IF JUDGED by fervor and excitement, today’s Independence Day would certainly suffer a failing grade. Save for the most perfunctory of patriotic gestures, Filipinos are not expected to turn up for the usual National Day parade in Rizal Park. They won’t, because there will be no parade there: the main Independence Day rites will be at the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan, where the Malolos Congress was held in 1898 to draft the constitution of the first republic in Asia and Africa. Its historic significance should accord this day with all the pomp and pageantry of a genuine people’s celebration. But there will be more people spending today in giant air-conditioned shopping centers. They won’t be turning up in droves for the Independence Day rites because there’s no Mall of Asia in the city that hosted the congress of the first republic in Asia.
Too bad, since there are proper causes for celebration for Filipinos as a nation. International investment houses have revised upwards the economic outlook of the Philippines after it posted 6.4-percent GDP growth in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the 4.9 percent growth posted last year during the same quarter. Moreover, business confidence has been boosted by the impeachment and conviction of Chief Justice Renato Corona, which should show that robust democracy and correct politics must underpin sound economic growth. For national morale, there’s Jessica Sanchez landing in the finals of “American Idol.”
But aside from Pacquiao’s controversial loss to Timothy Bradley Jr. last Sunday, contradictory developments dampen patriotic feelings and provide the image of a nation listless and divided. Farmers have again made the long march from the Visayas and Mindanao to demand full implementation of land reform before the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms expires in 2014. Filipinos continue to seek economic refuge in Syria and other Middle East hotspots where they put their lives in danger. Paradoxically, Filipinos in exile seem to feel more nationalistic. Witness the warm and vibrant Independence Day celebrations they hold abroad, even in freezing Oslo!
Why aren’t we as animated with our Independence Day as other countries are with theirs. A strong cause of the rather limp nationalism may be the record of failures of the Philippine nation-state. The first republic of Asia can’t ever seem to get its act together so that more than a century after declaring its independence, the Philippine economy and development remains a relative laggard when compared with its neighbors, which achieved their independence much later.
Even in the basic task of keeping its sovereignty over its territory, the Philippine nation-state has not been exactly a rousing success. More than a century after Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States, turning over an archipelago that was by and large well-defined and protected, the territory has become more and more porous because of the inability of the nation-state to secure its borders. Bajo de Masinloc, the shoal off Zambales as named by the Spaniards, has become the poaching ground of Chinese fishers and has been arrogantly claimed by China by historic right, even if it is Philippine territory by virtue of the Treaty of Paris and of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The same sad situation is happening in the Spratlys and elsewhere. All over the archipelago, smuggling, illegal trade in arms and drugs, human trafficking, fundamentalist kidnapping, and even terrorism thrive because of the failure of the nation-state to police its borders.
Part of the reason why the Philippines can’t adequately defend its territory is that it has been under threat from within. Muslim secessionism and the communist insurgency are now 40 years old, which means the Philippines has been a conflicted republic for a good third of its 114 years. And there appears no end to the national dysfunction because the Philippine military and police seem to thrive amid the conflicts. In fact, there have been reports of military and police officers selling arms and ammunition to Muslim and communist rebels. The long-running armed conflicts, plus resilient criminality and terrorism, have resulted in a barracks state and fostered a national psychosis. Today, Filipinos don’t feel secure in shopping malls unless they’re frisked and humiliated by security.
After 114 years of independence, the Philippines remains a nation that has yet to truly appreciate and celebrate its being free.
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