Rage

This could be a watershed moment — if the issues are defined correctly.

A million people have been summoned to the streets today to protest the corruption that long infested our politics. There will be rage in the streets of Manila and other urban centers nationwide today. It is rage well justified.

We are not sure yet if it will be rage well-directed.

The scandal involving the galaxy of NGOs set by Janet Lim Napoles to launder pork barrel funds partially lifted the veil on the processes by which state funds were looted wholesale by the very political class we elected to govern us well. We all knew the looting was going on, except that we had no means to unmask it in its full compass.

In this particular case, we had whistleblowers, a paper trail and the usual suspects. Yet something funny happened on the way to unmasking the crimes committed against the people. The suspects composed the jury. The investigators we rely on to bring forth the larger truth all had political interests to protect and cronies to shield.

Remember Pontius Pilate. He had the burden of protecting the larger interests of the empire. He was content with having a few Jews crucified to appease a restless people, as long as the larger status of the imperium was kept intact. Crucifixions always had great (albeit perverse) entertainment value, and for the ruling classes the precious efficacy of misdirection.

A crucifixion is in order today. Those slated for the slaughter probably deserve their fate. It is the empire, however, the basic order of things that most deserves indictment.

That basic order of things ensures we will always be irresponsibly governed, that democratically acquired political power is understood as license to loot, and that the strategic interests of nationhood will always be overlooked.

Two decades ago, Jose Almonte (then National Security Adviser) found the term most apt term for the malaise that plagued our democracy. He spoke of a “pork barrel state”: an arrangement that enabled the oligarchy to persist through extensive networks of patronage. All the patronage was, of course, sourced from the public fund that should have been used to build up our social capital.

Patronage politics squandered what could have been used to build firm foundations for a robust people’s economy that sustainably multiplied opportunities and adequately rewarded our willingness to work.  Patronage politics forbid the entry of patriots and statesmen into the edifice of power. It politicized business, allowed regulatory capture and foreclosed visionary leadership. It awarded power to those with least merit.

Patronage politics ensured there were enough crumbs allowed to fall from the table. That ensures the rats will not rebel.

A generation ago, unsustainable borrowing brought our economy into a debilitating debt crisis. A lot of the borrowing, to be sure, ended up in the pockets of oligarchs. The major portion of it, however, went to unwise subsidies that, to the myopic, seemed to benefit the poor.

These mammoth subsidies went to power, fuel, transport, water and food. For decades, extensive subsidies, funded from borrowed money (like today’s conditional cash transfer program) created a false state-sponsored economy swamped the real economy, preventing the dynamism that enabled our neighbors to move forward more quickly than us.

Power, fuel, transport, water and food were all subsidized to keep the masses happy. With the stunting of the real economy, however, the same politics of patronage engorged the ranks of the poor.

It was, sadly, an unsustainable system. The tipping point was reached when we could no longer service the debts we incurred funding a pork barrel state.

The “structural adjustments” enforced in the aftermath of the debt crisis (generation of higher revenues through higher taxes, less spending on infrastructure, and cutbacks on subsidies) involved much pain. Even as we reformed our pork barrel state, however, our usual politics remained cast in pork barrel mode.

Politicians were expected to dispense largesse. They looked after emergency medical expenses, dispensed scholarships and sponsored fiestas. They were supposed to personify the pork barrel state.

Political support was won through bribery. All politics was transactional. All alliances were contingent on the loot.

This is why politicians behave a lot like Robin Hood, stealing from the public coffers to please the poor. This is why the national government is riddled with all sorts of special discretionary funds — the DAP, the President’s Social Fund, “intelligence” funds etc. — which are the sources of even more corruption. The funds are needed to buy political support, as in the impeachment of Renato Corona.

We are trapped in both a system and a mindset conducive to looting public funds. Every shakedown is justified as necessary to fill the party war chest for the next electoral round. This is why every electoral round is a lavish feast where more crumbs than usual fall for the rats to relish.

Unfortunately, we cannot imprison our political system. We have to work, piece by piece, to change it.