Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) Nos. 6 and 7 seek to amend portions of our constitution that
deal with foreign ownership in public utilities, basic education, and advertising. The current
limits on foreign ownership in these sectors would remain, but Congress would be authorized to
modify them through ordinary legislation.
The University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) issued a Discussion Paper (DP)
recently in response to deliberations in the House of Representatives. The paper entitled, “How
to change a constitution by hand-waving (Or, the unbearable lightness of evidence2
in support of
lifting foreign ownership restrictions)” questions the validity of evidence used to support both
resolutions.
This reaction paper below seeks to unpack what the UP professors allege is the weak evidence
presented at the House and evaluate their counter evidence.
In addition, I recorded a series on The Cusp Youtube Channel that covers the main arguments of the rejoinder. Here they are in order (see below).
I was invited by Senator Sonny Angara, Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes to provide our position on Senate Resolution of Both Houses, RBH No. 6. This is a resolution that seeks to amend Article XII, Section 11 (Public Utilities).
The following slides were used in my statement to the Senate Subcommittee on Monday, 12 February 2024.
A video montage of my statement and responses at the Q&A can be viewed below:
My closing statement can be viewed below and here.
The New Society under Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos sought to break with the Commonwealth era, by dispossessing the old aristocracy who were in charge of that order and replacing them with his own cronies and political acolytes. State-led development using financial leverage supplied by the West was its economic growth model. This was made possible by various policy settings prevalent at the time.
The Marcos regime operated state owned enterprises in nearly every sector of the economy. It had a fixed exchange rate with the peso pegged to the US dollar. It sought to develop industries behind protectionist trade walls. It had a central wage fixing system that was politically manipulable. Foreign investment was confined to a short positive list, set by his government. The tax regime was highly irrational and regressive.
This was reformed by the EDSA regime, which subscribed to Washington’s neoliberal agenda. State-led development gave way to market-centrism. State-owned enterprises were privatised. Crony capitalists were left to fend for themselves. A flexible foreign exchange rate regime was introduced. Quantitative trade restrictions were converted into tariffs, which were then lowered at an accelerated pace. Foreign investment was restricted by an ever dwindling negative list. The tax regime was gradually made more progressive and rational.
In the political arena, regular “free” elections were restored. This led to the revival of the old Commonwealth political clans that went into hiatus under Marcos. The regime increasingly tolerated many of Marcos’ political allies, at first in local bailiwicks, then eventually at the national stage. This included the Marcoses and Romualdezes themselves who were allowed to return from exile, after Marcos, Sr. passed away in Hawaii.
Some of the EDSA stalwarts who had fought the dictator survived, for a time. But in the end, they either lost to more traditional political clans, former Marcos loyalists and new dynasties, or got compromised by the system, so much so that the distinction between them and their former opponents was difficult to perceive.
Was it any wonder that after restoring the pre-Martial Law system of politics, the result would be the same old patrimonialism that thrived under that old order? Allegiances were feigned towards whoever was the occupant of Malacanang by members of congress and local governments, to gain maximum advantage. No permanent alliances, only permanent interests.
The political class realised that it was better to collude by forging “unity” - the path of least resistance - to remain in power. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. despite claiming that the post-EDSA regime had disrupted his father’s grand plan for first world status, had in fact accepted the tenets of its economic philosophy as the basis for his administration.
Having subscribed to it, he saw no need to debate policy with his opponents during his presidential campaign. They were advocating mostly the same things, anyway. His rivals would only use the debate stage as an opportunity to raise the issue of his father’s dark past, which he needed to avoid at all cost.
At his first address to the joint-sitting of Congress, he surprised many by simply sticking to the policy line of his economic managers. The same high priests who had advised his father, but whose prescriptions went unheeded. Marcos, Jr., for fear of upsetting markets at a precarious post-pandemic period, towed their line.
Neither did he signal any structural break with the past by way of revising the 1987 charter. This was despite hinting that he was for amending it, up until he got elected. Then, he suddenly switched gears and said it was not a priority, dousing the fervour of those who were expecting something more radical from him.
Unlike 1986 when the difference between the Marcos and EDSA regimes were as stark as light and darkness, good and evil, the main differences now had to do with the extent to which three lettered acronyms like PPP ought to be relied on to boost infrastructure spending. They were marginal, because both sides had actually gravitated towards the middle.
In the end all that Bongbong Marcos could offer was more of the same, only better. In truth, this was all the Filipino public had bargained for. They simply wanted more effective governance than what they had been shown in the past. Better conditions on the ground, rather than lofty ideals based on such abstractions as “democracy” or “people empowerment”. The EDSA regime had offered these in spades, but seemed inept, unable to translate them into reality.
The Aquinos, having fallen from political grace, were now seen as the enemy. And so as the logic goes, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. These were the Marcoses who were able to spin the yarn that things had been better under their watch. Substituting “unity” for “discipline” the mantra of his father, Marcos Jr., was able to provide an antidote to the perennially argumentative, critically divisive and deconstructive attitude of the EDSA forces. Unity required discipline after all.
And in so doing, he was able to foist his own counter-narrative that would explain the past. It was all a lie, the attacks on our family. We hold these hidden truths that the EDSA forces don’t want you to hear. And yet, despite the success of his propaganda, and his victory at the polls, what did the second coming of Marcos herald? Not a break with the previous dispensation.
Though the rejuvenation of the Marcos dynasty signalled a rejection of the formerly ascendant Aquinos and their allies, it didn’t represent a repudiation of the constitutional, political and economic norms they had put in place. Quite the opposite.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, so Oscar Wilde said. Maggie Thatcher when asked what her single, greatest achievement was, replied, “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.”. So it became with the EDSA regime. Its crowning glory, its finest hour, came not at the apotheosis of the Aquinos, but with the measured return of another Marcos into Malacanang.
I recently "sat down" with Cecile from Toronto, the host of a Youtube channel known as CeCe Tee Vee and "The Closet Economist" a former official of the Bangko Sentral who is completing her doctoral studies in Barcelona.
We discussed the state of the world following Covid-19 and the complex challenges facing the nation as it seeks to rebound from its ill effects. We assessed the capacity of the incoming government of Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos, Jr to address it, and the missed opportunity of electing Isko Moreno whose human-centered economic plans were aimed squarely at our complex challenges.
We concluded with reflections on how to promote transformational thinking and keep the flame of the Iskommunity alive.
This episode streamed live on Philippine Independence Day June 12, 2022. The language spoken is mainly Taglish (a combination of English and Tagalog).
Originally livestreamed on the Facebook page of The CoRRECT Movement on February 21, 2021 (the 35th anniversary of EDSA), this discussion with Orion Perez Dumdum covers the political economy of constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership in key sectors of the Philippines. CoRRECT stands for Constitutional Reform and Rectification for Economic Competitiveness and Transformation. It is a study group that espouses reforms in the Philippine Constitution of 1987.
Opponents to federalism often ask, what is the problem that it seeks to address. A one-on-one discussion with CoRRECT Movement Co-Founder Orion Perez Dumdum sought to highlight the emerging problems related to the Philippines that a federal constitution would be well-placed to fix. CoRRECT stands for Constitutional Reform and Rectification for Economic Competitiveness and Transformation. The group advocates the shift to a federal parliamentary form of government and the lifting of ownership caps on foreign investments in the Philippines.
I had a one-on-one discussion with CoRRECT Movement's Co-Founder, Orion Perez Dumdum that was originally livestreamed on their Facebook page on January 24, 2021. CoRRECT stands for Constitutional Reform and Rectification for Economic Competitiveness and Transformation. It espouses constitutional reforms that include removing caps on foreign ownership of firms in key sectors of the economy and shifting to a parliamentary, federal system of government.
This was the first of a three part-series where we looked at each of these proposals. In this episode, we took a closer look at the parliamentary system and contrasted it with the presidential form of government.
These are the show notes that I used in structuring our discussion.
I have 6 takeaways from the election of 2022. Here they are in no particular order:
United we stand, divided we fall.
The unity of the Marcos and Duterte forces sealed the deal, after Sara settled for the vice presidency. They seemed to have heeded the warning of the 1992 elections. In that year, Imelda Marcos and Danding Cojuangco both ran for president, splitting the loyalist vote in the process. Their combined votes outnumbered the eventual winner Fidel Ramos. If they had put up a united slate, then they would have re-taken Malacanang a mere six years after fleeing in haste. If both Sara and Bongbong had stood for the presidency, they might have been defeated by Vice President Robredo. It was not meant to be as the opposition was fragmented and bitterly divided.
Automated polling has matured.
None of the fears of massive cheating materialised. Despite the stalled voting in several polling places due to malfunctioning machines, the vote count and transmission went smoothly for the most part. By Tuesday morning, right after the polls, the results were known. After administering automated polling over five election cycles, the Comelec and its contractor seems to have mastered how to do it effectively and securely.
Public opinion polls were right.
The pre-election poll results by Pulse Asia, Social Weather Station, and other reputable outfits accurately predicted the outcome of the election. There were few surprises in the night. What happened in 2016 with Duterte coming from behind, in defiance of the polls, may have been a one-off. The science and professionalism of the reputable polling firms has been reaffirmed.
The popularity of Duterte’s government mattered.
In an age of moral panics and outrage over social problems such as illicit drugs, criminality and moral decay from ideologies based on identity, most voters opted to go for continuity rather than change. A poll conducted prior to the election found that 50 per cent of likely voters preferred a continuation of Duterte’s policies but with a lighter touch. This is where most presidential candidates positioned themselves.
The vice president herself promised to continue the “war on drugs” but with a different emphasis on treatment. Others were seen as “Duterte-lite”. While they crowded in this lane, a third of all likely voters preferred the unadulterated version of Duterte’s policies. Bongbong had them all to himself. The mere association between Marcos Sr’s martial rule with that of Duterte’s iron fist was enough for voters to equate Marcos Jr with continuity.
Change is still coming.
The seeming opposite of 4, and comically reflective of an episode of Veep, the message “Continuity with Change” was very much in the air. Bongbong stole the opposition’s thunder early on by claiming the mantle of change, while running with the daughter of the incumbent. People still saw the opposition as tired, old, and out of ideas. After 35 years of being scapegoated for the ills of Philippine society, Marcos became reinvented as a break with the narrative of EDSA that had dominated the airwaves and textbooks since 1986.
He who controls the past, controls the future; he who controls the present controls the past.
This Orwellian quote from the novel 1984 is really what this election was fought over. To the victor not only go the spoils of incumbency, but also the pen with which to write, or in Marcos Jr’s case, rewrite history. The Marcoses always suffered a handicap due to the fact that the post-EDSA regime got to tell history from its perspective. Since the election of Duterte in 2016 that narrative has been challenged. Marcos Jr’s loss in 2016 was a kind of blessing in disguise in that he had the luxury of time to build a social media presence to take control of the narrative.
He was able through this to redefine his past and rebrand the Marcoses with a new image that appealed to new voters with no lived experience of his father’s rule. The fact that his opponents condemned it as historical revisionism only raised its mystery and appeal. Once he assumes the presidency, he will have the power to make the Marcoses’ version of events official. And that is perhaps worth more than its weight in gold.
In a 1 v 1 match-up Marcos Jr wins, but in a three cornered fight, there is a chance he loses.
Why? Because even if the remaining non-Marcos candidates withdraw in favor of Mrs Robredo, not all their votes go to her, nor will it be enough, since Marcos is polling between 50 and 60 per cent. Leni is partly the reason why he is doing so well.
Her net satisfaction level is very low, and many voters distrust her. They want to send her a clear message in this election. She spent the last six years being very critical of the administration. At one point, during the height of the Covid crisis, her supporters on social media and in the streets, were calling for the ouster of Duterte.
That is the reason why many are siding with the Marcos scion. There is no way in a two cornered race that she can peel off these voters who support Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s government to switch to her side. If anything, the votes for Moreno, Lacson and Pacquiao might just go to Marcos Jr, not to the vice president.
Manila Mayor Isko Moreno has attracted most of the organic grassroots leaders from Duterte’s 2016 campaign to support him along with those who supported his senate bid in that year who also formed the base of Sen. Grace Poe’s presidential campaign. Many ordinary swing voters who see his achievements in Manila have also been converted to switch to his side.
This has made him a viable third force. He has actively been courting the support of Duterte’s base with his recent pronouncements on the continuation of the president’s programs, most notably Build, Build, Build. The only question that remains is whether he can convert enough of these voters to switch to his side by the time of the election.
In a three cornered fight where a third candidate has cross over appeal to win some of Pres. Duterte’s base, there could be enough erosion of Marcos Jr’s support to make him lose an electoral majority and become vulnerable. But these Duterte supporters will be hesitant to switch to a third candidate, if it would mean Mrs. Robredo has a chance of winning.
This is the clearest signal on where he stands regarding the Marcoses. He was careful not to demonize them, but to frame the issue as one of simply implementing an existing Supreme Court ruling that was final and executory.
At least, by staying in the race, Mayor Isko Moreno could weaken the support base of Marcos Jr to the point that some other candidate can win. If he withdraws, it all but guarantees that Marcos would win by a landslide, possibly becoming the first post-EDSA president-elect to win an outright majority of the vote. That is why the 2022 presidential race needs a third force.
Who would have thought that 36 years after the EDSA ‘People Power’ revolt of 1986, we would face another election where the leading candidates include one Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and a widow, turned politician aligned with the Aquinos?
Having lived through Martial Law, I cannot really fathom what is unfolding. Within what I thought was my own circle of tight knit friends, bonds that have lasted decades have snapped. People have left our group because they can’t stand the rhetoric of some of its members. Friends whom I had never known to be political are now quite vocal about their views and judging those who don’t share them.
I’ve never really seen such partisanship before. People are taking their politics in such a deeply personal manner, the way they treat religion. I mean, if anyone should take it that way it ought to be me. My late father Emmanuel Tiu Santos was a bona fide EDSA figure.
Having campaigned for Ferdinand Sr in 1961 and gotten Imelda as a sponsor at his wedding in 1967, he turned when Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972. Having sponsored the bill of political, social and economic rights in the Con-Con, as well as the provisions setting up the Ombudsman, he realized that he needed to take a stand.
He decided to throw his hat in the ring in 1978. He co-founded the political party Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) and ran with Ninoy Aquino. They contested seats for the national capital region in the Interim Batasan Pambansa elections and faced off with his ninang Imelda and her KBL slate.
My father together with his crew helped engineer the noise barrage that swept the capital prior to election day. He and many others considered this to be the first battle cry of EDSA (see ‘Laban ’78 to EDSA ’86', Inquirer, April 23, 2016).
I personally visited Ninoy in Times Street when he was under house arrest. Our family went to Boston in the summer of 1981 and spent three days with Ninoy and Tita Cory going around Harvard, Bunker Hill and other local sites.
After EDSA, dad literally dodged bullets and a grenade that was hurled at him while delivering a speech at his ‘miting de avance’ on the eve of the elections of 1988. He stood for election having been the appointed governor of his home province Nueva Ecija. This was an election that locals to this day maintain was stolen from him.
If anyone should hold strong views about a potential return of the Marcoses and their cronies to power, it ought to be people like me. But somehow, I’m not as affected, as some of my friends, who growing up, never really spoke of politics.
I do know that the outcome of this election does matter. When I see Marcos Jr polling ahead, it does affect me. I sleep uneasily at night and wake-up the following morning worrying for my country. But one thing I cannot bring myself to do is criticize nor condemn my friends who are Marcos loyalists.
The reason for that is simple. I recognize that the Marcoses were a product of their time and the internal contradictions of Philippine society that began at its founding when the Spanish friar lands fell into the hands of a few. As Iyer and Maurer (2009) pointed out, wealth became even more concentrated after the American colonial government partitioned and distributed these lands between 1903 and 1918.
“The ‘landed elite’ appears to have been broadened at the expense of smallholding families,” they wrote. This gave rise to the Old Society, where in the words of Ninoy “the few enjoy the fat of the land, and the many suffer.”
I’ve come to recognize a truism (and I mean no disrespect to those aggrieved by the late dictator). Yes, thousands were confirmed to have been abducted, summarily executed, mutilated, raped and tortured during that dreadful period under Marcos Sr. But this horrendous and horrific suffering is itself dwarfed by the tens of thousands that die in our country every year due to lack of basic human and health services, malnutrition, and natural disasters.
Yes, billions were siphoned off by the Marcoses to overseas bank accounts, and only a fraction was returned. But that too is a fraction of the billions wasted and stolen by corrupt officials today. How can we be so intolerant of one kind of abuse, yet turn a blind eye to the other?
The Marcoses, as dreadful as they are, as shameless as they are, are not the real problem. They are merely a symptom of the problem. The fact that their political fortunes have reversed, points to the failings of the post-EDSA neoliberal state that replaced them. The reason why I can’t engage in this gratuitous display of faux revulsion at the Marcoses, is that both sides are equally to blame for the perpetuation of our people’s suffering.
After all these years of political squabbles, I’ve grown weary of the circus that goes on at elections, while the fundamental basic needs of our people remain overlooked. For once, I’d like for us to take their problem seriously. Stop pretending that it will go away, the moment we vanquish the other side. No, it won’t go away. It hasn’t.
It is clear that what we need to do is see through the illusion of a dualist world view where the competing narratives of either side battle it out, and deal with the reality of ordinary people's lives where the true battle for survival persists. The best way to prevent a repeat of the past is not to promote a confected golden age by one side or the other, but to step out of the cycle of reactivity and retribution, to end the cycle of poverty, and attend to the fierce urgency of now.
The author is a development economist completing his doctoral studies in policy innovation at the University of New England in Australia. He supports Isko Moreno for president.
Some prominent diehard supporters of Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte have endorsed or expressed a willingness to endorse the candidate Isko Moreno for president. One in particular laid down the gauntlet for the mayor to address three main concerns close to his heart as a Duterte supporter.
It is believed that Pres. Duterte himself is looking to endorse a candidate other than former Senator Bongbong Marcos. He was reportedly upset with the way in which Marcos Jr got presidential daughter and Davao City mayor Sara Duterte to run in his ticket for vice president, while Mr Duterte was offering her the top of the ticket with Sen. Bong Go running as her vice president.
Moreno is languishing in third or second place in most polls. He can only improve his numbers with votes from the Duterte Sr camp. These voters are preferencing Bongbong at the moment, but it seems they aren't solidly behind him. Many of them are waiting for a signal from the president to determine which candidate to switch to. Could the proddings of some of these diehard pro-Duterte vloggers be this sign?
Mayor Isko needs to confront the three main issues laid down by them. The document below seeks to address them. It is published here with permission from its source.
Adherents of the EDSA movement claim we live in a dualist world. Elections are the site for the eternal battle between the forces of good against the hordes of evil. One side cannot exist without the other. That is the way they have framed every election since 1986.
One of the biggest challenges of liberal democracy is the inflation of expectations. Openness and freedom cause everyone's desires, hopes and dreams to be pinned on a system of equal representation and deliberation. Incrementalism and patience are virtues in this context. It often leads to dissatisfaction and despair at the sluggish pace at which change occurs.
This is why from time to time, the electorate wavers in its support for democratic ideals. This is particularly true in times of crises. Pres. Rodrigo Duterte harnessed voter dismay in 2016. He offered a quicker, more direct route to the fulfilment of expectations by weakening our system of checks and balances.
The election of vice president was equally important in that year. Sen. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. was favored to win. That is why Leni Robredo has become an all-important figure in the pantheon of EDSA. It was she who prevented Marcos Jr from being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
The upcoming election of 2022 is billed as a rematch between Marcos Jr and Mrs. Robredo. The Duterte years will be seen either as prelude to a Marcos restoration or interlude to the EDSA regime, depending on its outcome. Both their candidacies have been energized by this match-up. Both have exploited its dualist aspects to harness support and galvanize their base.
The problem is that neither seem attuned to the requirements for the top job. It will be twelve years since Marcos Jr last held executive office as governor of the sparsely populated province of Ilocos Norte. He has spent the last six years pleading his case before the electoral tribunal. His preoccupation during this time has been as a vlogger promoting his counter narrative.
Vice president Robredo for her part has spent the last six years without a clear role in the Duterte administration. She has used her office's meager resources to take pot shots at him and to moonlight as a quasi-NGO leader. Her Angat Buhay program relies on private donor contributions and volunteers to function. The feasibility and appropriateness of institutionalizng them as government programs run by public agencies is yet to be determined.
This is perhaps why both deploy narrative rather than substance to fuel enthusiasm for their respective candidacies. Marcos Jr's videos are all about the achievements of his father's 20 year rule. Robredo's confetti sprinkled caravan reminds us of the protest movement against the late dictator. Both harken with nostalgic fondness to a confected golden age and seek to prevent a return of the opposing side.
They both downplay the challenges of the present. A pandemic threatens our very lives and livelihoods now and in the foreseeable future. The plans of both are ephemeral and self-referential. Marcos Jr wants to unify the nation and lead it down a path towards greatness again. Robredo's plan is to commission a team to study the gaps in our health care system and draw up a plan to deal with them.
The strategy of either side is to captivate and mesmerize the public with myth and folklore to distract from the urgencies of the now. Enter Isko Moreno. He came of age during the lost decade of the 1980s. The nation was reeling from the debt overhang of the Marcos years. The slow, but steady process of climbing out of this abyss rendered the promise of EDSA unfulfilled.
Isko's message is simple: instead of focusing on the never-ending enmity between the EDSA and Marcos regimes, let's focus on the people. It is clear from this message that we need to go beyond the illusion of a dualist world to deal with the reality of ordinary people's lives. The best way to prevent a repeat of the past is not to promote a confected golden age, but to step out of the cycle of reactivity and retribution.
Isko is the perfect medium for this message. His life and work demonstrate it. His life exemplifies how an ordinary poor boy from the slums of Tondo can rise above the vagaries of this world without resentment or vindictiveness to the powers-that-be. His record as a local executive demonstrates how to quickly respond to the needs and aspirations of his electorate while respecting democratic accountability, transparency and the rule of law.
This is why Isko Moreno fulfils the promise of EDSA. He puts into practice its basic tenets. Creating a level playing field for everyone, irrespective of their standing in life. This is done by giving them equal access to the means for achieving their fullest potential. His numerous achievements in education, healthcare, housing and job creation in the nation's capital provide a workable and scalable template for the rest of the country.
It is perhaps for this reason that loyalists from both the Marcos and Robredo camps seek to discredit and tarnish his personal reputation and record in office. They see him as the biggest obstacle to the restoration of their political fortunes. The threat comes from his re-framing of our perennial problem. Moreno's non-dualist worldview lays the squabbling of the past 50 years to rest.
This in the end was what EDSA was meant to bring about. Not the permanent dominance of one political persuasion over another. The movement, according to Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr, was meant to restore the free and open contest of ideas. This would produce a better synthesis for the Filipino people. Mayor Isko Moreno's syncretic ideas could offer a better fit for the present moment. Our weary electorate may decide that now is the perfect time to give him and his ideas a chance.
Former Supreme Court justice Artemio Panganiban calls it “Devolution without federalization”. He is referring to the Garcia-Mandanas ruling.
This Supreme Court decision made back in 2019, affirmed the right of LGUs to include ALL FORMS OF REVENUE COLLECTED by the national government in the computation of their internal revenue allotments. This ruling will take effect next year. It’s expected to cost an extra P234 billion, about 1% of GDP.
To deal with this, economic managers are looking to shift the implementation of various projects worth P405 billion to LGUs. If the NG fails to devolve such powers, it could put pressure on its international credit rating. If LGUs are not prepared to handle the additional functions, it could spell disaster for the post-Covid response.
This could perpetuate the fiscal inequity between “Imperial Manila” and the rest of the country, as we are about to show.
The EDSA
narrative provides its adherents a meaningful way of making sense of the world
based on a valorizing worldview. In this narrative, the Philippines is like the
chosen people of Israel who were delivered from the bondage of dictatorship and
ushered into the promised land of freedom.
The past
five years under Duterte, would have felt like an exile to Babylon for the
opposition. Their defeat in the midterm election of 2019 signaled the prolonging
of this exile from power. The recent death of Noynoy Aquino has been used to
revive their fortunes in time for next year’s polls. So, can they return to
power in 2022?
In
opposition, the Liberals and their allies have had time to reflect. Why have
they fallen so out of favor with voters? Just like the exilic Jews who pondered
their fate in Babylon and the meaning of it. The temptation, and in fact the
norm would be to adopt the gods of their conquerors and lose their religion.
Should the political opposition do the same and bow to their fate?
Of course,
for the faithful the answer to that would be ‘no’. If so, then a plausible,
credible explanation would have to be found for why they have fallen so far
from political grace.
The
worshipping of false gods by the Israelites was the reason given by the Jews to
explain why the Lord had allowed them to be conquered. This historical
narrative allowed them to hold on to their cultural and religious beliefs despite
being in a strange land. And by remaining true to their religion, they found a
way back from exile with their identity intact. So, is there a parallel here
for the children of EDSA, and if so, then what? How can they credibly explain
their fall from power and find their way back from political oblivion?
Ninoy had
espoused a belief in Christian Socialism, which traced its roots to the
attempts of an enlightened monarch in Denmark to liberate his people from
serfdom through mass education. It was a human centered form of capitalism
aimed at affording the full blossoming of ordinary citizens to reach their
fullest potential. The success of this model is demonstrated today by
Scandinavia being one of the wealthiest, least corrupt, and happiest places on earth.
The
adoption of a neoliberal worldview by the EDSA regime with its idolatry of the
Market, espoused by Washington and mediated through market-enhancing
institutions of governance promoted by the WB and IMF, was in effect what had
caused the children of EDSA to go astray. This is what invited populist
backlashes from the left, in the form of Erap Estrada in 1998, from within,
with the apostasy of Gloria Arroyo in 2004, and from the right, with the
ascendancy of Rody Duterte in 2016.
Vice Pres.
Robredo for her part has emphasized the dynamism of the private sector for
collective action by brokering donations between corporate foundations and
needy communities. She has not lasted long in any of the public roles assigned
to her, first as housing czar then as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on
Anti-Illegal Drugs, preferring instead to become a maverick policy
entrepreneur.
Her support
for marginalized communities through her ‘Angat Buhay program’ is still
consistent with a neoliberal view that public investment merely crowds out
charitable spending. It is consistent with a minimalist role for the state,
relying on the magic of markets to broker the needs of society through
voluntary, altruistic donations by moneyed elite: trickle-down economics, in
effect. Government by NGO.
Duterte
didn’t mind breaking with this tradition. He didn’t kowtow to the international
rules-based order when dealing with the West Philippine Sea or human rights
issue. He in effect defiled the sacred cows before which the EDSA forces fall prostrate.
He offered
instead a kind of tough love for the development of the Filipino by focusing on
the social ills that have come about because of the aimless accumulation of
wealth in the pursuit of materialist, consumerist culture. This tyranny of
freedom, of unconstrained choice fostered by free markets, has only led to
alienation, apathy and addictive forms of behavior.
Duterte, in
acting like a strict father establishing boundaries and disciplining his
children has stepped into the breach because while the EDSA narrative
structured our political and economic ways of life, it had nothing to offer us
from a social standpoint. Neither did the post-EDSA regime engage in the
necessary work of political and electoral reforms needed to truly democratize
participation in our society.
With the
recent passing of Noynoy Aquino, his former confidante Rep. Joey Salceda
offered an assessment of his legacy. He praised him for accomplishing many
noble things, but also said that PNoy suffered from a lack of ambition due to
his ‘worldview’. He had the most favorable macroeconomic conditions, but failed
to seize the opportunities these presented. This lack of ambition was his
cardinal policy failing.
This is
what obscured the original agapic vision of Noynoy’s father for a human
centered form of development. This idolatry of the market is the folly that has
led to their political exile, so it behooves the children of EDSA to return to
The Source for inspiration.
If Duterte
represents a consumptive love of country - a form of governance that destroys
human life to preserve it, that breaks the law to uphold it; and, if the EDSA
regime represents a reciprocal kind of love - a form of governance that relies
on transactional markets and padrino-based politics, then the agapic love of
country, of actualizing individuals by investing in their human capacities is
what the successor to the EDSA regime must work towards.
Only by
rediscovering this forgotten vision can the children of EDSA rescue themselves
from irrelevance. Acknowledging where they went wrong would go a long way
towards healing the partisan divide with those who were once in their broad
coalition but no longer see themselves as part of it.
The
question is, who among their leaders today would be so humble as to do that?
Dare I say none; and so, for the true
believers in Ninoy’s Impossible Dream, they may have to go outside the fold to
find a leader who can re-imagine the promise of EDSA and bring its children
back from exile into the Promised Land.
If Marcos was the logical conclusion
of the Old Republic, which was built on a feudal society, where “a few enjoyed
the fat of the land, and the many suffered”, then the natural extension of our
post-EDSA republic, with its monopolistic capitalist model, is Duterte. The
internal contradictions of each society ultimately brought about the conditions
for the emergence of these leaders.
The lost opportunity of EDSA was
that rather than building a more just and humane society, we simply
re-incarnated the old one with the result of entrapping many Filipinos into a
life of servitude to the vagaries of the market, as we pursued a neoliberal
model of development.
“I have fought the
good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Those were the words
of Pres. Noynoy Aquino at his valedictory State of the Nation Address to
Congress in July of 2015 where he summed up his administration’s achievements
and looked forward to “a new dawn of justice and opportunity” forged by
“freedom from corruption” as he claimed, and I quote
My one and only interest is the
well-being of my Bosses. I did all I could to forge a nation that is more just
and more progressive—one that enjoys the fruits of meaningful change. I will
let history decide.
And within 12 months
of uttering those words, the era of the EDSA regime would draw to a close, with
the rejection of Aquino’s hand-picked successor and the election of Rodrigo
Duterte, whose approach to criminal justice was anathema to what the regime had
stood for.
In this fourth part
to the Rise and Fall of the EDSA Regime, we will look at the second Aquino
presidency, its ambition, achievements and follies, and while five years is too
short a time frame to have gained enough “distance” from those events, we will
try to explain what led to the collapse in confidence in the yellow movement,
which triggered their losses at the ballot in 2016 and since, and as to why it
is unlikely that it will return any time soon.
In this episode we are going to dissect the vision that Ninoy had offered for the Philippines, and delve more deeply into the early days of the post-EDSA regime to see how this vision was corrupted by the yellow forces.
From 1986 to 2016,
the worldview of the yellow forces in our country dominated the thinking and
actions of most Filipinos.
Yellowism or dilawan
ideology is a system of moral, political and economic beliefs with normative
prescriptions and modalities for regulating and regenerating Philippine
society.
It provided a
narrative, around which the life of the nation was structured.
A whole new
generation of young Filipinos has been brought up with this belief system.
In 2016, an
epoch-making shift took place with the election of Pres. Rody Duterte. To many,
this marked the end of the yellow orthodoxy.
In this episode of
The Cusp, I’m gonna try to explain what happened. What led to the rise and
collapse of the yellow doctrine and the ongoing search for something to replace
it. Videos referred to on the pitfalls of Marcos: 1. Lust for power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW4vigtWp08 2-3 Greed and hubris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdvmHDV9cA 4. Might makes right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwHLWWGGry8 5. Debt-driven growth strategy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbB3DyfFOVg&t=22s
