Public Lives

Immortality

2005-04-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Immortality

Posted 11:23pm (Mla time) April 09, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the April 10, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE MOST fascinating thing about the tributes and the media coverage that accompanied Pope John Paul II's death is the relentless message that this particular man's life will not be forgotten. Many are already calling him a saint. He is dead, but his spirit lives in the hearts of the many who admire him.

Such is the function of culture. It tells us that a life can be meaningful even if death necessarily punctuates it. It urges us to embrace life, not as the "one long illness" that Socrates called it as he lay dying, but as a chance at immortality. In fact, culture and all its activities-religion in particular-make us forget death, except as a prelude to the eternal life.

"Today I wish to add only this: that each of us must bear in mind the prospect of death. And must be ready to present himself before the Lord and Judge-Who is at the same time Redeemer and Father," wrote John Paul II in a 1980 addendum to his original last testament. "Accepting that death, even now, I hope that Christ will give me the grace for the final passage, in other words my Easter. I also hope that He makes that death useful for this more important cause that I seek to serve: the salvation of men and women, the safeguarding of the human family and, in that, of all nations and all peoples (among them, I particularly address my earthly Homeland), and useful for the people with whom He particularly entrusted me, for the question of the Church, for the glory of God Himself."

From the start, it was clear to John Paul II that he wished most of all to contribute to the peaceful resolution of the Cold War and the liberation of nations from tyranny. At the same time, he was also conscious of his duty to strengthen the institution that was entrusted to him, and to ensure its survival and relevance in the third millennium.

In all these intentions, he undoubtedly succeeded. Dictatorships fell not only in his beloved Poland but also almost everywhere he brought the message of freedom and human rights, including the Philippines. The end of the Cold War in the late '80s, which signaled the collapse of the Soviet Union, owes much to his efforts. What he may not have foreseen are the dangers of a unipolar world, a world dominated by one military and economic superpower that will not hesitate to trample on other peoples' rights in the pursuit of its interests. He was horrified by the American aggression in Iraq and used his moral authority to oppose the war. But he himself commanded no armies; he was powerless to stop the madness of US President George W. Bush.

He spoke for poor nations buried in debt as a result of exploitation and bad government, and endorsed selective debt cancellation as a moral option. The rich nations applauded him but completely ignored his message.

He spoke for the poor, the youth, the sick, and migrants all over the world, and championed the cause of the family as an institution. But he was unyielding on Church doctrines pertaining to the rights of women and gays, the issues of contraception and divorce. In trying to seek a balance between the Church's need to remain relevant in a changing world and preserving the institution's moral authority, he leaned on the side of conservatism.

The Church remains in crisis still, but if it is stronger than it was in 1978 when John Paul II became its head, it can only be due in great measure to his reaching out to almost every sector of the human family. Although he performed his duties faithfully as leader of the institutional Church, he was a priest to the end. He was effective because, more than any world leader of his time, he mastered the idiom of the modern media, consistently synthesizing his messages into powerful sound bites.

John Paul II is probably even more eloquent in death than in life. His final words, including his last testament, echo the lessons he sought to teach when he was alive. His death illumines his life. Young people remember him most because he gave them joy. He taught them not to fear.

The whole past week, television covered the Pope's death by following a simple formula-to make others talk about the man, their rare encounter with his presence, his impact on their lives. This is the way to immortality in the age of mass media. A few years from now, few will likely remember where this Pope precisely stood on the crucial questions of our time. It is the television persona that will prevail.

John Cornwell captured this persona so accurately in his book, "The Pontiff in winter": "There is no substitute for the living presence, the inclination of the head, the meeting of the eyes, the idiosyncratic gesture, the tone of voice." No other pope was quite like him. I never had the chance to meet John Paul II in person or to see him up close, but I can relate to this image of the man who, "deeply stooped and hugely broad-shouldered, his legs a little apart like a hill-walker steadying himself," seemed to carry all the burdens of the world.

The mass media routinely confers upon celebrities instant immortality. The more tragic and unexpected their death, the bigger they look. The cases of Princess Diana and of Fernando Poe Jr. quickly come to mind. But such media-based immortality seldom endures. A few hours after Pope John Paul II was buried, television's attention quickly shifted to the next celebrity happening: the marriage of the late Diana's former husband, Prince Charles, to his lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Neither television nor canonization can make John Paul II immortal. But a concrete change for the better in the life of the human family may.

Billboard nation

2005-04-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Billboard nation

Posted 09:32pm (Mla time) April 02, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the April 3, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHEN 1,500 parliamentarians from Asia, Europe and the Americas converge in Manila today for the 112th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), what first images will they have of the Philippines?

From the moment they step out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, they will see a nation hopelessly scarred by billboards. As they pass Metro Manila's slums, they will form an image of an impoverished people drowning in advertisements for material goods they can only fantasize about but will likely never acquire in their lifetime. They will also note the urgent signs and streamers that Filipino politicians have put up to keep in touch with their constituents: "Congratulations to the graduates of 2005" and "This project was made possible by the joint efforts of President So-and-so, Congressman So-and-so, and Mayor So-and-so." Our visitors will think they have come upon a picture-book society that equates economic growth with consumption-fixation, and governance with political promotion.

We like to think we have a beautiful country. But over the years we have done everything possible to make it ugly and unlivable. Its overall shabbiness directly conveys not just our poverty but our loss of pride and self-esteem as a people. Edsa, Metro Manila's principal corridor, is possibly the most poorly maintained city avenue in all of Asia. Its surface, an unsightly skin of cement and asphalt, conveys at once a terrible image of the caliber of the road engineers we have and a graphic picture of the extent of government corruption and neglect.

The 1986 People Power Uprising gave Edsa a touch of history. Many of our visiting parliamentarians will probably want to see that patch of the highway where it all began. They will need to use their imagination to visualize what we have buried. Today, Edsa is nothing more than a long corridor through which one can see billboard after billboard. We are indeed a strange people.

If our public officials think they have made commuting in the city more bearable by allowing outdoor advertising companies to clutter both sides of our major thoroughfares with outsized billboards, they ought to have their heads examined. These are forms of sensory assault that cannot be turned off. They are, as someone put it, "the last unavoidable medium." They endanger motorists and they slow down traffic. But more importantly, they degrade the landscape.

In a landmark case upholding the cause of aesthetic regulation, United States Chief Justice Pound wrote: "Beauty may not be queen, but she is not an outcast beyond the pale of protection or respect. She may at least shelter herself under the wing of safety, morality, or decency."

Public highways were built with taxpayers' money; they were meant for transportation, not for advertising. In the United States where citizens' groups in various states have opposed the abuse of the landscape by outdoor off-premise advertising, the owners of the space on which these giant poster panels are located routinely invoke the inherent rights of private property. The courts, however, have consistently upheld the rights of citizens and declared billboard advertising in crucial locations a form of public nuisance. Detailed ordinances regulating billboards are now part of the law in many states. And in at least four states-Maine, Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii-there is a total ban on billboards. These are places whose scenic beauty is the main reason tourists come to visit.

A foreign guest's first impressions of a country are typically of its natural landscape and infrastructure. The former shows what has been preserved of Nature's gifts and shielded from the greed of commerce and the evils of government. The latter showcases the industry of generations. One wonders what kind of mastery over these islands our billboard economy suggests to our visitors. A nation's heritage cannot be invented or made presentable overnight. Discerning guests can tell at once what is phony and what is real, what is suffered and what gives people pleasure and pride of place.

Because of the carpet bombing that took place toward the end of World War II, Manila is no longer the beautiful Hispanic city it once was. But its natural beauty can easily be recovered by peeling off the fa‡ade of superficial modernity that the billboard industry has plastered upon it. The splendor of Manila's sunset is undiminished. Thank God the billboards have not yet encroached on the shoreline of Roxas Boulevard.

By now we should realize that the exquisite beauty of our country resides not only in our people but also in our natural landscape. This is a land blessed by a bright tropical weather which brings out the magnificence of our countryside. An hour's ride out of the metropolis, either going South or North, brings the traveler to a magical place of verdant farms and majestic mountains. The newly rebuilt North Luzon Expressway, notwithstanding the phenomenal rise in toll that the operator has started to collect, is truly a world-class highway that has made Central Luzon's fabulous towns very accessible. Traversing that portion of the highway leading to the Candaba viaduct is sheer pleasure.

On a clear day, a flock of languid egrets cuts across mystical Mt. Arayat on the horizon. It is a rare calming moment that is, however, rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of a wall of billboards. I often wonder why we allow a few people to do this to our country.

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The will to change

2005-03-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

The will to change

Posted 10:10pm (Mla time) Mar 26, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ON HIS way to Calvary, Jesus foretold many events that astonished his followers. He said he would be arrested, that one of his own disciples would betray him, and that Peter himself would deny that he knew him, not once but thrice. He said he would be crucified, and he would die on the cross. He would be buried, but he would rise from the dead. Jesus held these things to be true, and he acted upon them so that God might forgive the sins of men, and thus change the circumstances of their existence. This is the poetry of forgiveness around which the Christian faith revolves. It is a philosophy of action and hope, and Jesus was its strongest poet.

Many of us hold certain beliefs, but all too often we fail to act upon them. As such, they serve us no purpose. They have no meaning, no effect on the way we live our lives. They are books that remain unread, music that is unheard, faith that is unrealized. We remain trapped in old untested beliefs, from which we cannot free ourselves because of fear. We do not develop the courage to experiment, to test our beliefs, to connect them to the practical details of our lives. Consequently, there is a huge gap between the beliefs we profess and the beliefs we actually hold by default, our habits of action. And, indeed, there is an even bigger gap between our habits of action as a people and our social goals.

A friend of mine was complaining recently about corruption in a city government office. He said he needed to secure a hundred and one permits just to remodel an old house. Every precious signature depended on compliance with a set of requirements that kept growing as he produced the necessary documentation. After some months of following up papers, his contractor told him that the message being conveyed was loud and clear: a small amount, the usual S-O-P or "standard operating procedure," would hasten the release of the needed permits.

I advised my friend to go and report the matter to the National Bureau of Investigation so an entrapment operation could be set. He was ready to do so, but he never got around to it. His contractor decided to pay, offering to take the added expense out of his earnings. These people work as a syndicate, he said; you get one of them arrested, and the rest of the gang will make life difficult for you.

The contractor's fear is not unfounded. Everyone who has dealt with such offices assumes a general order of things to which you can only adjust. When you are busy earning a living, you cannot afford to take risks fighting the system. Yet elsewhere in the metropolis, my daughter, who is building a house in Cainta, was pleasantly surprised to be able to get all the building permits she needed in one day without having to pay anybody or secure special favors from anyone. There are such pockets of institutional integrity in our society, and they are steadily multiplying, quietly supplanting the old discredited ways of doing things with straightforward public service.

It is less difficult to reform systems from within than to expect heroic individuals to expose the evils of systems from outside. Corruption thrives on the proliferation of unnecessary and unreasonable requirements. It is the stepchild of inefficiency. A responsible leader in an office usually knows who is on the take. If he is not himself part of the racket, and feels strongly about it, he will find ways of eliminating the opportunity and getting rid of the rotten personnel. To do this, he needs a critical mass of reformers to help him, for the corrupt will do everything to tie his hands, to sabotage his efforts, and to undermine his authority and integrity by capitalizing on his own minor lapses.

It is never easy to initiate change. The will to change has to be anchored on a will to believe that things can be different. Such a belief often cannot be grounded simply on the evidence at hand. Yet if one believes and, on this basis, he acts upon the world, his action may change the situation in ways he himself has not anticipated. In the results, he may find the affirmation of his belief or feeling unjustified in his faith, he may become cynical. Such are what John Dewey called "the risks of faith." The point is that we will never know if our beliefs matter until we act on them, or unless we live them.

In his thought-provoking essay, "Christianity and Democracy," Dewey said: "The one claim that Christianity makes is that God is truth; that as truth He is love and reveals Himself fully to man, keeping back nothing of Himself; that man is so one with the truth thus revealed that it is not so much revealed to him as in him; he is its incarnation." Dewey is not a theologian but a philosopher. But his understanding of the nature of man in Christianity allows one to appreciate better the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels.

Jesus was being prosecuted for supposedly claiming he was the son of God. Yet in fact he always referred to himself as the son of man. He called God his Father only because he believed that all human beings were God's children. His disciples were stunned by the revelations he made, and how they all turned out to be true. But the bigger truth he was teaching them by his own life was the truth that is already in them, waiting to be lived.

People sometimes wonder how a predominantly Christian culture like ours could be the fount of corruption. There is a simple explanation for that: faith, for most of us, is separate from everyday life. We do not draw from it ideals or the will to change.

Happy Easter!

Popular religiosity

2005-03-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Popular religiosity

Posted 09:15pm (Mla time) Mar 19, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 20, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TODAY, Palm Sunday, marks the first day of what is perhaps the most important week in the Christian calendar. Jesus, the Messiah, enters Jerusalem on a donkey. His reputation precedes him and he is greeted by the people with branches quickly cut from nearby trees.

Being a Jew, he has come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, two important events that recall the Israelites' escape from Egyptian servitude. The Roman governors of Jerusalem are ever watchful. The Jews have long anticipated their liberation, and such feast days keep the flame of freedom alive in their hearts.

The whole world of one's faith is filled with symbols that make the events of our everyday lives meaningful. The meanings do not reside in the events themselves, but in the memory and culture of the community to which we belong. The Christian faith brought to our shores by the Spanish colonizers became the dominant religion, but it did not erase the indigenous faiths of our ancestors. The suppressed native beliefs, reconstituted in the encounter with the dominant religion and clothed in new names and forms, emerged as popular religiosity. This folk religiosity expresses the people's ironic imagination-often combining protest with piety, concealing defiance in meekness.

Christianity's own symbols are re-interpreted in the encounter. In his book "Pasyon and Revolution," the historian Reynaldo Ileto shows how the pasyon sung during Lent was tapped by the Katipunan to fortify the vocabulary of an incipient revolutionary movement. The religion the colonizers brought with them was thus re-contextualized and used against them by the people they sought to evangelize. In the language of semiotics, the signifiers are freed from the signified. The authors of the gospel lose control over their texts, rendering all existing meanings unstable.

Such thoughts came rushing to me the other night as I watched the early evening news on television. Seventeen dead bodies from the Camp Bagong Diwa siege were being carried in a burial procession to a common grave site. Wrapped in white sheet, the remains of the dead men, all Muslims, were being carried by members of the nearby Muslim community. As they were being lowered into the grave that had been hastily dug that morning, I noticed that the earth was littered with plastic debris of various colors and realized that the whole place had been a landfill or a garbage dump. Prayers were said, and someone raised a clenched fist in salute: "God is great!" he cried. Then the camera gently swept through the faces of the men, women and the children who were there. For one brief moment, the television screen became a mosaic of pain, fear, grief, loss, and anger.

The reporter's voice reminded listeners that these were the prisoners who had been killed in the siege after the negotiations for their peaceful surrender failed. Three of the most dreaded leaders of the Abu Sayyaf were among the dead, he said, but the rest were just ordinary Muslims facing charges for common crimes. They were killed because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The stand-off, which began after some inmates rushed and killed the jail guards serving them breakfast, lasted a day. But the clash of memory and culture that supplied all the meanings at play in that incident has been upon us for more than a hundred years.

It is ironic that "Bagong Diwa," the name of the police camp in which the jail is located, means new sense or new consciousness. The camp would have instantly earned its name if the incident had ended in a less violent way. Yet I have a feeling that Bagong Diwa will have a new meaning for the Muslims in our country from here on. Unfortunately, it is not the kind of meaning that will bridge the gap between the Moro narrative and the story of the Filipino nation. Rather, it will widen that gap even more. Long after the footage of the siege has faded, the images of the burial will likely remain fresh, occupying a secure space in the popular tales of the Moro people. That is how the Jabidah massacre became the founding moment of the Moro National Liberation Front. And the Jabidah incident was not even caught on film.

We sometimes forget that we are dealing here not with just a group of isolated and hardened bandits or terrorists who deserve to die. We are talking of a community and its memory. "The move outward toward the transformation of history and society has its source and ground in the community," writes the Jesuit theologian Michael L. Cook in his fascinating work, "Christology as narrative quest." "The most fundamental ethical-political obligation is to survive, to defend and preserve the community with its own distinctive cultural heritage."

What has this got to do with popular religiosity? "Popular religiosity is an anamnestic performance, or praxis that, in reenacting the suffering of our people, simultaneously reminds us that suffering is not the last word." There is always redemption.

Nothing perhaps is more powerful than the admixture of a religion's most precious symbols with the desires formed in the daily struggles of its adherents. The product of that encounter is what is enacted and re-enacted in popular religiosity. Priests, imams, and rabbis have no control over the meanings that are created in the process, nor, least of all, in the effects of these meanings on people's purposes and priorities. This is what makes faith a volatile element in people's lives.

Population solutions

2005-03-13T00:25:00.000-08:00

Population solutions

Posted 00:25am (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE POPULATION problem has many sides to it, and often various issues get mixed up in one emotional brew, preventing reasoned discussion. Debate highlights the disagreements while ignoring the many points of a possible consensus.

Does our country have a population problem? There are at least three ways of viewing this problem. In its most basic sense, this is a problem of density, expressing a relationship between the human species and the space it inhabits. But it is also, more importantly, a problem of society impinging upon the limited resources at its disposal. That society may need to cut present consumption in order to ensure future growth. But again, having enough is not only a matter of economic growth, but also of the kind of social order that presides over the allocation of resources. Some ways of defining the population problem tend to rationalize or mask the basic disparities existing between nations and within nations.

But we do have a population problem. It is a problem that exists at both the societal and the individual level. Our population is expanding so fast it has already encroached upon critical space like the uplands, where life chances are marginal, and where ecological damage is long-term. Our cities are ringed by congested slums, where people are forced to live in sub-human conditions. Our facilities and public utilities-our schools, hospitals, water services, transportation, etc.-have not expanded as fast as our population has grown. A steady stream of migrants from the countryside pours into our cities in search of opportunity and a better life for their children.

We may lecture them all year about the evils of an unjust and exploitative social system. But it would be foolish and unfair to expect them to put their lives on hold until the promised emancipation. These are families who want to be able to plan their lives now so that their children do not have to face a future without hope. They are entitled to all the information and assistance they need-including the provision of safe modern methods of birth control-to be able to fulfill the tasks of responsible parenthood, and thus change the course of their lives. The choice, says our Constitution, is ultimately theirs, not the government's or the Catholic Church's.

The Church is entitled to oppose and campaign against population measures that it deems contrary to its religious doctrine. But the government not only has the right but the responsibility to formulate a population plan. House Bill 3773, or the proposed Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act, is one such comprehensive plan. It is long overdue. A society that does not think of its population growth will confront the problem sooner or later in ways that permit no room for maneuver.

Reflecting on the experience of India, the noted French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss writes in his classic work, "Tristes Tropiques": "When a community becomes too numerous, however great the genius of its thinkers, it can only endure by secreting enslavement. Once men begin to feel cramped in their geographical, social and mental habitat, they are in danger of being tempted by the simple solution of denying one section of the species the right to be considered as human. This allows the rest a little elbow-room for a few more decades. Then it becomes necessary to extend the process of expulsion."

I think that in a significant sense, we Filipinos are already "solving" the population problem in a manner we did not choose. One has to be blind not to see the stark division of our society between the few who have the chance to live full and productive lives and the many who are condemned from the start to experience life only as a slow and painful death. This is a caste system in many ways, yet we shield ourselves from its reality by building walls and gated subdivisions.

Exclusion is followed by expulsion, says Levi-Strauss, recalling the events unleashed by Hitler in Europe. "The systematic devaluation of man by man is gaining ground, and we would be guilty of hypocrisy and blindness if we dismissed the problem by arguing that recent events represented only a temporary contamination."

A new underclass has taken shape and is found all over the world, consisting of people who have fled from poverty at home. Filipinos constitute the single largest chunk of this global migrant caste, about one-fourth of our entire labor force. Excluded from their own society's structure of opportunity, they seek new lives abroad. They leave their families behind, hoping to send for them at some future time. Their departure gives the society they left a little breathing space; the remittances they send help temporarily stave off hunger at home. The services they perform abroad no doubt make life easier for the host nations they serve. But this will not continue forever.

Already, dark clouds loom in the horizon. Everywhere they go, these intrepid Filipinos face the threat of expulsion. Japan recently seized upon the issue of human trafficking to impose new restrictions on the entry of Filipino entertainers into its closed society. Malaysia, despite its vast uninhabited lands, feels threatened by the large numbers of Indonesians and Filipinos on its territory, and regularly launches a cleansing campaign.

Our people do not deserve to undergo these wrenching processes of degradation. The state loses its reason for being when it cannot provide for its own citizens' needs, and plan a future that ensures the survival and prosperity of its population.

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The morning after Edsa

2005-03-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

The morning after Edsa

Posted 00:13am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE STRONG state that Ferdinand Marcos built in 1972 became so wholly associated with human rights violation and massive corruption that when we got rid of it in 1986, we resolved never again to concentrate political power in any single branch of government. In reaction, we found ourselves swinging to the opposite model of a minimalist government that fastened its decision-making powers to a rigid system of checks and balances.

The experience with big-time corruption under the Marcos regime made the new government of Cory Aquino timid about starting large-scale infrastructure projects. One day, toward the end of Cory's term, we were awakened to the consequences of this over-cautiousness by a severe power shortage that required costly emergency measures to address.

Threatened by a coup-prone military that had tasted power, and faced by a surge of populist energy from all directions, the government could not sustain its experimental stance to the country's old problems. It came to rely more and more on the advice and services of traditional politicians who operated by the tested methods of personal patronage. With every election, the old political families that dominated pre-martial law politics came back to power, holding back the momentum of political and economic modernization.

The result of this is that everything we have done by way of reform since 1986 has been half-hearted-agrarian reform, democratization of our political system, electoral modernization, modernization of the economy, etc. Every Edsa anniversary has served as a reminder of how instinctively we have gone back to the old routines. Nineteen years later, Filipinos are again desperately looking for an alternative. What that is is not certain. But not a few otherwise sensible people have broached the idea of a wise and benevolent strongman as if it were a simple matter of naming him.

My own view is that we have not really given democracy a chance to work in our society. I am not entirely sure what kind of political system will work for us, but I think that, regardless of the political choices we make, there are some basic realities we cannot ignore.

First, in the present state of the world economy, we ought to know by now that we cannot hope to gain anything unless we unite and rally our people around a clear set of purposes. Far from receding in value, the role of the state has become more crucial; it has to take a more aggressive role in charting a roadmap for the whole country and coordinating the efforts of its various constituencies.

Second, development has to start from the development of the people-through the provision of the minimum conditions for sustained personal growth, beginning with quality education, and the meaningful inclusion of the poor in various areas of national life. In the short and medium term, they must be provided with all the means necessary for them to be able to effectively plan their families.

Third, the private sector must be brought to a realization that the period in which we live is a critical one. The same social inequities that breed resentful majorities also impede the growth of wealth. It is in the interest of those who have more in life to assist those who have been excluded and denied opportunity, without waiting to be prompted by the government.

Fourth, corruption is a big problem in our country, but it is not the main source of our problems. It is rather an expression of our more basic problems-mass poverty and ignorance, patronage politics, expensive elections, an underdeveloped economy.

Fifth, our individual initiatives are valuable, but the more crucial arena of social change is the public one. Whether we like it or not, the state remains our principal instrument for growth in the modern world. That is why the quality of governance is our most central concern. This means combating patronage and celebrity politics, and encouraging and supporting those who genuinely can advance the interests of the nation. We cannot do this without emancipating our voters from their basic needs, and without launching a relentless campaign to create intelligent and responsible voters.

Sixth, no nation can progress without first instilling national pride and love of country among its people. National pride is to nations what self-respect is to individuals-a precondition for self-improvement. We must arrest our people's dangerous descent to demoralization, and appeal to Filipinos who have made good abroad to help the country in these difficult times.

Seventh, there is no shortcut to development. Most attempts at changing society drastically and fundamentally lead to violent civil wars from which too often nations are unable to recover. Genuine social change does not have to mean an all-or-nothing, cataclysmic overhaul of society. In these times, we need a civil war like we need a bullet in our heads.

Lastly, some of our problems require simple and straightforward solutions, but many are multi-layered and complex. Every initiative rests on certain preconditions. It's like rebuilding an old house-every part of the house you tear down exposes new hidden weaknesses. Every day we are reminded of the truism that it is better to tear down the old house and build a totally new one. Yet it is hard to imagine how you can do that to a whole nation. We need greater patience, and patience is quickly running out.

Edsa prompts us to continue the moral obligation of hoping and working for a better country despite our monumental failures.

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Education and poverty

2005-02-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

Education and poverty

Posted 11:41pm (Mla time) Feb 26, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the February 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SOMETIME during the Christmas holidays, 21-year-old Onak asked me if I needed someone to look after the little orchard I was starting at the foot of Mt. Malasimbo in Bataan. I remembered him as a sprightly teenager who helped around in my brother's garden. Slightly deaf because of chronic ear infection, he had quit school after Grade 4. Now he has to leave his parents' home, he shyly told me, because he has just taken a wife. I immediately understood his situation, hired him on the spot, and allowed him and his bride the use of a cogon hut I had built as a weekend sanctuary until they could set up their own house.

Fifteen-year-old Jenny, his wife, also stopped going to school after finishing Grade 4. Because she is a minor, they cannot be legally married. But this is a minor detail to this very young couple. They may not even get married, but they will soon be starting a family, replicating the same cycle of poverty, insufficient education, early marriage and long childbearing years, and low-paying irregular work -- that their own parents before them had followed.

There is no real way out of this cycle without a decisive intervention in education. Study after study has shown that the higher the level of education of the head of the family, the higher the family income. A simple quantitative rise in the level of educational attainment of Filipino families could produce a dramatic effect on poverty rates, especially in the rural areas. But more important than the effect on incomes is the profound transformation in worldview and life aspirations that a good education can trigger.

Many years ago, the late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania visited the Philippines. Mwalimu, as he was fondly called by his own people, spoke at a forum at the University of the Philippines. I remember one particular question he was asked: What would you regard as the most crucial element in Tanzania's development program? His quick unequivocal answer surprised everyone: The education of our young women.

I expected this architect of Tanzanian modernity, the intellectual father of agrarian socialism, to come up with an elaborate discourse on the political economy of African underdevelopment. But he instead proceeded to demonstrate in practical terms why the education of young rural women was critical to African development. First of all, he said, there was no moral or political or economic basis for discriminating against girls and giving all the opportunities for education to males in the family. Second, he noted that the education of women releases them from the traps of male supremacy, ignorance, poverty, and, more importantly, the burden of prolonged childbearing years. Thirdly, educated mothers are better carriers of progress; more than fathers, the Mwalimu argued, it is they who are able to impart to their children the value of change, of what it means to be a person with aspirations, and what education can do for a human being so she can overcome the limits imposed by inherited hierarchies.

These thoughts came rushing back to me the other night, when the youngest of our four children, Jika, called to ask for advice on how to process a decision she was about to make. At 27, after working in a highly competitive setting for five years, she quit her corporate job last year to serve in the Jesuit Volunteer Program. I thought it would be a good experience for her. An accountant by training, she was assigned to teach Math to 43 girls, aged 13 to 19, plucked from the remotest villages of Puerto Princesa in Palawan. This unique rural boarding school, based in the Catholic parish of Macarascas, runs a full-time non-formal program that prepares the students for examinations accredited by the Department of Education.

By the end of April, Jika will have completed one year of volunteer work, and we cannot wait to have her back with us. But now she is calling to ask what we think of her plan to stay on as a volunteer teacher till at least the end of 2005. She says it has taken a while before she could win the full trust of the girls, and now she thinks that having entered their lives, she does not feel right about turning her back on them just because her term as JVP volunteer has ended. There's still more she can do to prepare them while she is there, she says with conviction. I was afraid this would happen. As a parent, my instinctive response was to tell her there were other ways of helping the school and the girls that would not necessarily require her to put her own life on hold.

"But, Dad, my life is not on hold," she gently told me. "It is going on here perfectly. It is the first time I have felt that I am doing something that has meaning not only for me but also for other people, like these girls who have not had the same chances in life." I reminded her of her plan to get an MBA, but I got the sense that a graduate degree in business not only seemed remote to her now but also irrelevant. She spoke to her mother about setting up a foundation for the education of rural girls. She believes she can do that even as she continues to teach the girls the beauty of Math and the wondrous world that awaits them as educated women. My heart tells me she has chosen the right path.

When we visited her in August last year, the founder of the school, Fr. Broderick Pabillo, took me aside to express his appreciation for allowing our daughter to volunteer at the school. "It is important for the girls," he said, "not only to learn Math or English, but also to dream. Our JVP volunteers, Jika and Jet (who teaches English), are showing them alternative images of what they can be."

A Moro homeland

2005-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

A Moro homeland

Posted 10:21pm (Mla time) Feb 19, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the February 20, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

FINISH them off, or give them back their land. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile may have uttered this sentiment in exasperation over the Arroyo government's lack of a clear policy on Mindanao. But he should know Mindanao, having played a key role in the Marcos regime's handling of its problems. He also has business interests in the place. What does he really have in mind?

He cannot possibly seriously think that a total war against the Moro rebels can succeed. Thirty-one years have passed since the Marcos military burned down Jolo, but the resentments generated by that single atrocity continue to simmer to this day. As the recent events in Sulu have shown, there is no way the military can hunt down and kill remnants of the notorious Abu Sayyaf group without hurting other members of the communities in which they seek refuge. Most of these rebels are not full-time fighters. It is not easy to tell a rebel from an ordinary resident. The possession of firearms is not a distinguishing mark of a rebel because nearly every male adult in this place owns one.

Moreover, names like "Misuari Breakaway Group," "Jemaah Islamiyah" and "al-Qaeda," are labels used by outsiders like the Philippine military and US agents. Just because the government and foreign forces use them to identify the enemy does not mean that these terms of affiliation have any meaning for the local people. The "enemy" that the government is pursuing, whether Abu Sayyaf or MNLF-Misuari loyalist, is a human being with a proper name. He belongs to a family and a kin group. He is a member of a community; he goes to a mosque and prays among other members of his faith. You cannot kill this enemy, especially one who fights in the name of his people, without making enemies of the rest of his relatives and community.

As important, the Moro people-the Muslims, the Lumad, and, indeed, Christians who identify with the aspirations of a Bangsa Moro homeland-may be a minority both in relation to the total Mindanao population and the Philippine population. They may be concentrated in four or five Muslim-dominated provinces in Mindanao. But the reality is that they are also now everywhere in the country.

The war and its insidious cousin-land-grabbing-have forced them out of their homeland. Now they are in Metro Manila, in Baguio, in Central Luzon, and, practically, in every major urban center of the archipelago. They sell pearls, pirated DVDs, and smuggled goods. Forced by circumstances unique to displaced people, they inhabit the lower rungs of the informal economy. Their assimilation into the mainstream is skin-deep; they remain a separate people, steeled by their faith, and bound together by a shared dream to regain their homeland.

That they are currently uprooted from their homeland does not mean they have stopped being Moros. The man who sells DVDs in Quiapo or pearls in Greenhills may be far from the war, but he is not psychologically distant from its horror. It is na‹ve to think that he no longer cares what happens in Panamao, Patikul, or Parang. He may not himself plant a bomb in a bus full of innocent people to express his outrage; but maybe, whether he knows it or not, he is sheltering someone who would. Anyone who thinks it is possible to confine the hostilities to the remote villages of Sulu and win a decisive victory there, without provoking retaliation elsewhere, betrays a cockeyed view of the world.

The new American vocabulary of global anti-terrorism is a paradigm of such a stilted view of reality. It may give us what seems like an informed way of looking at world events, but it will not shield us from the horrific consequences it creates or makes possible. When a bomb is dropped on a community in Sulu, we call it a military operation. But when a bomb is exploded in Metro Manila, we call it a terrorist attack. That is not the way a Moro militant would view it. Both events, to him, are integral aspects of the same war.

And yet, by calling these isolated attacks on civilian targets the handiwork of the Jemaah Islamiyah or of elements linked to the al-Qaida, we draw attention away from their basic local roots. We confer upon them a global conspiratorial character they do not possess. I do not condone terrorism of any kind. But this semantic arrogance not only blinds us to the real sufferings of people at the receiving end of state aggression, it also induces in us a moral smugness that justifies simplistic solutions to human problems.

But we have earned a minor place in the US-led war on terrorism-a role that compels us to give up a part of our rights as a nation in exchange for military and economic assistance. We have brought American forces right into the door of the Mindanao conflict, in total violation of the letter and spirit of the 1987 Constitution.

The Mindanao conflict is complex enough as it is without having to locate it in the American world map of global terrorism. Its roots go back to the unsuccessful wars of pacification under the Spanish and American colonial regimes. The new Philippine Republic rode on the inertia of these colonial expeditions. It spread its rule, its settlers and carpetbaggers, all over Mindanao, completely ignoring the ancestral domains of the native peoples and the sovereign rights of the sultanates that had administered these territories since pre-colonial times.

Land is what the Moros lost, and a homeland is what they hope to recover. Everything else-Misuari, Salamat, the MNLF, the MILF, the Abu Sayyaf-is but a footnote in a just struggle that will never be resolved by war.

A sociology of love

2005-02-13T01:04:00.000-08:00

A sociology of love

Posted 01:04am (Mla time) Feb 13, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A23 of the February 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT is perhaps symbolic of the perennial tension between the natural forces of life and the attempts to regulate life in the world that a day set aside for erotic love should be named after a Christian saint. The coincidence is not exceptional. Many holidays in the Christian calendar have pagan origins. Sometimes the pagan aspects outlive the religious meanings, as in the case of February 14, which, since 1969, is no longer marked as a feast day in honor of St. Valentine.

The martyred priest, whose name has become synonymous with love, is supposed to have lived in the time of Claudius II. For refusing to renounce his faith, Valentine was jailed and executed on Feb. 14 in the year 270 AD. He was accused of secretly marrying Christian couples, thus making them unsuitable for war. The story goes that in prison, he befriended and healed the blind daughter of his jailer. And on the day of his execution, he sent her a farewell note, signed "your Valentine."

Valentine's affections were hardly erotic, and this was precisely the point. The Church sought to substitute brotherly love for sexual love. In those times, the 15th of February was celebrated as the day of the goddess Februata Juno, when young men and women were paired as couples through the mechanism of a love lottery. The names of the women were drawn by the men on Feb. 14. It is obvious that naming the day after a saint did not succeed in masking the orgiastic origins of Valentine's Day.

Max Weber, the brilliant German sociologist, called sexual love "the greatest irrational force of life." He expected the erotic sphere to resist and survive the growing rationalization of everyday life. For him there is no way anyone can institutionalize love.

Of love, he writes: "This boundless giving of oneself is as radical as possible in its opposition to all functionality, rationality, and generality....The lover realizes himself to be rooted in the kernel of the truly living, which is eternally inaccessible to any rational endeavor. He knows himself to be freed from the cold skeleton hands of rational orders, just as completely as from the banality of everyday routine." Weber thought of love as a creative elemental force that, in the modern world, might serve as our last link "with the natural fountain of all life."

Society has tried to regulate this creative force through the institution of marriage, whose own origins lay in the need for economic security for the wife and inheritance for the children. In the modern period, this led to the equation of love with marriage. Couples marry for love, and so when love is gone, they think the right thing to do is to dissolve the marriage. This, no doubt, accounts for the crisis of modern marriages. Couples could hang on to nothing else but the promise of love's passions. From the standpoint of society's needs, nothing could be more foolish than to anchor an institution on a fickle and elusive force as love, says Nietzsche. This crazy philosopher's radical insights were developed and woven by Max Weber into his own modern sociology.

While preparing for a lecture on postmodern love and intimacy, I stumbled upon Nietzsche's thoughts on marriage and family and was surprised to learn how much Weber drew from him. These two German thinkers were interested in the fate of social institutions under the impact of modernity. Modernity rationalizes means and ends, and introduces consistency in the practice of everyday life; but it also tends to dissolve everything it touches.

"Witness modern marriage," Nietzsche writes. "Modern marriage has patently lost all its rationality: and yet this is no objection to marriage, rather to modernity. The rationality of marriage lay in the sole legal responsibility of the husband: this is what gave marriage its center of gravity; whereas nowadays it has a limp on both legs. The rationality of marriage lay in the principle of its indissolubility; this gave it an accent which, set against the contingencies of feeling, passion, and the moment, could make itself heard. Likewise it lay in the responsibility of families for the choice of husband and wife. The increasing indulgence shown towards love-matches has practically eliminated the basis for marriage, the thing which makes it an institution in the first place. An institution can never be founded on an idiosyncrasy; marriage, as I have already said, can not be founded on love.... Marriage as an institution already encompasses the affirmation of the greatest, most enduring organizational form: if society itself cannot guarantee itself as a whole unto the most distant generations, then there is no sense in marriage at all."

It is never easy to agree with Nietzsche's typically contrarian views, and I certainly warn against accepting them uncritically. They go against what we normally understand to be the ethos of freedom, which is at the core of the modern spirit. But the dilemmas he poses cannot be ignored. His discussion of love and marriage in the modern age is provocative. Institutions are the tools that link generations to one another, he says. Their survival cannot be made to depend on the accidents of fleeting sentiments.

I do not think Nietzsche was arguing against love. Though he himself remained unmarried for the rest of his life, he had a profound respect for marriage. I think in his view it was wrong to have used marriage to tame love. Lucky are those who can keep love and marriage under the same roof, but because it is an intrinsically irrational force, love will always defy institutions. Prince Charles knows that only too well by now.

Happy Valentine's to my wife Karina and to all incurable lovers!

Repairing basic education

2005-02-06T00:02:00.000-08:00

Repairing basic education

Posted 00:02am (Mla time) Feb 06, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the February 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WE all know there is something very wrong in the education of our children. Where the trouble lies and how we should repair it have been the subject of recurrent debate. Recently, a group of professors and researchers from the University of the Philippines offered their thoughts on this question in a position paper sent to the Department of Education and media. Their intervention signals the need to take a closer look at existing research in order to determine whether adding more years to the country's basic school system would solve the problem.

My own initial view is: By simply adding two more years of the same stuff taught in the same way in ill-equipped classrooms by the same ill-prepared and underpaid teachers to the same under-motivated and malnourished pupils may not remove us from the category in which we find ourselves today, together with the poorest African countries. But I keep an open mind.

Crucial to the analysis is isolating the key factors that affect children's performance at school. There are factors beyond the control of the school-like absentee parents and not having enough to eat. But of the variables within the sphere of educational reform, the following may be worth examining: teaching method, teacher preparedness, the curriculum, and the medium of instruction.

The proposal to increase the number of years is based on the single assumption that too much knowledge is being crammed into the existing 10-year basic program, giving rise to the need to layer or space the curriculum. I am sure there are studies that have already looked into the impact of such curricular congestion. Their findings must be considered in relation to studies that examine the effects of other factors like teaching style and medium of instruction. The UP education paper unfortunately does not go into these.

The position paper poses the question: "Could length of schooling be one reason for the dismal academic performance in local and international tests?" My UP colleagues answered the question only in an indirect way-by pointing out that the Philippines, with its six-year elementary and four-year high school programs, has one of the shortest basic education systems in the world. They did not offer empirical proof that the length of schooling is the most crucial factor in the performance of our students in international tests.

There is no question that adding more years to the 10-year basic education program will improve the test scores of our students. This seems to be supported by the limited success of the optional high school bridge program. But whether this is the best way to address the present deficiencies in the system remains unanswered. The tendency to cure problems of quality by adding quantity is so prevalent in our society that one cannot help but be skeptical.

As a teacher myself, I find that what is important in learning is not so much the amount of material one covers in a course but rather the clarity by which the most basic concepts are explained. Whether one is dealing with mathematical, aesthetic, or social science concepts, the quality of the interaction between teacher and student is crucial. The students should be free to ask for elaboration, without fear of censure or ridicule and in a language most meaningful to them. And the teacher should have the patience and, more important, the ability to explain the concepts. In this regard, I find that the use of a language that is foreign to both teacher and student can be a great barrier to understanding, and that the switch to a native language often goes a long way toward facilitating the learning process.

I suspect that, precisely because it is a second language to most of us, we tend to overestimate our relationship to English. That relationship is basically an artificial one; we still do not think in English and, maybe, never will, thank God. I won't be surprised if the most effective teachers of basic Mathematics in our country are those who do not hesitate to use a local language to explain concepts. Many conscientious teachers know this. They know that English is a key to modern and global learning, but they also know it can be a deterrent to learning.

English is all too often used by teachers to mask their own inability to grasp the concepts they are supposed to teach. They do not explain because they cannot. Instead they take refuge in seatwork, penalizing their students with interminable exercises on concepts they themselves do not understand.

I have seen this in many schools even at the tertiary level, where teachers carefully protect their own ignorance from exposure using the shield of an impenetrable language. They make their students copy entire books into their notebooks, and require them to memorize and recite portions of these. Their students learn nothing but the outer skin of ideas, unable to relate these to the circumstances of their lives.

I am aware that it may be counterintuitive to raise the issue of medium of instruction at a time when the siren song of call centers is seducing the country back to English. English is an important language, but it is a tool that can be acquired any time. Its acquisition must not impede or burden the learning process at the fundamental level.

We have gone a long way toward making our national life more inclusive by the extensive use of the Filipino language in the mass media and in public affairs. It would be tragic if our gains in these areas are nullified by the exclusion of large numbers of our children from the benefits of formal education because of English.

Distributing the tax burden

2005-01-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

Distributing the tax burden

Posted 00:27am (Mla time) Jan 30, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 30, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IN GENERAL, no tax is ever acceptable to a people. This is even more so if the government that collects it is perceived to be useless, illegitimate and corrupt. A good government is one that is able to show the public that the taxes it demands are collected justly-i.e., according to one's earnings and assets-and entirely spent for the common good.

Herein lies the biggest problem of the present government. Most Filipinos believe that taxes in our society are collected more on the basis of expediency rather than on justice. That the government has been relying more on consumption taxes than on property and income taxes. That it has zeroed in more on the fixed-income earners with no breathing space than on those with variable incomes, like freelance professionals and businesses. The public feels that those who bear the brunt of taxation are not the rich who have unlimited ways of hiding their true incomes, but the poor and lower middle classes, like the ordinary government employees, who have single and easily traceable incomes.

On top of this, citizens do not see their taxes being spent to improve social services but only to line the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and to pay for government debts accumulated by bad leaders.

People may know little of the superiority of the value-added tax (VAT) over the ordinary sales tax or excise tax. But they know that whichever form of tax is collected, it will always be passed on to them as final consumers. Therefore they believe that any increase in the VAT or any expansion in its coverage will always be, in the last analysis, an additional burden that they cannot hope to pass on to anyone but their families.

They want the government to first plug the drain in public funds caused by massive corruption. They want the government to go after the large tax-evaders, to tax the wealthy instead of the poor by focusing on large incomes and lavish consumption, rather than on meager incomes and basic needs.

In view of this, it may make very little sense to warn the Filipino public that they face the consequences of an impending economic collapse if the fiscal deficit is not immediately solved. Many think they have nothing further to lose in the event of an economic crisis. They don't see themselves as meaningful stakeholders in the present system. Not a few may even believe that a crisis is what the country probably needs to bring the national leadership to its senses.

The point is you cannot expect the public to pay for the debts of unaccountable government corporations, which the government has indiscriminately assumed year after year. The government must give a full accounting of these obligations, and assign responsibility, before it should even begin to pay a single centavo of public money to service them. Only then can it begin to allocate the burden of paying these obligations. It can sell the remaining assets of these GOCCs, fire their overpaid executives, and settle their debts once and for all; or it can hold on to them and continue to service their debts. In either case, we all end up paying the costs in the form of higher tariff or higher taxes. I believe we deserve to know at least whom to curse for this state of affairs.

I am certain that, in the final analysis, the present government will choose the path of privatization. This relieves the political leadership of the heavy political cost of imposing new taxes to cover recurring debt service. It may also restore to the national budget the flexibility it needs to address the requirements of a growing population. But what a pity that government-run firms in our country should always be known as inefficient and graft-ridden. In other societies, they do not have that stigma, and they do function well as the public's best defense against the abuses of oligopolies. As important, in the hands of a developmental state with a clear vision, such public firms can become the spearhead of a sustainable and equitable form of development.

I believe that the whole tax debate has focused too much on the need to raise additional revenue immediately to avert a looming crisis, and too little on the need to streamline mechanisms so that existing tax laws are fully implemented and various forms of leakage in the revenue system are plugged. Just to give an example: rental from high-end accommodations is probably one of the most under-reported earnings in this country. One can say the same thing for the incomes of top practitioners in the legal, medical and entertainment fields. So much tax-evasion takes place at the upper levels of our society that it has become almost immoral to take every centavo of income and consumption tax from the majority who do not earn enough, for no better reason than because it is easy.

For the last five years, public school teachers have been demanding an increase in their monthly salaries. Government says it understands their situation but that it has no money to pay the increase they are asking for. I say, if you cannot increase their pay, stop withholding the 10-percent income tax from their salaries until you can give them the level of remuneration they deserve. Why should tax privileges be the prerogative of the independent power producers?

Only a thin line separates taxation from exploitation, and our government seems bent on doing everything to erase it.

Should we give up on people power?

2005-01-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

Should we give up on people power?

Posted 01:14am (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IF the participants of Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 were to be asked today if they would join another people power uprising, they would likely say no. They would say that people power promises many things but delivers nothing. That it substitutes the shortcut of a political surgery for the long painstaking task of building a healthy democracy.

I think they would be essentially correct in their analysis, but wrong with their decision. As a non-violent but unconventional mode of changing a dysfunctional government, people power has its virtues. It revitalizes the people's engagement with their society as citizens. It opens for them the chance to free themselves from entrapment by self-perpetuating structures. It arouses in them the universal optimism associated with the arrival of a newborn-the expectation of a better future. People power is a form of consciousness. It is a means to achieve a set of goals, not the project itself.

But the sense of frustration is understandable because powerful instincts do define the spirit of people power -- the readiness to act and to measure the outcome in terms of a morally gratifying national future. One can say the same thing of the great French and American revolutions. In our case, the projected future had three basic goals: democracy, good governance and social justice. These elements mark the principal enemies of people power in our time, namely: dictatorship, corruption and poverty.

The 1987 Constitution laid out the fundamental goals of the people power revolution and provided us the basic legal and institutional instruments with which to realize our desired national future. Almost 20 years have quickly passed, and we should be in a better position to assess the extent and quality of our achievements. Were the two Edsas really just a waste of time? I would hope not. But instead of thinking of people power as a single event, it may be useful to think of it as a continuing process.

We have made significant headway in preventing a future dictator from abusing constitutional powers in order to install an authoritarian regime, but we are far from eliminating those conditions that make the rule of the strongman a seductive alternative. Such conditions precisely point to the unredeemed promises of the two people power uprisings in our country, namely, the eradication of mass poverty and the elimination of corruption. The persistence of poverty and corruption in scandalous proportions persuades many Filipinos today that all talk of institutional reform is meaningless without political will. And political will cannot come from the conventional politicians who benefit from the system; it can only come from visionary leaders who oppose the system.

It would be tragic if we abandoned the spirit of people power today just because the governments that rose to power in its wake produced the opposite of its avowed intentions. That is not unexpected. For as long as people power is not driven by a clear and coherent alternative plan, its aftermath will always be dominated by the masters of the familiar. We saw this in 1986 and in 2001: the old politicos jockeying for strategic roles in the process of reconstruction, advocating the same worn-out formulas and exploiting the new regime's need for instant stabilization.

In this regard, it is worth noting that Edsa 1 carried a greater potential for radical change than Edsa 2 because it was willing to go farther and risk more to dismantle the old society. It threw away the existing Constitution and, for one year, ruled as a revolutionary government. It abolished the Batasang Pambansa, and reorganized the Supreme Court. It removed most of the local government officials and replaced them with its own appointees. It appointed a Constitutional Commission to write a new constitution. The new government had every opportunity to institute a new social order, but became more timid as it began to worry about its own survival. This timidity grew in proportion to its growing dependence on the services of traditional politicians.

Edsa 2 provided yet another opening for change, but this one was closed almost as quickly as it came into view. What started out as a comprehensive battle for good governance was narrowed down into a surgical removal of a corrupt and incompetent president, and his replacement by the vice president. The movement's revolutionary edge was blunted by a Supreme Court decision that represented the whole episode as the voluntary resignation of a president rather than the overthrow of an entire regime. Except for the incumbent president and his Cabinet, everyone else was retained in place, as if corruption was a disease lodged in only one person.

We now know that corruption is not just the fault of a person; it is, more importantly, the function of a whole system. It is not only an individual trait, but an entire way of life. When Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stepped into Joseph Estrada's position in January 2001, she, in effect, began to preside over this way of life. Nothing changed because the roles and the script remained.

We may think of people power as a nation's willful attempt at self-organization for a brighter future. Ranged against it are the weight of tradition and the allure of the familiar. The challenge it will always face is how to set up, to borrow a phrase from Jurgen Habermas, its own "Constitution for the victorious peace."

We should never give up on people power. But those who choose to answer its call must work hard to prepare the ground for its own Constitution.

Rationalization

2005-01-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

Rationalization

Updated 11:44pm (Mla time) Jan 15, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the January 16, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE WORD has crept in quietly in recent discussions about administrative and fiscal reforms. If taken seriously, it could spell the beginning of political modernity in our country. The vigor with which it is being opposed is an indicator of the staying power of obsolete interests. It shows us that corruption in our society is not a cultural flaw, but a basic ingredient of our political system.

Rationalization simply means altering existing policies and procedures in order to make them more efficient in the attainment of the state's avowed goals. Its most important objective is the elimination of sources of unearned income from the national life. "Rents," as these incomes are sometimes referred to, are of many kinds, but the most prevalent are those that are extracted and dispensed at will by public officials at all levels of the state. The German thinker Max Weber called rents "the economic basis of all aristocracies." In our own time, rents are the social basis of "crony capitalism."

When a friend or ally of a public official is given an accommodation such as a huge loan from a government financial institution, we call that a rent. "Behest loans," as they were once called, did not end with Marcos. Like logging concessions, they continue to be dispensed as part of the spoils of politics. When some favored ally is given exclusive rights to import a certain commodity, that too is rent. When the president orders the government's social security agencies to invest public pension funds in shares of stocks owned by a friend, and then collects commissions, that is rent-seeking.

Money given by gambling lords to authorities so they won't be touched is also rent. When budgetary allocations are released in exchange for favors, that is rent-seeking. When political donors are exempted or given special treatment by revenue laws, rent is also created.

Rent is what we may also call tax breaks or tax incentives that are given to the well-connected, independently of performance, and almost without expiry dates. There are presently more than a hundred existing Philippine laws that grant such duty and tax exemptions to a large assortment of enterprises and individuals. They are very costly in terms of taxes foregone. This is not to say that such special incentives or exemptions are all bad. Indeed, some of them are necessary to encourage investors to develop sectors of the economy that are either very risky or require enormous amounts of capital. The perks are given in exchange for enduring contributions to society's development objectives. But for these incentives not to degenerate into rents, they must be time-bound and linked to performance.

It is ironic, but not unexpected, that the recent legislative deliberations on the bill seeking the rationalization of such special incentives became the occasion for intense lobbying by congressmen on behalf of the particularistic interests they represent. We earlier saw this behavior in the debate on the cigarette and liquor tax. The same kind of lobbying is likely to mark the discussion of the bill seeking to raise the VAT by 2 percent and remove the exemptions from its coverage. Unless the voices of reason prevail-and one doubts this very much given the composition of the congressional majority-these attempts to set things right will eventually succumb to the overwhelming power of rent. The event will thus confirm Thomas McHale's 1959 description of the Philippines as a country where "business is born, and flourishes or fails, not so much in the market place as in the halls of the legislature or in the administrative offices of the government."

"Booty Capitalism," a book published by the Ateneo Press (1998), takes off from this insight. In it, the author, Paul Hutchcroft, identified the basic elements of this phenomenon as it exists in the Philippines: "(1) the high degree of favoritism, as when oligarchs and cronies plunder the state apparatus for particularistic advantage-a feature some have characterized as 'rent-seeking gone wild'; and (2) the capacity of those oligarchs currently holding official position to inflict punishment on their enemies." Hutchcroft provides a useful distinction between bureaucratic capitalism, in which "bureaucratic elite extracts privilege from a weak business class," and booty capitalism, where "a powerful business class extracts privilege from a largely incoherent bureaucracy."

The word "booty" emphasizes both the plunderous ways of Philippine capitalism and the violence that usually marks the scramble for booty. The principal protagonists in this struggle are the family-based oligarchies that have an economic base outside the state but need the resources of the state to accumulate wealth. They are the main sources of political contributions during elections, and in many ways, politicians and public officials are nothing more than their paid agents. As a captive institution, the booty capitalist state can play neither a regulatory nor a developmental role.

Under these conditions, Philippine politics is reduced to a cyclical struggle between the oligarchical "ins" and the oligarchical "outs," with the masses and the middle classes serving as their cannon fodder. Rationalization is the state's desperate attempt to distance itself from the oligarchy, an idea whose time has come, but, without a constituency, is bound to fail.

Leadership and the common good

2005-01-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

Leadership and the common good

Updated 10:14pm (Mla time) Jan 08, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 9, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THERE are many ways of classifying leaders. One way I find particularly useful to our current situation in the Philippines is based on a scheme developed by the American sociologist Amitai Etzioni. He differentiates leaders by the type of power they use and the kind of compliance they elicit from those they govern.

He says that leaders who rely mostly on coercive power to achieve their goals tend to develop alienative or resentful compliance among their followers. Leaders who primarily depend on remunerative power encourage calculative compliance. They do not get more than what they pay for. In contrast, leaders who deploy moral power are rewarded by normative compliance. A style of leadership breeds its own type of followers. The most enduring type of power, Etzioni says, is the moral one.

These are insights we can use to understand the leadership problems of our society.

The government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not a coercive regime, but neither does it thrive on the moral commitment of its citizens. President Arroyo herself is neither authoritarian nor charismatic. Her style is that of a politician par excellence: she pays her way to power. As a result, the kind of compliance she gets from those she deals with tends to be calculative -- meaning, people stay with her only for as long as she is useful to them. They neither fear nor respect her. Her periodic resort to threatening talk, like her public display of religious piety, persuades no one. It only breeds antipathy and distrust.

In his book, "The New Golden Rule" (1996), Etzioni writes: "Clearly, no society can entirely rely on a single source of motivation to help sustain compliance with the dictates of the social order. Thus, totalitarian societies rely to some extent on incentives and attempts at persuasion; and libertarian societies rely to some extent on force. Similarly, communitarian societies cannot and do not rely only on normative means. They still pay their civil servants, command police forces, and so on. However, they rely on normative means much more extensively, and their members are much more committed to maintaining order and much less likely to seek to undermine it than members of other societies. In short, the order of good societies relies significantly more on the moral voice than do other types of society."

For the last couple of years, the anti-gun social activist Nandy Pacheco has had the same insight into the nature of power. He saw the brittleness of the changes instituted under coercion, and the superficiality of the discipline bred and enforced by martial law. Filipinos could not wait to return to the old ways as soon as the regime was dismantled. Edsa People Power 1 could have been the start of a new moral order, but its communitarian message was pre-empted by the reactivation of the obsolete culture of dependence and patronage. Edsa People Power 2 gave us another chance at national renewal; the moral voice against corruption and profligacy in government resounded loud and clear. But again, the energy could not be sustained. Today the country is back to where it was just before martial law.

It's not anger or hope that fills the air, however. It's exhaustion and indifference. Less and less Filipinos care to do anything to alter the course of things; they just want to escape. The Arroyo government survives not because of the active support of the citizens, but simply because the alternative is unthinkable. People think the next upheaval may not be as tame as the two Edsa People Power uprisings.

Pacheco himself says he would not be inveigled into joining another Edsa People Power uprising. Not because he is tired, but because he thinks such political upheavals in our national life have been made to substitute for the steady and painstaking work for a better society. The only way the country can avoid the violent cleansing that seems to loom ahead, he says, is by restoring the ethical dimension to our public life. And this cannot be done overnight.

Pacheco's preferred mode of intervention is the formation of a national political party founded on the ideology of the common good. He calls it "Ang Kapatiran" or the Alliance for the Common Good. Here are Kapatiran's 10 ethical principles: Belief in God, Respect for life and human dignity, Strengthening of the family, Community participation, Basic rights and responsibilities, Preferential option for the poor and the vulnerable, Dignity of work and rights of workers, Care for nature as God's creation, Peace and active nonviolence, Solidarity and commitment to the common good.

Kapatiran's primer begins thus: "People need to be informed that the absence of responsible and accountable political parties with specific policy objectives, issues and concerns that promote the common good has been a major contributory factor to the problems that we now face." How true! Our political life today is the way it is because it has failed to tap the single resource in which our society is rich-solidarity. The "moral voice of the community" of which Etzioni speaks is strong in our tradition. The kind of citizenship it forms is more enduring because it draws on existing value commitments. The commitment it elicits is superior because "it is voluntary, rather than bought or forced."

Up to now, our notion of political democracy has been modeled after the market, where loyalties are bought like commodities. Etzioni, the scholar, and Pacheco, the social activist, are telling us that it is time to re-affirm democracy as a value commitment to pursue the common good.

Wika

2005-01-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

Wika

By Randy David
inq7.net

ON THE OCCASION of the Language Month, which is August, I received three invitations to speak on the politics of language. Because of other commitments I was unable to accept any of them. However, what I would have said at these symposia I have tried to synthesize in today's column which is written in Filipino. My thesis is that a nation's own language or languages grow in proportion to its consciousness of nationhood. They fade when the people's aspirations shift to modernity and participation in the larger world. Their decline is also an index of the marginalization of the masses in the nation's life.

Ang pag-unlad ng wika at ang pag-usbong ng kamalayan ay magkakabit. Pareho ang kanilang ugat-ang pangangailangang makipag-usap. Maliit na bahagi lang ng mga nangyayari sa atin sa araw-araw ang pumapasok sa ating kamalayan, ani Nietzsche, ang pilosopong pinagkunan ko ng mga kaisipang ito. Kung gaano katindi ang pangangailangang makipag-usap, ganoon din kalakas ang udyok na pagnilayan ang ating iniisip, dinarama, at ikinikilos. Ito ang bukal ng kamalayan. At kung gaano kapuno ang ating kamalayan, ganoon din kabigat ang hinihingi sa wikang ating ginagamit.

Habang lumalawak at lumalalim ang kamalayan, yumayaman din ang wikang ginagamit. Kung mababaw ang kamulatan, sapagkat hindi naging malakas at madalas ang udyok na makipag-usap, mananatili ring payak ang ginagamit na wika.

Tila ganito nga ang kapalarang sinapit ng ating mga katutubong wika. Naudlot ang pagsulong ng mga ito sapagkat sa kasalukuyang panahon hindi na ito ang ginagamit na daluyan ng pambansang huntahan. Noong panahon ng mga Kastila, ginamit ng mga prayle ang mga wikang ito bilang tagapaghatid ng mensahe ng kabanalan at pagka-masunurin. Kahit paano'y naisulat ito. Sumigla at lumakas ang ating mga katutubong wika nang magkamalay ang mga Pilipino at sinimulang gamitin ang mga ito bilang instrumento ng pagtutol at paghihimagsik, pagkakaisa at paglaya.

Natigil ang pag-unlad ng mga katutubong wika nang sakupin tayo ng mga Amerikano. Isinantabi nila ang ating mga wika at pinalaganap ang wikang Ingles sa mga paaralan. Naiwan ang ating mga katutubong wika sa bibig ng ating mga ninuno, ngunit ang henerasyon ng mga nangagsipag-aral na kabataan ay unti-unting nahiwalay sa pamayanan. Natutong mangusap at magsulat ang ating mga intelektwal sa isang wikang hindi nauunawaan ng mas malawak na pamayanan.

Ingles ang naging wika ng edukasyon, kapangyarihan, at modernong pamumuhay. Katutubong wika naman ang naging wika ng kamangmangan at ng makalumang pamumuhay. Nag-iiba lamang ang ganitong kalakaran kapag dumarating ang panahon ng pagtutol. Mula sa Katipunan hanggang sa Hukbalahap, mula sa Kabataang Makabayan hanggang sa NPA, sa lahat ng lansangan ng protesta, sumisigla ang mga katutubong wika bunga ng mayamang ugnayan ng mga katutubong intelektwal at masa.

Sapagkat mga kabataan ang nanguna sa muling pagsibol na ito ng wikang katutubo, pinakamalalim ang epekto nito sa kultura, laluna sa mga awitin at programa sa radio at telebisyon. Hanggang ngayon, patuloy nating inaani ang mga bunga ng pagyabong ng wika noong mga dekada ng protesta. Subalit sa ibang larangan, mapapansin na wari'y lubog na naman ang katutubong wika. Ang Ingles, ang wikang tinutulan ng henerasyon ng dekada setenta, ay ganap nang nakabawi, at ngayo'y lubos na namamayagpag sa halos lahat ng larangan ng kabuhayan at pamahalaan.

Kapag ang wikang katutubo ay nagagamit lamang kaugnay ng maliliit at walang halagang bagay, at ang wikang dayuhan ang nakakasanayang gamitin sa mas mataas na uri ng talastasan -- ang wikang katutubo'y nabubusabos habang ang dayuhang wika'y namumukod. Sa kalaunan, ang karamihan ay mag-iisip na sadyang nasa katutubong wika ang kakulangan. Kung walang nagpupunyaging isalin sa katutubong wika ang mahahalagang literatura at produktong intelektwal ng mga dayuhang kultura, iisipin ng marami na may likas na kakapusan ang ating sariling wika, at walang ibang lunas kundi pagsikaping pag-aralan ang wikang dayuhan.

Walang wikang umuunlad kung hindi ito naisusulat at nababasa. Walang wikang umuunlad kung ito'y hindi sinasanay na maglulan ng mga produkto ng kamalayan at iba't-ibang kaisipang hango sa maraming kultura. Kailangang makipag-usap ang ating katutubong wika sa mga wika ng ibang bansa, sa halip na isantabi ito, sa maling pag-aakalang hindi na ito angkop sa bagong panahon.

Ito'y bahagi pa rin ng paglaya, anang Palestinong manunulat na si Edward Said, bahagi pa rin ng pagnananais na muling maangkin ang nahiwalay na kaluluwa. Ang paghahabol sa katotohanan, ani Said, ang paghahanap ng kasaysayang mas angkop kaysa inaalay ng mananakop, ng bagong talaan ng mga bayani, mga alamat at relihiyon-itong lahat ang binibigyang-daan ng isang pambansang pananaw na muling umaangkin sa tinubuang lupa. Kaakibat ng mga ganitong makabansang pagpapahiwatig ang mahiwaga at kisapmatang pagsulong ng katutubong wika.

Huli na marahil para mangarap tayo ng isang pambansang pamunuang magtatampok sa katutubong wika bilang sagisag ng pagsasarili. Subalit hindi pa huli upang gumising tayo't magkusa-sa bawat maliit na larangang ating kinikilusan-na ipalutang sa himpapawid ang himig ng ating pambansang wika, nang walang pag-aatubili, pag-aalinlangan o pangingimi.

Hindi marahil sa isang language policy matatagpuan ang kinabukasan ng ating mga katutubong wika, kundi sa ating araw-araw na pagsasanay tungo sa isang demokratiko at nagsasariling bansa.

The Arroyo regime's nightmare

2005-01-07T16:49:00.000-08:00

The Arroyo regime's nightmare

Updated 04:24am (Mla time) Dec 12, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 11, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

NEVER before has this conflict become as obvious as it has today -- the clash between the interests of the government's creditors and the interests of its own citizens. The 2005 proposed national budget says it all. Of the P907.8 billion total budget for next year, the biggest chunk of P301.7 billion (33 percent) will go to interest payments. That is more than the P289.2 billion total salary bill for the country's 1.4 million government personnel.

Principal amortization of the national debt is another matter. For 2005, the amount needed is P445 billion, or almost half of the budget. Mercifully, it's not part of the budget because the needed funds will be borrowed; otherwise total debt payments would take up 82 percent of the nation's budget. Of the remaining amount, P176.8 billion will go to local government units, P67.8 billion is set aside for maintenance and other operating expenses, and the princely sum of P72.1 billion is allotted to capital outlay.

This is the budget; where the money will come from is not yet certain at this point. Not one new tax measure aimed at raising additional revenue has been signed into law. Next year looms as another deficit year, and additional borrowings are inevitable. Our hope is that the interest on new borrowings will not be much higher than what is charged our more stable neighbors. This is the reason for the frantic efforts to persuade credit rating firms-like Moody's Investor Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard & Poor's-not to downgrade the nation's credit standing.

To assure the creditors that the government would be able to pay all its obligations, President Macapagal-Arroyo affirmed the seriousness of the fiscal crisis in August and forthwith announced new tax measures. But to reassure the citizens that the burden will not be all that heavy, she declared in November that the crisis has passed. This is the desperate balancing act of a financially strapped government that is struggling to survive politically.

The conflict would not have arisen if the government had not been so dependent on borrowings. Moreover, it would not have become serious if people believe that the proceeds from all past debts had been properly used. The issue on both counts is the competence and integrity of the nation's leaders.

Independent economists have said that the country cannot expect to grow itself out of this debt hole. The hole has to be plugged first of all. We either pay up or we ask for debt relief. A request for debt relief is a confession of failure that signals danger all around. The only other option is to increase our ability to pay our debts. We have to stop the suicidal habit of borrowing just to finance interest payments. This means cutting costs and raising revenues, both of which are bound to hit the ordinary citizen in the form of reduced social services, higher utility costs, and higher taxes. How a regime that is still trying to legitimize its rule will allocate this pain is going to be a political nightmare.

Even as the government is trying to avoid the ripening of the fiscal crisis into an economic crisis, it is also worried that the clash of constituencies could develop into a full-blown class conflict. At this point, there is no way blood can be further squeezed from an impoverished population that is already reeling from the effects of joblessness, high prices, and natural calamities. The poor are not exactly in awe of the President or of the regime she represents. The middle classes have little flexibility left. They are also the most resentful of the costs of bad government.

It is not surprising that President Arroyo is unable to persuade her allies in Congress to pass the new tax measures and give up their pork barrel. They are answerable to their own constituencies as well as to their political patrons. But not a few are also convinced that the answer to the budget deficit is better tax collection rather than the imposition of new taxes. Rep. Herminio G. Teves, senior vice-chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, has been a sensible voice in this debate.

There is a huge gap, he says, between potential tax collection and actual taxes paid. The figures Teves cites are astounding. The National Statistics Office shows a Philippine population of about 13 million families. Four million of these live below the poverty line, five million have no taxable income, and only four million have taxable income from which roughly P180 billion in taxes can be collected. The Bureau of Internal Revenue records paint a different picture. Instead of four million families with taxable income, less than 700,000 families actually paid their income tax in 2003. Of the P76.7 billion yield in income taxes, 87.8 percent was paid by workers and employees through automatically withheld taxes!

The situation in the corporate sector is worse. A total of 451,309 corporations are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but only 113,145 firms have filed their corporate income tax, and of these only 10,833 actually paid taxes. The total yield from the corporations is only P100.8 billion.

Teves admonishes the well-off to pay their tax obligations in full. He argues for full transparency in tax payments so that the public may know if the lifestyle a person keeps is consistent with the taxes he pays. It all comes back to good governance and responsible citizenship. New taxes are a shortcut solution to what is basically a systemic problem. They promise not more revenue but only more evasion.

Fifteen reminders

2005-01-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

Fifteen reminders

Updated 08:27am (Mla time) Jan 02, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHEN one approaches retirement, the desire to communicate life's lessons to one's children tends to grow in proportion to their own increasing wish to be left alone to design their own lives. I suppose it is as it should be, for the problems our children will face are not necessarily going to be the same as the ones we faced and tried to solve in our time. We cannot preach to them; we can only whisper reminders to them.

Sometime ago, while feeling thoughtful and sentimental, I compiled a list of reminders that I would like my children to keep as they make their way through life. I intended them as a sequel to an earlier piece I wrote on virtues for a new world. (PDI, 9/10/00) They are things I wish someone had whispered to me when I was young. Here, on the advent of a new year, I would like to share them, for whatever they are worth, with the many young people who read this column.

I have gleaned many of these from my own experiences as well as from a lifelong engagement with philosophy and sociology. None of them is original; I am sure others have expressed them before in more eloquent ways.

In the light of the tragic events that have marked the closing days of the past year-the large-scale deaths caused by the recent killer tsunamis that swept Asia, and the landslides that hit Quezon, Aurora and Nueva Ecija-these reflections may seem inward-looking and uncaring, but it is only because they are focused on a different type of concerns. The quest for private perfection need not clash with the demands of social solidarity.

They may also seem unrepentantly secular insofar as they make no reference to the supernatural, but I like to think they are not at odds with the spiritual. Here they are:

1. Though our lives may be limited by circumstances not chosen by us, we nevertheless make choices all the time. Doing nothing, letting events dictate our lives, is also a choice. Be mindful of the choices you make. Do not abandon your actions; answer for them.

2. It is necessary to look after our selves. Try to look good always so you don't add to the world's gloominess. But do not forget that you also have a duty to live well with others. Give cheer, offer solidarity. Never be the cause of another person's humiliation.

3. Take care of your body, listen to its needs. It works in powerful ways, but it is not infinite in its capacities.

4. We each have our goals, big and small. Our goals are a mirror of our values. Always be conscious of what your goals are, and what it takes to achieve them. Do not hesitate to review and revise them by going back to the context that gave rise to them.

5. Living is essentially problem-solving. The solutions that work are often formulated from new ways of looking and describing. Observe how others look at life. Read and expand your moral vocabulary. Re-describe your life.

6. To understand a thing, science says, is to measure it against a standard. It is also to comprehend the context from which it sprang, and to know its uses. But remember: not everything is worth knowing.

7. Everyone has values. We acquire these in the course of our lives. Make sure your values serve you well; treat them as your "personal defense and necessity." Once you've settled on your values, live by them relentlessly.

8. The main purpose of living is to turn yourself into a beautiful and strong human being, a worthy link in the chain of generations. Each one of us is given a chance to be an artist: our selves are our first raw material.

9. Too often we become the slave of habit. Take time to pause and be silent, so that you can hear the voice of the inner self that may be struggling to free itself from mindless and debilitating routine.

10. There is no sure-fire formula for achieving anything. Armed with knowledge, you may also draw strength from having a lot of hope.

11. Live without resentment and guilt.

12. Love unconditionally and without expectation.

13. Be mindful of the world around you, and learn from Nature.

14. See clearly and act with grace.

15. Face each day with cheer.

Happy New Year!

Religion, cinema and politics

2004-12-26T22:13:00.000-08:00

Religion, cinema and politics

Updated 09:33pm (Mla time) Dec 25, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A11 of the December 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

OUTSIDE the church where his remains lay, Fernando Poe Jr.'s movies were being played for the common folk who lined up and waited for hours to take a last quick look at their idol. No scene more graphically captures the substance of Filipino culture. An FPJ movie has the same effect on his fans as a religious experience: the cleansing of the spirit and release from bondage. The actor has more in common with a prophet than with a politician.

They came not only to bid him goodbye. They were there also to thank him for his kindness, and to ask his spirit to continue to watch over them. In this manner do we, as Filipinos, accept the enigma of death. Death prompts us not only to recall where we have come from, but also to ask where we are going. The resolution of death's mystery constitutes the core of every religion.

Some observers have compared FPJ's funeral with that of Ninoy Aquino's in 1983. The crowds that attended the two events were comparable; FPJ and Ninoy were both heroic figures, but the similarity ends there. Ninoy's funeral was a political event that acquired religious meanings. FPJ's funeral, in contrast, was a religious moment that acquired political undertones. Ninoy, as a political symbol, gained in stature from the spiritualization of his death. His greatness has survived the failure of Edsa I. FPJ, as a cultural icon, stood to lose everything from the politicization of his death. His star would have dimmed if his funeral had sparked an Edsa IV.

A glance at the depreciation of politics in the eyes of our people would be enough to explain this phenomenon. So low has the image of the politician in our society sunk that hardly anyone who ventures into the world of politics today can hope to leave it with his name intact. It was for a good reason that Fernando Poe Jr. was a reluctant politician.

Some people have read political meanings into the passing reference made by Susan Roces to the way FPJ was unfairly treated during the presidential elections. But these statements must be taken in the context of the media interviews in which they were given. She was asked what she thought of the government's plan to honor her late husband by conferring on him a posthumous National Artist award and arranging for his burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. With admirable restraint, she questioned the integrity of this offer by comparing it with the foul manner in which her husband was portrayed during the election by the same administration that was now proposing to honor him. This great woman was determined not to allow her husband's death to be the instrument of anybody's political agenda.

Aware that these statements could easily be misreported as the launching of a political bid, Ms Roces stressed that she had no political ambition and would not run for any political office. But she also said that she would continue to champion the cause of the poor on whose behalf her husband had sought the presidency. This advocacy may inevitably cast her in a political role, but I believe her when she says that politics, as we know it in this country, is farthest from her nature.

If some politicians of the administration and the opposition thought that the grieving admirers of FPJ could be transformed into a raging mob and re-rerouted from the cemetery to the Palace, they were mistaken. They know nothing of the spiritual nature of mourning in our culture, a purgation rather than a loading of the emotions.

The Arroyo administration should be ashamed of itself for reacting the way it did during the funeral. Instead of maintaining a respectful silence in the face of the collective mourning for a fallen warrior, it called in the Armed Forces to fortify and defend the Palace against the assault of an imagined enemy. The justice secretary, Raul Gonzales, appeared on television to issue a warning against acts of sedition, forgetting that the Arroyo regime he serves was installed in 2001 by such acts of sedition. The state would be constrained to defend itself, he intoned. So it will--against the sovereign people. The secretary personifies the pathetic paranoia of a government that, because of its own duplicity, has become fearful of its citizens.

If this government falls, it will not be because of the anger of FPJ's grieving supporters. It will collapse from the weight of its own corruption, hypocrisy and incompetence. And, yes, from its own fears. President Macapagal-Arroyo would have learned nothing if all she saw at the funeral were the anti-government messages that some of the actor's admirers wrote on banners and manila paper. For the real message of the funeral was the deep affection that the simple folk lavished upon the man they regarded as a hero. If she had watched Susan Roces during all this time, she might also have learned a lesson on what it means to speak from the heart.

How sad that our politics should be discontinuous from our people's faith. How tragic that our nation's leaders should be the opposite of the movie world's heroes. Should one still wonder why our voters try to repair this weakness by turning to preachers and movie actors for leadership? We know, of course, that the solution does not lie in this, nor in the vain attempt to discredit preachers and actors who enter politics. The solution, reason tells us, lies alone in the urgent task of reforming and elevating politics itself.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the writer Judith Butler asked: "What, politically, might be made of grief besides a cry for war?"

It is a question we might ask ourselves in this season of tragedy and grace.

The immortal FPJ

2004-12-19T02:29:00.000-08:00

The immortal FPJ

Updated 02:29am (Mla time) Dec 19, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHEN a man as popular and as deeply-loved as Fernando Poe Jr. dies, we can be sure that many will try to claim him as one of their own. But FPJ always knew where he belonged-with the masa. Da King is not dead; he lives in their consciousness.

He was their hero, their benefactor, their protector and friend. He gave them hope for a better life, but above all, he showed them what a Filipino in these times could be. Loyal, kind, brave and strong.

Every society in every age projects a model of the national character. In Europe, it was the educated aristocrat who lived for the arts. In Latin America, it was the cavalier, the gallant horseman who personified courtesy and nobility. In Japan, it was the warrior who lived by a strict code of chivalry. In the Philippines, it is the quiet ordinary man who never bothers anyone, keeps his emotions in check in the face of provocation, but stands as a pillar of strength against abuse.

FPJ portrayed that kind of man in the movies, even as he strove to live his life by that same ideal. He didn't talk much in his films or in real life. He preferred the casual conversation of his loyal buddies over the rituals of social gatherings. He avoided the limelight not out of snobbishness, but out of shyness. He put a distance between him and those who would peer into his private life. In a world that made it its business to report every detail of an actor's life, FPJ remained an intensely private person. As an actor, he shunned all media interviews. He never promoted his own films. To solicit votes as a candidate and court media approval would have been, for him, the most arduous thing he had ever done.

Individuals like him measure their worth not by the amount of money they have but by the fidelity of their friends and followers. To the needy, they give not out of pity, but from a deep sense of duty. They expect nothing in return. Their power over their men is not based on acquired or inherited rights but on the grace of their charisma.

Though they are leaders of men, it is camaraderie they seek more than sheer power. They themselves avoid being beholden to the wealthy and powerful, though the latter may often seek their friendship. Respect is the tribute the powerful pay to such natural leaders.

These are not feudal lords; they are rather the present counterpart of our pre-hispanic tribal leaders. They eat and drink with their men. They fight the same battles, share the same jokes and sing the same songs. They wear the same clothes, eat the same food and wipe their faces with the same cheap towels permanently slung over their necks. But the hierarchy is inviolable and it is affirmed by the ultimate responsibility the leader takes for the actions of all his men.

So immense is this responsibility that the leader instinctively thinks first of the welfare of his men before he would ask them to do anything for him. Wisdom overrides pride. Restraint is the rule. For the leader is aware of the high cost of impulse.

The responsibility comes with the territory. FPJ's charismatic authority extended beyond his studio. He was the entire movie industry's leader, a role he shared with his bosom buddy and fellow actor, Joseph "Erap" Estrada. These two men were passionately protective of the industry and knew its vital role in the lives of the ordinary people who watched their movies. They felt answerable to them.

FPJ and Erap were a category by themselves. By the time they migrated to the world of politics, their stature in the eyes of the masa had gone beyond the movie roles they played. This was especially true of FPJ, whose distance and reserve in real life closely paralleled the traits he personified in film. The mystique of FPJ was larger than Erap's. He evoked awe where Erap elicited comradeship. The masa loved Erap, but they revered FPJ.

FPJ was too pure for politics. His charisma clashed with the requirements of political battles. There was a real danger that politics could dissolve the very things that the masa valued in him-his remoteness from all ambition, his disdain for power, his decency and his independence. The political arena forced him to articulate his ambition, to explain his quest for power, and to risk his integrity and independence by the alliances he had to make. He was already king in the hearts of the masa. People who admired him asked why, in heaven's name, did he aspire to be a mere politician.

His charisma was his weapon, but it was also his vulnerability. From day one, the enemy's artillery was aimed at demystifying him. They questioned his citizenship, they dug up his private life in order to cast doubt on his integrity and most of all, they belittled his intelligence by pointing out his limited formal schooling. Through all this, he kept quiet, staunchly refusing to retaliate in kind. The media mocked his reticence and equated it with ignorance.

Even as Congress was locked in a highly disputed canvass, he remained a responsible leader till the end, carefully skirting the dangerous path to demagoguery. He kept the flames under such a tight lid that his opponents thought he had no fire in the belly when he refused to lead his supporters into the streets. How badly they misread him!

In death, FPJ has finally prevailed. As president of this country, he would have governed for at most six years. Part of him would have died during that period. But now he lives forever in the memory of the masa to whom he will always be the kind of human being they want him to be.

Comments to davidinquirer@yahoo.com

The instinct for honesty

2004-12-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

The instinct for honesty

Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Dec 05, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I'VE sometimes wondered why "corruption" is the word used for acts of dishonesty committed by people in positions of trust. Corruption means debasement, decay, deterioration, weakening. These terms are usually applied to metal and, in particular, to living matter. So, what is it that decays, deteriorates, or weakens in corrupt people?

Is it morality? Virtue? But these are notions that change over time. I think that what corruption signifies when applied to human behavior is the weakening of instincts-in this case, the instinct for honesty. On this simple instinct depends many of our social institutions. Instincts are sources of energy, and corruption is "energy in decline."

The phrase comes from Nietzsche, who wrote: "For there to be institutions, there must be a kind of will, instinct, imperative, which is anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to centuries of responsibility to come, the will to solidarity of generational chains stretching forwards and backwards in infinitum." When a person violates the trust that is lodged in his social role in a moment of opportunism, he weakens the institutional chain of which he is a vital link.

It is in this sense that one might explain the harshness with which US Army authorities at the Infantry School in Fort Benning treated 2nd Lt. Rolly A. Joaquin after he was caught switching the discount tags for merchandise at the school's commissary. The misdeed involves the glorious sum of 50 cents. That was what Lieutenant Joaquin, the brightest of his Philippine Military Academy class, stood to gain. In the context of Fort Benning's jealously protected institutional pride, dishonesty is not defined by the amount of money that is stolen. It is defined by the act itself-the breach of trust. Ambassador Ramon J. Farolan, himself a former military man, made a similar point in a previous column on this page.

It is a point that is largely forgotten in today's world, where the gravity of an act is typically reduced by referring to the material insignificance of what is gained or taken. We know it is against the rules-it is not supposed to be done-but since the value is petty, it is therefore not really wrong. This mode of reasoning is only one step removed from other common techniques of neutralization, such as: "The value is small compared to what the government or the company earns," "I am entitled to it because I have paid for it," "No one gets hurt," "Everyone is doing it anyway," or "The rules are stupid."

The other day, after I spoke at a teachers' congress, somebody slipped me a note about high officials in state universities and colleges who abuse their privileges by habitually filling up their private vehicles with gasoline paid for by the government. The practice, I'm afraid, is as rampant as the unauthorized use of public vehicles for personal purposes. Petty as they may seem compared to large-scale graft, such practices constitute the model for more serious offenses in the bureaucracy.

What is this model? Even if we know it is wrong, we do it anyway because it is easy, and because it would be stupid not to do it. We don't even have to summon willfulness to do it. All that is needed is weakness, a lack of self-esteem and pride. Similarly, we do what is right not out of a sense of duty, or conviction, or instinct, but simply out of fear or lack of opportunity to do otherwise. These are symptoms of a culture in decline.

Natural calamities may often challenge our will to live, but if they don't kill us, we might emerge from them stronger and more united. But corruption is something else. Its danger is insidious. It weakens the whole community and its effects are passed on across generations. In this sense, the fury of a thousand typhoons is nothing compared to the demoralization and cynicism that corruption in the military has brought upon the nation.

Discipline and duty are the hallmarks of the armed forces. No other institution draws its purpose more from the nation than the military. Thus, when the rottenness in the armed forces is exposed, what does this signify for the nation? It can only mean we have hit the limit, beyond which we cannot go further without calling into question the nation's very reason for being. At that point, we would do our people and the world a great favor if our leaders openly admitted failure and allowed the United Nations to supervise our affairs.

Although many of our people are leaving this country in desperation, I refuse to think we have already crossed the line in our seemingly irresistible drift toward decay. Yet the current situation is urgent enough to warrant a close examination of what the crisis of our institutions is telling us.

To my mind, it is warning us of the exhaustion of the sense of responsibility for the future. This is manifest in the growing inability of our young people to identify with anything worthy beyond themselves and their families. The Filipino nation as a collective undertaking seems so remote from their everyday concerns. National pride has become pass‚. For many, there is hardly anything left in which to anchor a sense of personal honesty.

In times like these, heroic figures with immense energy usually come forward to revive the flagging spirits of a people. The slightest most accidental stimulus can often bring them out, says Nietzsche. I think we need not wait for a Filipino Napoleon to get us out of the doldrums. The power of consistent example in daily life by those whose instinct for honesty remains strong should turn the tide.

Alternatives to a dysfunctional gov't

2004-11-28T05:09:00.000-08:00

Alternatives to a dysfunctional gov't

Updated 05:09am (Mla time) Nov 28, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TWO venerable national figures this week offered blunt solutions to the problems confronting our society. National Artist and novelist F. Sionil Jose called for a "revolution" in a lecture at the University of the Philippines. Business leader Washington SyCip told a forum of the League of Corporate Foundations that the country might benefit from a switch to authoritarian rule at this time. In their separate ways, they have publicly articulated views that many thoughtful Filipinos are expressing in private gatherings.

The specifics of such solutions are seldom clear. The two are not known to be ideologues. I was present at Jose's lecture, but on SyCip's intervention at the Makati briefing, I am only relying on newspaper reports.

Jose argued that mass poverty is the principal problem of our society. He ascribes this to three factors: the loss of our ethical moorings, our lack of a sense of nation, and the betrayal of the nation by its leaders. The masa, he says, must free themselves through a revolution launched by their own leaders and guided by their own creed.

SyCip's comments were prompted by a paper read by UP Prof. Ben Diokno on the current fiscal crisis. He said that he was realistic enough to know that Diokno's recommendations would be ignored by Congress. "There is nothing wrong with the Filipino," SyCip was quoted as saying. "But there is nothing right in our political system. We follow blindly the things that work in western countries but do not work in Asian developing countries. What we have right now is not working."

I agree absolutely with Jose that mass poverty is our society's biggest problem, but I am not certain that a masa revolution, whatever it may mean, is feasible today or even that it is the best approach to solving poverty. My doubt stems from the belief that what is referred to as the Filipino masa today, unlike in Bonifacio's time, is not a politically or economically coherent force capable of mounting its own revolution. I also believe that mass poverty in our country is only partly the result of the unequal distribution of wealth. Its basic cause is the underdevelopment of our economy-the lack of dynamism in the technological front, the low level of skills of our people, the paucity of new investments, the lack of jobs, the slow pace of modernization in agriculture, etc. The experiences of China and Vietnam show that these conditions are not necessarily corrected by a masa revolution.

SyCip's argument about the dysfunctions of our blind adoption of the western political system, on the other hand, seems so commonsensical one can hardly disagree with it. Definitely, we should find a mode of government that works for us, that is consistent with the culture of our people, and appropriate to the urgent problems we confront today. But, again, the question is: what form shall it take? What makes us think that President Macapagal-Arroyo can pull a trick similar to martial law, or that anyone can seize power by extra-constitutional means and impose an authoritarian regime? I believe only those who imagine scenarios outside of history can seriously think that Filipinos would be willing to give up their liberties again and try another dictator.

Our problem is not that the presidency lacks powers. Our problem is that we have an incumbent who cannot exercise the powers inherent in the office. This situation arises from the deeply flawed manner by which Ms Arroyo rose to the presidency in 2001 and in 2004. In both instances, the stabilizing and legitimizing role of electoral majorities was not allowed expression. The vacuum was filled by political operators and organized groups that successfully manipulated the public's need to quickly restore normalcy. It is to these powerbrokers that the President feels beholden. Lacking in moral authority, she is unable to demand sacrifices from a public that did not vote for her. Weak and having no constituency of her own, she finds herself kowtowing to fellow politicians and predatory syndicates that could turn against her anytime. The role of the public must be restored.

Three steps at least are needed to turn the country around. First, a large and articulate constituency for reform must assemble itself from the countless fragmented voices and social movements that are already making themselves heard in our society today. Its first task is to draw and agree on a realistic roadmap to national recovery, carefully marking out the main obstacles and dangers and indicating the immediate priorities to be tackled. Second, the document must be explained and debated in public fora all over the country, refined, and then presented to the President and Congress for action. And third, depending on the response of the present political leadership, the reform movement may either call for new elections or a constitutional convention or both.

As important as drawing such a roadmap is the whole exercise of forming a public consensus in which the vast majority of our people can participate. This is what the last presidential elections should have achieved if the political discourse had not been distorted by the fears and resentments arising from Edsa II.

Our problems may seem awesome but they are not insurmountable. The opportunities for social transformation are already to be found in our present milieu. However, we must contend not only with the forces of reaction but also with those whose idea of change is limited to what the writer Roberto Unger calls "an all-or-nothing, cataclysmic regeneration of society."

Hacienda Luisita

2004-11-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Hacienda Luisita

Updated 01:41am (Mla time) Nov 21, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT is a testimony to the power of modern symbols that the name "Hacienda Luisita" today evokes only images of a busy shopping mall, a sprawling golf club and a techno-business park. Not too long ago, it referred distinctly to the largest sugar land estate in all of Central Luzon, owned by one of the region's wealthiest clans, the Cojuangcos, and encompassing in its vastness 11 barrios in three towns in the province of Tarlac. Despite its veneer of modernity, however, the 6,453-hectare Hacienda Luisita is still a sugar plantation, one of the last relics of the pre-capitalist era.

How the hacienda survived successive land reform laws and remained intact as a land estate controlled by the same family across generations dramatizes the essentially static character of the Philippine class structure.

When Tarlac Rep. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, a fifth-generation Cojuangco scion, protested that the trouble at the hacienda recently was an industrial dispute and not an agrarian problem, he was technically correct. The workers both at the sugar mill and at the farm were demanding higher wages, not land. They were negotiating with a management team, not with a landlord. They were constituted as a workers' union, not as a peasant movement.

But the memory of social identities long established is not so easily erased by a change in nomenclature. The Cojuangcos are still looked upon in Tarlac as landlords. And that term carries both positive and negative associations. Their old workers still look upon them as moral elders. As sources of benevolence, it is to them they turn for all their problems. The younger people who have gone to school however see them merely as feudal survivors who stubbornly cling to their traditional possessions and privileges. The democratic view is that instead of seeking refuge in a stock distribution scheme, they should have transferred their landholdings to their tenants and workers, and moved on to become real industrialists in the new era.

The agrarian question was clearly not the issue in this dispute, but now it has framed, both emotionally and ideologically, the conflict that led to the violent death of 14 people last Tuesday. The public does not distinguish between the workers at the sugar mill who were not striking, and the thousands of farmhands and sacadas at the plantation who had put up the barricade. When the police and military troops appeared on the scene with an armored personnel carrier, the simple message instantly communicated by this picture was that of a government coming to the rescue of an obsolete ruling class.

The classic themes of the Huk rebellion and the Maoist revolution have suddenly come to life. The class wars of the 1950s and the 1960s have returned to the political consciousness to interrogate the democratic claims of the intervening years. The two Edsa people power events are suddenly stripped of their meanings. And that serene icon of the first Edsa, Cory Aquino, is dragged back to the front stage to answer for the massacre of the peasants at Hacienda Luisita. The Maoists would have been stupid not to see the potency of these images.

But the fact that the armed underground movement is exploiting these events for its own purposes should not diminish the public outrage over this brutal and unconscionable display of state power. This is what we fought against at Edsa-the arrogant use of armed troops of the state to break up the protest action of defenseless civilians, and the privileging of the rights of property over the lives of people.

This is not a fight between the legacy of Edsa and the promise of a real revolution waiting to happen. Because of its urban middle class composition, Edsa I may not have been forceful about agrarian rights. But it was unequivocal in its espousal of human rights and political democracy. Its image may have been tarnished by the decision of President Cory Aquino's family to retain ownership of Hacienda Luisita through a stock option maneuver. But the general spirit of social reform that Edsa I embodies has made it possible for social movements and people's organizations to insert the people's agenda in the public consciousness.

There is widespread horror and indignation over the cruel dispersal of the strike at Hacienda Luisita because of this. There is renewed interest today in the fate of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law also because of this. It is as it should be. We must build from the democratic gains of all past struggles and uprisings. Only by defending and remaining faithful to the values for which they fought do we honor the memory of those who offered their lives to these struggles.

All the same, there is no justifiable reason to picket the former president's home on Times Street or to lay the blame for the Hacienda Luisita workers' death at her door. She has no hand in the running of the family corporation. We become a stronger people, I think, when we choose to remember Cory as the brave widow who, after her husband's murder, accepted a role thrust upon her by history and catalyzed the unity of a nation against tyranny. We ultimately do ourselves a great disservice if we paint her as the enemy.

A school in Macarascas

2004-11-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

A school in Macarascas

Updated 05:38am (Mla time) Nov 14, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

MACARASCAS is one of the many sparsely populated barrios of Puerto Princesa in Palawan. It is the home of the St. Ezequiel Moreno Parish, about an hour's ride by jeep from the city center on the newly built concrete road to Sabang and the famous St. Paul underground river. A cut on this tourist highway leads to a narrow dirt road that goes to the impoverished community of Macarascas. This is the other face of Palawan, the one hidden by the opulence of classy resorts like Amanpulo, El Nido and Dos Palmas and by big-ticket projects like Malampaya Gas.

More than five years ago, the parish priest of Macarascas, Fr. Broderick Pabillo, embarked on his own dream project-a rural boarding school for girls that would serve the more than 30 communities comprising his parish. The idea struck him after seeing how the children, who lived in the parish while they were attending the public schools nearby, routinely lost interest in learning. One by one they would quit school, either to work as house help in the city or to go back to their communities, get married and have children of their own. He thought something had to be done to break this cycle of ignorance, poverty and hopelessness. He sensed that the public schools were trapped in their own inadequacies, mechanically promoting illiterate children year after year in fulfillment of their bureaucratic mandates. A great believer in the transforming power of education, Father Pabillo refused to yield to this reality.

He sought permission from his bishop to set up a non-formal school in which the children of his parish could be given the education he thought they deserved and needed. He linked up with the DepEd-accredited Angelicum School in Quezon City which follows a non-graded curriculum based on varying levels of competency. In effect, what he was setting up was a comprehensive tutorial boarding school that would help the children graduate to higher levels through periodic examinations.

He then explained the concept to the parents in his parish. Their response was enthusiastic, but the school could not possibly admit every child. Father Pabillo decided to start with 40 kids ranging in age from 12 to 18, focusing on the girls who, in the typical scheme of rural life, were deemed most undeserving of a proper education. He worked on the intuition that the rural revolution by education he had in mind stood a greater chance of succeeding if women were at the center of it.

His parishioners, mostly peasants and indigenous tribes who gathered forest products for a living, were in no position to contribute money toward the education of their children. He did not expect them to, but they offered to send food and, more important, to help build the school. Father Pabillo wrote to his friends and contacts in Manila and abroad for assistance in maintaining the school. The money is always short, but he has become used to running this free boarding school from month to month on a tight and uncertain budget. In his mid-50s, this man of deep faith is unfazed. Besides running the school, he continues to minister to the spiritual needs of remote villages, riding a small motorcycle every day, hiking for hours, or crossing the sea so that he could celebrate Mass for his isolated parishioners at least once a month.

In October this year, my wife and I, with our three children and granddaughter, went to Macarascas to visit our youngest daughter who had volunteered to teach in this school for a year. I had imagined it to be a cool idyllic retreat up in the mountains, surrounded by waterfalls and lush forest growth.

Macarascas bears no resemblance to these postcard snapshots of the travel agency's Palawan. Electricity has not reached this community. Water from the wells is not potable; the school harvests rain water for drinking. The land is barren, the surrounding hills show the scars of relentless logging, and on the day we arrived, it was hot and humid. But the children's faces were full of life and wonder. This was a field of dreams, and from the moment I set foot on it, I was certain that our daughter had found what she was looking for when she left a secure career as a corporate executive to become a Jesuit volunteer.

When I was a student in the '60s, we used to distinguish the hard-nosed activists who did political organizing from the soft-hearted do-gooders who volunteered for community work. In an age dominated by the rhetoric of radical anti-imperialism, the word "do-gooder" was a vicious slur. The university was supposed to produce political activists and not social workers.

Things have changed. Political organizing no longer holds the same spell on students as in those days when not a few abandoned their studies to become full-time cadres of the revolution. The kind of compulsion and sense of duty that drew an entire generation of young Filipinos to political activism just vanished. The good news is that, today, there is a rekindling of this radical selflessness among many young people, and it is finding expression in many acts of quiet volunteerism.

It is to such a generation that individuals like Fr. Broderick Pabillo speak. Educated abroad in biblical studies, he taught theology and philosophy at various seminaries for many years. He was a scholar and read papers at conferences. One day, he realized that the priesthood in our time must mean more than this. He wrote the bishop of Puerto Princesa and asked to be assigned to a remote parish. The bishop sent him to Macarascas. He never looked back.

Middle America

2004-11-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

Middle America

Updated 10:40am (Mla time) Nov 07, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

NO other country today affects the world the way America does. Americans have a full appreciation of their nation's immense power but, in general, they tend to have a retarded view of the great responsibility that comes with this power. Global in reach, they remain incredibly parochial in consciousness.

The presidential election last Tuesday brought out the power of insular Middle America. Conservative, deeply nationalistic, moralistic and wary of foreigners, this side of America found its voice in George W. Bush. The other America-progressive, cosmopolitan, pragmatic and tolerant-found itself buried by an avalanche of voters who could find nothing in common with the more urbane John Kerry.

The rest of the world was reduced to watching how American voters choose their leaders, faintly hoping that the results would somehow reflect global sentiments against American unilateralism under a Bush presidency. But in the end, Middle America's voters did not really care how their country behaved in the world stage. They looked at global conflicts through the narrow prism of their own domestic security. And so, while intervention abroad-whether benign or imperialistic-does not sit well with them, they understood what Bush was saying: America has to fight the terrorists abroad so that it need not fight them at home.

We were wrong to think that, with Iraq and the global war on terror emerging as the focal point in the presidential debates, voters would see the folly of having gone to war alone and the danger of further isolation. We forgot that the average American does not read the New York Times or the Washington Post or watch BBC. He would not be able to point Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines on the map. While he would be distressed by the number of dead American soldiers being brought home from the war front, he would be unaffected by any suggestion that his country has violated any international law. It is an ironic fact that foreign affairs remains foreign to most Americans. This election was inward-looking, and probably even more so than previous US elections.

But more than the insularity, it is the further drift to right-wing conservatism and moral absolutism that has been the hallmark of this election. Bush's strategists appear to have been fully aware of this shift in the cultural life of America, and they responded to it by weaving morality-based themes into their campaign agenda. But more than this, they succeeded in narrowing the meaning of moral values to suit the definitions of the Christian Right. One leaflet widely circulated in Ohio said it all: "George W. Bush shares your values: Marriage. Life. Faith." These words were printed on a picture of a typical American family going to a small church. Rural and traditional Americans came out to vote. They voted against same-sex marriage and abortion, and proclaimed the importance of moral absolutes in the nation's life. Yet they ignored the dishonest way Bush avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, and the dirty way in which political power has been used to advance the business interests of the Bush family and their partners.

There is no way Kerry could have won these votes. A divorced Catholic who married a divorcee, this progressive liberal from the New England state of Massachusetts shied away from sectarian pronouncements. The Democrats could not have found a better candidate than this level-headed man-a decorated war hero, a veteran senator who understood the nuances of global politics, and a statesman who felt squeamish about quoting the Bible to score a political point. In a world threatened by a clash of fundamentalisms, such a leader should be president of the United States. His defeat demonstrates in no uncertain terms that the Democrats have lost the ideological battle. In retrospect, perhaps, not even the charismatic Bill Clinton would have been able to override the moral stigma that his moment of weakness with Monica Lewinski appears to have stamped upon his party.

But it is clear that America remains an ideologically split nation. Bush won 51 percent of the popular vote, while Kerry took 48 percent. Kerry won the economic centers of the East and West Coast, while Bush carried the small rural counties of the Midwest and the South. Kerry won the black and immigrant vote, while Bush took a big majority of the white vote. Kerry won the intelligentsia but lost Middle America.

The Democrats must now re-assess their situation to be able to fight for a more tolerant and progressive America. Democracy is no good without an effective opposition, and an American Empire run by a triumphalist right-wing party is a big danger to the rest of the world.

It was no doubt in the spirit of fighting another day and preserving what is left of the support the party enjoys that Kerry graciously conceded the crucial electoral votes in Ohio instead of going into a prolonged audit of the contested provisional votes. No one loves a sore loser in American society, especially at a time when Americans need most to feel united. And so, as in the controversial 2000 election, the Democrats allowed the institutional process to dictate the electoral outcome and decently acknowledged their defeat.

America may have made a big mistake in re-electing Bush, but few will deny its admirable vitality as a democratic nation. We can criticize America for its arrogance in world affairs, but there is much to admire in the way Americans govern themselves. They follow the law and take their government seriously. They are unflinching in their beliefs. They love their country, and their country takes care of its citizens. Such is a strong nation.

The military in a corrupt society

2004-10-31T00:36:00.000-07:00

The military in a corrupt society

Updated 00:36am (Mla time) Oct 31, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 31, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

"MORE than any other comparable Filipino elite, the officer corps had been created and defined by the nation. No other group had its social role, ideology and personal values so directly, so fundamentally shaped by the state." So writes the historian Alfred W. McCoy in his fascinating book, "Closer Than Brothers" (Anvil Publishing), a comparative study of two batches in the Philippine Military Academy-the classes of 1940 and 1971.

Only 30 years separate these two PMA classes from one another, notes McCoy, and yet the difference in mind-set is so sharp that one would have thought they were bred by two distinct institutions. "Class '40 is a study of successful military socialization....Graduating on the eve of war, Class '40 won honors for fighting enemy invaders, were ennobled by privation in Japanese prisoner war camps, and emerged with their bonds and values stiffened....As soldiers in a society permeated by patronage politics, Class '40 faced incessant pressures to compromise. Their careers required, on a daily basis, mediation of the paradoxical, even contradictory role of the military in a democratic society-subordinated to politicians yet apolitical; armed yet nonviolent, all-powerful yet powerless."

At the other end is Class '71, "a study in the breakdown of military socialization," says McCoy. "Instead of fighting enemy invasion, the young lieutenants of Class '71 were brutalized by combat against Muslims in Mindanao and interrogation of suspected subversives in Manila....They emerged from a decade in the safe houses of the Marcos regime with a superman sense of themselves as creator/destroyers who could seize the state and transform society."

It was to Class '40 that men of honor like Gen. Victor Osias and Commodore Ramon Alcaraz, who both refused to compromise with Marcos, belonged. Addressing the members of the PMA class of 1990, who had joined the 1987 coup as cadets, Alcaraz sharply reminded his young audience of what it meant to be a soldier: "Go forth out there and be a strong moral force in transforming the military into a profession of honor which it used to be."

To Class '71, on the other hand, belong the officers who plotted the 1986 coup that led to Edsa I, and controversial figures like colonel and former senator Gregorio Honasan who mounted coups against the Aquino government, and police general and now senator Panfilo Lacson, whose record McCoy associates with torture and summary execution of criminal suspects. McCoy's unkindest depiction of them is as political egomaniacs who played god. Nowhere in the book is there a mention of Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, another member of this class. The information that the US government has shared about the amount of money that General Garcia and his family have brought into the United States over the past 10 years demonstrates the magnitude of corruption in the military. An updated version of the book would no doubt include a whole chapter on General Garcia-one more proof of the decline of honor among the officers who were initiated into the cynical ways of power under Marcos.

It would be unfair to single out one PMA batch and ascribe to it all the failings of military leadership. But indeed no PMA class has figured in more controversies as the Class of '71. This class clearly counted in its ranks many strong individuals with great leadership potential. McCoy's point is that these soldiers used these qualities to ruin the nation in whose image they were cast, because somewhere along the way they lost their basic military values and began to imagine themselves as worthy players in a society ruled by corrupt politicians.

McCoy explains this as a failure of military socialization. This view places the onus of responsibility for the failings of the officer corps on the Philippine Military Academy and its curriculum. We may need to dig deeper than that to understand the problem.

It is a fact that the modern values instilled in the minds of PMA cadets bear little resemblance to the distorted values of our society. But this is nothing unusual. The education of a student in any of our better universities features the same discrepancy. There is nothing wrong with the socialization of our young people. But the ideals they learn at school are easily negated by the practical realities of the world into which they are subsequently thrown. Members of the Class of 1940 remained men of honor because they did not have to contend with political leaders as vicious as those we have today. Like the rest of their generation, they were animated by the spirit of nation-building. Today's politicians are seldom gripped by such ideals. You cannot have professional soldiers in a nation governed by corrupt and incompetent leaders. They will either try to seize power or become part of the rotten system.

Ex-Captain Rene Jarque says as much in a poignant letter he recently wrote to his fellow Filipino West Pointers: "We have known the rottenness of the system all along and how the culture in the AFP was not and is not conducive to professional growth and honest conduct. It was never reflective of the Academy's motto, 'Duty, Honor, Country.' Some of us gave it a chance, found it unwieldy and incorrigible, and left. Some stuck with the system and played it out only to be sucked into the vortex of corruption and unprofessional conduct. I was trying my best to be as professional and as patriotic but I could never be honest given the extent of the graft and corruption in the AFP. And that was, I believed, unacceptable to my sense of honor and integrity. Hence, I left."

The general's lawyer

2004-10-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

The general's lawyer

Updated 00:46am (Mla time) Oct 24, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 24, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANY who lived through martial law cannot look at a man in uniform without somehow recalling its horrors. It is a perceptual association that has survived the graying of memory. You have to keep telling yourself that the evil was in the regime, not necessarily in the individuals it used.

It's not always easy to heed this voice. Thus it was with much satisfaction that I watched Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia's grilling by a congressional committee. I imagined the young legislators who were questioning him to be the children of our generation, leveling off the score for the countless activists summoned before military bodies during those dark years. For a while, I even forgot that Rep. Imee Marcos, who asked very sharp questions, was the dictator's daughter.

Everything I detested in the military during its heyday -- the smugness, the arrogance, the corruption, and the malevolence -- seemed to merge in the corpulent general's persona. So powerful was the wicked glow he emitted that I thought it gave even his seatmate -- the kindly Gen. Narciso Abaya -- a shadowy mien. If a man's culpability were to be determined by the way he looked, there was no question General Garcia was a guilty man.

It was in the middle of these ruminations that I suddenly caught a glimpse of the general's lawyer seated just beside him. Half-expecting a well-dressed lawyer from the country's expensive law firms or a familiar face from the roster of champions of lost causes, I was totally unprepared for what I saw. The general's counsel looked like my old friend Constantino B. de Jesus, my roommate in school and a dear brother. "That's not Tito," my wife assured me, "the chin is too small." "Of course, it is Tito," I pressed, "without the goatee." Only Tito buttons his cotton barong at the neck. "That's him," I said with increasing discomfort. Tito is a competent, meticulous, low-profile lawyer of unassailable integrity. He certainly does not need the money or the publicity. What, in heaven's name, is he doing beside this man who has practically been pilloried in public as a crook?

Later that day I sent him this message: "You must have a reason for burdening yourself with such an indefensible case. I'm dying to hear it." He replied, "I'll call you later." We met the other day and talked for about six hours about the practice of law, the responsibility of lawyers, the fragility of our institutions, and his own 32-year-career as a litigator, sometimes as a court-appointed counsel for convicts on death row.

"I hope you're being paid well," I said unfairly. "So far, I have received a regular helping of Hall's candy from him," he said laughing. "Of course, the sins of the client should not be visited upon the lawyer," I added, hoping to erase the mild insult I had just uttered. Tito has been my friend since college days at the UP. We meet for lunch at least once a month to exchange notes about family, country, and life in general. To one another, we are as brother, philosopher, and friend. I was surprised he did not seek my advice on whether to take this case or decline it.

"I didn't know him from Adam," he said. "People I implicitly trust asked me to help him. His first lawyer had just withdrawn his counsel, and a congressional committee has been waiting to put him on the stand. I am a lawyer; a lawyer's oath makes no distinction on who to defend."

I asked if he did not think it was necessary for his client to tell him beforehand what his story was. "No, things happened very fast. He was in the hospital. He was facing a congressional investigation and he needed a lawyer to tell him what his rights were. In time, of course, I will have to know and be convinced by his account of the disparity between his declared income and the money and properties that he is supposed to own." He was emphatic that he would never pursue his client's interest at the expense of truth and justice.

The law is about basic fairness, Tito reminded me. Under the rule of law, there is a presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. It is what separates rule of law from mob rule, he said. He lamented media's tendency to highlight the negative aspects of a person's appearance and situation and to take these as indications of his guilt. I could only nod in agreement. By coincidence, I've been reading the book "Supreme Court Decisions as Philosophy" and marked a line in the landmark case of Conde v. City Judge Superable Jr.: "When a litigant is therefore an individual for whom he (the judge) does not cherish kindly thoughts, he is called upon to show greater care lest inadvertently he finds himself unable to resist the prompting of his emotions."

"This is a fascinating case," Tito told me. "I don't regret taking it. It is every lawyer's dream to contribute to the refinement of the law's meaning through jurisprudence." He said there are many novel elements in this case: the anti-money laundering law, the role of the Ombudsman, the proper sphere of a court martial, etc. These and the whole politically charged atmosphere in which this case is being tried will test our resolve to protect our institutions from the instant gratifications of trial by publicity.

How lucky for the general to have a bright lawyer who is neither a crook nor a crackpot. If he is ultimately found guilty, my fear is that, in a culture like ours, his lawyer would be made to bear part of his disgrace. I asked Tito if this does not bother him. He smiled and simply said, no.

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The poor among us

2004-10-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

The poor among us

Updated 09:10pm (Mla time) Oct 16, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I DON'T believe in charity. I suspect we often do it more for ourselves than for those we help. I also think it takes away the urgency from the need to reform society itself. But, in practice, I have trouble ignoring those who come to my door or knock on my car window for help.

My problem is particularly with those who not only extend their hands for alms but also take time to tell their stories. I don't like looking into the defeated eyes of those who, by begging, have surrendered every measure of their pride as human beings.

"Give no bounties, make equal laws, secure life and property," advised Emerson, "and you need not give alms. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile to the industrious, brave and persevering." Emerson is right. But ours has never been a just commonwealth. I refuse to think that the poor in our society are poor because they lack industry, bravery and perseverance.

I cannot forget being rebuffed by a young boy in his teens who was selling flannel cleaning cloth in the streets. "Eight for a hundred," he chanted, fixing his eyes on me. "I just need to sell one more set before I go to school," he said in a tone of exhaustion. Indeed, he was in a school uniform. "Sorry, I just bought some the other day," I responded with genuine regret, "but here take these," I said, offering him a couple of peso coins. He looked at me unsmiling, and chided me with these words: "Sir, I am not begging, I am selling." I felt slighted. I wanted to tell him that I meant well and that he should not be so proud. But, I checked myself: why shouldn't he be proud? As he walked away, I silently rejoiced in the thought that at least one boy in the streets would someday make it in the world.

Since then I have been very cautious in dealing with hawkers and beggars in the streets. Whether I give or not, buy or not, I make it a point to look at the face before me, as an act of recognition. It is the least I can do for another human being. "The face speaks," the philosopher Levinas writes. It communicates its vulnerability at once: "there is an essential poverty in the face; the proof of this is that one tries to mask this poverty by putting on poses, by taking on a countenance."

Recognition, however, triggers a relationship, whose ethics I do not easily navigate. To this day, being in the presence of a person begging for help always produces in me a profound unease. I feel defenseless and trapped; this man is not my responsibility, I tell myself, but why can't I ignore him? He is one of us, that is why, and no Filipino should live without hope, or go without help when he needs it. He is my responsibility, and the concreteness of his situation mocks the abstractness of everything I write or espouse. I have no right to require a rational accounting of a man's despair before I give help.

A little context might explain these musings. About three weeks ago, a frail young man came to my house and introduced himself as Angelo. Though his face was vaguely familiar, I was quite sure I had not met him before. He said he used to work as a contractual janitor at the Palma Hall building in the UP Diliman campus where I teach. He told me that his daughter had been bitten in the head by a rabid dog and needed expensive anti-rabies shots. He said he had been able to raise P700 and he needed P300 more. I felt very sorry for this young father, a picture of desolation and shame. He had been jobless for a while, he said. I hardly said anything; I gave him the money and wished him well.

Angelo showed up again the other day, a little paler than before. Before I could recognize him, he shook my hand. He said he had come to inform me that his daughter had died. She needed more injections and he had been unable to raise the money to buy the expensive shots. I looked at him in disbelief, wondering how many times things like this happen in our hospitals. He had come this time to ask for some money to buy biscuits and coffee for people at the wake. For some strange reason, I instantly thought of all the billions spent during elections, the trillions paid for the public debt, and the distressing state of our public hospitals.

Perhaps Angelo's desperation was infectious; I suddenly felt agitated and angry. I found myself grilling him about the hospital to which he had brought his daughter and the doctor who attended to her. I asked him if he had sought the help of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, or the Philippine Charity and Sweepstakes Office. My reaction confused him. He looked at me with sad uncomprehending eyes, and I realized I had not even offered him my sympathies. When he left, I knew I had behaved very badly. I don't remember how much I gave him. I could have given him all the money in my pocket that day, and it would not have erased the unwarranted pain I had caused him.

I wish I knew when to stop being a social analyst or a political activist. The man had come seeking compassion, and I gave him a lecture and an interrogation. Too often, I think we fail to conduct ourselves as human beings for others because our moral or ideological righteousness gets in the way of our basic responsibility.

Every poor man who comes to us begging for help has a story to tell. We may never know how much truth there is in these tales. But does it really matter? In such encounters I think we must keep our doubts to ourselves, not say anything, and only listen. Levinas sums it up with this line from Dostoyevsky: "We are all responsible for all and for all men before all, and I more than all the others."

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Will Gloria last?

2004-10-10T04:29:00.000-07:00

Will Gloria last?

Updated 04:29am (Mla time) Oct 10, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT is a question that was asked soon after Congress hastily proclaimed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo winner of the controversial 2004 presidential elections. But the swift withdrawal from the streets of the protesting voters who felt cheated in the canvassing and the filing of a formal election protest by the opposition gave the proclamation an aura of finality. Whatever doubt remained about GMA's legitimacy as a leader was later dispelled by her decisive handling of the Angelo de la Cruz affair.

But now the question is on everyone's lips again. The goodwill she earned from her successful rescue of De la Cruz from Iraqi militants has all but evaporated. Bad appointments to key offices in government, signifying political payback, have eroded her credibility. Bad decisions meant to shore up her popularity before the elections have come back to haunt her. Foremost of these was her move to slash the power charges of the National Power Corp., an act that mired the state firm in a debt quicksand from which it cannot extricate itself. On top of these, her reckless use of public funds in the last elections for programs without any enduring value is now better viewed in the light of Ms Arroyo's own admission of a severe fiscal crisis.

Her political allies in both houses of Congress-the same people who staunchly shielded her votes from close scrutiny-are the same ones who now oppose the measures she has proposed as solutions to the fiscal crisis. They are skeptical of her determination to reform the government, and view her pronouncements about the crisis as nothing but attempts to cow the legislature into submission.

The media have been no less critical. They juxtapose Ms Arroyo's call for austerity with her free spending for members of her family during her recent state visit to China, and her chartering of a private jet so she could attend the wedding of the Sultan's son in Brunei. The effect of this is that, in the public eye, the President merely personifies the same insensitivity and arrogance that seem to be the norm among her people, like GSIS president Winston Garcia. None of these things would perhaps generate the kind of controversy they have triggered if it were not for the hunger that stalks many of our people.

A television report on GMA-7 the other night portrayed the daily scramble of whole families for left-over food retrieved from the garbage bins of Metro Manila's shopping malls. Food that still smells fresh is consumed right then and there. The rest is scraped from plastic bags and re-cooked like pig's scrap for the next meal. Heart-breaking images like these acquire the starkness of a scandal when shown side by side -- for example -- reports of a general's wife who callously boasted of having anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 when she goes shopping.

A situation like this is not politically sustainable. No government can demand sacrifices of its already starving citizens while a few powerful and wealthy families live as if they were God's chosen people. Something is bound to give. But sheer hunger will not spark a social revolution. For it is not hunger alone that grips the poor; they are also seized by a paralyzing helplessness that takes away the volatility from their anger.

That is why, in the final analysis, it is not the poor who pose a threat to Gloria, but rather the educated and the middle class who voted for her. They had set aside their deep doubts about her capacity to turn the country around, and supported her on the belief that an opposition win would spell a sure catastrophe. But now that she is safely President, they are not about to make it easy for her.

They may understand the historical roots of the fiscal crisis and the unfairness of blaming her for the cumulative sins of all past administrations. But they also know that critical times require extraordinary qualities. They expect a modern mindset and professionalism appropriate to a highly educated President. Above all, they demand leadership by example. Yet Gloria has been anything but exemplary. She conducts her office as if she has not stopped campaigning. One hundred days into her new term, there is still no visible shift in her presidential style, no clear program of government around which the nation could unite, and no inspiring Cabinet to which we could harness our collective hopes.

Will she last? Since the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos by people power and military mutiny in 1986, we have not had a normal political life. All our presidents after Marcos faced serious political challenges either from people power or from the military, except Fidel Ramos, who was lucky to be favored by a world economy in the upswing. Today elections no longer guarantee security in public office. There is no reason to think GMA is exempt. The question is not whether she will last, but how long?

The persistence of people power is an indication that the traditional modes of political succession and governance of our society are no longer suitable for our times. Yet for all their dysfunctionality, their death has been repeatedly postponed by the kind of elections we hold. Our leaders are the same because the system we have hasn't changed. And I don't mean just the presidential system, but the whole obsolete social system that favors inherited wealth and power over personal effort and achievement; a system that dispenses the nation's resources in response to political imperatives rather than social needs, and rewards cunning rather than perseverance.

No president can last while this system endures.

Why Filipinos like Bush

2004-10-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Why Filipinos like Bush

Updated 00:57am (Mla time) Oct 03, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IF Filipinos in the Philippines were voting in the American presidential election, they would give George W. Bush a landslide win over his rival, John Kerry.

Bush is our kind of leader. Like him, we see the world as either black or white. The moral lenses we use divide nations into good or evil, friends or enemies. We do not argue with our enemies, we speak force to them. We prefer bluntness over nuance, decisiveness over deliberation, toughness over intelligence.

Kerry is too soft for us. Too educated and too refined, he is too weak to lead a world whose survival demands the crudeness of a street-fighter rather than the sensitivity of a morally burdened intellectual. The world needs a strong America, and America needs a warrior, not a thinker.

This is the mentality of all colonial dependents, people who despise their own weakness and find easy security in the shadow of bullies. Having turned their back on a legacy of struggle and freedom, they cannot suffer those who continue to oppose domination. The latter's resistance, blind as it may be, assails their own acquiescence.

This mind-set is reinforced when they go abroad. They cannot stand living beside other subordinate immigrants. They assume the bigotry of new converts, and they detest being treated like all the others. The voice of these "New Americans" is exemplified by Michelle Malkin, a journalist of Filipino ancestry, who authored a book titled "Invasion" (Regnery Publishing, 2002). This is her perspective:

"As a first-generation American, I am the new face of the immigration debate. I am sick and tired of watching our government allow illegal line-jumpers, killers, and America-haters to flood our gates and threaten our safety. I am sick and tired of watching ethnic minority leaders cry 'racism' whenever Congress attempts to shore up our borders. And I am especially sick and tired of business leaders, lobbyists, and lawmakers from both major parties caving in and selling out our national security. I believe in immigrant profiling. I believe we should discriminate in favor of foreigners yearning to live the American Dream-and against foreigners yearning to destroy it."

"Profiling" simply means constructing the image of a person on the basis of certain characteristics associated with the group to which he or she belongs. This is what is done in "offender-profiling." A beard or goatee, an Islamic-sounding name, one's country of origin, professional background, race or religion, etc. could, with profiling, trigger a whole course of focused scrutiny or outright detention. Whether acknowledged or not, visa screening rests almost entirely on profiling procedures. What is even more dangerous is that the new post-9/11 legislation in the United States today combines extensive use of profiling with the absolute power to detain all suspicious persons without explanation.

Just because our government is friendly to the United States and supported its war in Iraq does not mean Filipinos will be treated any better at the American Embassy or at US ports of entry. One wonders what good can come out of George W. Bush's habit of lumping the Philippines with Iraq and Afghanistan whenever he refers to the global war on terror. In the first presidential debate in Miami this week, he again made terrorism wear a Filipino face: "But the front on this war is more than just one place. The Philippines... we've got help... we're helping them there to bring al-Qaida affiliates to justice there." Manila is certainly not Baghdad or Kabul, and Mindanao is not Fallujah. Why do we rejoice when the US president refers to our country in this light?

In May this year, a Filipino professor, Abhoud Syed Lingga was stopped at the Los Angeles airport after disembarking from a plane. He was on his way to participate in a series of meetings and fora on Mindanao organized by the United Nations and the US Institute of Peace. He had all the official letters of invitation and a visa from the US Embassy in Manila. But he was from Mindanao and the authorities did not like the sound of his name. His sponsors could not help him; he was sent back on the same plane to Manila.

Yet every day, thousands of Filipinos are undeterred as they line up at the US Embassy and psychologically prepare themselves for questions that routinely challenge their self-respect. Most of them are wasting their time and money. Every Filipino visa applicant is regarded as a potential illegal migrant or worse, a terrorist. Michelle Malkin wants decent Filipino travelers and immigrants to be spared this kind of treatment. But that will not happen as long as the US president considers the Philippines a home of al-Qaida affiliates and a major front in the war against global terror.

The whole world has become a more dangerous place because of Bush. America has earned more enemies because of its decision to invade Iraq without the authority of the United Nations. Americans feel more insecure because of this. And yet ironically, it is this very insecurity that is creating a false need for somebody like Bush. John Kerry is wrong to allow Bush to define terrorism as the key issue in this election. He sounds pathetic when he says, "I believe in being strong and resolved and determined. And I will hunt down and kill terrorists wherever they are." For all his simple-mindedness, no one can speak that line better than Bush.

No, the issue is not global terrorism, but America's behavior in the world.

Populism and the fiscal crisis

2004-09-26T00:00:00.001-07:00

Populism and the fiscal crisis

Updated 10:00pm (Mla time) Sept 25, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the September 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ONE interesting observation that Rep. Joey Salceda makes in his recent dissection of the country's fiscal crisis takes the form of a question: "But, why is it that the power sector invites much of our major fiscal follies, from Marcos' nuke plant (one for the price of two) pushing Aquino to mothball it which then triggers the power crisis that justified Ramos' lopsided IPPs that then force Arroyo to cap the PPA?" His answer: "The moral of the PPA cap story is: the people eventually pay for such populist decisions of the government."

The key word is "populist." It is a term that has been used repeatedly in many analyses that try to explain the political roots of our economic problems. Its connotation is negative, which is ironic since the root word is people. One wonders what its opposite is. Anti-people?

In the context in which Salceda uses it, "populist" refers to something that aims to please the people in the short term in order to gain political points, but whose long-term effects may be injurious to their interests. A populist decision therefore is one that is made out of political opportunism, and without regard for its economic and other costs. This seems like an accurate description of the kind of politics we have had in this country. Is another kind possible given the nation's political history and socio-economic situation?

The desired alternative to populist politics, of course, is modern democratic politics where the contest for power takes place within institutional channels and under legitimized and accepted rules. The Philippines had this system in a formal sense until 1972, even if the vast majority of our people participated in it only in a marginal way. Marcos exploited the people's resentments against the oligarchy and aspirations to modernity to justify his own version of populist authoritarianism. His experiment is a replica of many failed initiatives in the Third World, notably in Latin America.

When Cory Aquino took the presidency in 1986 on the wings of a people power uprising, she could not ignore the diverse popular movements that brought her to power. This was a constituency that was deeply suspicious of politicians. Even if the wisdom of a nuclear power plant was arguable on technical grounds, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant itself was seen as the epitome of all the sins of the Marcos regime. The new government had little choice but to abandon it. The only forces more powerful than the popular movements were the international creditor banks that demanded to be paid. And so we continue to pay them.

Recoiling from the controversies that attended big public projects like the nuclear plant, and having little money left to spend, the Aquino government shied away from infrastructure investments. The result was the power crisis that Cory's successor, Fidel Ramos, tried to fix through the instant but expensive cure of the "lopsided" independent power producers (IPPs). The heavy costs of these IPPs began to be felt only after the end of Ramos' term. Neither Joseph Estrada, who succeeded him, nor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who took over from Estrada, was prepared to do anything about these obligations beyond re-financing them with more borrowings.

The desire to be popular was particularly strongest with Gloria. She was insecure about the presidency. From day one, she sought validation of her entitlement to the position by being elected to her own six-year term. She became extremely vulnerable to populist decision-making.

Political instability heightens populist pressure. The May presidential election could have ushered in another phase of uncertainty in our political life. The scandalous way in which the winners were proclaimed was a provocation to disorder. Ms Arroyo can thank the opposition for its decision to shift its protest from the streets to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal. The recent move of the Magdalo mutineers to come forward to apologize for their July 2003 takeover of the Oakwood Apartments in Makati also comes at a right time, as it will have a calming effect on the political scene.

The political scientist Gino Germani explains populism as the result of the uneven integration of the masses into a country's political life. The masses are activated by the mass media through the spread of modern lifestyles and attitudes and yet could not find adequate self-expression in the available political structures. The cities, where the resentments and unleashed energies of the economic underclasses are strongest, tend to be the epicenters of populist pressure.

In countries like ours marked by stark inequalities in life chances, populist ideology can oscillate between traditional electoral politics and authoritarianism. Those who ride upon it constitute an amazing variety of characters, says Germani. "Quite different political groups ... and the most diverse sectors-intellectuals, modernized workers, professionals and politicians of petty-bourgeois origin, military men, sectors of the old landowning oligarchy in economic and political decline, no less than the most bizarre combinations between them, have tried (sometimes successfully) to base themselves upon this human support in order to achieve their political aims."

We may rid ourselves of the curse of populism only when the entitlements of the poor to a decent existence are understood and honored by the government as rights rather than as personal favors dispensed by politicians.

Decency in public life

2004-09-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Decency in public life

Updated 10:03pm (Mla time) Sept 18, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the September 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT took a fiscal crisis to force the government to take a hard look at the outrageous salaries that a few public officials are getting for the privilege of serving the nation. If the crisis had not been recognized, if the habit of taking out loans to cover recurrent deficits had not been criticized, the virus of unequal pay for equal work would have quickly overrun the system.

What is particularly galling is that the nation’s top officials feign shock over these salaries as if they were learning of them for the first time. These juicy positions are so well-known to politicians who regard them as sinecures reserved to a favored few. Not only that, the laws that exclude them from the scope of the Salary Standardization Law were passed by Congress and approved by the President. The Commission on Audit, moreover, is supposed to submit to the President and Congress an annual report that describes the financial condition of the government and all its instrumentalities “and recommend measures necessary to improve their effectiveness and efficiency.”

If there were more integrity and less hypocrisy in government, our basic laws would suffice.

The basic law governing compensations in public service is found in Art. IX-B, Sec. 5 of the 1987 Constitution: “The Congress shall provide for the standardization of compensation of government officials and employees, including those in government-owned or -controlled corporations with original charters, taking into account the nature of the responsibilities pertaining to, and the qualifications required for their positions.”

On July 1, 1989, Congress passed RA 6758 or the Compensation and Position Act, which prescribes a revised compensation and classification system for the government. This is the system that is now followed in all the offices and agencies of government, except in those agencies that were later exempted by law or were organized as subsidiaries of GOCCs under the general corporation law. Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin was thus correct when she said that the incredible salaries assigned to certain positions in some GOCCs and GFIs were allowed by law. But, of course, not everything that is allowed by law makes good moral or managerial sense. The responsibility for ensuring that the law is not abused rests ultimately with the President. Though long overdue, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent order to reduce these atrocious salaries is a step in the right direction. But it is not enough.

When private corporations or enterprises run into trouble, their managers are held accountable by their boards and ultimately by their owners and stockholders. But when public firms are mismanaged or go bankrupt, who will make them answer for their deeds? To whom are the National Power Corp., Government Service Insurance System, Social Security System, Development Bank of the Philippines, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Pagcor, PhilHealth, and the Philippine National Oil Co. accountable if not to the President? The mechanisms to monitor their performance are all in place. Unless the Office of the President does its work, keeping in mind the basic principles of good housekeeping, it will not take long before the government breaks down.

The basic principles governing just compensation in the public service are clearly defined by the law. These are: (1) equal pay for substantially equal work, (2) differences in pay must be based on differences in duties and responsibilities and qualification requirements, and (3) government compensation must be competitive with prevailing rates in the private sector, taking into account budget constraints.

In accordance with these principles, Congress created 33 salary grades under RA 6758. The highest, SG 33, is assigned to the President of the Republic. No other position is comparable. SG 32 is assigned to the Vice President, to the Senate president, the Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. SG 31 is assigned to senators, congressmen, associate justices of the Supreme Court, chairmen of constitutional commissions, Cabinet members, and the president of the University of the Philippines. It is worth noting that none of these salary grades today pays more than P80,000 per month in basic compensation. This makes the position of President of the Philippines roughly the equivalent of a junior executive position in a top multinational company.

The president, the senators, and the congressmen -- with the generous perks and pork barrel at their disposal -- may have no need for adjustment in their basic pay. But if their compensation is not adjusted, compensation at the lower levels of the bureaucracy remains frozen. Professors in state universities and surgeons in public hospitals receive fixed salaries equal to the pay of new graduates working at call centers. Until a few months ago, the basic pay of the civilian faculty at the Philippine Military Academy was lower than the salary of the cadets.

The situation was so absurd even then that when the salary standardization law was passed, Congress was swamped with bills seeking exemption from its coverage. The first to be exempted were precisely the GOCCs and GFIs that claimed to have enough incomes that permitted them to pay private sector rates. The result of this is that the despair of all the other government agencies grew in proportion to the benefits enjoyed by those who were exempted.

No matter how good a nation’s laws are, if its officials are ruled by cynicism and opportunism, it will have no future. The first rule of public life is basic decency.

Crisis Psychology

2004-09-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

Crisis psychology

Updated 00:52am (Mla time) Sept 12, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the September 12, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo's dilemma was whether to acknowledge the full magnitude of the country's fiscal and debt crisis, or to continue her pre-election policy of finessing it by reducing the problem to a simple budget deficit.

Confronted by a paper from University of the Philippines economists, which showed that the country faced a serious fiscal and debt crisis in the next three years if nothing decisive was done, the President responded that we were already in the midst of the crisis. This admission puzzled even Ms Arroyo's own economic managers.

But it allowed her to do several things. Despite the risks of frightening investors and creditors, the acknowledgment of the crisis gave her the right to demand that Congress now focus on the urgent task of adopting the solutions she has proposed rather than on debating the causes of the crisis. But more than this, she saw in the crisis the opportunity to consolidate her hold on the presidency by dismissing lingering doubts about her electoral mandate as trivial distractions in a time that commands national unity.

When a family is hit by a crisis, its members feel morally obliged to set aside their bickerings so they may face their collective problems squarely. They rally around the head of the family, take orders without question, and agree to put the interests of the whole family ahead of their own. Ms Arroyo assumed the stance of a strong moral matriarch at her appearance before the Manila Overseas Press Club recently. She issued a stern warning: "If these vested interests believe they can destabilize or sabotage our efforts, they better think twice. Our people are behind me. I have their mandate, and I am here to serve that mandate for our nation's best interests."

The reference to "mandate" is interesting. I am sure she meant to say that, with the elections behind us, she was now ready to be a tough "non-political president." But ironically, the word "mandate" also instantly reactivated images of the dubious manner in which she was proclaimed winner in the last elections. This explains Sen. Nene Pimentel's caustic remark the other day: "The President's declaration that the country was in a fiscal crisis was nothing but a ploy to cover up her lack of mandate, as well as the illegal use of public funds for her election campaign and the massive electoral fraud committed by the administration."

Faced with a fiscal crisis, the nation now seems so far away from the defective electoral process that gave Ms Arroyo a new six-year mandate. The parallelism between the Philippine president and the US president is uncanny. The "crisis" is to Ms Arroyo what the "war" is to George W. Bush Jr.-a warrant to close ranks behind a strong president and a reason to be grateful that we have this president and not the other. This line makes people forget that this is the same president that brought them to where they are today-in our case, the very same one who, says Sen. Joker Arroyo, caused the government to lose money in order to be popular and incurred more debt for the country in three years than in all the preceding years under Ramos and Estrada.

It is not to say the fiscal crisis that the country faces today is not real. It is as real as the war that America has brought upon Iraq, upon the Islamic world, and upon itself. There is no question that national unity is important during such times. But it would be a tragedy to suspend one's critical faculties at a time when what is needed most is judgment. The war against the fiscal and debt crisis, like America's "war against terror," is being used to discredit all criticism and to secure a quick consensus around certain measures that will make the general public absorb all the burden created by the irresponsibility, corruption, and greed of a few. This kind of mass psychology exploits communal solidarity and feeds on public insecurity.

I have heard many middle class Filipinos say, "Thank God that at a time of economic hardship like this, we have a doctor of economics rather than an ignoramus at the nation's helm." The equivalent of this illusion in America today is "Thank God that at a time of war like this, we have a decisive president rather than a wimp at the nation's helm." The basis for such tacit faith is more imaginary than real. Both presidents are nothing but skillful role-players without any real experience. You feel like crying when you see how desperately people want to believe in their leaders.

That the country is in a serious fiscal and debt crisis can no longer be denied. Ms Arroyo and her allies tried to conceal this in the months before the elections. Now that the extent of this mess is slowly becoming clear, Ms Arroyo wants to end the debate and, in the name of communal patriotism, focus instead on the quick-fixes she is offering.

It's funny how Bush and Ms Arroyo are so alike. Bush wants to end the Iraq war by spending more for the war. Ms Arroyo wants to end the debt problem by borrowing more. Buried in the business pages the other day was the news that the Philippines has successfully raised another $1 billion to finance Napocor's debts by issuing sovereign bonds in the world market. The new IOUs consist of $300 million worth of bonds maturing in 2015, and another $700 million payable in 2025. My granddaughter Julia, who will be 25 years old by then, will be starting her own family saddled by this new debt, in addition to the old ones unpaid from the past. That's not funny.

Dealing With State Failure

2004-09-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

Dealing with state failure

Updated 09:36pm (Mla time) Sept 04, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the September 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

NEXT to banks, telecommunication companies, and shopping malls, the most profitable business in the country today is the private security agency. No other country in the world, except maybe unstable Iraq, hires so many private security personnel.

“Blue guards,” as we call them, are everywhere, providing countless homes and neighborhoods, firms and offices that singular service that is supposedly the state’s primordial function -- personal security. Their number is twice the size of the country’s standing army and police. Their existence and the rising demand for their services, are the clearest proof of a failed state.

The privatization of security -- alongside the privatization of basic education and basic health services, in a society sharply divided by extremes in wealth and poverty -- poses the question: What for do we need a state? It is a question that has acquired even more saliency in the context of the government’s worsening fiscal and debt situation.

Should the public, which theoretically owns the state, do something to save it from its present woes? Should citizens dig into their private savings, offer their jewelry, or give up their incomes so that the state would be able to pay its debts? Or, feeling so alienated from the state and having no care for what happens to it, should it allow it to sink in its present problems and prepare the way for its reconstitution?

The answer depends on our individual and collective experience with the state. I think a lot of Filipinos today would be inclined to think that the present state has either betrayed or abandoned them. They see it not as the agent of their collective will, the protector of their interests or guarantor of their children’s future, but merely the milking cow of a privileged few.

The poor think the state has not done enough to secure their basic needs and redress the basic inequalities of our society. The middle class and the rich think that, because of corruption and incompetence, the state is not doing enough to protect their homes and property. No matter how one looks at it, this state of affairs is not conducive to the discharge of the obligations of citizenship.

The informed among us may see the urgency for a collective approach to the nation’s financial problems. But, aware that these problems will not go away unless they are attacked at their roots, they are also wary of trusting the present officials of the state to do the right thing. This is ironic because we have just been through a national election.

It is not to say we are not already paying for the state’s incompetence and corruption in the form of a devalued currency and scant public services. But no thoughtful citizen, not even one who loves the country deeply, would offer to pay the government’s debts without a corresponding resolve on the state’s part to address the main sources of the problem. The first is the government’s failure to collect the right taxes from those who must pay taxes. The second is the mindless absorption by government of obligations incurred by unaccountable government financial institutions and public corporations. Almost 40 percent of the national government debt today, says the UP School of Economics report, consists of these assumed liabilities and loans of state corporations.

When we consider how these liabilities were incurred, who profited from them, and which interest groups evaded payment of the appropriate taxes, it is not easy to summon love of country. When we see government officials speeding through the city traffic in their large tinted vehicles with blaring sirens and motorcycle escorts, or when we learn that the President has brought almost her entire clan on her state visit to China, we start to wonder if state officials are there to serve or to be served.

State formation is an experimental process, says John Dewey. There is no sure-fire formula for creating a good state. “The only statement which can be made is a purely formal one: the state is the organization of the public effected through officials for the protection of the interests shared by its members. But what the public may be, what the officials are, how adequately they perform their function, these are things we have to go to history to discover.” In theory, we know what a good state is, Dewey says. We know it by the degree to which the public is organized, and by the extent to which public officials “are so constituted as to perform their function of caring for public interests.”

When we speak of the deficiencies of governance, we refer to the flaws in our institutions and the shortcomings of public officials. But that is only half the picture. The other half is us, the public -- to the extent we can imagine ourselves as a collectivity capable of deliberate and conscious action. If we are organized, we should be able to invent and reinvent the state in accordance with the demands of our time, guided by the tools of knowledge available to us.

It may be inspiring to see the public move as one, bayanihan-style, to patch up those problems that are not being attended to by the state. But the value of an organized public does not lie in an auxiliary function like this, but in its capacity to reform the state and hold it accountable for its performance. A fragmented public will find itself saddled by an incompetent or irresponsible state. But a unified and intelligent public will know how to deal with a wayward state -- it will tame its excesses and reorient its policies. It will not blindly come to its rescue in a moment of fear or sentimentality, or offer to bankroll its vices.

The Magsaysay Awards

2004-09-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

The Magsaysay Awards

Updated 07:42am (Mla time) Aug 29, 2004
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the August 29, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SOCIETIES reaffirm their values in two ways: first, by punishing crime, and second, by recognizing good deed. The moral crises of today's societies arise from the fact that they now tend to do less of the latter. Not so much for a lack of willingness to reward the good, but from a growing inability to identify what is good.

When norms get blurred, indifference finds refuge in a crippling moral relativism. Our capacity for revulsion is weakened. We learn to negotiate duty. We are no longer awed by moral beauty.

This situation is not helped by the proliferation of award-giving bodies that, at the toss of a coin, give out medals or trophies for the most banal achievements. Neither is it relieved by the proliferation of "who's who" publications offering instant fame for the price of a subscription.

By cheapening achievement, they make recognition a worthless event. By trivializing virtue, they rob it of its power to inspire. When cynicism reigns, we begin to doubt our own spontaneous admiration for many acts of goodness in everyday life.

Some values must be protected from erosion. In the last 47 years, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation has tried to be a responsible trustee of one particular value-"greatness of spirit shown in service to the peoples of Asia." The key phrase is "greatness of spirit." The founders of this award believed this was the most striking trait of the late president, whose legacy we call to mind every year by the awards named after him.

What can this value possibly mean in our time?

Haydee Yorac helped restore the dignity of the civil service at a time when government evokes only images of corruption and incompetence. Undaunted and always willing to serve, Haydee showed that government work can indeed be the highest vocation of a citizen. She is this year's recipient of the Award for Government Service.
Jiang Yanyong of China is both a soldier and a doctor. When the mysterious SARS ailment began to spread in his country, he worried that the official policy of concealing the true extent of the epidemic could result in the loss of more lives. His sense of duty as a doctor prevailed over the imperatives of military discipline. Dr. Jiang spoke out and called attention to the urgent need to inform and protect the population. He is the recipient of the Award for Public Service.

Prayong Ronnarong is a rubber farmer from Thailand who refused to bow to the whims of the world market when the price of raw rubber dropped suddenly. Why not process the rubber ourselves, he asked his fellow farmers. A genius at community organizing, Prayong defied conventional thinking by building community-based rural industries. The model of rural industrialization he pioneered is now being replicated all over Thailand. He is the awardee for Community Leadership.

Abdullah Abu Sayeed of Bangladesh taught literature in Dhaka for many years. He refused to think that his country's economic poverty should also mean poverty of the mind. He formed "reading circles" that got young people to study great works of literature. He acquired old buses, filled them with books, and launched them as mobile public-lending libraries. Sayeed is the 2004 awardee for Journalism, Literature, and Communicative Communication Arts.

Laxminarayan Ramdas used to be the chief of the Indian Navy. Today he is a staunch advocate of the de-militarization of the Indian sub-continent. He and the Pakistani human rights advocate Ibn Abdur Rehman shared the leadership of the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy for many years, tirelessly organizing people-to-people dialogues across this troubled continent and speaking out against prejudice and war. The Foundation confers on them the joint Award for Peace and International Understanding.

And finally, Benjamin Abadiano, the epitome of the young volunteer who, searching for personal meaning, finds it in being a person for others. The Foundation honors him for his work among the Mangyans of Oriental Mindoro, for whom he started a comprehensive school now mostly staffed by Mangyan teachers. He is also being recognized for his work with thousands of families in Mindanao displaced by war, particularly among the lumad or indigenous tribes, for whom he established the same culture-based training program he pioneered in Mindoro. Abadiano is the recipient of the Award for Emergent Leadership.

A careful examination of the life and work of Magsaysay awardees reveals two outstanding traits. The first is courage, the second is generosity. They are the same virtues that Ralph Waldo Emerson associates with heroism.
Of courage, Emerson writes: "It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer....It is the state of the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents....It persists, it is of an undaunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be wearied out."

But courage is what it is because its wellspring is a generous heart.

"The brave soul," wrote Emerson, "rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath.... The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter to the stranger -- so it be done for love and not for ostentation -- do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so perfect are the compensations of the universe."