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| Polling precinct, Lanao del Sur |
THE PHILIPPINE ELECTORATE IS THE PROBLEM
PAMPERED
KING TODAY, INDENTURED SLAVE TOMORROW
Pampered
king today, indentured slave tomorrow
By:
Joel Ruiz Butuyan - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine
Daily Inquirer / 05:07 AM May 13, 2019
The
reign of the voter as the pampered king ends today.
It’s
a short-lived reign, but for the period of 90 days that just passed, powerful,
rich and self-proclaimed “honorable” men and women transformed themselves into
silly clowns as they sang, danced and acted as stand-up comedians in order to
entertain the voter-king.
…In a perfect world, voters would choose
candidates based exclusively on two qualifications — competence and integrity. These
are the only considerations that should rightfully matter in all elections.
In our distorted reality, however, competence and integrity are subverted by
counterproductive forces, which explains why politicians with zero
competence and sub-zero integrity keep on winning in our country’s elections.
Vote buying is one
powerful counterproductive force that perverts our electoral process.
…Misuse of public funds and personnel
by incumbent candidates is another strong counterproductive force that
spoils the electoral process. Incumbent officials have inherent unfair
advantage because they can use public funds for projects, scholarships and
services calculated to cultivate patronage votes during elections. They can
also summon public employees to assist them in any task aimed at ensuring their
reelection, because of their power and influence.
The
endorsement by religious groups that
vote as a solid block is another counterproductive force that trumps
competence and integrity.
…Tribe mentality is another
counterproductive force that perverts the electoral process. Many voters choose
candidates for the singular reason that an election aspirant hails from their
hometown or province, or who belongs to their linguistic or cultural group.
…The
twin scourges of guns and goons are
another counterproductive force that sabotages the electoral process. There are
still many towns in many parts of our country ruled by violent warlords who
resort to terrorism to perpetuate themselves in power, and who coercively herd
voters to choose their national candidates.
After
the votes are counted today, well-meaning
citizens who are desperate for change will be disappointed again, because
competence and integrity are fast losing relevance in our elections.
…At
the end of today, the pampered king
has no choice but to slink back to being
an indentured slave.
Comments
to fleamarketofideas@gmail.com
—Joel Ruiz Butuyan, “Pampered King Today, Indentured Slave Tomorrow,” Inquirer.net, May 13, 2019
DUTERTISMO
VS JACINDAMANIA
By:
Andrea Chloe Wong - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine
Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM May 31, 2019
Since
their assumption to office, the Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
have made international headlines for changing their nation’s political
landscapes.
With
his election in 2016, Duterte is the first leader from Mindanao to occupy
Malacañang, which has long been dominated by the political elite in “imperial
Manila.” Ardern, meanwhile, is credited for the remarkable turnaround of her
Labour Party at the 2017 general elections after years of dwindling public
support.
Their
meteoric rise to power is attributed to their unique political persona. Duterte
is viewed as the antielite candidate who promised to change things for a people
already frustrated with the gridlock, inefficiency and corruption of Philippine
politics. His macho image and folksy charisma have endeared him to the masses.
Ardern, on the other hand, is seen as a refreshing alternative in the lineup of
greying men that still dominate New Zealand politics. Her charming and relaxed demeanor has captivated national attention.
…Juxtaposing
Duterte and Ardern’s leadership provides an interesting conversation on the
kind of politics that are currently on offer. On the one hand, Duterte’s
populist politics propagates the oppositional thinking of “us versus them,” on
a polarizing antagonism between the masses and the elite, or the dangerous
other (e.g., Western imperialism). On the other hand, Ardern’s restorative politics appears to seek to heal rather than
sow hatred, and pursues integration
rather than entrench divisions.
It
is uncertain whether Ardern’s restorative politics and compassionate leadership will spread around the world — in the same
manner that populism and authoritarian leaders like Duterte suddenly made a comeback
and became recent political trends. It is therefore important to take note of
how Ardern’s leadership and politics will continue to play out in her
government…. Her expressions of kindness and trust in humanity may be scorned
as naïve slogans in a political world of soulless pragmatism. But the
remarkable impression she has made of her leadership and politics can provide
us an alternative roadmap toward a more
positive “change.”
Andrea
Chloe Wong is completing her doctoral studies in political science at the
University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Philippine
society is a post-colonial society originally ruled by landed elites often consisting
of gentry of mestizo and colonial
origins. Relations between the elites and the masses were characterized by
patronage, and occasionally, by resistance.
It
was a feudal society, with masters who owned the land and peasants who tilled
it. The hierarchical structure of Philippine society bred social attitudes that
persist to the present day, attitudes that are not democratic but feudal.
By
and large the Philippine electorate elects into office not representatives who embody
and promote democratic values and principles but rather a feudal lord who
dispenses the largesse of public resources following his network of personal relations,
family, friends, and hangers-on. It is cacique democracy. It is a type of
authoritarian rule.
If
the Philippine electorate is to advance democracy, good governance, and its
economic ramifications, attitudes have to change. Democratic leaders who practice
good governance need to be put in office. The Philippine people have to be
deeply educated in democratic values and principles and take them to heart, and
they have to realize this transformative orientation in their electoral choices.
Broadly,
the basic policy and program strokes required for genuine attitude change
include:
Education
reform – Democratic values and principles have to penetrate the soul of the nation
and dwell there. Our public education system should explicitly condemn the
predatory, plundering Marcos regime, an incredibly destructive combination of
dictatorship and cronyism which has roots in the feudal structure of Philippine
society.
Social
spending – You cannot convince the masses about the benefits of democracy and good
governance if they do not actually experience its positive economic effects. Enlightened
social spending can start with building an efficient, modern mass public transportation
system in metropolitan Manila.
See “Every Filipino’s Right to Clean, Safe, Stable Public Transport” by
Daniela Louise E. Marinda, Philippine Daily Inquirer (October 22, 2019):
—Andrea Chloe Wong, “Dutertismo vs Jacindamania,” Inquirer.net, May 31, 2019
Good
governance – Good governance implemented by good leaders creates the wealth
required for social spending. You cannot spend what you do not have. The empirical
relationship between good governance and economic development is a well
established fact.
We
are trapped in a vicious circle:
…Corrupt
leaders who practice bad governance and propagate…
…Feudal
attitudes of the Philippine electorate who elect…
We
need to break the cycle:
…Democratic
attitudes and values of the Philippine electorate who elect into office…
…Competent
leaders with integrity who practice good governance and cultivate…
Chile,
a country in Latin America that endured dictatorship under Pinochet and
afterwards transitioned to a functioning democracy committed to major social
spending is today considered a developed country, practically.
Somewhere
along the lines of Chilean development and good governance, the Philippines can
also advance to become a developed country.
Earlier
posts on the Philippine electorate:
“We
have to recognize that a major part of the problem of degenerate governance is
the population itself. This is the same population—in terms of cultural values
and attitudes—that elected Estrada president. And Estrada was as corrupt as
they come. It is this same population that today supports the psychopath
Duterte in office. What has to change is the attitude of the population and
their support for Duterte the mass murderer. Unless the Philippine people
change the way they operate our political system, this continuing problem of a
massively corrupt pervasively weak democracy will persist through generations.”
See:
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-political-education-of-juan-de-la.html
“Unfortunately,
it seems that the Philippine electorate fails to grasp that professional
competence and relevant intelligence is necessary to work effectively on behalf
of the poor. To a lesser extent they also fail to understand that integrity is
necessary to do the same.
“A
candidate who shows compassion and says beautiful things on behalf of the
poor—something a good actor or actress can do—but who is plundering and
transgresses the Constitution and our laws that are necessary for society to
function effectively and thereby prosper—a crook, in other words, does very
well in Philippine politics.
“Most
Philippine voters appear to lack an understanding of the connection between, on
the one hand, intelligence, competence, integrity, and honesty, besides
compassion, and on the other hand, industrial and economic development, and between
the latter and the improvement of the condition of the poor. This kind of
understanding, necessary to our advancement as a nation, requires education and
a minimum level of intelligence.
“…I
don’t believe the majority of the Philippine electorate grasps the systemic
connections of political economy, in particular, the economic risks and
repercussions of dictatorship. They appear to vote based on their personal
experience of the economy, which is an understanding that obtains at a
relatively low level.”
Public domain photo
ReplyDeletePhoto link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bangsamoro_plebiscite_voting_Camalig_Elementary_School.jpg
Gonzalinho
TRAPPED IN THE 17th CENTURY
ReplyDeleteBusinessworld
October 4, 2018 | 9:46 pm
Vantage Point
By Luis V. Teodoro
...By all the rules of logic and common sense, the Duterte satisfaction rating should be plummeting. It did fall in the second quarter this year because of the surge in the prices of prime commodities. But it has recovered in the third, according to survey group Social Weather Stations (SWS).
...What this suggests is far from flattering to Filipino political culture. The country’s heroes — Dr. Jose Rizal, the lawyer Apolinario Mabini, the law student Emilio Jacinto, the worker Andres Bonifacio — were all children of the Enlightenment, and passionate in their commitment to liberty, equality, human rights and the rule of reason.
But most of those who pay lip service to these exemplars’ contributions to the Filipino nation eagerly approve of such false, simplistic solutions to complex problems as the execution, without due process and the presumption of innocence, of alleged wrongdoers. They buy into the absurdity that human rights don’t matter to human lives, and cheer regime attacks against critics, protesters and the free press despite Constitutional protection. They laugh at Mr. Duterte’s jokes about rape and extrajudicial killings; they applaud his religious bigotry and his disdain for criticism and dissent.
The rest of the planet is in the 21st century, but like their idol, they’re trapped in the 17th — in the pre-Enlightenment age when absolute rulers had the power of life or death and women were chattel. For them it’s as if the reform and revolutionary periods of Philippine history never happened.
Unlike the calculating and self-aggrandizing presidents the country has been plagued with, Mr. Duterte is in contrast also perceived by many as a straight-talking leader whose profanities are indicative of his earnestness rather than of a troubled mind. Other presidents at home in Filipino and with at least some familiarity with the English language are perceived as too cerebral and therefore unsympathetic to the many.
Mr. Duterte’s incoherence, bumbling ways and makeshift approach to governance feed into the anti-intellectual bent of those from whose lips so often fall what they think is the supreme insult: masyadong marunong (too intelligent), which they throw at protesting students and anyone else who dares criticize regime policies or who fact-check its claims. But there is also the culture of low expectations summed up in the expression puwede na (it will do), which is the very opposite of excellence as a political and governance value.
It is these characteristics of Filipino political culture that have been as instrumental as deceit in keeping in power the dynasties that have managed to make themselves look like true servants of the people rather than their masters. Mr. Duterte and his equally clueless bureaucrats are “satisfactory” because they are not “masyadong marunong” and what they’re doing is “puwede na.”
Rather than high expectations, logic or common sense, what fundamentally account for the regime’s satisfaction rating are most Filipinos’ limited demands on government and their supposed leaders, and the continuing reign of ignorance and unreason in this benighted land.
Rizal argued more than a century ago that against unreason only the power of education can prevail. Unfortunately, among those institutions that are charged with the responsibility of public enlightenment, both the educational system and much of the media are failing in that task, and as a consequence are once again putting this country of lost hopes in the same perils as those that almost destroyed it in 1972.
Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro). The views expressed in Vantage Point are his own and do not represent the views of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
Link: https://www.bworldonline.com/trapped-in-the-17th-century/
Gonzalinho
https://www.bworldonline.com/trapped-in-the-17th-century/
Delete—Luis V. Teodoro, “Trapped in the 17th Century,” Businessworld, October 4, 2018
Gonzalinho
THE REALITIES THAT DEFINE OUR ELECTIONS
ReplyDeleteBy: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM October 14, 2018
Our political institutions are as modern in conception as they could possibly be. They were, after all, copied from the most advanced democratic system of our time — the United States of America. But, like almost all our borrowed institutions, our political system can only perform to the extent permitted by our society’s basic structure. That structure is highly hierarchical and essentially still segmented into families and tribalistic communities.
The sad reality of our time is that the prevailing social conditions of Philippine society cannot sustain the operation of its modern institutions. The evidence for this is all around us. Membership in our political parties means almost nothing. Our politicians feel neither shame nor awkwardness as they merrily move from one political party to another, depending on who is in power.
These so-called parties exert little effort in promoting the fundamental beliefs and vision of their organization. They admit members and field candidates with no regard for the seriousness of their commitment to party principles and objectives. Indeed, it is far more difficult to be admitted into a university student organization than to become a member of the average Filipino political party.
There are a few exceptions, of course. Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party, a party with very clear democratic socialist goals, is one. Formed as a party-list organization by an alliance of ideological social movements, it matured into a disciplined political party with a national presence. It managed to win seats in every party-list election, and, in 2016, succeeded in electing one of its young leaders, Risa Hontiveros, as senator.
Bayan Muna is another progressive leftwing political movement that registered and won seats as a party-list organization. Its representatives infused congressional deliberations with cogent views arising from a clear ideological perspective. Its success spawned the formation of likeminded parties representing the sectoral interests of marginalized groups.
Alas, it didn’t take long for traditional politicians to make a mockery of the party-list experiment by riding on the inclusive language of the law and creating their own party-list groups.
To be continued
The electorate is intelligent in this respect—they know those they elect are corrupt. But they are also ignorant—they don’t understand that putting in office the corrupt ends up making them worse off and poorer. They appear to be incapable of systemic understanding. They don’t understand how the system that they support works against them. As a result, they often make bad and sometimes abominable electoral choices.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
The problem with the Philippines are Filipinos: the Filipinos who laugh at rape jokes, who applaud the killings, who threaten, insult and demonize the critical, who can’t abide facts and are unteachable, and who elect the same monsters every three years
ReplyDeleteLuis V. Teodoro
@luisteodoro
April 15, 2019
Gonzalinho
I think we should look at successful democratic systems that work and ask ourselves what it is that makes them work.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the U.S., for example, I would say that one factor is that political and economic power is well-distributed, so that this factor works as an effective check-and-balance to the use and abuse of power.
In the Philippines, too much economic power is held by too small a proportion of the population, and it is this elite, often family- and kinship-based, that practically monopolizes political power in the country.
Gonzalinho
How did we get here? The people elected a dictator because they were not educated in the abuses of the Marcos regime and because they were attracted by the leadership of a warlord. So it seems to me the root of this problem is first, ignorance, and second, the evil attraction exerted on hearts that are unchristian, not entirely, but in some important respect, yes.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason is simply that electoral choices are limited. Elections do not favor the unknown, unfunded, and poor, however competent or upstanding. The reasons for a poorly working democracy are structural.
Gonzalinho
DON’T BLAME FILIPINOS FOR INCREASINGLY POWERFUL DUTERTE, BLAME THEIR POLITICAL SYSTEM By Bianca Ysabelle Franco
ReplyDeleteThe Globe Post, June 4, 2019
It is sensible for Filipinos to believe in their president who champions their rights and desires. The approval for Duterte is due to his ability to project the people’s aspirations, not because they have been deceived to do so. More importantly, Duterte legitimizes the people’s frustrations against a political establishment that has long disparaged them.
It is not the people who are to blame for an increasingly powerful Duterte, but the political system that has failed them time and again. This time, this political system created a man who ruined democracy for the people who elected him.
See: https://theglobepost.com/2019/06/04/philippines-duterte-popularity/
The great irony is that the system, democracy, albeit weak, has not failed the masses. It has brought about major economic advancement for the country, although the benefits have been felt mainly by the elite. This inequity has to be addressed by enlightened social spending. Tragically, the electorate is largely ignorant of our economic rehabilitation—slow, painful—since the catastrophic Marcos dictatorship—and wants to recapitulate historical folly under another maniacal dictator. The expression for this thickness is, “shoot oneself in the foot.”
Gonzalinho
WHY DO PEOPLE FOLLOW TYRANTS?
ReplyDeleteHistory repeats itself because of human nature.
By Jean Kim, M.D.
Psychology Today
Posted Feb 02, 2017
Time and time again in history, and today even in workplaces and beyond, it seems that a certain personality type keeps cropping up in positions of power: the tyrant. They are strikingly similar—charismatic and charming but also calculating and cruel.
They tend to have a blend of narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder traits such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, thirst for power and control, lying and deceit, indifference to conventional laws or rules or morality, and more. The noted psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg and others often coined this type the “malignant narcissist.”
…what is discussed less often is that these leaders do not and cannot rise in a vacuum; they come to power on the backs of the masses they ultimately disdain and discard at will. It’s the people who follow these bully dictator types that we need to examine and reflect on as well; why do people worship and enable these leaders? What is it in human nature that makes us vulnerable to this repeated cycle of cruelty and danger? …
1. A craving for strong parental figures…
2. Assuming the best in others/faith/naïve idealism…
3. Wish fulfillment and admiration of transgressive behavior and confidence…
4. Drawn to superficial markers (money, looks, status)…
5. Feeling weak or uncertain in our own lives…
6. Cowardice/passivity/false safety/survival…
7. Power/popularity cliques/alignment with the ‘in’ crowd…
8. Lack of critical thought/logic/education…
See: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/culture-shrink/201702/why-do-people-follow-tyrants
I would say for Duterte, it’s Nos. 3, 7, 8 especially.
Gonzalinho
FRUSTRATED NETIZEN WRITES TO 16 MILLION DUTERTE VOTERS
ReplyDeleteFederico D. Pascual Jr.
The Philippine Star
April 10, 2018 - 12:00am
We share below an open letter of netizen Gege Cruz pouring out in social media her disgust with the 16 million voters who handed the presidency to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. (This version is 500 words shorter than Cruz’s original rant that we edited to fit space.)
You’ll never hear the end of it from me for your Duterte vote. And the more intelligent, the more educated, the more well-bred, the more “Christian” you are, the more I blame you. Shame on you!
…One reason I got from friends – because he’s the only one who can achieve radical change that this country badly needs. Bullcrap! There was never ever any empirical proof of that. You just believed the macho stories. You bought into the myth they built with manipulated polls and paid trolls.
It was a vote of desperation. And you chose to be desperate at a time when our country was at its best economic standing in a long time. When we were emerging as a new tiger. Desperation makes you stupid, you know.
Because you were angry about traffic, frustrated with the MRT, outraged by laglag bala. You voted for the one who only said he would solve those problems, without presenting any viable solution, just imaginary numbers and ridiculous deadlines. Naniwala naman kayo!
You just felt like voting for him. Basta. And look at where that vote has brought us. Loans piling up. Peso slipping. Jobs and investments dwindling. Grants disappearing. Our islands being grabbed from us. Corruption growing. Nepotism, cronyism, incompetence, the death of meritocracy. Wala nang bigas! May crime at drugs pa rin! At may traffic pa rin!
Eto pa – “Hindi siya trapo!” Tingnan mo ngayon – trapo na siya, at isa pa siyang malaking doormat – Welcome, China! Our Islands, Yours Na. Tinapon ang ating victory sa Hague. At binenta ng libre ang bansa natin. With loan interests on our side. Hindi pa natin tapos bayaran ang mga utang ni Marcos, eto na naman!
See: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/04/10/1804450/frustrated-netizen-writes-16-million-duterte-voters
The worst part for me is that just when we are about to turn the economic development corner and have nearly paid off the Marcos debt after 30 years, the Philippine electorate places another massively corrupt politician into office.
“Forgetfulness is the incomprehension of those who misconstrue the past.”
Link: https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/07/politics.html
Gonzalinho
TRANSPORT IN TWO CITIES
ReplyDeleteBy: Melba Padilla Maggay - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:04 AM November 07, 2019
…The inattention to system deficiencies is not for lack of technical talent. Our engineers are globally welcomed; a Zambian ambassador I met in Sweden told me that it was the Filipino engineers on the shop floor that taught their technicians working in the copper mines, not the European consultants who exacted hefty fees.
My sense is that whatever technical expertise there is in government is thwarted by politics, of the kind that is interested only in holding on to power and not in tinkering with the machinery so that things work. The venerable Lee Kuan Yew once remarked that this country’s problem is “too much politics.”
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/125068/transport-in-two-cities#ixzz6Z3K9R5CE
Despite more than adequate resources for infrastructure development, the Philippines has for decades maintained a poor public transportation system, especially in the major urban centers of Metro Manila and Metro Cebu. This appalling state is the result of BAD GOVERNANCE.
Gonzalinho
https://opinion.inquirer.net/125068/transport-in-two-cities#ixzz6Z3K9R5CE
Delete—Melba Padilla Maggay, “Transport in Two Cities,” Inquirer.net, November 7, 2019
Gonzalinho
Philippine presidential election is coming up in 2022. Democracy forces must mobilize now against anti-democracy forces, building trust among the electorate, especially among the lower socioeconomic classes, by implementing active and effective mechanisms for listening and dialogue. Once in power, democracy forces must foster democratic values and attitudes among the populace by institutionalizing formal education courses.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Successful democracy in the Philippines entails deeply inculcating democratic values and attitudes in the Philippine people through a systematic process of formal education critically combined with building and strengthening democratic institutions at all levels and branches of government. A good theoretical education is undone when it is contradicted by bad governance in practice. The economic benefits of robust democratic governance has to be felt in practice through intelligent economic policies and programs resulting in inclusive economic development. Enlightened, sensible social spending is part and parcel of an inclusive economic agenda.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
A good proportion of the Philippine electorate do not know how to make good electoral choices. They elect liars, thieves, and murderers into power, and in doing so impoverish the nation for generations and generations. The trolls contribute very substantially to this process. They do the work of Satan.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
There are moral aspects to the struggle between autocracy and democracy in the Philippines, indeed, worldwide. An awareness and understanding of this inescapably mortal conflict involves education in democracy vis-à-vis competing systems. Education entails promoting democracy as a preferential moral regime, however imperfect, in contrast to autocracy, while asking us to investigate hybrid alternatives.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
EDUCATION: MIRROR OF A DEEPER CRISIS
ReplyDeleteBy: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM February 04, 2024
One of the most useful insights on education I have come across sums up the function of education as the preparation of individuals to live in future social systems. I’m paraphrasing the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, but the key word in his concept is “future.” It’s hard enough to prepare our children to live in the present. It’s harder to imagine what form of education would minimally equip them to live in the future.
Given the pace of development in artificial intelligence and the biological sciences alone, our young people would have to be equipped with a robust mathematical and scientific foundation to enable them to handle increasingly complex problems and emerging innovations in science and technology. At the same time, in the face of the myriad challenges posed by globalization, they would have to develop a special quality of mind and a steady moral compass that could keep them oriented through periods of technological and social disruption.
…For people of my generation who went to elementary and high school during the golden years of the Philippine public school system, it is difficult to imagine how the Asian region’s most modern educational system could have deteriorated so completely as to be left behind in all areas of basic literacy by nearly all its neighbors. We used to be the model of public education and the undisputed center of higher learning in the region. At the University of the Philippines and other universities in the early ’60s, foreign students formed a sizable presence in the academic community. The top public high school graduates from every province competed with the best from the elite private high schools. All were driven in their studies by a clear sense of nation and a vision of personal growth closely intertwined with that of the nation’s progress.
Today, we are confronted by educational outcomes that are as unimaginable as they are unacceptable. We can only hope that our political and business leaders, our academics here and abroad, and leading scientists and professional practitioners in all fields, whether or not they benefited from the country’s educational system when it was in much better shape, would see in its present crisis an invitation to review what has happened to the whole country in the last 50 years and to urgently act to reverse the drift to comprehensive national failure.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/170547/education-mirror-of-a-deeper-crisis
Education in science and technology, yes, but also education in “a special quality of mind and a steady moral compass” that prepares “individuals to live in future social systems.” If the future social system we are contemplating for the Philippines is democracy—not dictatorship or autocracy in its various forms—then education in democracy is a necessary part of the formula for national development.
Gonzalinho