A clichéd prescription for revolution

It is always a pleasure to have my own barnacled ideas on politics and culture challenged so that I can refurbish them or change them altogether if, in the process of argumentation, I can see that they are no longer feasible.

I had that happy occasion the other evening with Vince Gomez, the bone specialist, who treated my wife and me to dinner at this excellent Japanese restaurant in Makati.

I first met Dr. Gomez some 10 years ago when I dislocated my elbow and he set it right by using the x-ray machine. I thought that was very neat, indeed. Since then, he has been a very fertile source of social insights. I particularly remember his apt comment that those who have had a ride on a Mercedes find it difficult to get off. More than this, I often rely on his expertise in my fiction when I use material requiring medical knowledge.

A special asset of someone getting as old as I am is my background in journalism: I remember so much of the past, the obvious and arcane politico-economic developments, the historic events, I recall my early conversations with President Elpidio Quirino in the 1950s, his economic plans for the country, my talks with the late Mike Magsaysay of Magsaysay Shipping Company, Navy commodore Jose N. Francisco, his men like Captain Charlie Albert and Commander Ramon Alcaraz, and the late Alex Melchor in whose tiny patrol craft I sailed the Sulu Sea with him shortly after his return from Annapolis. I recall only too well now how those Moro kumpits outraced our Navy patrol boats. We discussed how we should have a maritime industry, build ships to patrol our extensive coastline, and bring down the cost of shipping from Mindanao to Manila.

We didn’t do this.

To me, this is just one of those glaring evidences of the absence of vision among our leaders.

Vince Gomez thinks otherwise; he thinks that such vision exists. He cited the case of Henry Sy and his malls as one obvious proof of that vision. The malls employ thousands; in the smaller cities, they have become civic and social centers.

To build them and sustain them requires not just entrepreneurial skills but massive organizational talent.

Another significant visionary, Vince states, is Enrique Razon who built an international port handling operation in the Middle East and in South America. If he hasn’t done so much in Manila, it is because the politicians have stood in the way.

I brought to mind another visionary, the architect Jun Palafox who has studded the Middle East and other cities in Asia with his innovative constructions conforming with the demands of the climate and environment.

I know he is trying to innovate urban renewal in the country but I fear, on this matter, he hasn’t gone very far. I have recommended him for awards that he richly deserves — but it is government recognition for his initiatives that he needs most.

Our political system needs restructuring.

On a much higher level, I repeated the old proposal — to put a limit to growth, an idea propounded way back in the ‘60s by the Club of Rome — the original covey of learned men including savants like Ivan Ilych. It is, of course, a moral program and Vince argued that it is a man’s right to spend his well-earned and honest money the way he likes. If it makes him happy to have 10 Mercedes Benzes, what is there to stop him? I suggested that with the money he spends on those extra cars, he could invest them in enterprises that would provide more jobs — and justice — to the very poor.

The poor?

He retorted that so many Filipinos are lazy. So many have already stated that Ninoy was wrong to proclaim that the Filipino is worth dying for. In other words, never romanticize the poor. I agreed with him on this conclusion. The poor are poor — this is not tautology; many need to be lifted from their lethargy, their perverse thinking.

How many Filipinos have admitted they voted for nincompoop movie stars because in the past, they elected brilliant men but their piteous condition did not improve. So why not try the ignoramuses? They may not have the loftiest of intentions to banish poverty, but they will usher in change.

Or, why do corrupt officials get reelected? They argue that so and so politician has already enriched himself so much, he is now “bosog” so when he assumes political power, he will not steal so much anymore.

My clichéd prescription for change is revolution which need not be violent, which assures justice to the oppressed. Sure, I oversimplify solutions to complex human dilemmas. The revolution of 1896 was aborted by Filipino cupidity, by the immediate elite acquiescence to American hegemony. The Japanese Occupation could have leveled the field but Filipino leaders granted amnesty to the collaborators of the Japanese. Marcos negated his own martial law regime with his and his wife’s greed; his heirs are now feasting on the trough of their loot. And EDSA 1 could have been a real revolution but Cory turned it into a restoration of the oligarchy.

Vince is right: revolutions do not always bring development. Sometimes they bring dictators like Stalin, Mao, or even a Napoleon.

But revolution is a human right particularly for those who are oppressed. Is it really needed? If so, who will lead it?

Who else but the young?

Vince knows a young and popular politician who told him that he would never aspire for the presidency for in order to reach that position, he would have to owe — and pay — so many people who helped him. But this, precisely, is what is wrong with patronage politics — the debts that have to be paid in kind, the ethnic and clan loyalties that must not be sundered. It takes a lot of courage to betray one’s class, and this is what Franklin Roosevelt did as American president when he resolved the Depression in the 1930s. This is what Park Chung Hee who modernized Korea did, for which reason he was assassinated. This is what Filipino leaders should do to succeed, to transcend their narrow loyalties and give that loyalty to a wider and more meaningful entity — the nation. This is what the Secretary of Public Works, Rogelio L. Singson said when he testified last week in the Senate that he joined the government aware that he would have to make sacrifices, step on many toes, and make enemies to serve the people. Rizal confirmed this, too, when he said it is the virtuous man who has more enemies than the man who is evil.

As for the grass being greener elsewhere, Dr. Gomez concludes, for all the scorn Filipinos themselves heap upon their country, it is still far more free than for non-Malays in Malaysia, non-Muslims in Indonesia. And in Thailand, woe to those who have no military ties.

At another meeting, the economist Bernie Villegas expressed glowing optimism of the recent developments in the economy. He feels they are now institutionalized and whoever succeeds P-Noy will not be able to alter the impetus towards growth. I reminded him that it was the same optimism that economists like Amado Castro (who teaches in Bernie’s University of Asia and the Pacific) were expressing in the ‘60s, that we were then on the takeoff stage. Marcos set the nation instead on a downward spiral.

As Bernie explained, the economic model “Filipino First” policy was actually for the benefit of the rich Filipinos first.

He says that the annual remittance of US$24 billion by our overseas workers is a sure source of growth, and that this source will not be affected by changes in the leadership. He affirms that the third active sector in the economy, the service sector, is doing very well and expanding.

And most important, we are now assured of power with the new generators in place. For the next 20 years, as power becomes more stable and affordable for industry, there will also be more new industries and, hopefully, with changes in the Constitution, more foreign investments.

As for the ancient cancer, corruption, Bernie quantified it with World Bank figures in the hundred billions in both the public and private sectors. As he puts it, it takes two to tango. But thank God, this government has revived the institutions for efficiency; they are now working very well, and whoever succeeds P-Noy will be compelled to follow his example.

Vince Gomez and Bernie Villegas are men of goodwill. The well being of this nation is entwined with their very fiber and is manifested in their practice as professionals as well as in their personal charities.

They have sympathy for the very poor but are clear eyed enough to recognize that the real world of poverty cannot be changed overnight, for the poor themselves are often their own worst enemy, for thinking that government owes them a living, that “they and the meek will inherit the earth,” believing as they do in the religion that has beguiled them.

But this masa, often ignorant and contemptible, is part of the main; the nation needs them for they are the producers of our food, the “drawers of our water” and “the hewers of our wood.”

Two beautiful factors are working for us. As Bernie Villegas always argued, a hundred million Filipinos is a mass market. Moreover, a third of this hundred million is composed of the young.

Vince Gomez and Bernie Villegas perceive the cup as half full, not half empty the way traditional pessimists like myself regard it. I pray and hope that I am wrong, that our very young will be motivated enough to fill that cup to overflowing.