The Good Filipino

From time immemorial, the call for good governance has dominated societies. There is always a good reason to push for good governance in a democracy where different ideas and sentiments free to flow and collide. Governance, then, whether it takes side or not, will be looked at and judged by that multiplicity of opinions. Even at its best, some sectors will always ask for more, or something different.

In the Philippines, the same has been true. Ever since I can remember as a schoolboy in elementary school, I have heard of demands for good governance. It seems that every election has to start with that. How else can new sets of leaders be chosen to replace current ones if there is no room for change and improvement? When I could already vote and many elections thereafter, the refrain for good governance continued.

It is now 2023 or 59 years when Filipinos began self-governance. All protestations to earlier independence were merely that – protestations – and yet national governance never had a chance to be implemented. Instead of 1898 or 125 years ago, let me just use 1946 to 2023 as Filipino governance that we can praise or criticize. And criticize we did as history has shown.

The results have not been good. For the most part, if we are to consider the criticisms of people, the results of governance have been more a failure and with only a few instances of success. Many of the older generations who are still alive invariably point out that the Philippines was only second to Japan from after WWII until the 60s. Since then, beginning with martial law, has only been a slide that we cannot seem to reverse.

That is why the call for good governance can also never seem to ran out of steam. The worse the country’s state is, the louder and more frequent is the call for good governance. It is not only the poverty of the majority on one end and the scandalous corruption on the other that are the fundamental reasons for serious change, it is also the snail’s pace of economic and moral improvement wherever we can find them.

In the last 20 years, however, I have slowly realized that good governance is not possible in the situation we are in and the level of democracy that defines our governance and citizenship. Let us consider that our rise in Asia happened during the almost 50 years of American rule in the Philippines. When the United States left in 1946 and Filipinos finally governed, it was a slow and steady deterioration of everything that had made us second only to Japan in the region. In other words, the accomplishment was by the American rule of the Filipino, not by Filipinos of our own country.

Sadly, the slide continues. I hesitate to research what our status today is. I only know that the pattern of sliding downward is still there and maybe rock bottom is just around the corner. What other countries or countries are lower than the Philippines in the ASEAN and Asia today?

Those are the sorry results of 7 decades of calling for good governance. It was a failed desire – as results will show. Was it wrong, then, to want good governance? No. Not if we are an operational democracy. But, yes, wrong if we are still inside a feudal state. It is wrong for the people to ask for something that they do not deserve.

In feudalism, though, only the elite who rule have a right to demand. And the elite, if we are to measure their lifetime of privilege, their dominance of power and authority, and their accumulated wealth are tremendously successful. Who rules the Philippines? Who owns the Philippines? The answer will tell us if we are in a democracy or in a feudal state,

Because good governance is a democratic demand, a vital and necessary one. Because a democracy is of the people, by the people, for the people – not of the elite, by the elite, for the elite. In a democracy, the first call is good citizenship – the practice of the people, by the people, for the people. Without democracy, the people have no right to demand good governance. Without democracy, only the ruling elite can demand, and will demand obedience.

It looks like that we, the people, are precisely doing that – giving our obedience to those who rule.

Democracy is not a hand-me-down political system. Democracy is of, by, and for the people. It is us, the people, we, the Filipino citizenry, who must first do our work, build our democracy by the seat of our brow, by the blood of our veins, by the courage of our guts. It is a good citizenry that is the foundation of a good Philippines, and only second, a good government. We cannot have a good government until we build and mature our democracy.

Only good citizens are productive, and will produce more. Only good citizens contribute, and will contribute more. Only good citizens can govern a government that submits to the people and the common good. Only good citizens can govern a bureaucracy and castigate those who choke it with red tape. Only good citizens in a working democracy can demand good governance. And we are not yet that, our democracy is not yet that.

I know the path ahead will be extremely challenging, that democracy can hardly grow with 50% of Filipinos knowing they are food-poor, and another 30% are afraid that they can still be food-poor. What citizens can build a strong democracy, a strong nation, when its fears and attention are co-opted by being insecure about food? Yet, the same citizens are perfect people for the ruling elite of a feudal state.

To think that my generation had lived in an illusion of democracy, had assumed that public officials and employees are servants to the people, then realize that it has not been so.