The National Transformation Council and Bayanko

It is good that the National Transformation Council has now been formally announced. It is a collective authority with members working in different sectors. There is a core group of progressive bishops and the laity. The group has been meeting for a while  putting together how the Philippines can achieve good governance.

The presidential system we now have is not working for the good of the country. That is why “we need to change the system” not a change in government officials elected in dubious elections for their vested interests.

To change the system we need to change our Constitution. It has been blocked in every administration since the Cory government who came to power during the peaceful EDSA revolution.

The proponents of constitutional reform and “changing the system” needed a power base from which it could push its advocacy. The enemies of reform have successfully used every tactic in the book to make fun of it – calling it “Cha-cha,” describing it as unnecessary and using the power of government to stop the advocacy through institutions that should have otherwise been open to the people to use for peaceful change.

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Happily there were precedents in other countries that have found the answer to this impossibility of getting public opinion behind reform and change – it is called crowdsourcing which means using social media to get the numbers necessary for asserting the need for reform.

Iceland became a template for this new politics of getting the support of people more successfully than people’s protest marches that had become passé.

In the Philippines we did our own version of crowdsourcing through a social media with a website and a page in Facebook called “Bayanko.” The song is the Philippines’ classic song for protest written by Gen. Jose Alejandrino during the Philippine war of Independence against the US.

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A number of our colleagues could not understand how crowdsourcing could help in bringing out the people to support reform.

We do not need to go into the streets, we can do it from our computers at home and protest everyday with sensible arguments against those who wanted to preserve their power and privileges in the status quo. According to statistics we have 33 million or a third of the population using the Internet.

There were a few hiccups when Bayanko began but these were overcome even if its enemies tried to destroy it. Despite hackers it continued its march from strength to strength as the vehicle of protest against a government with a system that coddled criminals helping themselves to the national treasury. These officials were elected by machines and up to this day only three, ie those not in league with the administration have been punished in fulfillment of President Aquino’s pretend campaign against corruption.

So what if we had a website and a page to show that ordinary citizens can now band together as a powerful group that the government cannot ignore.  

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Bayanko, as social media vehicle of protest, needed the help of the religious and the military, the only two groups organized with a nationwide reach. We agreed that we had to have a civil authority in place before the military (the principled members and leaders) could come in as mandated by the Constitution to protect the state as the  civic authority. It will govern with revolutionary powers to enable the people to create a new system of government. That civic authority was the National Transformation Council. 

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There was some debate whether it should be called the National Transition Council but the nation needed more than a transition, it needed wide ranging reforms that could transform Filipino society in its desire for good governance.

There were overtures from some military men who were ready to take up the cause and obey their mandate in the Constitution under Article II Section 3 which invokes that. ‘Civilian authority is, at all times, supreme over the military. The Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory.”

 Last Wednesday, the Church and concerned citizens finally moved to make a declaration in Cebu. The statement was made by no less than Cardinal Vidal as the titular head of the Church.

Here is what he said to the capacity filled hall than included bishops, priests and nuns.

“Nothing less than the total transformation of our country is needed at this point in our history. And this is a task that is addressed not just to the National Transformation Council but to all of us. Now, transformation necessarily assumes changing every aspect of our national life, including our politics. 

Priests are not politicians, and in Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Second Vatican Council teaches us that “the Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any specific political system, nor does she claim competence in proposing solutions to concrete political and economic problems.

The Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent of each other. Yet both, under different titles, are devoted to the personal and social vocation of the same human person.

 The more both foster sounder cooperation in mutual respect and with due consideration for the circumstances of time and place, the more effective will their service be exercised for the good of all.”

The Church has the right and the duty, and should have the unimpeded freedom, to teach her doctrine and to pass moral judgment in those matters which regard the common good and fundamental rights and freedoms.  What is to be avoided is any kind of partisanship that would tend to distort the pastoral character of the Church’s action.

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With that statement from Cardinal Vidal and his willingness to take the mantle of leadership of a moral cause, the circle was closed for a strong partnership between the National Transformation Council and BayanKo. We had a worthy leader.

At presstime, despite hackers, BayanKo has received encouragement and support from Filipinos all over the world. The number of hits at presstime was 419,259 coming from both Filipinos here and abroad.

The descendant of General  Jose Alejandrino who wrote the protest song Bayan Ko has come back from a comfortable life in Spain to help. So has businessman Benjamin Mendoza, also in Spain. He helped us track down Rey Pagtakhan, a former member of the Canadian Parliament about whom this column will write tomorrow as a member of the advisory panel for the new Constitution.