Fascism with Filipino Characteristics (More)

FASCISM WITH FILIPINO CHARACTERISTICS (MORE)

THE REALITIES THAT DEFINE OUR ELECTIONS

By: 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.

We are dealing here with the same problems that have bedeviled our politics for a long time. The most glaring of these is the mass poverty that afflicts our people, a condition that compels them to seek the patronage of those who have access to public services like healthcare, housing, and educational assistance. So long as elected politicians can claim a role in deciding who actually gets access to these services, so long will ordinary people see elections primarily as a quest for personal connections than as a contest of political visions.

Though we may think it perverse, there is actually some rationality at work here. We may think that the Filipino voters support the likes of Lito Lapid out of ignorance or out of a failure to distinguish between characters played in the movies and those played in real life. But, no, many vote for such candidates because they see them as approachable and compassionate protectors of the poor, so different from the ones with a pretense to high-mindedness and competence but keep their distance from the people.

Indeed, Filipino voters are not unaware that their compassionate patrons are often engaged in the shady business of enriching themselves at government expense. But, they quickly find excuses for this practice as long as their “idols” don’t do it brazenly (“hindi garapalan”), and are not perceived as taking for themselves much more than what they need (“moderated greed”). In our present scale of values, patronage morally trumps modern governance, making it extremely difficult for the Ombudsman to enforce the law against the high and mighty in government.

A modern party system cannot thrive in such environment. There is simply too much disparity in wealth and power between leaders and their followers. Ordinary members look to the party for their everyday material needs in exchange for continuing loyalty. Leaders end up financing the party they lead if only to keep it alive when it’s out of power.

Small wonder then that, in our system, political clans assume the function of grooming candidates that, in modern systems, belongs to political parties. It is foolish to expect that legislation alone can neutralize the monopoly of power by political families. They will always find ways of complying with the letter of the law while violating its spirit.

…This is clearly a part of our society’s wrenching transition to modernity. It is a process that can be completed only when the majority of our people achieve enough economic security to make them take their political rights seriously. That moment may not be as remote as we think it is. Akbayan’s Senator Hontiveros finally won after her third attempt, demonstrating that a constituency for democratic change is already growing in the womb of the old society.

public.lives@gmail.com

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/116738/realities-define-elections#ixzz5WDV7cVkG

FEATURES OF TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

Article Shared by Debasish

W. W. Rostow, has described traditional society,

“as one whose structure is developed within limited production functions, based on Pre-Newtonian science and technology, and Pre-Newtonian attitudes towards physical world.”

It means the structure of traditional society was based on primitive technology and orthodox ideas of people. The modern facilities of science and technology were absent.

…In the traditional society, the social structure was such where family played a dominant role. Political power is centred in the hands of landlords. Bulk of population is engaged in agriculture which is a major source of income of the state. The Pre-Newtonian era is called traditional society. The dynasties of China, the civilization of the Middle East and the Mediterranean etc. possessed the characteristics of traditional society.

See:

https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/economic-growth/features-of-traditional-society/4566

—“Features of Traditional Society,” Economics Discussion

See the results of a 2004 study on traditional versus democratic values in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong:

“In all three places, the less traditional and more democratic-minded people tend to be younger, better-educated city dwellers, with higher incomes, who have white collar jobs.  Their opposite numbers, who are more traditional-minded and less committed to democratic values, tend to be older, to dwell in the rural areas, to have lower incomes, and to work in blue collar jobs or in agriculture. [6]  The more modern- and democracy-minded constituency also possesses greater psychological and social capital.  It reports itself to be more interested in politics, to use the media more, to be better informed about politics, and to participate more extensively in social organizations than does the group that holds the reverse set of values.   Of all the variables investigated, education shows the strongest correlation with values.  In all three societies, persons with more years of formal education are far more likely to hold democratic values and far less likely to hold traditional values than persons with fewer years of formal education.  As education increases, belief in traditional values declines steadily and markedly, and belief in democratic values increases in the same way.  The pattern holds true across all three societies.

http://www.asianbarometer.org/publications/b4aefd6be13ef60959bbe4a7fcd21688.pdf

—Andrew Nathan and Tse-hsin Chen, “Working Paper Series: No. 23: Traditional Social Values, Democratic Values, and Political Participation” (November 19-20, 2004), Asian Barometer Project Office, National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica: Working Paper Series

The Philippines is what may be described as a “traditional society” in transition to modernity. In a modern democracy, the values and attitudes are democratic—there is, for example, strong rule of law, belief in enterprise, innovation, and competition, and broad profession of a common ideology of human rights. Social relations in the Philippines and the political power that derives from it are based on kinship relations so that in this respect Philippine society recapitulates defining aspects of European feudalism. The Philippines does not operate like a modern democratic society but rather like a feudal society based on kinship relations. Among others, it is a key reason why Philippine society is corrupt, politically repressive, economically backward, and in science and technology globally uncompetitive. Transformation of attitudes and values in the direction of genuine democracy will result in positive economic repercussions, like what we witnessed under the second Aquino.