Extensions

Abigail Valte gave a preview of P-Noy’s Sona later this month.

Government has done much over the last two years. Its biggest accomplishment has been to change the mindset of the people. “Our countrymen are now more engaged not just online but we can already see this in several levels of engagement, which shows that there is now a shift in attitude towards government as a partner and not as an oppressor.”

But much remains to be done and there is little time. “The goal is not just to lessen corruption or to take it out completely but to make reforms systemic. It cannot be that reforms would only be for six years, and then for the next, they would no longer be done.”

That being said, P-Noy has absolutely no intention of staying on after his term.

I agree that the P-Noy administration’s biggest achievement has been, if not entirely to change the mindset of the people, at least to gain the public’s trust. That’s borne out by surveys, which have consistently, give or take a dip or two, given P-Noy a high approval rating. It does greatly matter that you do not perceive government as an entity that’s out to screw you. Which was the case not too long ago. You kept wondering each day you woke up what new deviltry the squatter in Malacañang had hatched the night before.

To this day, you can hear the sigh of relief from here to Marawi when she went. I don’t know that most Filipinos now see government as a partner, but I do know most Filipinos do not now see government as the enemy. That is no mean feat. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, as Rick told Captain Renault in “Casablanca.”

P-Noy’s staying on after his term is a non-issue. I don’t know that anyone, other than the usual suspects or intriguers, entertains the thought. This country has been lucky in one respect, which is that over the course of two decades, it has had two presidents who never contemplated clinging to power, who are Cory and P-Noy. Indeed, who never craved it to begin with, being thrust into it only by the maelstrom of events.

Which brings us to the real worry. That worry is not how to prevent P-Noy from acquiring a taste for power such that he will want to have more of it, it is how to allow the reforms he has started to go on after he is gone. Cory herself shows why. You cannot have heard a bigger sigh of relief than when she replaced Marcos as head of state, you could not have seen a bigger sea change in the public’s perception of government than when she abolished the instruments of oppression. Yet after a hiatus of six years with Fidel Ramos—who not quite incidentally was himself tempted to stay on after six years, only to see his ambitions dashed to pieces by the Asian financial crisis of 1997—we were back where we started. First with Erap, then with Gloria. Before we knew it, the looting was back, the lying, cheating and stealing were back, the murder and mayhem were back.

The fight against corruption has just begun. We’ve only just impeached a chief justice, we haven’t gotten to the former fake president yet. With an Erap restoration waiting in the wings, indeed with the usual suspects from the Marcos, Erap and Arroyo regimes laundering their ill-gotten images along with their ill-gotten wealth, the question is how deep, how far and how long P-Noy’s reforms will go.

How do you make fighting corruption a continuing agenda? How do you make reforms systemic?

By remembering, or recognizing, that the power of democracy does not come from a strong government but from a strong people.

A good government heroically battling corruption is a joy to behold, and for that I heartily applaud P-Noy’s dedication to the cause. But it can only go so far. It is subject to the vagaries of change. A bad government replaces it, and the positive attitude toward leaders could disappear overnight. As well indeed as the inducement to honesty and integrity this government has done much to propagate. There is in fact only one guarantee that fighting corruption can be sustained, and that is for the people to do it themselves. Which is how it is in other democracies. The reason corruption, looting and pillaging do not riot there is that the people won’t abide it.

That is not as quixotic as it sounds even here. The reason we abide corruption—oh, yes, abide: we frown on it in public but embrace it in private, preferring a corrupt politician over an honest public school teacher as godparents for our children’s wedding or baptism hands down—is that we do not really see taxes as our money. We see it as booty for public officials, subject to division of spoils. Consequently, we do not really see corruption as stealing. Consequently, we do not really see corruption as stealing from us.

That is the mindset we have to change. Government alone setting an example in fighting corruption won’t accomplish it. We need to mount an epic campaign, not unlike the ones mounted by the socialist countries with ubiquitous slogans in media, on walls, in schools, that keep reminding people that taxes are their money. Even the poor who imagine they do not pay taxes when in fact they do every time they buy a packet of mami or watch movies. That is the only guarantee we can stop corruption. That is the only guarantee reforms will survive bad governments.

The notion that presidents probably need more than one term to do what they have to do is specious. There is never enough time to do it—not a second term, not a third term. The point is to create the conditions, the culture, the mindset for the people to fight their banes themselves. Which P-Noy in particular is equipped to do having People Power behind his back—if only he would unleash it.

Government after all is just an extension of the people. Or so it should be in a democracy.