...One can read all kinds of meanings in Mr. Marcos’ chosen way of enjoying the long weekend. But one that stands out, at least for me, is the message that, whatever may happen to the Filipino nation, we can always go back to the secure embrace of our ethnic identities. It’s the wrong message for someone who sought the presidency on a vision of national unity. It is also a missed opportunity — a chance to reach out to those who did not vote for him in the last election, if only to say that although we have gone through many difficult moments as a nation, when stark differences in our appreciation of events threatened to fatally divide us, it is reassuring to think that our shared love for our country and collective concern for our children’s future always led us to the path of peace.
In that spirit, the President could have used the Edsa commemoration to acknowledge the lingering sensitivities that continue to divide us — and call for national healing. He could have sealed such a call with a directive to the secretary of justice, mandating him to immediately review the cases against detained former senator Leila de Lima with a view to withdrawing them and releasing her at once if the evidence is lacking.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/161316/awkward-commemoration-missed-opportunity#ixzz7uSk7xSq4
WHY DID MARCOS JR. WIN?
Many who are knowledgeable and objective about the debacle of the Marcos regime—the brutal, murderous repression, the destruction of democratic institutions, the plunder and the resulting economic devastation—unsurprisingly wonder about Marcos Jr.’s successful prosecution of the 2022 elections. Not only did Marcos Jr. win the presidency, his political ally Sara Duterte won the vice-presidency. Any reasonable observer with some measure of ethical persuasion who moreover understands the factual historical record of the Marcos family would naturally oppose and resist their return to power. More so if those who campaigned against their return to power during the 2022 elections had themselves been victims of Marcos rule.
...Basically, Marcos Jr. won on the Ilocos and Mindanao regional votes, assisted by disillusionment with liberal democracy—disillusionment significantly based on the ignorance of the electorate—ignorance of the economic debacle of the Marcos era and of the development gains post-Marcos—in which support for liberal democracy is identified with the Philippine elite. The Marcos Jr. vote is significantly an anti-elite vote, delusively so. There is also a longing for authoritarian rule, born of desperation, in the ignorant belief that a dictatorial regime, even if plundering—all politicians are corrupt, it is erroneously claimed—will result in the economic improvement of the lives of the lower class and poor. A last important factor is the influence of historical landed feudalism, in which the impoverished seek the patronage of the feudal elite and the latter ride on the political support of the poor. It is this social structure and the attendant values and attitudes that animate electoral behavior. It has been described as “cacique democracy.”
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/12/why-did-marcos-jr-win.html
FEUDAL DEMOCRACY
...our pre-Hispanic feudal system of power relations was co-opted by the Spanish conquerors, who themselves were the children of a feudal, royalist society.
Dumol says that a transformation of values and attitudes, of “minds and hearts,” is required to progress beyond feudalism.
Education in this direction is the professed objective of the Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy, of which Dumol is a member. Their website describes the organization as follows:
begin
WHO WE ARE
The Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy (PCCED) is a non-government organization dedicated to the strengthening civic education as a means to more meaningful citizen participation in democratic life.
We believe that our common vision as a people is to “make democracy work out of love of country”.
This vision guides us as we work with teachers, youth leaders, local authorities, civil society groups, and all civic educators. We aim to strengthen civics in schools, empower local authorities and civil society groups in order to engage in ‘shared governance, and create more effective platforms for citizen participation in local governance.
Since 2004, PCCED has developed a number of programs designed to provide the requisite knowledge, skills and disposition of good citizenship.
end
https://www.pcced.org.ph/about-us/
—“About Us,” Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy, 2022
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/05/feudal-democracy.html
Fascism cannot be precisely defined and distinguished from competing political ideologies because of the attributes it shares in common with its totalitarian double, communism, and because fascism co-opts liberal democracy en route to the takeover of democratic institutions in order to remake them in the image of fascism, which—similar to communism—pays lip service to democratic ideals even as it subverts them.
Nonetheless, there are elements that characteristically define fascism. In the Philippines, they include, principally, a binding sense of group identity coming together around a strong leader, typically male.
Marcos Jr. rode on the authoritarian image of his father, which bound together the people of the Ilocano region. His political teammate, Sara Duterte, without whom he could not have captured the presidency, similarly rallied her supporters from Mindanao around her father’s brazenly fascist persona.
Therefore, Philippine fascism is regional. It hearkens to a longing for dictatorial rule as a way for the masses to free themselves from endemic poverty.
Riding today on his mandate of authoritarian tribalism—Philippine regionalism might be described as a type of modern tribalism or “neotribalism”—Philippine fascism naturally takes aim at its principal ideological enemies, communism, and less overtly, liberal democracy.
Red-tagging and assassinations, aggressively pushed by Marcos Jr.’s predecessor, has diminished somewhat under his more epicurean and less bloodthirsty successor. At the same time, the assault on democratic institutions, principles, and practices has perceptibly receded.
Yet the ideologically based war continues, evidence for which is the continual detention of Leila de Lima in contravention of the rule of law that should robustly maintain in a genuine democracy.
Red-tagging also continues unabated in the Philippines. It often segues into killings by right-wing militias, contract assassins, and police and military units of the Philippine government.
What especially distinguishes Philippine fascism is that it builds on the hierarchical power structure of Philippine society originally configured according to the extended family ownership of vast landholdings and the accompanying tenancy relations. In this sense Philippine society is originally feudal.
Politicians and business bigwigs today are descendants of this elite class, or otherwise they are newbies who have succeeded in Philippine politics and subsequently leveraged their newfound power to gather and consolidate economic resources with the resulting political wherewithal. Notably, the elite of Philippine society recapitulate fascist elite.
The foregoing political system has been described as “cacique democracy.” Because it converges in its defining attributes with fascism, it might also be described as “fascism with Philippine characteristics.”
Photo, cropped, courtesy of patrickroque01
ReplyDeletePhoto link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BBM_Uniteam_rally_Batasan_Bongbong_Marcos_speech_fist_%28IBP_Road,_Quezon_City;_04-13-2022%29.jpg
Gonzalinho
“Thank you for sharing these thought-provoking notes on Filipino fascism and neotribalism. …I have my doubts whether Marcos Jr. was conscious of the ideological import of what he was doing.
ReplyDelete“But on the main point: The primacy of family and its hierarchical structure in Philippine politics is definitely a defining feature of our society.”
Randy David, public.lives@gmail.com
February 28, 2023
Thank you for the response!
I agree that Marcos Jr.—unlike his immediate predecessor who publicly identified himself as a fascist—is not self-consciously ideological. Still, it is apparent that Marcos Jr. is his father’s son, because without doubt Marcos Sr. was a right-wing dictator and during the 2022 election campaign and now in the seat of power Marcos Jr. put in play elements of the dead man’s playbook.
Gonzalinho
Unfortunately, in the Philippines tribalism trumps the rule of law.
ReplyDeleteNot good at all for the democratic project in our country...
Gonzalinho
EXPLAINING THE POPULARITY OF DUTERTE AND MARCOS
ReplyDeleteBy: Richard Heydarian - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:20 AM April 18, 2023
When Pulse Asia released its latest approval rating for our top political leaders based on interviews with 1,200 randomly selected respondents across the country between March 15 and 19, the partisan reaction was excruciatingly predictable.
On one hand, impresarios and diehard supporters of the House of Duterte and House of Marcos were ecstatic. Their leaders’ apparent popularity, per the survey, was taken as an unquestionable reaffirmation of their unshakable belief in the magical powers of their patrons.
…To understand the apparent popularity of President Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte, there are three data sets and factors to keep in mind. First of all, a cursory look at the Social Weather Stations’ surveys in the post-dictatorship shows that all Filipino presidents, with the notable exception of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, had extremely high net satisfaction ratings in their first year in office. In fact, the late President Fidel Ramos, arguably our most competent by our admittedly humble standards, started at close to +70 net satisfaction rating.
Second, the popularity of both House of Marcos and House of Duterte reflects a more fundamental structural reality, namely widespread dissatisfaction with our broken democratic institutions, which failed to uplift the vast number of Filipino people out of destitution three decades after the fall of a kleptocratic dictatorship.
After all, how on earth can we call ours a democratic system when up to 90 percent of legislative offices are dominated by political dynasties, while 40 richest families have been gobbling up the bulk of newly created growth in recent memory? Not even Latin American nations have such a comprehensive oligarchic system! Mind you: the concentration of power in the hands of dynasties was even exacerbated during reformist presidencies, with close to 80 percent of congressional seats in the hands of few families by the mid-2010s.
No wonder then, all reputable global surveys show that only a minority of Filipinos are fully committed to liberal democratic politics. To put things into perspective: A 2017 Pew Research Center survey, confirming an earlier World Values Survey in the early-2010s, showed that more than eight out of 10 Filipinos were either supportive of or open to an authoritarian system. In 2020, another Pew Survey showed that almost half of Filipino respondents said “most elected officials do not care” about the welfare of ordinary citizens.
The political scientist Adele Webb described this phenomenon as “democratic ambivalence.” I described it earlier as nothing less than “democracy fatigue,” even if we never truly had a democracy. In short, our oligarchs gave a bad name to democracy.
And this brings us to the third factor: The return of what German sociologist Max Weber described as “charismatic” leadership, namely political figures who are, in the eyes of their diehard supporters, “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” By all accounts, both Mr. Marcos and Duterte are primarily charismatic leaders, thus beneficiaries of what can be best described as “asymmetrical accountability”: When things go wrong, it’s always the fault of their underlings or institutions under their watch, but when things go right, the credit goes to the charismatic leader. The concept of command responsibility is nonexistent. It’s all about faith in political will.
This partly explains why our top two leaders enjoy extremely high approval ratings even if all reputable surveys show low confidence in either the presidential Cabinet or, more specifically, the Department of Education, which is run by the Vice President. In Philippine politics, subjective charisma trumps objective competence.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/162450/explaining-the-popularity-of-duterte-and-marcos#ixzz80bO4kx8Q
To be continued
Gonzalinho
Continued
DeleteA RESPONSE TO RICHARD HEYDARIAN
“Philippine fascism” excerpts are from “Fascism with Filipino Characteristics (Commentary).” See:
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2023/02/fascism-with-filipino-characteristics.html
Heydarian: “…widespread dissatisfaction with our broken democratic institutions, which failed to uplift the vast number of Filipino people out of destitution… After all, how on earth can we call ours a democratic system when up to 90 percent of legislative offices are dominated by political dynasties, while 40 richest families have been gobbling up the bulk of newly created growth in recent memory? Not even Latin American nations have such a comprehensive oligarchic system!”
Philippine fascism: “What especially distinguishes Philippine fascism is that it builds on the hierarchical power structure of Philippine society originally configured according to the extended family ownership of vast landholdings and the accompanying tenancy relations. In this sense Philippine society is originally feudal.”
Heydarian: “When things go wrong, it’s always the fault of their underlings or institutions under their watch, but when things go right, the credit goes to the charismatic leader. The concept of command responsibility is nonexistent.
“This partly explains why our top two leaders enjoy extremely high approval ratings even if all reputable surveys show low confidence in either the presidential Cabinet or, more specifically, the Department of Education, which is run by the Vice President. In Philippine politics, subjective charisma trumps objective competence.”
Philippine fascism: “…there are elements that characteristically define fascism. In the Philippines, they include, principally, a binding sense of group identity coming together around a strong leader, typically male.
“Marcos Jr. rode on the authoritarian image of his father, which bound together the people of the Ilocano region. His political teammate, Sara Duterte, without whom he could not have captured the presidency, similarly rallied her supporters from Mindanao around her father’s brazenly fascist persona.
“Therefore, Philippine fascism is regional. It hearkens to a longing for dictatorial rule as a way for the masses to free themselves from endemic poverty.
“…Philippine regionalism might be described as a type of modern tribalism or ‘neotribalism’….”
Gonzalinho
CHECKLIST FOR DEMOCRACY
ReplyDeleteIs democracy a living reality in this country?
Do we have an independent judiciary, a nonpartisan legislature, a pro-people military, and a truth-seeking press, which are all incorruptible and free from political machinations?
Do we have a leadership that prioritizes the needs of the masses over its vested interests; values the truth, justice, and human rights; upholds the rule of law; promotes transparency and accountability, and protects our sovereignty?
And, do we have a people who don’t get easily fooled, bought, or cheated by crafty politicians and an electorate that elects qualified public servants—instead of crooks, bums, clowns, or ex-convicts? ...
MANUEL A. COLLAO, manuelc223@yahoo.com
Philippine Daily Inquirer (July 13, 2023)
Gonzalinho
The fundamental problem is a voting public that continues to vote against its own self-interest. Instead, like children, they continually elect celebrities and dynasts who offer comic-book promises with one hand and stuff their pockets with the other. It’s not impossible to make change. ...But it might be impossible in the Philippines, where the people willingly submit to exploitation, year after year after year. It’s a feudal society straight out of the Middle Ages. No wonder the smart young citizens just leave.
ReplyDeleteSteve McKing
Philippine Daily Inquirer (July 14, 2023)
Gonzalinho
REVIVING DEMOCRACY: PATHWAYS FOR THE PH
ReplyDeleteBy: Segundo Eclar Romero - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:25 AM August 01, 2023
Elections in the Philippines have lost their luster, becoming distasteful and fraught with challenges. The system is flawed at multiple levels, with voters failing to prioritize crucial issues, electoral processes losing credibility, and dynasties continuing to dominate the political landscape.
Voters must shift their focus from name recognition to the competency and integrity of candidates. Citizens should evaluate candidates based on their commitment to enacting public policies that address their well-being in the short and long term.
The credibility of the electronic voting system has waned as it remains vulnerable to manipulation and corruption. The integrity of the May 2022 elections should be squarely defended with transparency by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), not disingenuous avoidance. Safeguards must be strengthened to preserve the integrity of the electoral process going forward and prevent unscrupulous politicians from hijacking democracy.
The results of elections perpetuate political dynasties, even if their scions have been convicted of crimes. This culture of impunity undermines the very essence of democratic governance. The institutions meant to uphold democratic hygiene, like the Comelec, the Ombudsman, and other commissions, have not fulfilled their roles, leading to a shaky regulatory governance system.
…To revitalize democracy, attention should be directed toward the local level of governance. Concepts like mini-publics, indigenous politics, and sortition offer fresh perspectives.
…Democracy in the Philippines is at a crossroads, with elections losing their essence and governance marred by dynastic rule. To rekindle democracy’s spirit, voters must prioritize issues and candidates’ integrity, while institutions must fulfill their responsibilities. At the local level, innovative concepts like mini-publics, indigenous politics, and sortition hold promise in fostering a more participatory and inclusive form of governance. It is time to light a candle and embrace change, rather than succumbing to the darkness of a flawed system.
doyromero@gmail.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/165203/reviving-democracy-pathways-for-the-ph#ixzz8APw3YJjJ
Is genuine reform possible? Whatever the reality, we have to keep on slogging.
Gonzalinho
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
POLITICAL TUG-OF-WAR ON CHARTER CHANGE NOT REALLY ABOUT CHARTER CHANGE
ReplyDeletePhilippine Daily Inquirer / 05:01 AM March 08, 2024
The current political tug-of-war between certain political sectors on the issue of amending the Constitution is just a screen for other struggles concerning other issues and not really about Charter change (Cha-cha). For the sake of argument, we assume to be factual the assertion that Cha-cha will fix the economy. That would indeed make Cha-cha an attractive proposition.
…People too optimistic about Cha-cha should ask themselves…if Cha-cha by itself can solve all our woes.
The anti-Cha-cha groups recognize this. They say this isn’t the best time to be messing around with the Constitution. They point to the fact that removing economic restrictions from the Constitution would not accomplish much if the administration continues to fail in fixing all the other challenges that make the Philippines unattractive as a destination for foreign direct investments. These challenges include problems relating to infrastructure, governance, corruption, and ease of doing business.
If we were to all hypothetically agree that the Charter needs to be changed, the question becomes: Who will decide on these changes, and whose interests will these changes serve?
This is the reason why Cha-cha debates in previous administrations featured fierce arguments on how these changes were to come about. One option was for Congress to designate and organize itself as a constitutional assembly. But Congress had been revealed in past decades to be a circus, and respected senators and congressmen were exposed as either incompetents, clowns, or both. Their credibility to represent the people’s interests has become suspect. It is for this reason that some groups advocate the formation of a constitutional convention, which they thought would be more democratic, but even then, the process remains suspect when one cannot fully trust those who appoint or choose members of the convention.
Given this background, it becomes easy to read why some groups have instead pushed for a people’s initiative. A people’s initiative organized at the barangay level using government resources makes for a process of constitutional change that is easier to implement—and also easier for some politicians to hijack.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
POLITICAL TUG-OF-WAR ON CHARTER CHANGE NOT REALLY ABOUT CHARTER CHANGE
DeleteContinued
And there lies the rub: this is about the struggle for power between those who want more authentic representation and those who want to consolidate even more power in more effective ways under a new system.
Perhaps, the political climate can change, sooner or later so that the Cha-cha process can be initiated with more credibility and in a manner that is truly more democratic. …debate on Cha-cha is…a case of fragmented interest groups rallying to consolidate their power over other people and to shape the Charter to legitimize their will to power. That’s what this is about.
And that’s why this is not about Cha-cha.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/171749/political-tug-of-war-on-charter-change-not-really-about-charter-change
“This is about the struggle for power between those who want more authentic representation and those who want to consolidate even more power in more effective ways under a new system.”
In many cases the legal system in the Philippines is a tool used by political and economic elites to underpin and buttress the existing political system that favors them. Presently, Philippine law is an institution that is gamed by elites in order to strengthen the established system of de facto power relations, weakening, in effect, the rights of those who according to the democratic adage should have more in law because they have less in life. Quite the opposite, in fact—in the Philippines, those have more in law who have more in life.
The practice of law in the Philippines should be reformed to promote and advance political and economic egalitarianism according to the best traditions, values, and ideals of democracy. It is the task of activists, not only domestic but also international, to reform the legal system so that it advances the ideals of an authentic and working democracy. They have their work cut out for them.
Gonzalinho
By Joseph Nathan Cruz
DeleteGonzalinho