Boss

SHORTLY BEFORE the State of the Nation Address (Sona), the youth voiced out their concerns.

“One leader is not enough for the change we seek,” said Jenn Besonia, 19, of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. “Each of us must learn how to lead ourselves for the greater good.”

“I think the best education for the youth is through education in social realities,” said Marc Jayson Cayabyab, 20, of the University of the Philippines Diliman. “We can help the President by being more educated and aware.”

“It’s important for the youth to pursue excellence in school, with the intention of serving the country,” said Alyssa Fermin, 20, of UP Manila. “It is crucial that whatever we learn, we apply here.”

“The youth can offer a fresh perspective on how to efficiently run the government,” said Ranel Ram Cheng, 19, of UP Diliman. “More than just airing our concerns and grievances, (we should be) at the forefront, championing our advocacies.”

Not exactly the kind of stuff we were shouting in the streets four decades ago. But the same spark of idealism is there. There were other propositions but they had one thing in common. The kids were not waiting for government to tell them what to do, they were looking for ways to help government do what it had set out to do. They were not waiting for government to lead them, they were looking for ways to contribute to the leadership. They were not asking what the country could do for them, they were asking what they could do for the country.

Last Monday, P-Noy spoke of what his government has done for the country, is doing for the country, and will continue to do for the country. Last Monday, P-Noy spoke of how his government has wrought great changes, is working great changes, and will continue to work great changes upon the country. It was a powerful speech, one that proposed an incontrovertible truth that we Filipinos could particularly appreciate in light of the hell we’ve just been through. That was that you abolish the katiwalian in government, you suck the poison out of the system, you shut down the wangwangs in the system, and there were no limits to where you could go. There were no limits to the heights you could reach.

But for all that, I felt something lacking in that speech. It was good to know what the P-Noy government has done, is doing, and would do for the people. But it was not good to not know what the people have done, can do, and want to do for their government.

During his inauguration, P-Noy brought out one sublime concept. “You are the boss,” he said. The people are the boss, government is the employee. It’s a fine idea, except for one thing. That concept has been interpreted only to mean that government exists to serve the people. It has not been interpreted to mean that government also exists to listen to the people, to be guided by the people, to be helped along by the people.

Having the people for boss implies a relationship. It can’t be just government doing things for the people. It should also be the people doing things for the government.

P-Noy’s government in particular is eminently equipped to solicit the people’s participation, to call for the people’s participation, to get the people’s participation. P-Noy became president to begin with on the wings of People Power, or a variation thereof. On the wings of a sudden explosion of idealism and heroism and voluntarism. Those things are there still. It’s not just the youth that chafes at their leash, asking themselves not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country. The people are. You wonder why government isn’t harnessing it and unleashing it.

P-Noy himself called attention to it, if unintentionally, when he said that fighting corruption was a personal thing with him. He was angry with it, it was an affront to decency, it was a slap in the face of governance. And he wanted the people to be angry with it too, it was an affront to being Filipino, it was a slap in the face of being a citizen. That was a particularly powerful part in his speech. It’s a fine idea, too, except for one thing: How?

How do the people get angry at corruption?

The reason corruption thrives in this country is precisely that lack of public anger, public outrage, public opprobrium at corruption. In other Asian countries, public officials who figure in scandals are reviled to a point where they disembowel themselves to spare their family humiliation and ostracism. Here, public officials who figure in scandals become the sponsors of weddings and baptisms.

You can’t spark that anger simply by exhortation. You can’t change the attitude simply by pleas and cajoling. For that to happen, you need a campaign to make people see that taxes are not tribute or balato they give their government, they are money that should naturally come back to them in roads and bridges, classrooms and hospitals. For that to happen, you need a campaign to make people see that what is being stolen by the corrupt is not “other people’s money,” it is their money, it is what they earned with their blood, their sweat and their tears. For that to happen, you need a campaign to make people see that the corrupt are no better than the mandurukot and snatchers they beat black and blue when they catch them in the act in sidewalks.

For that to happen, you need an explosion of heroism and idealism and voluntarism to break free from the bondage.

Government alone can’t defeat corruption. It needs the people, like wind beneath its wings, to do it.

Maybe next Sona, or well before then, we can hear not just what government has done for the people but what the people have done for government. Maybe next Sona, or well before then, we can hear not just how well the employee has served the Boss but how well the Boss has inspired the employee. That Boss is not P-Noy, or Bruce Springsteen.

He is the people.