Freedom Force ignites ‘a great awakening’

Click here to read Part I

(Last of two parts)

We are into the cusp of a great national debate – and it’s about time – as to why the Philippines has sunk so low as a nation. And why as a republic, it may be close to disintegration, the eruption of a "social volcano’ so to speak. We cannot blame the spokesmen of the government for asserting the "situation has normalized" and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has the situation well in hand, everything is going up roses. That is their job. And they are well paid for it. But we do criticize them for fudging the issues, for accusing Freedom Force of plotting a junta of 19 generals ("collective leadership") to topple President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

That is an outrageous lie, and they know it. The Church, or better still Jaime Cardinal Sin, first articulated its opposition to this "collective leadership" (read junta) in a letter to this columnist. We never discussed this matter with him – never. And there the maelstrom of verbal sound and fury commenced. Well it did. For it enables Freedom Force, still to be formally launched next June, to expand the arena of national discussion and debate. This will trigger "a great awakening" as to the issues that now convulse the country. And we emphasized in the first part of this two-column series than if the Church itself was not alive to these issues, the temple of Christendom in this nation could also be badly battered by the gathering whirlwind.

The position of the Roman Church is disturbing. It is evident Jaime Cardinal Sin is on his last legs because of ill health. If and when he vacates his position as archbishop of Manila, the Church loses the very pillar that has held it together since 1972, the onset of martial rule under Ferdinand Marcos. Jaime Sin was not just archbishop and Cardinal. At one time, he was papabili (a strong contender for the papacy). They were talking about "the first Asian pope" When he goes, and this could be sooner than later, the Church’s leadership will break like crystal and out will emerge something like a cluster of fiefdoms. This will be tragic. For the near future will be a time the Church’s voice will have to be heard, its leadership sought for spiritual if not political guidance. And if the Church should speak in so many voices, it may abdicate its position as the nation’s institutional counter-force to an ascendant military that now peers over the shoulder of President Arroyo.

Let us also be clear about another factor. Whatever the Polyanna claims of the government, our horizons are a darkling plain beset by crises in battalia. That is why Freedom Force warns the citizenry about the possible eruption of the social volcano.

The government itself (Department of Labor and Employment) just a week ago released what could be the most damaging information to shatter Malacañang’s claim of "All is well" Acting Labor Secretary Arturo Brion announced an average of 2748 Filipinos leave our country each day, a marked increase over the average of 2551 departures registered in the same period last year. This means 83,334 Filipinos migrate abroad every month. Multply by twelve, and you have 1,001,280 Filipinos leaving every year!. The Philippine Star in its front-page story called this an "exodus beyond biblical proportions." If that does not stagger you, nothing will.

The New York Times a week earlier depicted the main binge of this migration. In a Manila-datelined story, correspondent Jane Perez reported that educated Filipinos were packing up in a great numbers because of disillusion and sought "a better life abroad."

There you are. It’s the cream of the crop. Where before the migrant waves of Filipinos were largely blue-collar or domestic servants, today those who leave and have given up are well educated middle and perhaps some upper-class Filipinos who have lost all hope. No, they are not forsaking the Philippines. It is the Philippines which has forsaken them, better still our leadership, that has driven them to despair. They cannot see a "tomorrow" for themselves and their children in a country where pollution of every kind festers like the howl of hungry hyenas every day. This is the Philippines our leadership pretends not to see. The main Church probably sees it but leaves virtually everything to God and Divine Providence. And GMA.

Well, these are the dark and dismal pits Freedom Force wants the citizenry to look at. For as we have repeatedly said, no nation ever forges ahead without engaging in a catharsis, an "agonizing reappraisal" of the ills besetting it. Only in so engaging "can we begin" John Kennedy said as the issue of civil rights led by Martin Luther King rampaged throughout America in the 60s. The black man sought the respect of the white man. And he got it not because of the gun or the vomit of violence but because he was not afraid to use the weapon that mattered most – the power of the word. The throb of the spirit.

Are we in Freedom Force now to be savaged and villified by the philistines because we seek the truth? As Matthew Arnold said "Truth sits upon the lips of dying men." How true! The cowards assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. His only fault was that he sought freedom from British rule, and he fought for that freedom with the marmorcal dignity of satyagraha (non-violence). Our own Jose Rizal depicted in Noli and Fili the evils of Spanish colonial rule. For that, the dawn shuddered 104 years ago as he fell face first from a fusillade volleyed by a Castilian firing squad. Ninoy Aquino came home from exile 19 years ago to an execution that was just as brutal and dastardly. What was his fault? He threw wide open the closets of martial rule and exposed all the lies, crimes and pretensions of the Marcos dictatorship.

We in Fredom Force have no claims to any kind of heroic crusade. But we persevere. The hour is late.

I have been asked many times what Freedom Force means. Repeatedly I have answered it is a "force" that seeks the "freedom" of the Filipino. Freedom from Poverty. Freedom from crime and violence. Freedom from ignorance and oppression. Freedom from his economic chains. Freedom from the bondage of a colonial culture. Not once have we advocated violence. Not once have we advocated the setting up of a junta. The notion that we are "coup plotters" is a canard, utterly false on its very face. We come in peace. And complete transparency.

Against our enemies, we can only quote Archibald Macleish: "How shall freeom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies; by democracywhen it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, and in the final act, by determination and faith." Ninoy died with these words of Macleish on his lips If Freedom Force has to have a patron saint, a symbol, a coat of arms, it has to be Ninoy Aquino. Our military has yet to cleanse its hands of the blood of Ninoy who is murdered at the behest of the dictatorship. The military embraced and supported the Marcos tyranny.

We are today a torn, confused and bewildered nation.

And outside of the frontline issues we have mentioned – poverty, graft and corruption, population explosion, etc.) – there are overhanging, overarching issues we have to understand. The swifting winds of change are pulling the Philippines in two directions. To America and the West to which we owe are fragile democratic system, the English language, our neo-liberal free market economy which hasn’t worked at all. To Asia and China immediately up north where we belong geographically but from which we are al;ienated culturally. We are too Westernized. We don’t belong. What is worse is that we missed out on the postwar "Asian economic miracle" that saw China and a cluster of neighbor countries vie with America’s economic and political supremacy. Today, we are Asia’s "basket case."

What do we do?

I suggest that the Philippines first identify its core values, or the values we seek to deliver us from the coming tempest. Singapore identified such commonalities in the early 1990s. In the end, after tremendous debate and deliberation, a White Paper was drawn up. The agreed values had to do with "placing society above self, upholding the family as the basic building block of society, resolving major issues through conensus instead of contention, and stressing religious tolerance and harmony." According to Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations), the government of Singapore emphasized it was "in crucial respects an Asian society" and must remain one. This is our main problem. We Filipinos are not an Asian society. Nd yet it is in Asia that we must seek our future, not in the West. In due time, America will be compelled to withdraw from the Asia-Pacific region as a superpower and very possibly could surrender Pax Americana to Pax Asiatica.

However painful and arduous the process might be, we must carve out our cultural identity. As in South Africa, this might require a "truth and reconciliation" catharsis. For this purpose, the middle forces, civil society, the only mainstream of national progress will have to forge the muscles and sinews of this New Society, New Tomorrow, New Democracy, New Deal, New Frontier or whatnot.

The alternative, as I have often warned if the social volcano should explode, is a communist revolution or civil war on one hand, or a military takeover – a coup on the other.