Para-Parochial Promise

KUNG gagawa ng masama ang aming pari o Obispo, o kahit ang Santo Papa, hindi ko ipagtatanggol. Sasama pa ako sa mga magkukondina sa ginawa o mga ginawa.
    Ikaw? Kung ang pastor niyo . . .

MORE BIG TENT BULLSHIT THAN SOCIALISM, REALLY

photo from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/570094/news/nation/duterte-s-inauguration-to-be-held-in-malacanang-over-500-invited

OUSTED THAI Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vaunted his Thai Rak Thai party, during its rise from 1998 to 2001, as a populist party that culled its support from farmers, small villages, and small businesses in contrast to its big rival, the Democrat Party, which prided itself with classical liberal rhetoric that would readily find friends in big business and among ordinary worshipers of trickle-down economics. I'd leave it to you to research on how populist Shinawatra remained or whether later political parties that pronounced loyalty to his principles had the same populist motives.

    Let's fast-forward to today and move to the Philippines, where during the Philippine presidential campaign of 2015-16, candidate Rodrigo Duterte declared not a few times—to the delight of those disillusioned with the preceding Noynoy Aquino administration’s combo meals of neoliberal focus—, "I am a socialist."
    Both men, the one populist and the other one a self-described socialist, launched their own respective wars against drugs, particularly against methamphetamine. I don’t know if populism has got anything to do with Shinawatra’s war on drugs, given that his strong campaign was at the instigation of the King, or if Duterte’s socialism has any bearing on his anti-meth passion. But, sure, one can easily look for links—the Thai majority was probably likely waiting for just such a war to happen from the top, and probably Duterte for his part is worried that the lower classes’ welfare is going to be eroded fast by the effects of the meth supplied by rich importers and distributors of the drug. We’ll get back to this later, after the next paragraph.

INDEED, as Marvin Bionat of Inquirer.net’s US bureau reports, the current Philippine war on drugs launched by Duterte is not the first of such magnitude in Asia, and points to the similar Thai war on drugs launched by Shinawatra in the early 2000s. Interestingly, Shinawatra’s war resulted in the killing of more than a thousand innocent Thai citizens picked through blacklists drawn by eager participants in his campaign, this as per findings by a post-Thaksin Shinawatra government enquiry that was reported in 2008 by the international media. Shinawatra was overthrown by a coup in 2006 during the second year of his second four-year term. The populist party that he founded, Thai Rak Thai, was soon banned by the junta.
    Here are my questions concerning Shinawatra’s war on drugs and how it might signal something to Duterte’s present one: Is it possible that what happened to Shinawatra’s campaign (thousands killed, almost half of the specific number of which were soon found by that abovementioned subsequent enquiry to be innocent) is precisely what happens when one does a fascistic (far from socialist) bottom-up type of war against such a criminal menace as the illegal drug trade? And could it be that it is only through a coup that a country can stop that war? And if such inevitability of a coup is already what some may presently be mulling as a possible way out of the current momentum of killings, what non-mercenary faction would even attempt to deliver such a now-possibly-not-so-sinister-plan? Could a coup be a recipe possible to, say, anti-Marcos military factions within the Armed Forces of the Philippines averse to the President's (far from socialist) unabashed embrace of the Marcoses, assuming such factions exist at all? Or by anti-NPA military groups averse to Duterte’s openness to the Communists, who possibly number a lot? Well, . . . sigh, . . . we ordinary citizens can only brace ourselves for a possible rough ride, and brace ourselves tightly as we wait on the sidelines.
    But, first, why does this war on drugs have to be called a “war”? Is this by a wording strategy that would semantically excuse that war, qua war, from the usual “peacetime” legal due processes required of democracies? If so, then isn’t it rather unfair that a leader can declare a “war” on drugs anytime, but over which program none can prosecute him later for “war crimes” committed?

I WOULD declare now that Duterte really has no ideology that one could comfortably categorize as either left or right or, even, safely, as center.
    And, likewise, what is complicating critics’ checks on Duterte’s war on drugs is Filipinos’ ideology-less tendency to be mere loyalists and partisans. For instance, what's this proliferating bullshit about defending the politician you voted for (since “you’ll only be heckled for having voted, and possibly campaigned also, for the leader you’re now criticizing”)? My usual answer to this political myopia is this: I don't vote for politicians, my countrymen, I vote for promises upon certain serious causes. True, it’s sad that every time I vote for those promises, inevitably through politicians, I would often end up disappointed. And sometimes it would take me three years to get out of my confirmation bias and bias blind spot to get deeply disillusioned (which disillusionment would then be met by both heckles and hugs from the loyalist partisans of the opposition). I confess that today it has taken me less than two months.
    So here’s my prayer: Lord God, I pray that every Filipino would stop being a politician- and party-worshiper and will remember henceforward his primary loyalty: to his more/most important causes (which ought to be the sole recipient of his loyalism).

WHAT ought to be checked in Duterte’s war on drugs? Well, in the August 25 issue of Time.com, Rishi Iyengar published a long story on this war. Comprehensive enough for a good appreciation of what’s going on in it and to introduce questions that must be raised against the same, the article quotes jarring realities such as this one emailed by Richard Javad Heydarian, a professor of political science at Manila’s De La Salle University: “There is also deep shock at the drug war’s financial implications: Duterte has given huge funding boosts to the police and military by slashing the country’s health budget by 25%, and reducing expenditure on critical sectors like agriculture, labor, employment and foreign affairs. On the other hand, the budget for the presidential office has increased tenfold, and now includes a provision of $150 million for 'representation and entertainment'.”
    And it is not as if troubling reports like this can only come from Duterte detractors with an ax to grind or political analysts with career points to push. Duterte himself would provide the media with explicitly discomforting proposals. Last week, for instance, Duterte—irked by “criticism” or reports from UN rapporteurs concerning his war on drugs—showed his exasperation by threatening to withdraw Philippine membership from the UN. That is not likely to happen, of course, but such surreal outbursts have now been deemed typical of Duterte. Surreal, since it goes without saying that should such a position be taken seriously qua a position of exit it would mean that the Philippines would have to deem itself able to afford consequent exits from programs the UNDP and the UN system have been providing many member states (through such agencies as the Asian Development Bank and the Food and Agriculture Association—check here), not to mention decisions by arbitral tribunals within the UN system. Not even the left-of-socialist (communist) states of China and Cuba would want to be out of the UN today.
    Duterte has in fact been his own detractor since his route to the presidency began. Comedian John Oliver’s pre-election skit about him as being the Donald Trump of the East has had 1+ million views on YouTube, and this comparison is not exactly loose—Trump’s propensity to say “Believe me” for his facts-telling (as compiled in this video and as caricatured by Tim Kaine at the US Democratic National Convention) does find an exact parallel in Duterte’s own presentation of alleged facts through recurrent “maniwala kayo sa akin pag sinabi ko” (you all believe me when I tell you) or the Tagalog-Bisaya “sus, ginoo, maniwala ka” (Lord Jesus, believe you me).
    And millions of Filipinos believe in Duterte.

STILL, how believable, really, is the President?

    "I am a socialist," said he not a few times during the Presidential campaign of 2015-16, to the delight of those disillusioned with the preceding administration’s combo meals of neoliberal focus.

    However, when he won the presidency, the new President rolled up his sleeves to quickly show us his brand of socialism. And surprise, surprise, not really a center-left sort of socialism was seen in the unveiling, nor even a center-center social liberalism or social democracy. What gradually came out of the caterpillar cocoon was a butterfly’s lip service to socialism for a . . . Big Tent absorption.
    Sure, Duterte has appointed leftists to anti-poverty, agrarian reform, labor and social welfare posts in his cabinet; placed a stalwart anti-unlawful mining activist from the big business class to the government’s environment and natural resources department; announced pro-people policies against red tape and a labor force-favoring stand against employment contracts; reluctantly appointed a freedom-of-information and participatory democracy and participatory budgeting advocate of a vice president to the housing post (reluctantly, she being from an opposing party); and started as well conciliation talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines. That's about it so far.
    Meanwhile, for the other side of the big tent, he has brazenly held close the Marcos family as if he were a part of it; has slashed—as per Heydarian—more or less 25% of the public health, labor and foreign affairs budgets in favor of military and police budget increases; has started a bloody bottom-up (I repeat, bottom-up) war on drugs (that look a lot like Thailand's Shinawatra's) that has yet to see a drug lord's head roll; and has ejected a form of public transport (the UV Express) from Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in favor of the city bus lines, Uber, Grab, and slippery "colorums" (with nary a groan of sympathy for this policy's impact on working-class commuters walking the distance to a connecting MRT station and nary a finger on private users of the avenue despite the new transport secretary's repetition of that oft-quoted Gustavo Petro socialist quote—"a developed country is not where the poor have cars, it's where the rich use public transportation"); and is even now intent on seeking emergency powers for traffic policy-making in Metropolitan Manila for anti-delayed procurement reasons the Supreme Court Chief Justice says is inspired by a myth.
    I don't now believe Rodrigo Duterte is a socialist. I see him now as a big tent figure intent on achieving all sorts of reforms, socialist and otherwise, in an autocratic way that everyone who has come to his Big Tent will be expected to kowtow to and defend.

RECENTLY, poet, conceptual artist, young socialist and extreme commuter Angelo V. Suarez, known for his “#MRTBulok” Facebook posts against the management of the Metro Manila Metro Rail Transit System by both the Aquino government and the system’s private co-owner as well as the incursion of money-making by the Pangilinan Group and the Ayala family into the system’s ticketing, seems to have been a victim of an alleged set-up. He arrived at the usual MRT station he starts his hypermobility with, and, voila! He witnesses a part of an awry MRT train part with the Suarezian tagline “MRT bulok!”, whereupon he finds himself quickly taken by the station’s security guards for detention at the station’s office, which lasted for two nights, accused of having written the marker’s marks on the bulok (rotten) MRT part. Here’s what Suarez later posted about it (also published here with his permission):
    “I feel bad having been detained for word against me by a fellow worker who relies on public utilities and infrastructure as much as I do, who has been let down by the MRT even worse than I have.
    “The allegation against me was made by a guard under pressure to find 'vandals' who have been writing, posting, and stickering their grievances on the MRT. According to her fellow guards—many of whom agree with me that the MRT is rotten—the pressure on them to find these people has been incredible, having been on the receiving end of reprimand by management. One even whispered to me that, as a guard, he knew even more than the average passenger cld how rotten the MRT truly was.
    “Big compradors like MRT Corp. Chairman Robert Sobrepeña and bureaucrats like General Manager Roman Buenafe who enable them play this sick game of pitting workers against workers for their profit or pleasure. This shldn't have been my word against the guard's words; this shldn't have been a matter of me combating policemen, tho there is much to be said about the police being an institution for the protection of private property despite its impact on public interest. I wasn't the only one deprived of sleep and time; so too were these fellow workers—MRT personnel caught between their job and our protest, policemen whose cramped office my friends and I made even more cramped because of my detainment—instrumentalized by corporate interest to suppress dissent from their logic of accumulation thru dispossession.
    “Bulok ang MRT, pero bulok lamang ito dahil nasasadlak sa bulok na estruktura ng estadong kinakasangkapan ng kapitalismo. Umaasa akong magkakaisa ang uring manggagawa para patumbahin ang tunay nating kaaway.”
    Suarez, after his detention, had a talk with the Gustavo Petro-quoting transport secretary, Arthur Tugade, and I can only wonder what socialist exchanges they had during those minutes of discourse and counter-discourse.
    Days after, Suarez would tell friends of emails sent his way via Facebook. He writes:
    “The things you find in your filtered messages inbox after 2 nights of police detainment for alleged vandalism:
    “1. Dick pics –‘sulat-sulat ka pa diyan, chupain mo na lang 'to!’
    “2. Charges of idiocy – ‘bulok na nga ang tren, susulatan mo pa! tanga!’
    “3. Accusations of being a 'yellowtard' – ‘bakit ngayon ka lang nagsasalita? dilawan ka kasi!’”
    Ms. Caroline Arellano, a friend of Suarez, commented on Suarez’s post: “Basta kinalaban mo ang administration na ito yellowtard ka o addict.” To which Suarez replied: “(Here’s) the funny thing: the general manager who delayed my release and was insistent on getting me detained was an Aquino holdover from (Jun) Abaya's time in the DOTC. Duterte supporters of this sort are weird.”
    Which brings me to my three reasons for dragging Suarez’s episode with mysterious forces into this essay: One, to ask the question as to whether turncoating for job security or protection could also be another psychology behind some of the killings by police of drug-trade and drug-use suspects, essentially for demonstration of competence and self-assigned quota, this apart from the elimination of links by drug-involved police. Two, to ask whether those messages sent to Suarez’s inbox does not show us enough why loyalism and politician-worship is so dangerous not only to others but to the health of our nation's brain cells. And, three, to perhaps show that many if not most Duterte supporters are far from socialist. [S / -I]

A New Rule for the Race

For this sincere campaign for transparency about corporate sponsorship of national political candidates, I am---for the sake of providing models---invoking fair use of the photos of NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon (borrowed from http://www.globaltoynews.com/posts-by-dawn-wilensky/) and motor racing driver Frank Wrathall.

WHAT IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH SIDING WITH THE ENEMY

image borrowed from http://oelje.deviantart.com/art/Black-and-White-15914568

First, ugly politics is alive and well again.
     And we, the people, are being drawn into it again. You and I are again being sucked into the agenda that there can only be black and white, and the propaganda that our very own white backyard cannot have brown stains on its many paths. And so we are being asked to choose once again if we want to continue to side with white or if we're already beginning to side with black (or gray or green), after being told to weigh an "obviously" continuing virtue in white against the proven dirt of everyone in black. So, some of your allies make pronouncements that they are opting to stay, while some slowly begin to blurt out brief sermons akin to the enemy's. You, meanwhile, choose to put your faith in white.
     But your present devotion blinded by white's light is making you forget what once was your original side, the side that had an original loyalty to a cause that then offered the same to a loud political color only because that color supposedly wanted to serve this cause of yours. And, having been convinced by its blinding light, you closed your eyes to the fact that that color can anytime choose to side with causes other than yours, causes conflicting with yours. Not necessarily the enemy's cause but simply another conflicting cause. A cause within. Which, as the others see it, can be a bit similar to the enemy's.
     But you are not blind, you say. Perhaps. But, you see, because you have chosen to pin your prime loyalty to that color that preached the side of your cause, you have been blinded to the possible presence of the fact that the color you have sided with for siding with your cause has through all these years also been gradually siding with those others' causes, and you continue to embrace the illusion that the color still has your cause in mind as a priority. A part of it, perhaps, which is what you know, but definitely not entirely, which is what you deny. Not entirely anymore.

     But you've closed your mind to that possibility and tell yourself over and over, and tell your friends the same, that this can never happen, and that should this happen it will only be as an illusion painted on the wall by the enemy.
     And your allies that have begun to realize the stains on the paths you have all been walking on? You have labelled them as spies, as corrupted individuals slowly being swallowed by the rhetoric of the enemy.
     You fail to see now that, unlike you, these allies of yours have never lost their loyalty to their original cause, and have never forgotten that they only offered the same loyalty to the color you both pledged allegiance to because the color supposedly wanted to serve that original cause. They have never forgotten that their loyalty to their original cause comes first, and shall forever retain that status in the eternal changing of colors. That their loyalty to any color must anytime turn to nothing in the betrayal of that original cause.
     That, my friend, is not synonymous with siding with the enemy.
     You've seen some of them dine with some elements of the enemy's side? Well, remember, at least, what you've told each other before you pledged your allegiance to a color? That whatever happens, wherever you go, you will never lose your allegiance to your original cause?
     Do you remember? Do you? Have you forgotten your promise to each other, written in blood, that in the eternal alternation of colors you will never ever lose yourselves in the control of colors but shall forever endeavor to control back? To control back! To control back what you can still control back! Have you?
     Have you?

It's time for a shift to direct democracy, Part 4

“… the manipulation of bodies in space suggests that it is not the space that creates content, but those within it. But, as [artist Joseph] Beuys suggests, such spaces might contribute to the creation of direct democracy. Perhaps this is what [Kazimir] Malevich was thinking about when he started painting black and white squares. Maybe that's what protesters have been thinking about more recently, with the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements. Space is an important thing. It can be a very political thing. And as Occupy London has been officially evicted from St. Paul's, physical space is becoming such a rarity, one might wonder where such bodies might interact….”

“… space as a place for interaction, debate and discussion.”

– both quotations from http://institutionalarchive.weebly.com/5/post/2012/2/bureau-for-direct-democracy-joseph-beuys.html

(Read Part 3)

What’s the worry about it?

WE’VE READ the three parts of this essay, wherein each Part would have passages that repeat (as probably necessary) statements already made in the other Parts. And now, here, let us paraphrase the eight most common worries about installing a strong direct democracy in the Philippines.
     First, as we mentioned in the closing paragraphs of Part 3 of this multi-Part essay, there is that worry or fear with direct democracy, namely, that in a culture as uneducated as the Philippines’ (or as poorly educated as the US’) there is in it the ever-present danger of being ruled by public relations budgets. We might not fear the mob, but save us from the trained consumers!
     This fear is understandable. However, we must bear in mind that direct democracy wakes and increases citizens’ political awareness simply by being a system focused on issues of society and the polity. Thus, it isn’t surprising to know that the uneducated class in the US states with DD (direct democracy) might seem to be more knowledgeable about political and other social matters of concern in their respective states than their uneducated peers in the US states with mere RD (representative democracy). And that’s because citizens in a DD are directly engaged in the issues around propositions and initiatives up for a vote that necessarily go through a process of being debated on in the public arena. Taxi drivers will inevitably talk about things that directly affect their profession/industry, but so will they talk about other social matters brought up to a vote in any oncoming ballot. Let’s zoom in on an example:
     When au pairs watch a documentary about poverty blues on GMA News TV, they become engaged. When the channel is turned to an ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) debate on an issue, naturally in educated-class English as per that channel’s format, they consequently acquiesce to the speakers’ supposed high IQ. The latter is your example of apathy and “stupidity” in society produced not in a direct democracy but by a system of elitism and elite-leaning privilege and conscious or unconscious marginalization.
     So, what’s the difference between the current influence of public relations budgets made to sway media perception and protestation within our RD and public relations budgets that will be spent in any future DD? You know the answer to that one. But additionally, DD has measures to immediately correct laws passed by the people, and even laws passed by Congress, whereas in an RD it would take decades before somebody in the political elite class even starts to listen to what the sometimes-progressivist-sounding media would complain about, especially if the law that needs to be reversed is proving to be beneficial to the ruling classes. And, again, whereas we would have to wait for a politician’s term to end to expect some changes (with fingers crossed), Swiss and US DD can vote out (recall) via a motion of no confidence a national or state or local official or representative of their National Council or State House of Representatives anytime the people want to. . . .


NOW THERE’S another worry, corollary to that one above. Here’s Worry #2:
     The frequency of special interest-backed propositions. Moneyed elites, so the worry goes, can keep putting an issue on ballot after ballot, changing the wording each time (so that a Proposition that once required a “No” vote may now require a “Yes” vote). True, it can be quite amazing to see what corporate legal departments can afford to do with words. And so, in the 21st century world of PR and consumerism, the referendum or initiative could be the simple way to buy the laws a special interest group wants.
     But again, why is it better to have a special interest group-funded referendum in a direct democracy? Well, because it has to pass the people’s vote. In a purely representative democracy, all the special-interest group has to do is lobby some representatives, and that’s to make a law that would pass---as often happens---unbeknownst to the people.
     It’s true that PR is powerful and can rehash itself into many shapes and continuously hound the majority vote with persuasive talk, but let us not lose our faith in the people and their intelligence and the presence of guardians against special interests who can counter the corporate-backed PRs this early. Our media alone abound in such guardian-individuals, however corrupt some of them may be. Direct democracy is not one of the worst things that happened to California. In fact, I doubt that it is one of the things that the state’s people would want to give up.
     Let me re-state what I said in Part 1 of this essay: “… it’s quite understandable to me why the US Constitution framers avoided the temptations of direct democracy at the federal level (as against Switzerland, for instance, which embraced it); and that understanding may come from my being an Americanized Filipino, quite familiar with the American experience with oppressive majorities lording it over minorities…. (But) I would argue with America’s declarers of independence and say that I’d much rather struggle as a minority within the direct democracy lorded by a majority that may nonetheless be persuadable than struggle within the elite-handled machinery of representative democracy where the entrenched elite always wins.”
     So, how do we make this thing happen? That is precisely what the Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines Facebook group (which I created) is for. If we like the idea as a solution to our decades-old problems, let’s come up with a plan.


WORRY #3: this one says we’d be copying a foreign model. We’re afraid that model might not be applicable in our country.
     First of all, our present representative democracy is also copied from a foreign model, derivative of the US federal Constitution. In fact, this system was only imposed upon us during the American Commonwealth era, we didn’t exactly pick it from a roster of choices.
     As for copying foreign models, I always cite the example of the popular rock band Yano. In the 1990s, Yano---among other bands---got enamored with British punk rock and thought of bringing that type of music to the Philippine airwaves and Manila club scene. But while other bands copied the music (and lyrics content or allusions to the British or American psyche) and brought in the fashion, Yano emulated the philosophy alone. So, in the case of their punk fashion statement, instead of wearing Doc Martens shoes (cheap old ladies’ shoes in London at the time which were now already being sold as high-end items to the Philippine youth market), Yano wore cheap tsinelas (flip-flops) onstage, the equivalent of Doc Martens shoes according to punk fashion philosophy then. In the case of their songwriting, Yano sang punk lyrics in Tagalog, referencing Philippine political (instead of London political) realities.
     When are foreign systems/models better for our environs? Well, those would be times as when I advice my neighbors to buy imported peanut butter if only because Philippine peanut butter doesn’t seem to have aflatoxin-level standards to follow, and our government offices don’t have enough people to widely examine the local stuff for salmonella. . . .
     So, back to DD. How is direct democracy possible in the Philippines? Well, in fact, there is already a bit of it in our roster of laws. As I mentioned in Part 2 of this essay, the closest we have come to it is with Republic Act 6735 (The Initiative and Referendum Act). But is this law usable at all? That is, is the initial requirement too steep for it to be considered useful in the national level? How can a movement for direct democracy in the Philippines use this law presently? If there’s a need to amend it before it can be used, are there senators and congressmen who can help us in amending it? Would they fight for the amendment to the finish? And what else do we need to put in?
     And if we need to do more, as in, say, radically install the Switzerland DD model, for instance, then how do we achieve that? How many political figures do we need to create a movement? Would a former military figure (the patriotic and reformist type, if there is such an animal) be welcome in our ranks? How many people do we need to come with us? And how do we do it? Do we start with die-ins and other Occupy movement-style moves? Would our desires fall for a Constitutional Convention that may promise to work on a DD constitution?
     Perhaps we could start with the details. Let us look at the Swiss model, for instance. Or the California model. What are in them that’s applicable to Philippine culture, what are not? If not, why? Are there contending arguments that would negate the negativity or pessimism (or conservatism)?
     These are the questions we wish to tackle at the Forum, the reason why it has to be called a forum before it can be called a movement. If, at the end of the day, this forum arrives at the conclusion that DD is just going to be another hot air, then let’s fold up and get back to complaining about “political dynasties” and unqualified candidates/officials and anti-epal (anti-earmarking or anti-projects claiming) bills that took decades before someone upstairs bothered to pick it up, and maybe somewhere along the way of our eternal complaining we’d find another solution. But in the meantime, DD is the only comprehensive solution to our constantly-aired problems that I can think of, a comprehensive solution to these problems that have all-too-often been waylaid by “more pressing problems.” So I hope we can find lights to lead us in this road.
     So, reader, let me invite you too. I’ll give myself the honor of adding you to this new group should you be interested in such a forum as this on the subject of direct democracy, especially as you may also happen to believe that such a form of government may be applied to the Philippines. But I would understand if you opt to leave the group sooner or later.
     Partisans and non-partisans are welcome. The only requirement is for you to be interested in wresting away our country’s pure representative democracy from the total control of the political elite.
     We want everyone here, leftists, rightists, centrists, devout Catholics, atheists, everyone! Everyone who feels we’ve had enough of the experiment of pure representative democracy where a member of the political elite manipulates the media (with the help of campaign gurus) to have himself seated as a representative of millions without the benefit of causes and solutions driving him/her as a champion of. It’s about time the people get access to also represent themselves.


WORRY #4: The situation is dire. It’ll never be achieved.
     Dire. In Waray, “dire” means no.
     But one thing to bear in mind in this fight: direct democracy is true democracy, pure representative democracy is an insult to the demos (people) as well as the kratos (power) Greek roots of the word. Why would you not want to fight for true freedom, then? And what might be the reason why the elite class is averse to it? Well, the elite is averse to it because the majority in the elite is averse to true democracy. The elite would want to perpetuate the status quo where they, of the elite, can forever misrepresent the millions in their (not the millions’) democracy.
     And how can it not be achievable when everyone is welcome? Even the progressivists are welcome to join. Except maybe the communists, for I doubt they would find our direction to their liking, though I can’t say for sure.
     My social-liberal Facebook friend Dave T- (who’s suspicious of progressivists as being closet communists) asks, “Would this be a platform whereby the broad democratic Left could reach out more effectively to the masses?”
     Well, it might be a contradiction in terms to want to seek a debate with contending parties in a direct democracy when you’re holding a microphone with your right hand and a gun with your left. And, during a fora (physical or virtual), there might already be confusion about the definition of the word “democracy,” considering that communism has had a hold on that word quite an ocean away from the mainstream Karl Popperian grasp of it.
     Still, could there be a common ground? I don’t know. I can’t say for now.
     My friend the painter Marcel Antonio jokes: “I doubt if a Marxist [he means a communist] would even want to seek a common ground, because there is no common ground. A Marxist seeks direction that oscillates between two extremes. She would rather have her desires unrequited than fulfilled from the attainment of its goals, consequently burning itself out. :)”
     A succinct articulation of a century-old reality, my friend.
     “Not really,” he says, “it's Alain de Botton reading Roland Barthes reading Marx. :D”
     Then, here, my friend the Pentecostal preacher Mac McCarty offers the following note: “I agree, Marcel, as far as traditional Marxism goes---no middle ground---, but folks like Étienne Balibar call those guys theological fundamentalist Marxists who read the book of Marx as truth, literal and eternal. He subscribes to a ‘symbolic’ theology of Marxism and considers himself a reformer (not always a nice word among Marxists). He also has interesting things to say about change. (More perhaps in other threads.)
     “The point is that not all Marxists are protracted-struggle, blood-in-the-streets revolutionaries visualizing a kind of sociopolitical rapture in a ‘That Day’, a That Day after which the evil, greedy, psychopathic people and forces will be swallowed up by the earth and all will be hunky and dorey in worker’s paradise, but I’m getting carried away. I say ‘Yeah, bring on any Marxist who has “middle ground” ideas of any kind … we can only benefit.’”


WORRY #5 in case direct democracy is installed, best articulated perhaps by that page again in activatingdemocracy.com titled “Pros and Cons”---“Ordinary citizens are not interested enough in politics. They are uninformed, uneducated, irrational, emotional, egoistic and short-sighted. Citizens are politically incompetent and the issues are too complex for them to understand. Therefore political decisions on policy issues should be made by professional politicians who have the necessary skills and understanding.”
     And I can only quote the last paragraph of that site’s answer, which somewhat echoes my answer to Worry #2 and goes thus: “Political incompetence is no cause for excluding citizens from political decision-making on issues. In reality it is the other way round: political incompetence is an effect of the exclusion of citizens from political decision-making.”
     So let’s talk about it now; its advantages, disadvantages, its problems, the solutions it brings to the table, and how we can make Philippine direct democracy unique, if it needs to be.


WORRY #6: Is direct-democracy majoritarianism okay? Agree that representative majoritarianism should go, but under a direct democracy majoritarian régime, what protection do minorities have?
     Well, I believe the accusation on DD majoritarianism as potentially a return to mob rule compared to the RD majoritiarianism’s supposed educated sympathy for minorities is a myth. The developments in many a government as regards the protection of minorities has not been due to the educated empathy of the elite but due to the progress of a national or regional cultural experience. In fact, it’s the other way around. All campaigns for DD start as reactions to what are perceived to be regimes of elite democracy that have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the decades-old complaints of society, becoming unsympathetic, self-centered, uninterested in the welfare of both majorities and minorities (except their own minority class’ welfare). Furthermore, sympathy for the minority is decidedly more expressed in the masses than in the profit-motivated hypocrisy of elite-backed regimes.


WORRY #7, which would also be a corollary to Worry #s 1 and 2:
     A classmate of mine in high school who’s also a member of our Forum posed this exploratory question: “Would direct democracy’s ‘direct’-ness be a myth with media’s and government’s attempts at influencing the decisions of the people, the masses? It is sad to say that with the almost 27% poverty level in ‘Pinas, madaling ma-compromise ang popular opinion kapag kumukulo ang tiyan ni Juan.”
     My answer: Right you are, buddy. But that influence, which can be both positive and negative, is being projected on direct democracy by its opponents as though it is exclusive to it. But that influence is already here, happening right now, in our representative democracy.
     Certainly, in a pure representative democracy, some members of the media---about the only ordinary citizens 100% engaged in political issues as direct participants in this pure system---as well as of opposition parties do come up with contentions to the lies and truths moving within their own circles of privilege, but that’s precisely the point: in a representative democracy, the debate in the media is often left to the elite class to act on, with the lower and lower-middle classes put in the sidelines as mere TV audiences, perpetuating thus widespread ignorance by this exclusion. The privileged take it upon themselves to “influence” the rest of the nation with what they deem to be the good policies and attitudes for that nation. And we know better than to continue to believe in these lies.
     In direct democracies, in contrast, even well-financed campaigns by special-interest groups consider the fact that the people (inclusive of the cynical and even the uneducated) are already directly engaged as their equals over the issues, and that the people have been made aware that they are responsible (because they now have the power to be responsible) for their own welfare. In direct democracies, the people do not merely lean on the expertise of Yale- or Harvard-educated technocrats of the often self-serving elite. They listen to these technocrats as well as opposing ideas and then use their intelligence and experience for a positive or negative vote. This is what happens when debates in society are not left to “experts” and “representatives” to decide on alone, when society itself is empowered---beyond merely having the right to complain---to decide for themselves and enact or repeal laws themselves.
     And if their “tiyans” are “kumakalam” within this society with strong and simple direct democracy instruments, then the more they will want to get involved in the DD reality of involvement (via propositions and initiatives and referenda and recall elections that concern them) as against being merely virtually involved via RD elections involving faces and names that the masses cannot directly link to the search for solutions to their poverty and hunger except by way of faith in those faces.


WORRY #8 is almost an extension of Worry #7: Another former classmate of mine asked, is it applicable in a poor country such as ours?
     My answer: It ought to be applied especially to poor countries where the lower classes and the lower-middle-class have been game to the exploitative bent of their elite and lumpenbourgeoisie. If a relatively well-off people like Switzerland’s or California’s or Massachussetts’ would not allow their elite to manipulate policy through the representation of a few, how much more a poor country! For to say “no, it can’t be done here” would be to say only well-to-do people can demand to represent themselves, poor people must only acquiesce to their ilustrado elite’s expert, Harvard-seminar’d wishes. We have been doing that for more than a century now, and yet we have to wait for decades before someone upstairs acts on something as simple as an anti-epal law!
     We are all learning here, of course, and that’s why we need the inputs of those among us with more academicized exposure to this subject---Professor Ramon Casiple, for instance, whose essay (which I mentioned in Part 1, click here to read it) was partly inspirational. I’m just being the online activist for this cause since I’m the one with more free time. As of the moment, the group would like to get the eager membership of some election experts, former Comelec people or not, who can advice us on ways by which cost-efficiency can be administered into DD processes such as referenda. It would also be great to get advice from the states in the US where they have DD, advice such as on how they operate it at minimal cost. Are there adaptations to cost that we can design into the system? Questions like those need to be discussed and resolved by the group before we even accept an invitation to be present at a TV talk show. :) As of the moment, my view is that we must not allow the political elite to hoodwink us into the “malabo yan, magastos yan” (“that’s a costly enterprise, that won’t fly”) bias, especially since this is the same elite who have been appropriating lump-sum billions into government programs that are sometimes (oftentimes!) meaningless to the majority.


SO WHAT about this Facebook group called Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines? Well, this non-partisan group serves as an outlet for exchanges regarding the possibility of pushing for the application of direct democracy to Philippine society. Direct democracy could just be the cure for all the ills of our century-old representative democracy that has turned government into a milking cow for many if not most in the political elite.
     Party-list group leaders, if they’re as serious as they claim to be about proportional representation in governance, should join this forum … which, God knows, might just turn into a, say, die-in movement for real change.
     Let us study the direct democracy of Switzerland, and the US states that have it, where there is no more need for party-list proportional representation, as all parties, big and small, are given equal treatment! No, not given equal treatment by the Comelec but by the system itself! [END OF PART 4; TO BE CONTINUED]

ADDENDUM, JULY 2014:
In October of 2013, enterprising political activist Manny SD Lopez enjoined me and other direct-democracy advocates (Rey Callope Sabio, Dexter Briñas Amoroso, among others) to form ePIRMA (the Empowered People’s Initiative and Reform Movement Alliance) which would spearhead a people’s initiative (using Republic Act 6735) against pork barrel spending. The new group sought the help of Atty. Jose M. Roy III, another direct democracy enthusiast, among other lawyers, and the inspiration of former Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno, a direct democracy advocate in his own right, who had then been coming out in the media at the height of the PDAF scam to inform the public of the available people’s initiative option. The ePIRMA alliance grew and attracted all sorts of individuals and groups: social liberals friendly and not friendly to the Aquino government, opposition groups, leftists, advocates of other special causes, even Marcos loyalists. Albeit the Facebook community page of the group allowed various subjects and viewpoints to be posted by its members, the alliance’s central committee managed to focus the group on the pork barrel system as its main target, followed only by concerns as various as total public finance management reform, Porto Alegre-modeled participatory budgeting, the abolition of ‘political dynasties’, and so on.
     By July of 2014, the group had joined in a coalition with the Cebu Coalition, the Makabayan group, PICAD, and Scrap Pork Network, for a final framing of an anti-pork barrel initiative that, after the decisions by the Supreme Court rendering both the pork funds PDAF and Aquino-administration DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program) unconstitutional, would criminalize any similar fund-making along with their use. The initiative is slated to be launched on August 23, 2014 in Cebu City.

WHY MY TWO CANDIDATES NEED TO BE JERKS IN ORDER TO WIN IN THIS ELECTION

 

photos from http://www.liberalparty.org.ph/ and http://soksay.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html

YOU know what they say in fiction, where there’s no conflict there’s no story. And you know what they say in public relations, negative publicity is better than no publicity at all.
     These two axioms seem to escape the campaign of two of my candidates. I have been campaigning on my Facebook wall for the senatorial candidacy of Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Risa Hontiveros, if only because they are two of my chosen candidates that need the boost, being not yet in the top 12 of the most recent surveys. I do this, aware though I am that their image seem too clean, and therefore not that relatable to people. It’s possible they’d lose.
     Empathizing with the people, it’s easy to relate to Loren Legarda—the mataray face that rarely sports a smile. There is ready conflict in that face alone, seeming to say by itself, “I am a fighter.” There’s that other fighter on the Senate floor easy to relate to, Alan Peter Cayetano—fierce, sublimely sardonic, who can mix feigned respect into his arguments. It’s also easy for the masses to relate to Chiz Escudero—talks with nary a comic flair, robotic in his legalese, but all in relatable Tagalog, never mind if much of that legalese is beyond the average voter-fisherman; there’s all the flavor of conflict in his stance alone, defensive and offensive at the same time; the triangle rift with Heart Evangelista’s parents could help him further his bid if managed well. It’s easy to relate to Nancy Binay, even. Daughter of a father constantly chided by a colonial mentality for wearing that dark skin, survivor of many an allegation of corruption, consistent organizer of rallies on Erap’s behalf. It doesn’t matter if it’s true the daughter is running on and in the father’s behalf, it’s still him, and there’s ready conflict in that position alone, whether you like it or not. There’s also a ready conflict in JV Ejercito’s name, son of a man beloved by the masses for his defiance of all protocol imposed by a worldly world, a man deposed by a "more corrupt" Gloria Arroyo.
     My candidate Risa Hontiveros, on the other hand, is being wrongly sold, merely as maganda, which doesn’t count for much even to Miss Universe juries. Jun Magsaysay’s story, meanwhile, is a seemingly forgotten story. There is no conflict behind the face anymore. For my two candidates to win, they have to be jerks. That’s why it would serve Hontiveros’ campaign abundantly if the Church starts hitting her personally. It would serve Jun Magsaysay’s campaign abundantly if defenders of the Fertilizer Fund Scam starts maligning his name now.

photo from http://www.ivoteph.com/senator-2/candidate-for-senator-2013-risa-hontiveros-and-his-profile/

TO be called nothing is to be insignificant. To be called an asshole or a jerk presupposes haters. And where there are haters there are defenders. An asshole or jerk tag, therefore, signals conflict, and conflict reboots people’s attention to issues of evil and good, right and wrong, heroism and villainy. The “asshole” or “jerk” comes out to the majority as either a champion or an enemy. To come out as an enemy is to lose in a campaign; but at least one lost in a fight, not in a non-fight.
     In short, like Loren Legarda, it’s not important to enumerate the wars one will fight for, though that would be a bonus or necessary for a springboard, but it’s important to project the aura that you are fighting, or defending, or offending. Not simply smiling.
     The art of politics is the art of projecting a story of conflict. The art of being a politician is the art of projecting the face of a fighter, the face of a jerk. It is no wonder that even in art, the greatest of artworks are often politically incorrect. Because art is primarily concerned with itself, its own art. The cause of the art often overpowers the cause of a thematic cause. But the correct thematic cause within an artistic cause is always a bonus, especially after a win.

BUT there are two kinds of jerk-ness.
     As a social liberal, I’ve often come across the complaint that within social liberalism’s campaign of virtue and empathy and sympathy, some social liberal celebrities turn out to be unworldly assholes. Impressions like this come, of course, after one such social liberal celebrity’s stumbling into a large mistake (whether true or not) that starts to show tragic flaws in his person on mainstream media, certain disappointing flaws that qualify his asshole-ness to conventional wisdom, flaws which mainstream media could in turn embed into an encyclopedic definition of this “asshole”’s sensational image, perhaps permanently waylaying too his boring heroic social liberal achievements into the dustbins of memory.
     One example of this victimization by achievement-dustbinning is that one done on the person of John Edwards, a US senator who fought long and hard for the popularization of the concept of universal healthcare (along with housing vouchers and universal college education) as an agenda for US legislation even before Barack Obama became a US senator. We know of course what happened to his media-managed story, and what he has come to be known as now. An ass. The problem media had with his jerk-ness was the disconnect they read into his espoused causes and what he later “did to his wife.”
     Some leftists would also include the true compassion for the poor in Che Guevara as belonging to this roster of victims of Western media pigeonholing, he whose image has been handled by American rightist media—or so those leftists would aver—to revolve around certain Cuban executions alone. The problem media had with his jerk-ness was the biased disconnect they read into his espoused objective and what he had to do to the enemies of the state, never mind if the West itself did the same to its outcasts, mostly blacks.
     The problem with social liberal jerk-ness is it’s passive and tagged, requiring lots of explanation. There is the other kind of jerk-ness, the managed jerk-ness, often associated with false progressives, although any political bent can appropriate this approach.
     Unlike the social liberals whose flaws are observed and hyped by the enemy, false progressives traditionally flaunt their character flaws as hallmarks of ordinariness to which the masses must (and often do) relate. In short, they manage these flaws in the media to gain the applause of the masses’ own, as if their flaws are proud reflections of the masses’. One could say that their argument is full of bread and circus, an ongoing argumentum ad captandum aimed at duping the object of their treachery by pretending to be on their side in a pre-defined conflict with a pre-defined elite.

photo by Associated Press, linked from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/anthony-bourdain-paula-deen_n_1522031.html

NOW, I’m not going to illustrate my characterization of the asshole and jerk (social liberal or otherwise) further with names from the political arena, these names often being with a following cloaked in the diaper of confirmation bias, talk about whom—therefore—would lead us nowhere rational.
     Let me talk instead about two chefs, embroiled in a seemingly similar contrast of positions in 2011, as a metaphor for what I mean by jerk-ness that presupposes conflict, which consequently raises the bar of any contest.
     In mid-2011, famous chef Anthony Bourdain, still streetwise but well-loved enfant terrible of food television, added another name to his roster of named “worst chefs,” this time the equally famous and well-loved Paula Deen. Bourdain called Deen “most dangerous to America” for her “unholy connections with evil corporations,” all the worse because “she’s proud of the fact that her food is f---ing bad for you.” His reaction’s main gist was contained in this clause: “I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it is OK to eat food that is killing us.” He finished up with a painful punch: “Plus, her food sucks.” One would have thought that that last sentence was all he really wanted to say.
     This time, however, he got a target who fought back. Said Deen: “Anthony Bourdain needs to get a life. You don’t have to like my [and those others’] food . . . but it’s another thing to attack our character. I wake up every morning happy for where I am in life. It's not all about the cooking, but the fact that I can contribute using my influence to help people all over the country. In the last two years, my partners and I have fed more than 10 million hungry people by bringing meat to food banks.” She added, “I have no idea what Anthony has done to contribute besides being irritable.”
     Many food writers, while conveying their admiration for Bourdain’s TV show and personality, sided with Deen on this latest exchange—after Bourdain’s last word on a tweet that went: “Resolved: Next time I’m asked (for the millionth time) who the worst cooks on Food Network are, I’ll just shut up. Who cares?”
     The food nation was divided.
     At the outset, Bourdain did come off as an “asshole,” as some comments put it, sounding quite unfair in implying Deen has been a major contributor to Americans’ obesity problem, though that statement could have been positively taken as simply in cognizance of Deen’s broad fandom, a fandom who seems to be worshipful of her fatty, fried foods dipped afterwards in mayonnaise heaven. Was Bourdain being envious?
     On closer examination, however, since we might find it hard to connect Bourdain’s rant with Michelle Obama’s campaign to reverse childhood obesity, we may glean a simple elliptical point in this latest Bourdain sardonic grunt.
     You see, many food writers missed Bourdain’s point when they failed to review his own record with beurre blanc dips and fatty foie gras. And they seemed to have been taken in by Deen’s argumentum ad captandum, wherein she dangled her connection to food banks as her bread and circuses recipe for applause against Bourdain’s merely chain-smoking, punk rock-loving enfant terrible image that seems to constantly hate the majority’s good taste even while celebratory of their street taste. Understandable, yes, considering food writers are not trained like political scientists to accept the fact that champions of mass behavior are themselves posited in a sort of rebel’s ivory tower stance (in defense or in offense).
     That was sad, because—for one—every time Bourdain says something philosophical on his show or in his books, it’s always with a tongue in cheek, albeit substantive with allusions. Sad, likewise, because media might have noticed those times when he’s totally serious, as when in the throes of a (to him) rarity, sentimentally enjoying fatty chicharrones with pan de pais in a Puerto Rico small-town plaza. If media had taken the time to review his record, though of course I am speaking from a position of perfect hindsight, they would have seen the reason why he has earned the love of many—he has been one Ramones-loving “jerk” of a champion passionate about empowering “peasant food” in their purity, beyond the apostasy and sacrilege of fusion. He praises local food because of their local-ness, not their bastardized here-from-there-ness. Taking note of that significance, they might have been able to conclude that it’s possible it wasn’t really those other chefs (that he named worst) that he hated, he’d easily be Emeril Lagasse’s friend tonight after being the enemy yesterday, but the “corporatizations” of food around them, including those food idealizations espoused by Food Network.
     So, that said, we can’t and mustn’t take Bourdain seriously and literally on any sudden Jamie Oliverian concern about fat’s popularity, or any sudden un-Bourdainly rally for healthy haute-ness for that matter, knowing him to be that ongoing champion of much unhealthy stuff that he now seemed to be rallying against. Those unhealthy stuff he’d raised like flags before include the ever-No Reservations-popular foie gras, accompanied by such delights as, say, Quebec’s cheese-heavy poutine, that pop up every now and then in his shows. As for his supposed hatred for “corporatization,” it must be clarified likewise that he has been a staunch defender of Ferran Adria’s recipes using such corporation-churned products as Smint.
     So, let’s keep it all in context from now on. The Bourdainene thesis is: pure people’s food versus culinary bastardizations and simplistic fusions by importation. When he imports, he makes sure he doesn’t bastardize, even when he attempts variations. Therefore, when he says “I don’t like your piña colada, it’s so unhealthy and bad,” he really means that this corporate invention is no better than crappy corporate cheese by Kraft that needs a Ferran Adrian artistic doing-over to be acceptable to an un-duped people who’ll be paying for it. He’d preach against “promoters of obesity” like Deen while praising a coconut-water flavored roasted pig in Bali, its lard dripping, for the same reason. Food integrity.
     It’s not what the kid says, it’s what he means, then. He’s that kind of a jerk, that sort of “peasant food”-championing asshole that the food media couldn’t, at least for a couple of weeks, connect to a food thesis.
     Now, having said that, clarifying things on Bourdain’s behalf which seemed to require a lot of explanation, let me say now that I doubt that Bourdain’s rant would have discouraged many a Bourdain fan from his shows. It might even be safe to say that his fans will remain his fans whatever the hell he says to offend others. In fact, I think the only moral one could derive from this brouhaha is with the fact that non-fans of the man got interested in what he was talking about, some getting interested in what he really meant to say, if only to see whose side they could side with. One would have thought, were he running for political office, that this jerk-ness was all managed.

PARENTS teach their kids not to be jerks.
     A friend of mine once ranted over a just-transpired experience with an (to her) asshole, “Why did God create assholes? I know they’re where shit come from.”
     But, then, of course, there are assholes and there are assholes. And the good thing about them, all sorts of them, is they actually liberate us from our own stupid shit. They’re something to be thankful to God for, since it is, after all, by their mere existence that we are able to churn out revolutions from our guts. We begin to discuss right and wrong, good and bad, left and right. A conflict of views ensues, and a real contest is instigated.
     But sadly, presently, if the poll surveys are to be our mark, it seems that Jun Magsaysay’s having been an asshole to the Fertilizer Fund Scam’s backers and defenders and Risa Hontiveros’ being a female jerk to the RH Bill-hating male-managed Catholic Church (“they must respect the separation between Church and State”) have already been so quickly pigeonholed as ‘soft’ by media, thus into the dustbins of short-term memory. The resultant on their media image has been different from John Edwards’ (realigned) or Che Guevara’s (biased). In contrast to, say, presidential sister Kris Aquino’s image after her public dramatizations of her husband’s purported evil manners that have instigated a debate on many a Facebook thread, they (Jun Magsaysay and Risa Hontiveros) are coming out too clean, seemingly perceived as devoid of enemies and therefore boring.
     Someone must hype up their having, like Anthony Bourdain, been jerks once. [END]

Another Lousy Day for Heroes, Part II (Oppressions Birth Heroes, Corporations Breed Gods)

Read Part One here: Another Lousy Day for Heroes (Counter-Reifications)

MARTIAL LAW.
     Yesterday, the media marked the 39th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of such a rule in the Philippines on September 21, 1972, a hardy rule that would officially remain until 1981. Clearly, media was trying to serve us a historical lesson towards stating a renewed "never again" slogan. And under the government of Noynoy Aquino, this commemoration had more than just an "official" context. Just a month ago, the government and media remembered the August 21, 1983 assassination and death of Benigno Aquino Jr., with tributes and quasi-tributes, while weeks previous to that, the birth of Corazon Aquino was celebrated, all this under the happy watch of the Noynoy Aquino government. Now, notice that in the time of Gloria Arroyo's corruption-tainted and subtly oppressive government, media outlets commemmorated the martial law declaration and Ninoy Aquino tribute events with a clear warning (to both government and ourselves) that seemed to be embedded in the message of the remembrances. A "never again" warning context. This time around, media is playing along, entertaining the Aquino overkill that seems to jive with its previous "never again" cause.
     (Though somewhere else this week, not covered by television, certain parties were also commemorating the assassination and death of the leftist leader Leandro Alejandro on September 19, 1987, a date only over a year into the transition centrist/coalition government of Corazon Aquino.)
     But on the 21st of September, 2011, a Marcos supporter was stating a certainty on TV, viz., that Marcos' martial law was a necessary part of history, as if to push an apology for future conditions wherein a "never again" slogan might have no weight, perhaps might even be an insult to a real hero that saved us all from communism. And perhaps he's right on a point. For, after all, like all devices available to governments, martial rule is a valid option for governance. Gloria Arroyo's February 4, 2006 Proclamation 1017 declaring a state of emergency was a quite recent though short-lived quasi-use of this option. But now-a-senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., also interviewed for his take, said his father's recourse to the state of martial law for the Philippines is all in the past now, is all history, and the nation needs to move on. No claims on his pop being a hero there.
     Now, to a citizenry, or a group opposed to its own government, martial law goes beyond being a mere encyclopedic dot on the calendar of history. It is likewise a state of collective emotional agitation replete with dynamic action, with individual as well as communal stories attached to the tensive atmosphere such a declaration brought into the indefinite timeline of its revolution. And so, the "never again" slogan continues to carry with it the viscerality of a felt funerary song.
     But now comes the question. What if all these people who've experienced Marcos' martial law are to all grow old and consequently die soon? What happens to history? Will Proclamation № 1081 be but an encyclopedic dot to Bongbong Marcos' version of necessary history?
     How will the social causes managing their anti-Marcos and anti-martial rule positions manage their hero-symbols? Will those symbols stand the test of time?

CONSIDER THE present.
     Despite the emotional portrayals of martial rule, and despite present time being under the reign of Noynoy Aquino's supposedly social liberal government, Martial Law is but now a phrase that looks so distant to Mega Manila's Generation Y and Generation Z (the latter sometimes informally referred to as the Business Process Outsourcing generation), almost a mere segment or part in a two-hour semi-fictional entertainment movie.
     Still, because that movie segment was part of history, there will be people who would see the necessity of portraying hero characters for that segment period. Hero characters they would be qua individuals rising above the rest in the pursuit of liberty from Ferdinand Marcos' governance of impunity.
     Thus we continue to celebrate today the names of Benigno Aquino Jr., Lorenzo Tañada, Jose Diokno, Jovito Salonga, Gerardo Roxas, among many others, and later-part anti-Marcos elements of the resistance continuum, including Edgar Jopson and Corazon Aquino.
     So much has been written about these people who have supposedly sacrificed a lot. Paeans, tributes, and---finally for the already deceased---eulogies. Public markets have been named after them. And notice that those who were with them but fell from grace under Corazon Aquino's government have been downgraded to mere mentions. Until, of course, they could come out of the wreckage, such as People Power Revolution hero Juan Ponce Enrile, seeming to regret their prodigality from Father or Mother Society. All this is understandable.
     All this is understandable because heroes, after all, are measured not just by their contributions and their forgivable flaws, but just as importantly by their symbolic significance to the times, their continuing affiliation in the eyes of those who need to appreciate that symbolic affiliation. . . .
     Always in relation to the times.

HEROES.
     Like all nations in the world, we champion our heroes qua symbols of our resistance and courage within our physical or philosophical territories.
     Heroes are a vital part of the maintenance of nationhood (and countryhood). They are also a vital part of governments and governance. They would even be of use to the advancement of a certain image for products circulated in consumerist society and the business sphere.
     And so it is natural for nations---and the spin doctors of ruling groups---to elevate heroes of the day or of a period of reign to hero worship status.
     And since heroes are a vital part of governance as well as governments' marketing slogans, press releases, press conferences, and ceremonies, governments allocate budgets for heroes who have to be accorded necessary spotlights, billboards, TV documentaries, books and newspaper columnist odes as well as holidays in the calendar.
     Social liberal governments have their heroes, political conservatives likewise celebrate their own. All of these heroes, dead and living, complete with awards and prizes and honorary degrees and tribute books, are placed in our social altars of ideological struggles. Communist countries, too, have their big Che Guevaras and lesser heroes (e.g. the comrade who gave more than the state's fair share of the harvest during a state of food crisis).
     We, in our day, continue to have our own sports heroes (individuals and teams). Economic heroes (whoever started the "OFWs as modern-day heroes" concept had a political philosophy in his head). Champions in the broadcasting world. A religion would have its saints that advance its own avowed virtues and achievement foci. And as comfort to the inaccesibility of certain dreams, or as tools for the catharsis of anger, or as inspiration for certain dreams that need to be elevated to the status of demigod dreams, society is advertently or inadvertently provided its superheroes and quasi-superheroes by dreamer graphic novelists and cinematic aesthetes.
     Quasi-superheroes? They're the ordinary products of a pseudo-realism portraying ordinary people who could nevertheless survive bullets of enemies with the help of agimats and simple prayers.

IT IS good to have heroes. But it is better to be aware of why they are there.
     Records of heroes in ancient struggles, as well as status quos, can be seen today in the tracts of ancient tribes and city-state civilizations.
     The Greeks advanced their own religious demigods of the Greek hero cult. Laying aside the Rastafarian Jah, present-day equivalents would be what we celebrate today as the more realistic saints. They are individuals in our faiths with human but extraordinary records supposedly unattainable to most of us who might be placed in similar extraordinary circumstances. Well, at least this is what we are told repeatedly, as if it is impossible to witness the heroism of an entire army corps placed in an extraordinary situation of fulfilling a war mission. You can't make demigods out of 40,000 men landing on a beach defended by enemy machine guns, can you? A figure or figures must stand for the collective as a sort of synecdoche for focus. A thousand posthumous medals would have to do. A dozen would be better. One would be best.
     Attached to the cult hero is the notion of self-sacrifice. And so, like the Son of Man who died for our sins, Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino purportedly "died for the Filipino people", with emphasis on this slogan being made to mean that their deaths were half self-planned. We will be constantly told that Rizal had no "selfish" motives in everything he did, no "childish" emulation of big brother Paciano's "heroics", no love for the "cool rebel" tag or no anger at what the Spaniards did to his mother and the Rizals' properties, no literary and other ambitions for accolade, no, none of those theories. Or, even assuming the factuality/veracity of some of those, there's hardly need to mention them. Everything he did was for the Filipino people, even his being sent away to Madrid in 1882 by the "political rebel" Paciano---to spare Jose, perhaps, from the crackdown on males during a time of a burgeoning nationalism after the Cavite Mutiny in which young Paciano was being suspected of having played some part---was not for the family but to prepare Jose for a future wherein he will serve country and people. This is the grand narrative being sent our way that, for me, bawdlerizes Rizal, the nationalist movement, and the extent of the oppressions that Rizal already felt when he was asked to drop Mercado from his family name upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila.
     Another highlighted mark in cult heroism is courage. Again with Rizal, the doctor's volunteering to be exiled in Cuba instead of in quiet Dapitan is not deemed worthy of much mention. On his way back to the Philippines after the order for his arrest was served by the coup of Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda, he may have refused opportunities to escape, truly a mark of courage, but how this may have a connection to his signing a manifesto disavowing the Katipunan while in jail at Fort Santiago is also not discussed much, for certainly the courage element must not be contaminated with impurities. It is as though soldiers who march to war have nothing but anger in their hearts, with nary a gram of fear.
     All this is understandable, of course, for the cult of personality is the modern alternative to ancient as well as modern-religious apotheosis. Definitions of cult of personality agree that it arises when an individual---or his top manager---utilizes mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to project an idealized heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Notice also that almost all book definitions of the phrase associate it with dictatorial personalities. The definition of personality cult itself among Western books seems to contravert democratic media's power to create personality cults within the bounds of marketing subtlety, whether advertent or sub-advertent. The preferred Western terms would be Max Weber's more neutral "charismatic authority" or otherwise the more pop-culture-friendly "celebrity". It is as if celebrities are not managed by people, and as though charismatic authority is not itself manage-able to form a cult following from it.

"HERO" COMES from the Greek word heros, meaning "protector".
     Before Joseph Campbell presented his monomyth system, there was FitzRoy Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan. In his The Hero, he systemized hero myths and proposed the unusual requisites for a hero's conception---culling from the Biblical Moses story (which in itself has parallels in Mesopotamian and Babylonian literatures), Raglan drew that firstly, in the shaping of a heroic myth, there's an attempt made by a powerful male at the hero's birth to kill him; then he is spirited away; then he is reared by foster-parents in a far country. Later, after a series of achievements of value to society, he meets some mysterious death, often at the top of a hill, and his body is not buried, and he leaves no successors, and finally he has one or more holy sepulchres.
     Rizal owned the sword of Damocles early in life. Threatened by his Mercado family name, he was told the story of the moth who gained the luxury of knowledge but was in the process burned. Rizal was soon spirited away to Madrid and "reared" by his brother Paciano and friends in Europe, the Philippines, and inside the Philippine government and the Church. Later he met his "mysterious" arrest, and equally "mysterious" death sentencing under Nozaleda's instructions (commencing in his execution at the edge of the Bagumbayan field [now Rizal Park] facing the sea). Rizal's son died in Dapitan. Rizal's mother looked for Rizal's body after his execution. He has a number of statues in so many municipal plazas, his sepulchres.
     Ninoy Aquino's story does not fit very well into this design, but there had been many attempts to kill his ambition; he was spirited away to prison, and much later to the US, with Marcos himself as his jailer and foster parent. With foster-parent and fraternity-mate Marcos intermittently ill from a lupus disease, Aquino was mysteriously assassinated (on top of a plane stairway, dropping to a runway tarmac). His dead body's bloodied face was not washed and was displayed in a church for everyone to see. Salvador Laurel was not deemed a perfect successor. Aquino's display in church led to the public beatification of a folk Joan of Arc in the person of his wife Cory Aquino, his living sepulchre, which would birth a thousand more sepulchers.
     FitzRoy Somerset's systemization is almost an endorsement of the individual hero.
     But then came Hegel. Inspired by Johann Gottfried Herder, he proposed that a hero is a product of volksgeist, or the unique collective "spirit" all peoples and nations possess. This place-spirit is married to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, the time-spirit. Émile Durkheim would have another phrase for this, describing a similar concept he called the "collective consciousness".
     In late 19th century, in reaction to such hero personifications as those presented by Thomas Carlyle's portraits of "heroes, hero worship and the heroic" in history, Karl Marx proposed that history was actually determined by social forces operating in "class struggles", certainly not by individuals. Even Herbert Spencer, who was a proto-champion of libertarianism and the classical-liberal individual, in his criticism of the state's patriots wrote that "You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. . . . Before he can remake his society, his society must make him."
     In late 20th century, Michel Foucault's philosophy on history described history as the science (or art) of the "sovereign" class or niche, a science (or art) which has to be reversed by popular discourse.
     There were others who would contend with the hyperbole accorded to individuals' roles as subjects in history---Lucien Febvre, Marck Bloch, Fernand Braudel, among them. In his take, Braudel gave proof that geography, economics and demography played a more decisive role in history than the feats of individual historical subjects. Foucault and Louis Althusser would provide more heterogeneous layers of factors determinant of history.
     In an essay by William R. Thompson titled "The Lead Economy Sequence in World Politics (From Sung China to the United States): Selected Counterfactuals", Journal of Globalization Studies, Vol. 1 (2010), num. 1, pp. 6–28, the author suggests that in developing counterfactual history, with its attempts to examine hypothetic scenarios of historical development, the hero attracts attention because of those scenarios' asking about what would have happened had the historical individual under scrutiny did not exist. This thus renders faith in a hero's heroism . . . how should I put it, via negativa.

TODAY, IN the face of eulogies concerning dead heroes, some of us may ask or may already be asking: What drives an institution, say the Church, to call someone a saint? What drives a hero's, say Corazon Aquino's, emotions to do the heroic? Why do we need saints and heroes? Why do they have to be from the upper class, at least in our literatures?
     I have no quarrel with the idea of Cory Aquino or Ninoy Aquino being acknowledged as leaders of a people's struggle. I have questions about their followers' obsession with the concept of sainthood and heroism, almost synonymously taken. It's similar to the obsession with slogans and symbols overwhelming all concern for the details. I could write a book enumerating the many ramifications of this shallowness. A eulogy to a hero may be commendable for being not without content, since many eulogies are, but for the present days---or for all days---we should trouble ourselves with more takes on the ingredients of every gram of content, and less with the packaging of heroes. Were some essays not eulogies or eulogy-looking, for all their good intentions they'd actually function as essays around a hero-person's packaging.
     Now, critics of heroes, on the other hand, may be critical of certain of these heroes' inaction on certain causes or issues or dates. But critical from what angle of a mission? Are their issues the mother issues? Is the Hacienda Luisita issue, for instance, really just about the Aquinos concerning Hacienda Luisita or about Hacienda Luisita itself as a national symbol? And aside from the Hacienda Luisita acquisition history and its accordant politics, the mother subjects are still blanket land reform, agrarian reform, progressivist takes on these issues, social liberal takes on these issues different from the progressivist approach, liberal economics' takes, post-reform scenarios, and so on, and these involve characters and polities more numerous than the Aquinos or Tarlac and other element-targets of a certain party out to merely destroy a set of heroes. The Aquinos as heroes and the anti-Aquino counter-hero's role in these issues ought to be judged according to our treatment of the several hypotheses concerning the issues. Sure, we can report on the details of a struggle, any struggle, as it progresses; that'd be exciting to read about. But what about the objectives of the struggle itself? What about the merits and demerits to the post-win scenarios themselves, post-win scenarios that would define the victorious heroes' staying power within significance and memory?
     Sure, a hero's critic may have demonstrated the hero's virtue or non-virtue from his critique's end, citing missionary projects of value or no value to the hero's civilization. And that'd be good (or bad) for the hero and us. But, again, what would be the objective of the critique? Is one's objective merely to take down notes, say, for Noynoy Aquino's "our hero" or "our champion" standing in the eyes of a public answering polls as per the demand of, say, a contending Nacionalista Party? Or is it to truly promote the cause of, say, human rights, out to fight any government's shortchanging the progress of the cause, whether that government is a social and political liberal or political conservative or progressivist or socialist or libertarian one? Journalism is good, but there's also such a thing as selective journalism, black propaganda journalism, latent advocacy journalism, not to mention bad journalism, that in the process of their practice could actually only be validating a process of hero-packaging by virtue of their opposition to pouring more attention to details, details of the issues and causes surrounding these heroes and anti-heroes who---in the first place---are only players in the quest for the triumph or defeat of causes and societies larger than themselves. Understand that heroes can either be a party's, a niche's, or a cause's.
     Consider the Nacionalista Party of Manny Villar that gathered progressivists as well as hauled in Bongbong Marcos to a coalition lineup of senatorial candidates. Definitely worth talking about, that one, for instance. And you'd wonder why no one among the critics of the Aquinos' heroism who were likewise sympathetic to the Nacionalistas did. And, sure, Pres. Cory Aquino may indeed have "self-limited her greatness. She ended her service to the Filipino people where the interest of her clan, friends and supporters began," as a Facebook view states it. That may actually be true. But should that be true, it should be nothing more than a manifestation of what could happen when emotional critics become leaders. Such leaders may have to look for an economic ideology on the job, sometimes finally finding one on their last week in office. That's one reason why we ought to rather read criticism that tackles details instead of those that paint abstracts we already know, or abstracts by way of selected specifics, likewise excluding oneself from the count. For the hero or non-hero (villain) ought not to be the issue, it's the issue that ought to qualify someone's heroism or non-heroism (villainy) within it. Otherwise, what will be offered society will be a battle of superheroes deriving from various parties' metanarratives that all avoid a higher view upon all the forces and prejudices and ambitions at play.
     For the hero on whichever side is never alone. The writer-critic is part of his heroism, if not the definer of that heroism. And, therefore, the critic must derive all his judgments from a confession of his causes as well as a confession of the sort of heroes he prefers to fight with him for his causes.

NOW, I for my part have no quarrel with the nationalism and patriotism of upper class elements. I say our beef ought to be with the very fact that the masses can easily be exploited, duped, conscripted. Some people's nationalism and patriotism are not going to be enough panacea for our masses' struggles, unless a niche wants to perpetuate a tradition of martyrdom for its niche-image and myth-making. I am talking about empowerment, wherein the educated upper middle class and upper class doesn't have to be the ones to always lead everyone, I'm talking about leadership that can derive from anywhere via collective heroism.
     Now, Marx and Foucault aside, is everything in life about class struggle? Well, in relation to what I wish to say and whether I'm talking about a class struggle issue or not, I'm going to say no and yes. For by empowerment I do not mean empowerment for acquiring leaderships. I mean the empowerment of followers via their access to an awareness and a knowledge of the issues around which their heroes and own heroism have operated and/or continue to operate. This is the reason why we ought to keep on harping on details, details, details. Without tackling the devil in the details, heroes---be they upper class liberators or rags-to-riches new liberals---will forever be tagged as heroes in a shallow way, with the effect of hiding the operative grand narratives and reifications on their persons. Without these details, heroes can---as indeed they often do---become emblems for power and cultural manipulations.
     Let me give you a final example. Manny Pacquiao is a Filipino sports hero. He has become a symbol of possibilities for the Filipino race. And yet, an examination of that simplistic grand narrative would birth questions. For instance, is he really representative of Filipino industry? Could it be that while he was struggling in the gym to be able to prove to everyone that he can rise in the sport, his gym-mates were laughing at him? If that was the reality of his history, then our symbolism should crumble. He has failed to become the symbol of average Filipino ambitions in the gym. And yet, should Pacquiao qua emblem be deemed usable, we will continue to be fed some corporate-driven lie that we can all make it in the boxing industry or any industry if we just work hard (sipag), if we have persistence (tiyaga), never mind the other details that we can just leave to luck and the employment and wage-slavery systems in our mainstream economics.
     So, to explain further my point on followers' awareness (or lack of it) of the issues and themes around a subject-hero or heroes and how this can be deemed a class issue by itself concerning hero-metanarratives (not necessarily upper-class vs. middle class), may I invite you to examine your own role among the social forces that were operating in "class struggles" (whether you belong to the working class or the small business entrepreneur class or the factory-owning class). What could have been if the likes of you had not existed or were in short supply? What could have been if your hero was not there? Or, what could have been if it was you placed in his/her position of privilege, the privilege to become a hero? Or are you a hero now?
     Conversely, what could have avoided your hero's martyrdom? What was your part among the social forces operating in "class struggle" that made that martyrdom or death or assassination possible? Despite that, are you a hero now still?
     Finally, are you a hero-worshipper or are you a part of a collective of heroisms?
     Whatever was/is your role, it will have played a part in an unfolding history leading to a future declaration of martial law. [END]


Photo of newspaper cover borrowed from http://www.gmanews.tv/story/172811/martial-law-activists-now-ready-to-tell-own-stories