The Philippines in dire straits: What needs to be changed?

Two relevant and related articles recently published by the Inquirer provided a broad picture of the current social and political events that are shaping our unfortunate country.

The first is by a group called Clergy for Moral Choice entitled “What shall we do? Time to act on moral choices,” (Letters, 9/1/23). Amid the perceived current electoral, economic, legal, academic syndromes happening in our society today, the men of the cloth dared to ask and challenge readers to see, judge, and act for the values of truth and goodness. The second is by Gideon Lasco, “Can we do anything?“ (Second Opinion, 9/1/23) asking more rhetorically whether we could “do anything in the current political landscape that advances our national interests, and improves our people’s lives, without replacing the politicians in power?”

Both of them suggested that it is time to rectify the appalling and deep-seated imbalance and misuse of power and benefits in our society.

I have been, at once, reminded of the late eminent Jesuit priest and sociologist Fr. John J. Carroll, whose book “Engaging Society: The Sociologist in a War Zone” examines and measures the roots of social malaise and transformation as they relate to the everyday lives of Filipinos and the institutions that shape them. As a sociologist committed to addressing the issues of social injustice, Carroll used the tool of sociology to help people come to grips with the existential threats to their daily lives. He holds that the perennial inequality we observe in the country is not in accord with our shared values but with reliance and use of coercive power concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.

However, some 17 years after its publication, the existential questions painfully besetting the majority of us who want significant political and economic change have remained the same, if not worse. Carroll admits that only time will tell whether moral pressure and nonviolent opposition will bring meaningful changes and reforms to transform the Philippine society from one whose elites control and manipulate a political economy sustained by power, patronage, and guns into one that upholds and defends equality, equity, accountability, and participation for all.

Regardless, since all signs point to the unwillingness of elite members of society to voluntarily share significant political and economic power and resources with the mass of disadvantaged Filipinos, there seems not much we can do to act and fight for social change. Carroll proposed, as a step forward, that people of shared values unite and organize grassroots movements. However, nongovernmental organizations, church social action, labor unions, and other civil society groups that offer human, material, and technical support to grassroots groups are dangerously harassed and tagged as leftist groups.

In the end, we will answer whether we, as individuals and as a people, would accept the challenges and issues, together walk the path to social justice and peace, and, in so doing, find our way to a better future for ourselves and the next generations. Or are we going to get tight and tentative as social injustices continue to unfold right before our very eyes?

We know that change does not happen overnight but takes time and concerted effort. It won’t be easy by any means, but it is possible!

Noel Asiones,

[email protected]