Independence

Strategic Perspective
René B. Azurin

WATCHING THE nation celebrate its Independence Day yesterday while 27.9% of its population (of 97 million) remain mired in poverty is, frankly, discombobulating. Further, of some 43 million Filipinos 18 years of age and over, 25.4% of them currently cannot find jobs (according to a March 2013 survey of pollster SWS), a rate of unemployment largely unchanged for some time. Clearly, something has to be seriously wrong in the way the Philippines has been governed since it first declared itself as a nation.

At its root, the problem is that, since its birth, power in this country has been concentrated in a tiny political and economic elite. In my book Power Without Virtue (Anvil, 2008), I recounted historian Teodoro Agoncillo’s story about first Philippine president Emilio Aguinaldo considering a grant of lands to a general of his revolutionary army, and presidential adviser Apolinario Mabini reacting indignantly, "What will the people say if we who are in power abuse it for our own benefit?" Aguinaldo gave in to Mabini then but, shortly thereafter and despite vigorous opposition from the morally scrupulous Mabini, allowed the nascent republic’s propertied and moneyed class to take control of government (through dominance of the Malolos Congress) and then appropriate for themselves virtually unconstrained discretionary powers over the nation’s funds and the allocation of its public resources. It is revealing that Agoncillo acerbically described this moneyed class as "men who conjugated the verb ‘to serve’ to mean ‘to grasp.’"

The consequences of Mabini’s lost battle is acutely felt by us today. I have written, "Irrespective of any labels or party names that presidents, senators, congressmen, and other local government officials have attached to themselves over the more than hundred years since, all have been joined -- save only for a shamefully miniscule few -- by the notion that the positions they occupy are opportunities ‘to grasp’ and not ‘to serve’." To this day, tremendous discretionary power over the nation’s treasury, the nation’s resources, and the nation’s economic policies is exercised by those who capture control of government. That power has been concentrated and refined and used avariciously over the years by the nation’s politicos for private and personal gain. Indeed, those who seek political office generally view it simply as the fastest route to wealth and power.

I discussed at some length the evils of concentrated power in another of my books,Stationary Bandits (Platypus, 2007), and basically argued that de-concentrating power is an essential requirement for this nation to progress and prosper. I wrote: "Concentrated power is cause not only for a great deal of concern but for a great deal of abject fear. Those who control the coercive might of government can effectively determine economic (and other) outcomes and arbitrarily decide who wins and who loses in the lotto of life. The actions of leaders of nations can make one citizen better off and another worse off or one group richer and another group poorer. This is why men have lusted for the control of government power since the dawn of human society."

I continued: "Fashioning human communities -- hopefully, better ones -- requires dealing with the incontrovertible fact that the distribution of power will determine societal outcomes. Such outcomes will logically favor those with power and not those without. Significantly then, it must be borne in mind that those who wield government power -- whether they are called presidents, prime ministers, senators, congressmen, assemblymen, cabinet ministers, governors, mayors, or whatever -- are vested with a monopoly on the collective power of the entire community and, by virtue of this, are enormously more powerful than any single member of the society. Accordingly, it is in the best interests of the individual members of the community to see to it that the power of those who govern is constrained -- and contained -- so that it can be reasonably expected to be used for the benefit of the community as a whole and not used to advance the government power wielder’s own personal interests contra those of members of the community who do not enjoy the advantage of government power. This, by the way, is simple fairness, and fairness is the only solid foundation on which to build viable human communities."

But: "The balance of power between individual citizens and their government… is the outcome of a long-standing -- and continuing -- struggle between the governing few and the governed many. That this is a bitter competition cannot be glossed over. To think that those who govern will willingly concede power to those who think that they are entitled to it is naíve. To believe that those who have cornered government power will act generally in the best interests of the whole community is, at best, hopelessly optimistic."

Unfortunately, we -- as a people -- have not been able to put effective constraints on the power of the ruling class who have governed our nation since its birth. Because of this, our political and economic policies -- as well as our institutions -- have always been tilted to favor the political and economic elite. That is why the nation’s path towards progress and general prosperity has been a difficult one. 

Moreover, in recent years, I fear that we have lost further ground and that, instead of constraining power and de-concentrating it, we now face the reality that the political grip on our society by an even tinier cabal has been tightened. By accepting an automated election system that -- in brazen violation of the laws of the land -- is completely un-transparent to the public at large, the Filipino people can no longer even pretend that their government is a democratically elected one. If nothing is done about this travesty of a situation, then we should all immediately stop participating in thezarzuela of going to the precincts to vote, then watching some self-professed legal luminary announce that the law does not require him to actually count the votes because he can "project" the winners. For sheer arrogance, that has to take the cake. It has come to that and, sadly, the Filipino public is taking it like a nation of uncomplaining carabaos. So, henceforth, we might as well just sit at home and wait for the factotums of the powers that be to announce who they’d like to occupy various positions in our government. 

We might as well also stop celebrating Independence Day.