GLIMPSES
by Jose Ma. Montelibano
It is good to be away from the political atmosphere of the Philippines. It has been ten long months since STAR’s Billy Esposo and Inquirer’s Conrad de Quiros first wrote that Noynoy ought to run for president, and as long a period when friends and I actually began to push, then campaign, for a Noynoy presidency. Now, I am back in the US to return to push for causes closest to my heart which go beyond elections and, hopefully, will find priority in a new government.
As Noynoy prepares for his presidency, he will be confronted with the two most evil cancers in Philippine society – corruption and poverty. There had been determined efforts by some quarters to distract Noynoy’s campaign away from its central focus against corruption, mainly because the issue was deadly against those who were viewed as corrupt or tolerant of corruption. Others simply were too quick to jump to more advanced stages of development and growth which are possible only beyond a corrupt governance and the re-emergence of meritocracy in public service.
Filipinos are not short of talent, only short of opportunity and the discipline to apply their talents in a consistent pattern. The sterling performance of Filipinos who work outside the Philippines merely indicate their wealth of talent and ingenuity provided these are motivated by an environment of opportunity and order. The same is true even in the Philippines where work or career environments are grounded on opportunity and meritocracy It is just not true of government service where the many who want to be honest are overpowered by leadership which does not allow it to be so.
Just as vital to a country which wants to be a nation is the kind of poverty that afflicts Philippine society. Like corruption, poverty is not addressed as a central issue. I think that there have not been focused and sustained efforts against corruption and poverty for the simple reason that these were never priority concerns of leadership. How can issues which are central to one’s value system be regarded as less than most important, as less than most pressing? Only when they are really not priority.
How simple-minded, too, are those who wish to distract a new Aquino presidency from its promise of addressing corruption as its primary objective as though the rest of governance cannot be attended to. Even patients who are afflicted with diseases that can be life-threatening continue to live out the rest of their lives beyond activities related to curing their diseases. Perhaps, those who wish to draw away focus from corruption do not have either the capacity to understand how corruption in the Philippines is like a dark and foul blanket not only over governance but society as well; or, they wish to make sure that enough of corruption remains so they do not have to re-adjust their lives dramatically.
Governance, too, will have to give poverty the kind of priority that it seeks to devote to corruption. Poverty is the consequence of sustained corruption, of warped leadership values which do not respect and appreciate the life and rights of a poor Filipino vis a vis a rich one. The poor in our country are not a small percentage that then may merit its equivalent attention; our poor represent the Philippines in majority numbers and its spectrum is so wide that it has to be defined by varying degrees.
We have poverty which is absolute. This is the poverty which carries with it as its main weapon the threat of hunger for every meal. I wonder how many of us can understand hunger, the fear of it, and worse, the experience of it. I wonder how many of us understand hunger when it grips our children or our elderly. Well, many of us do not, and most of those who are in leadership do not either. How else can hunger incidence be at its highest in the last ten years if our leaders cared? If we were at the helm of governance, locally and nationally, the equivalent of being parents to sections of society, could we have tolerated hunger or its daily threat if we cared for our people?
Government officials and economists have written paper after paper, their various views on how to evolve and sustain economic development. Most of these papers have been filed away, in cabinets to be fodder for cockroaches, or in hard drives which will hardly ever be opened again. The volume of economic study, proposals and programs are so voluminous, yet inconsequential, that no ordinary Filipino, from the less poor to the very poor, can recall any of them. That is how disconnected these papers, proposals and programs are to lives of people that no one knows of them. This is indicative of how inconsequential the concern of governance is for poverty that the poor do not know there is a paper, proposal or program to address their plight.
If I poured ten months of my life to help Noynoy Aquino become president, personal relationships were not enough reason for me to do so. But almost ten years of Gawad Kalinga and more than twenty-five years of community development work certainly were powerful motivations for me to do so. Noynoy promised from the very beginning that Gawad Kalinga would be part of his platform of governance, continuing a relationship which Gawad Kalinga had with Corazon C. Aquino who called Gawad Kalinga “people power over poverty” and lent it her influence.
Here in the US, more and more Filipinos look with optimism to the Noynoy Aquino presidency because most of them believed he would be an honest president who will try his level best to address corruption in government. I also know from our work of promoting Gawad Kalinga here that Filipinos in America are also very hopeful that Noynoy Aquino will hold the poor close to his heart. But, perhaps, and most of all, Filipinos everywhere must be hoping that Noynoy Aquino, by example, can bring back honor to our race.
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“There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.” Albert Camus
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