatives has had a working draft of the Constitution, as it wants to see that Constitution after amendments are accomplished:
Nothing suggests that these fundamental objectives have changed. Much has been made of the absence of any concrete document detailing the changes, particularly to the economic provisions of the Charter, but I think that there’s no reason for such a document to be released to the public, because the proposed changes have been clear to those interested in them, from among the ruling coalition, for some time.
As for public opinion concerning these proposals, take a look at this presentation, containing information on public opinion used during the 2005-2006 Anti-Cha-Cha campaign (at the beginning of the campaign, it seemed 44% of the public favored Charter Change, with only 40% opposed; but as Serge Osmeña, a firm believer in the use of survey information for strategizing campaigns pointed out, if you took a close look at the supposed 44% for Charter Change, a significant chunk was for it on the assumption that it would help remove the President; therefore, they were susceptible to being swayed to joining the ranks of the Antis):
If nothing fundamental has changed in terms of the aspirations of the ruling coalition (unicameral parliamentalism), I don’t think anything fundamental has changed in terms of the fundamental political preferences of the public (bicameral presidentialism), either. Economics remains a powerful argument, but that argument is weakened by questions over the political motives of the proponents of Charter Change.
This is where what helps foster Charter Change within the ruling coalition, harms its prospects when it comes to public opinion. It matters to members of the House, that the President’s sons are so conspicuous and that her pet party, Kampi, is taking such an active role; their prominence, however, leads to public mistrust of the proposals and the proponents.
In his blog, Mon Casiple details where the House effort is at and the long ways it has to go:
The GMA forces in the House are crowing about a 183-strong signatory to a House resolution for the convening of a Constituent Assembly. This particular resolution–reportedly being passed around by the Arroyo sons directly–has not even been filed and contained no particular provisions to amend. They are publicly proclaiming that the 196 three-fourths vote required to pass a constitutional amendment in a joint-vote Con-Ass will be theirs.
Of course, the passage of such a resolution is just the first round in a four-round Cha-cha bout.
The second round is the expected Supreme Court battle over the joint-vote Con-Ass. A February 16 retirement by SC justice Adolfo Azcuna is eyed by GMA political strategists as the golden opportunity to appoint a pro-GMA justice in order to firm up the shaky alignment in the current Supreme Court.
The third round is the convening of the joint-vote Constituent Assembly to actually pass the necessary amendment or revision of the 1987 constitution by shifting to a parliamentary system, extending the terms of office of elected officials, or by simply allowing the president to run again for reelection. This is where the 196 captive votes will come in handy, ramming through by brute force such an amendment or revision.
The fourth round is the conduct of the plebiscite on the GMA extension in power, possibly by corroding and influencing the Commission on Elections.
Like the Pacquiao steamroller win over de la Hoya, the GMA strategists imagine doing it over the Cha-cha opposition. The GMA congressmen are raring to do it in the next days to come.
The legal issues that have to be sorted out are explored by Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ in The ‘ifs’ in Charter change and Speak tenderly to Jerusalem on Cha-cha (see also former Chief Justice Panganiban’s articles). Essentially, Bernas (rather glumly) admits the Constitution he helped write, has provisions on amendments written in such a manner as to require some sort of resolution by the Supreme Court to sort out it’s meaning (in marked contrast to Dean Jorge Bocobo’s strong belief the Charter is immune to being interpreted in any but a strictly bicameral way).
So what is the opposition to the House proposals up to?
On December 10, the hierarchy and the Catholic Schools will mounted a protest at the gates of the House of Representatives, for Land Reform and against Charter Change at the present time. On December 12 there will be an inter-faith rally.
Here is a tactical question: both rallies require a turnout at least as large as the February 2007 Makati City rally. If neither rally -or if both rallies- fails to match those numbers, the Palace and the ruling coalition, at present spooked by the possibility of a massive turnout, will get their second wind. The President herself, if you’ve noticed, doesn’t seem to have unleashed a torrent of cash, which means she’s either hard-pressed to scrounge it up, or is holding back. But if the much-feared mobilizing power of the Catholic Church proves a dud, or the public shrugs off Charter Change by avoiding the rallies, then the President may decide to bet and bet big on Charter Change.
In December 2006, the House, lacking the votes to bring the Charter Change case to the brink of a full-blown Constitutional Crisis, blinked and folded in the face of a threatened Church mobilization. But the Church itself, suddenly getting cold feet because it was worried about a People Power situation, and inflexible in its determination to purge the Luneta rally of anything smacking of the “political,” declined to mobilize fully. A lot of finger-pointing and recriminations then took place within the ruling coalition, basically along the lines of “well, what do you know, they weren’t so strong after all”. Although to be sure, this was also meant to enfeeble Jose de Venecia, Jr.
The ruling coalition’s ranks already having been purged of JDV and his ilk, and with many more shepherds to guide the ruling coalition (a more effective Speaker, Nograles, the President’s two sons, and Rep. Villafuerte), with a hard-line cabal in the Cabinet composed of durable political operators, the President might just be inclined to see where this will go. Personally, I think the one to watch here is Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. and his empire-building efforts in the power sector. How his efforts prosper will clarify whether an alliance has firmed up with the President, making it more economically rewarding for him to pursue an extension of the current regime rather than embarking -and placing his bets- on influencing the next government.
But even as I point this out, something else is bothering me.
Both protest activities (December 10 and 12) make me think that we really ought to ponder whether camouflaging political action with the cloak of religion is healthy.
A couple of years ago, during a forum held by a foreign chamber of commerce, one Filipino expressed frustration over the timidity of the hierarchy and I responded by saying that perhaps this was a good thing, as reducing the political influence of the Catholic Church was better for the country in the long run. Since then I have become increasingly concerned with preserving the secular nature of our state (see The secular ideal) while ensuring freedom of conscience for practicing Catholics (see Faith and morals).
Making religious observance the central focus of political action dates to martial law, when public gatherings were hampered and regulated by the dictatorship, and when Communists needed to find a way to pursue their United Front tactics while dodging the accusation that they were promoting a Godless ideology. Religious rites helped keep political action focused on peaceful, non-violent resistance and kept the brutality of the martial law regime in check.
But the (unintended) consequence of all this has been to make the Catholic Church and in particular, the hierarchy, political players of consequence to an extent that would have been intolerable to past generations.
On one hand you have the Catholic Church effectively mobilizing to block the Reproductive Health bill, and on the other, mobilizing to keep Land Reform legislation alive. Tolerating the former because of the need for a force capable of mobilizing to promote the latter is a Faustian bargain. It only serves to underline the inherent contradictions in what’s going on, because it introduces the element of sectarian morality into the political sphere. Yet it may be the wrong place for that: after all, what is the political benefit of organizing around the celebration of the Mass, when the President can organize her own Masses, too? What is the use of one bunch of prelates if another will publicly support the administration?
For politicians, partisanship is not only to be expected, but natural; for bishops, the clergy, and their rites, it is, somehow, incongruous. At the very least, marshaling religion for one side only permits marshaling religion for the other; it does not introduce anything new nor does it offer any real opportunity to break the impasse the country’s been in, politically, since 2005. It only fosters the impression both sides are cynically using faith as a camouflage for politics, when the onus should be on those who should be in the dock for using official patronage as a means to court clerical support.
What makes me anxious, though, is that I think the President’s camp, if it decides to continue the brinkmanship Charter Change will entail, has latched on the right ingredients for successfully pursuing a campaign, while the opposition to the President and all her works will find the going tougher this time around.
But then again, there may be a reason why there is the perception that there is a conventional wisdom: and that is, that the gut instincts of those who believe that brinkmanship over the Constitution will truly mark the point of no return and defeat for the administration, are right.
Looking ahead, Congressman Ruffy Biazon thinks amendments are in order, eventually. That is assuming three things. First, that a real consensus concerning the need to amend exists (only within the narrow confines of certain groups does such a consensus exist, methinks). Second, that there are qualified people to ponder on and propose amendments (particularly if convention delegates are chosen by popular election). And third, that the amendments would accomplish some good.
The reactionary in me takes a skeptical attitude and would rather ponder what so many of our elders pointed out, which was, the desirability of restoring the 1935 Constitution, which worked without a hitch so that it took a dictator and a craven court to eliminate it, and which proved so difficult to replace an elected Convention bickered and squabbled its way into co-optation and scandal. As was eloquently pointed by the late Teodoro M. Locsin in Farewell, my lovely! in 1986.
I will present my conference notes in my next entry, but first, here are the remarks I delivered during my portion of the Asian Thoughts Leaders Forum held under the auspices of the Arts House of Singapore. The forum, the first of its kind held by the Arts House as part of its Asia-on-the-edge Festival, had the theme, “The Asian – Past, Present & Future.”
The opening forum was held on Friday, November 28, in The Arts House, located in the Old Parliament of that City-State. I had the delicious good fortune to be seated in the front bench and in no less than PM Lee Kwan Yew’s own seat.
The keynote address was delivered by Prasenjit Duara (India), Director of Research In Humanities and Social Sciences at NUS; Emeritus Professor of History and East Asian and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, US; Author. His paper was titled “Origins and Beginnings: Where Do We Start?” And the discussion afterwards was moderated by Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman, East Asia Institute.
There were other presentations, as well, although the one by Mechai Viravaidya on “Privatizing Poverty Alleviation” had to be cancelled, because he was unable to leave Thailand due to the closure of Bangkok’s airports.
And so here’s what I said on Sunday afternoon.
***
THE FUTURE OF ASIA: WHITHER NATION AND STATE?
Manuel L. Quezon III
Abstract:
This is the first time in the history of our nations that leadership has passed to a generation with no memory of what it was like not to be free citizens of independent nations. The challenges and call of achieving independence has been a reality for a full generation for some; for others, close to three.
Whichever way you measure it, the struggle for independence is passing from living memory and so are the emotions and motivations of our independence struggles. Instead the call of our times is to be worthy stewards of that independence and to build societies in which each and every citizen is truly free: in terms of their health and wealth and, increasingly, in terms of individual liberties and participation in the political process.
Independence as our birthright means that for the generation of the children of the “independence generatiom”, they in turn, hear the siren call of global opportunity and challenge their elders and the socities that they built, which put a premium on stability, consensus, and domestic economic growth. The challenge they put forward is for heir elders to validate validity the notion of nation and nationalism.
Even as we build bridges between our nations, engaging in cooperation and mutual assistance that’s also unprecedented, our young people ask whether nation, nationhood, nationalism and even citizenship are even relevant labels in their lives. Considering the limits imposed on their peers who remain at home, in nations concerned not with individual freedom, but national stability.
IAN McKellen, the actor known to teenagers and those who adore Shakespearean drama alike, once said, “Actors don’t describe - they inhabit.” This gathering of thinkers has proposed something similar: that while those of us who think and write for a living, obsess over who or what we are, the majority of our countrymen and our fellow Asians just are –and that it takes a summoning of the imagination for us to grasp what is immediate, what is real, for the rest.
This would have suited the great players of the game of realkpolitik in the past –in the European past that subdivided us. “The word ‘Italy’ is a geographical expression,” Metternich wrote, in a letter to the Austrian ambassador in April 1847, “ a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, and which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsula.” And so the Roman Pontiff drew a line, cleaving the world in twain, so to speak, and the Spanish derived legitimacy to declare dominion over the Philippines on one hand, and Portugal claimed the Moluccas, on the other. The British, from their East India Company headquarters in India then seized Manila briefly, and their compatriots then painted the region pink, adding Burma and what they then called Malaya, and Singapore, to their dominions while France’s ouvre civilsatrice carved out its mission in Indochina and the Dutch displaced the Portuguese and declared dominion over their Dutch East Indies.
You and I all know this, it was in the textbooks we read in school; and from those colonies arose the nations whose passports we individually carry, whose flags we salute and wave with pride, and whose anthems we sing in languages our colonizers considered unfit for political consumption. Around us continue to stand monuments to imperial self-satisfaction and permanence, now reduced to whitewashed artifacts of antiquarian, mainly tourist, interest. And inexorably in our nations the buildings of truly Roman braggadocio –because such clearly structural representations of pretentions to Roman-inspired imperial cultural pride- have been reduced, as this building has, to enclaves where the past is preserved but no longer exclusive enclaves where all the truly momentous decisions are made. Those decisions are now made in postcolonial-era towers of glass and steel, by young men and women under the watchful eyes of middle aged men and women who have never known what it was like to be a colonial subject.
And yet, the era of direct foreign rule was not so long ago, that it has passed beyond living memory. There are still quite a few among us who were born and raised the subjects of a foreign power. To be sure, to still be with us, means that they were only in their teens or at most, in their twenties or thirties at that time; but they can all remember that defining moment when the flag of the foreign power was finally lowered and the new flag of a new nation hoisted, waving alone over territories over which the imperial or colonial sun was never supposed to set.
In 1939, my grandfather, then President of an autonomous republic four years into what was expected to be a decade-long transition to full independence, remarked in a speech that he wondered what would happen once the unifying influence of the independence cause was lost. With independence, he asked, would the various ethnicities then resume squabbling among themselves, according to loyalties that had predated the colonial powers and whose rivalries and jealousies the colonialists had so superbly harnessed to –as the Romans put it- “divide and rule”? His answer was to centralize authority, to build an army, to create a one-party state and to focus public attention on spectacles of state: parades, speeches, flags, anthems, banners, slogans. To begin refocusing the energies of the rulers and the ruled, on themselves, since the others, the foreigners, were scheduled to depart the scene.
Yet two years prior to his inauguration the first popularly-elected President of his country, the British and the Americans had concluded a treaty further refining the territory between the Southernmost territories of the Philippines and the British territories in Malaya and Borneo. Thus it was, for the Filipinos that their national territory was defined by the colonial powers: as it would be for the Indonesians, as it would be for the Malaysians, the Singaporeans, the peoples of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and to a certain extent, the Thais with relations to the Burmese.
Much has been made of Benedict Anderson’s thesis that nations are fundamentally “imagined communities,” but for us Southeast Asians, at least, and to a certain extent for all Asians, particularly East Asians, we are all geographic expressions, trying to translate our vernacular cultures and identities into the high language of state and statecraft, imposing reason into often unreasonable -because arbitrary- negotiated borders arrived at without either consultation or reference to our precolonial histories. As it was in the Empire of India, about to be cleft, in twain, between India and Pakistan, and where the borders between the two was being penciled in on a map by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, literally lives and treasure on the line –a British-drawn line to the end!
Still: if, for prestige and profit, the region had been subdivided and parceled out among the great and mediocre powers of the West, it was in each parcel that there germinated and thus, sprouted, the concept of a national identity.
My grandfather’s anxiety over whether the often fractuous independence movement of his country could survive the sobering reality of independence was not unique; what he could not foresee was that after the formalities and full panoply of independence was achieved, our respective Asian countries all then began to wrestle with another struggle altogether, the fight against Communism. And after that, or to be precise, inspired by that ideological fight, another preoccupation became central in the minds of what I call our independence generations: the question of social order and material progress.
When Suharto of Indonesia died, Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore went to pay his respects; Mahathir of Malaysia paid tribute, too. The elaborate courtesies they exchanged were courtly; and criticzed in the West as a kind of last hurrah of Asian Values, the exact sort of values the West of course viewed as essential during the heyday of these statesmen: but the era of statesmen seems to have passed, and in its place we have the much more modest or perhaps it is more accurate to say, definitely merely as large-as-life, politicos-cum-technocrats of today. In all our countries, the passing of a Suharto, and the shuffling out of official retirement of a Lee or Mahathir, is worthy of a kind of momentary pause; I daresay we all gawked at the goings on during those Indonesian state obsequies, because we fully well know no such political giants shall ever walk our respective lands again –whether we loved them, feared them, hated them, admired them.
These men –and they could only have been men, in their times and respective places- were statesmen in the broadest sense of the word; with the exception of Lee, they were more properly the heirs of the generation that had actually secured independence, but they were the generation that had turned the formality of sovereignty into a living and functional reality. They also had the advantage, in the main, of political longevity, and thus an unrivaled –and possibly, unsurpassable- record of institutional incumbency. Marcos was as to Quezon as Suharto was to Sukarno, and as Mahathir was to Tunku Abdul Rahman, or even as Indira Gandhi was to Pandit Nehru. The transformation of colonial government and territory to national state and national territory may have been for the first of the independence generations to achieve; the transformation of that state into a nation: it may be that for better or worse, it was the second of the independence generations that achieved that, with leaders creating what Pierre Bourdreau described as a “State Nobility” for each country: those we like to call, in more pedestrian fashion, technorats.
With independence achieved, the Cold War at an end, in many cases the economy either transformed or permanently stunted, whether rich or poor, groaning under poverty or enjoying unprecedented prosperity, Asians, in particular Southeast Asians, have run out of causes to which entire peoples can find a collective reason for being in unity with their leaders. Is it no wonder then, that in countries where prosperity has eluded governments, or where political legitimacy is fragile, two, sometimes three, generations after independence, literally prehistoric –from the perspective of our present nation-states- campaigns are launched, whether on the ground or simply in the feverish imaginations of rabble-rousers?
Claiming temples, disputing the old colonial boundaries, encroaching on modernity by disputing bedrock principles of the modern nation-state, like secularism, and challenging notions of national identity by repeatedly invoking the communitarian, sectarian, and ethnic divisions of old: all are, in a sense, the rituals and aesthetics of what the present-day State Nobilities in the clubs, churches, and schools of that nobility, consider the primitive, the dangerous, the subversive. And, alas, the thrilling and inspiring for everyone else. A specter is haunting Asia, to freely borrow the tired old rhetoric of Karl Marx: it is the specter of militant theocracy. But this is, in many ways, truly Asia, with all due respect to the Malaysian tourism authority. For it is the Asia of emperor-kings, riding on war elephants, where those God-like kings trampled the alien neighbor, and where the rulers and ruled were united in fealty and tradition; and where the world, in a word, operated to the true rhythms of nature and not the enforced, artificial, distinctions of Western time and the calendar of the secular state.
So long as you could remember what it was like to see your part of the world considered yet another province, colony, protectorate or even department of a foreign metropolitan power, the incentive for you to set aside difference with your neighbor in recognition that ultimately, to the foreign ruler, they saw no differences among you except that you were all inferior, was irresistible. You would speak more eloquent, elegant English or French; you would learn Latin and the law, you would master metallurgy and engineering, you would learn military tactics and political economy, you would draft a constitution, design a flag, make speeches, write books, sing songs, declare loyalty that set yours apart from what was expected of you by the Governor-General, the Regent, or the puppet emperor.
You would fiercely defend that against the Japanese, against returning colonialists, against Marxists; you would come up with plans superior to any Socialist Five Year Plan, you would have children who knew not hunger, nor thirst, nor malaria nor beri-beri. We have, to a certain extent, even in the poorest of our respective countries, accomplished all that; and yet, for the generations who never knew that, there is, -what?
When Megawati Sukarnoputri became the first President of Indonesia not to have been born a colonial subject, I found it a truly remarkable thing. And even more remarkable, to me, was that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is only the first president my country has ever had, who hadn’t been born under a foreign flag. Chances are, for my country, the next head of state would also have been born a free Filipino, just as Megawati’s successor, Yudhoyono, was also born a free Indonesian –indeed, born in the year the former colonial power reluctantly recognized his country’s independence. Whether one speaks of Najib or Anwar in Malaysia or Lee Hsien Long in Singapore, the inevitable transition to a purely post-independence-born leadership is at hand; and everywhere else, the generation of the War, the veterans of long marches and Dien Bien Phus and even of Khmer Rouge, are passing from the scene.
Just as many of the bright, well-fed, well-educated, well-accomplished of the generation of their sons and daughters and grandchildren are passing from the scene –passing from the national to the international, from the domestic to the global; inspired not with nationalist yearnings but globalized appetites for the glitter of career and its material manifestations. There is no thrill in anthem, no particular stirring invoked by flag, certainly nothing but a skepticism in the concept of army or national service, no attitude towards the state and the law but hurdles to overcome, in this and these generations. The blessings of indepence seem so mixed, so hollow, in this sense: of a failed promise for countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, where nationhood is an obstacle and it seems, often an imposition; of fulfilled promises but one which has been superseded by personal ambition, in the case of Singapore or even Japan, where the countries have material prosperity but are grappling with the frightening possibility of being unable to, literally, procreate to continue the family of the nation.
Ask any Asian and I think you will hear them say, our respective nations all face problems. The problems may differ, as I pointed out, but they all point to a similar phenomenon of a political and administrative, educational and entrepreneurial, class of leaders all wondering why their sons and daughters would rather live elsewhere than at home.
There is no consensus on what to do, not least, because increasingly, consensus seems more and more difficult to reach in these countries.
The problem of arriving at a consensus is more serious in some places than others: it may be, the longer the history, the more difficult consensus is to reach.
There is no consensus, in the Philippines, for example, on our national beginning. There is little consensus, on where the Philippines is, though a broad but shallow consensus that the Philippines has not met its national potential. There is even less consensus on where the Philippines ought to go, much less where it’s headed. Though being the perennial optimists that we are, thee seems no consensus that we are or will be, a failed state.
But then, consensus seems more and more impossible in Thailand, which has never formally been under foreign rule. And the old certainties of one party rule seem more and more endangered –and the consensus-building within the political class, more and more tenuous and thus, fragile- are vanishing in Malaysia.
But what we have are young people armed with truly astounding practical gifts, incredible mastery of tools and machines, and who now instill a kind of terror in the West that the West used to instill in our forefathers; where the West once sneered at us as old, tired, degenerate cultures, now our young people can sneer at the West for the same things –yet irony of ironies, the baubles of Orientalism now have their equivalents in our young and their Occidentalism.
And everywhere, it seems, whatever the economic accomplishments or lack of them in nations considered Asian, a problem confronts nations that are embarking on anywhere from their second to third generation of existence as independent nations. We all have a nationality; a defined sovereignty; an entrenched political class. All under leaders who are, themselves, products not of the colonial era, but of the nationalist regimes born out of that era. For the first time in our own individual national existences, a majority of both the leaders and the led have no living memory of what it was like to be colonial subjects or be pondering either the desirability, or inevitability, of a sovereign national existence.
Was it all a Pyrrhic Victory, then? We have independence, but the free peoples of the East now want to make a living as freely as possible –or sometimes, unfreely but profitably- in the West? And even as our our best and brightest desire to go elsewhere, who is left? Those that never bought into the concept of Western time with its linearity, its evolutionary aspirations, its developmental and institutional delusions? They seem to be ever-growing, ever-demanding, ever-headed for a direct confrontation with the state and its institutions.
The techocentric concern of governments: as was demonstrated in Meiji Japan and Kuomintang Taiwan, industrialization superseding the development of a civil society can result in either a nation of drones marching to destruction or to a despotism accomplishing material comfort for all, to allow the former despots to become mere politicians. We overlook the essential flaw in the design –because the design of our respective states conform to the clockwork mechanism views of polities, politics, and peoples in the era of the Enlightnment, with its underlying assumption that nations fully adept at engineering then become capable of transformations that improve, and do not wreck, the body politic.
On one hand in nations where the blueprints are beautiful but the executions is slovenly or where the design and execution really have zero tolerances for human error, the end result is the same. Millions taking to planes and making plans in a manner their ancestors long ago would have found similar, as they embarked on finding new homes in new lands, and by so doing became the mythical founders of our respective imagined or shall we say, arbitrary and accidental nation-states.
Singapore has wrestled with this problem, of technological proficiency versus the imagination –and yet the imagination, political and social creativity, with their necessary ferment, create not a new problem, but a new concern: that imagination and initative are antithetical to the orderly industrialization so craved and sought as a measure of national success and stability. The Philippines on the other hand, sees its evolution in devolution, in ignoring the grandeur of even imagining a nation-state, but instead, adoring the domestic, the local, even the feudal: autonomy under caudillo democracy.
However in the end it is the legalism and legalities of nationhood, the bureaucratic trappings of nationality, that are inescapable: passport, identity card, they are what we are born to, and what, if necessary, we must exchange, but which we cannot escape producing, whether in East or West. The documents of colonial control, refashioned, redesigned, but ubiquitous: they continue to circumscribe what for all of us, are our national identities and the tangible signs of that identity
***
Ill try to give a synopsis of the discussion that followed, to the best of my recollection, in my next entry.
