DUTERTE “BUKBOK” GOVERNANCE
ATTACK, WEAKEN OR DESTROY DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS CHECKLIST
Office of the Vice President - In process
Senate - In process
House of Representatives - Check
Supreme Court - Check
Philippine National Police - Check
Armed Forces of the Philippines - In process
COMELEC - Check
Civil Service Commission - Dormant
Commission on Audit - In process
Commission on Human Rights - In process
Office of the Ombudsman - Check
“KILL, KILL, KILL!”
‘BUKBOK’ GOVERNANCE
By: Rufa Cagoco-Guiam - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:06 AM September 10, 2018
If the word “bukbok” (weevil) has permeated national consciousness
recently, we only have Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol to thank for it.
The Department of Agriculture honcho has lately hogged the headlines for eating
bukbok-infested rice, declaring that it is not harmful to human health and thus
there is nothing wrong with it.
Piñol is right — weevils are not harmful to human health. But his
conclusion that there is nothing wrong with weevil or bukbok-infested rice is
seriously flawed.
He fails to understand the nature of weevils as pests. Weevils feed on good grains, not on
already decaying ones. They lay tiny eggs inside grains, so even if we wash the
infested grains with water to kill them, the tiny eggs that remain hidden
inside the grains will soon hatch to start another generation of weevils,
slowly devouring the remaining good grains. It is a process that repeats itself
for as long as there are good grains available that are not kept safe in
airtight containers.
Wood weevils are no exception; they eat up tiny parcels of good wood
that are used for house posts, especially those without any antipest treatment.
If left unchecked, weevils can topple down posts and, eventually, entire
houses.
Grain and wood weevils can be exterminated through chemical treatment.
Unfortunately, the political weevils in our government structure are hard to
extirpate.
Political weevils are
resident evils. They have not only eaten up the core pillars of good
governance; through atrocious actions defying the rule of law, they have
also corroded the basic foundations of public administration.
Aside from the agriculture secretary, other political weevils have also
slowly degraded decades-old democratic
structures that guarantee checks and balances in the three coequal branches
of government. For example, no one, not even the president, can order
warrantless arrests of individuals; neither can a sitting president dictate who
will replace him when he deems he cannot fulfill his executive duties anymore.
There are provisions in our basic law guaranteeing due process in any
governmental transaction. These core principles are embedded in our democratic
and good governance pillars.
Alas, these are slowly being eroded by a bukbok style of governance.
And these human bukbok are here to
stay until the next presidential election is held—if this hallowed democratic
exercise will not be thwarted by even more destructive political weevils that
threaten to wipe out whatever good is left in our country’s governance structures.
Photo labeled free to share and use
ReplyDeletePhoto link: https://asiapacificreport.nz/2017/08/21/duterte-inspired-by-petrus-shootings-says-indonesias-wiranto/
Gonzalinho
WE NEED A STRONG STATE, NOT STRONGMEN
ReplyDeleteBy: Richard Heydarian - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM October 02, 2018
...what is a “strong” state? The modern state has two key elements: (1) autonomy from rapacious elites and pressure groups that place private interest over public welfare; and (2) capacity to ensure law and order as well as deliver basic goods and services for the society. A strong state, therefore, is autonomous and bureaucratically capable.
Prior to the advent of the modern state, today’s leading industrialized nations, from Germany to France and Japan, were largely feudal, impoverished societies under the command of absolutist monarchs.
The modern state, however, changed everything, because it brought about what sociologist Michael Mann calls “infrastructural power,” namely the uniform application of law as well as the widespread availability of public goods, as opposed to “tyrannical power,” which is the ability of a ruler to oppress and pillage in his/her constituency.
As former US president Barack Obama rightly told his African counterparts in 2009, the continent “doesn’t need strongmen, [but] it needs strong institutions.” He could have said exactly the same thing about the Philippines, which never lacked for strongmen and populists who brought more misery than progress, but is yet to possess a strong state.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/116481/need-strong-state-not-strongmen-1#ixzz5TO1ESDeS
Gonzalinho