Glimpses
The march for change
By Jose Ma. Montelibano
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 02:06:00 12/05/2008
Filed Under: Social Issues
I have been traveling to several cities in the United States, seven on this trip and seven two months ago, giving priority to where Filipino-Americans either were bunched in great numbers or were of strategic influence. I saw the beginning of the US primaries, witnessed the great contest between Obama and McCain, felt the shock of an economic downtrend that turned into a meltdown, and I’m awaiting as eagerly as my Filipino-American hosts the new presidency launched on a message of change.
In this same year, I saw the crisis of rice supply and outrageous price increases, the removal of Joe de Venecia as House speaker, the return of Joc-oc Bolante from US detention and the continuing fertilizer controversy, the removal of Manny Villar as Senate president, another failed impeachment bid, and General Danny Lim's message of change.
Indeed, change is now inevitable—change that is not usual, and offers to be dramatic if not radical. Change does not target the Philippines specially, but the whole world; however, the Philippines is very vulnerable to change. That is the fate of a people whose capacity for assimilation has been intensified by a history of dependence. Ours is truly a fate that is sensitive and often adaptive to the fate of other nations, particularly the United States.
And it is the United States that is going through a process that almost all of its population have little or no experience of. Many compare the present crisis to the Great Depression 80 years ago, but the crisis is not only economic, it is also deeply social, political, and global. As a continuing vassal of the United States, the Philippines cannot but shudder as America itself cringes in fear. Its own struggle to overcome poverty, to dismantle corruption and to stave off violence in Moro land and in areas influenced by the New People’s Army makes the Philippines weak from internal pressure and helpless before external challenges.
A reader asked me if I could also write about solutions, as I have been quite articulate about the ills that choke our people and country. In a complicated situation, the answers are usually simplicity itself. When a country is corrupt and judged by its peers to be so following a process of measure applied evenly to other counties, it simply says governance should be good and clean. When the country is massively afflicted with poverty, it simply says greed and avarice have won over caring and sharing. And when a people become victims of violence from war, rebellion and summary executions, it simply means personal or narrow agenda is stronger than respect for life.
To my mind and, I am sure, also to the minds of many, the answers are simple, available, doable and replicable. It is not that the answers are missing or baffling, it is simply that we do not want them badly enough, or not yet suffering enough. When those who govern are corrupt, people can take them down from their lofty posts if the courts will not. When the majority of Filipinos are poor, they can use their numbers to force change and equitable treatment. Revolutions do not honor constitutions but creates new ones. The problems that confront us have not hurt us to a point when we simply move to eliminate them in the most direct and expeditious manner.
Because most of us are spiritually guided to give the other cheek, then we do. Because that same guidance tells us that we must not confront wrong with another wrong, we have no choice but to believe that the principle of good being more powerful than evil will eventually cause a divine way out for suffering victims. The Filipino's obedience to teachings and resiliency in the face of adversity has unfortunately combined to make him tolerant and hopeful.
But even tolerance and hope cannot stop the march of change. Change is part of a universal formula, a force that evens the odds and ultimately shows the most effective pathway for progress or for justice. And change has begun in America which had the most power to resist it. How can the Philippines then avoid it?
The agents of change have not been silent or lazy in the Philippines. They have simply misread the psyche of victims, or they have offered themselves to be the answer when they do not carry the anointment of life. And in their frustration, they presumed a ripeness that was not yet there but knocking more loudly today. Poverty is a curse, corruption is a curse, and all curses lead surely to violence and great pain.
Filipino-Americans are acutely sensitive to the dynamics of poverty and corruption in the Philippines and decry not only the ugliness of social cancers but the shame all Filipinos have to bear because of these. From across oceans, Filipino-American advocates of change send clear messages that they, too, will use the mood of change in America to trigger the changes they seek in the motherland. There is no doubt that leaders in Filipino-American communities will seek to be heard by an Obama presidency, with Hillary possibly the next secretary of state.
The demand for good governance will be better served if a corresponding invitation for responsible citizenship will be presented to both government and people. People powered revolutions had caused initial change in governance which could not be sustained because citizens did not understand that they, too, had to show the change they demanded from others.
Power need not always be the object of change; it can also be empowerment. People forget that change in the form of empowered Filipinos dislodged power twice in recent history. It is true that power can trigger change, but just as true that the empowered can change the powerful. When a current situation is not good, the powerful can lead others to change. If not, then they must risk being changed.
What is clear is that more than usual change is the prognosis of the times. As America and the rest of the developed world reel from the change that buffets them, Filipinos everywhere must understand they are next.
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Responses may be sent to jlmglimpses@gmail.com.
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"In bayanihan, we will be our brother's keeper and forever shut the door to hunger among ourselves."
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