Cautionary tale

In 1986, people power in the Philippines inspired democracy movements around the world.

Today, our country is serving as a cautionary tale and being cited as a model for why western-style democracy isn’t for everyone.

Malaysians, who convicted their former prime minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah for corruption and sentenced both to years in prison, reportedly warned in 2022 that their country should not become like the Philippines where plunderers can stage a political comeback.

In this part of the planet in particular, the development model is not the Philippines with its anything-goes democracy, but Singapore and its concept of putting economic rights ahead of other rights, with emphasis on the responsibilities that come with civil liberties.

Singapore has strengthened its institutions and the rule of law, created a merit-based society and invested heavily in its most precious resource, its people. When the country slipped into recession during the global economic slowdown pre-pandemic, among its responses was to pour more resources into upskilling and education.

Promoting economic rights includes massive investments in the development of human capital. The investments cover universal access to quality education, affordable health care and nutrition.

Proper education starts with healthy bodies and healthy minds, from womb to formal learning age. It’s a struggle to think, much less be creative, on a chronically empty stomach.

UNICEF reports that a third of Filipino children are stunted, or short for their age, with an average of 95 children dying every day from malnutrition. This should be considered a national crisis.

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Getting serious about improving our human capital is indispensable if we want to make representative democracy work.

Apart from raising the quality of public education, we must invest in adult literacy programs. Undereducation is a disability that can and should be remedied even in advanced age, as long as the person is still capable of learning. Adult literacy and upskilling must be intrinsic  components of any genuine poverty alleviation program.

Economic rights include quality health care. Philippine Health Insurance Corp. coverage is woefully inadequate. Yet lawmakers, through budget hocus pocus, are impounding PhilHealth “excess” funds to finance their pork barrel for the 2025 campaign. And ex-lawmaker Ralph Recto, whose entire household is seeking elective posts in Batangas, is defending the impounding as passionately as he did the value-added tax and vape laws (and now VAT on Netflix, et al).

Investing in human capital is one of the basic challenges faced by the people who are appalled by the pestilence that has descended on politics and governance in our country, as glaringly manifested in this election season.

Relatives are no longer running merely to succeed an incumbent family member. Instead, greed for political power has been elevated to the highest level (or has sunk to the lowest depths). Multigenerational members of the same clans are now running for every possible position open to every interested member of the family, from the barangay to national positions and the party-list. Exhibit A is the home turf of President Marcos himself in Ilocos Norte.

Even more nauseating is seeing members of the same clan fighting each other for the limited number of positions. Dismayed folks are hoping that the warring clans succeed in murdering each other.

This sorry state of affairs is fed by the feudal nature of Philippine democracy, with mendicancy and undereducation encouraged to ensure the perpetuation in power of political patrons.

Millions of Filipinos have voted with their feet and sought greener pastures overseas, where personal advancement is not determined by one’s surname (except in authoritarian and monarchial states). Even this migration phenomenon, however, has reinforced the rotten system in the Philippines. The billions remitted by that huge army of overseas workers account for a hefty chunk of economic growth figures, giving the impression that the status quo works. And if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

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Another major challenge is even more difficult to tackle: reining in plain greed, and instilling genuine love of country.

Even in the absence of laws regulating dynasties and the party-list or premature campaigning, politicians can show discipline and self-restraint and moderate their greed.

Every time I raise this possibility, however, it’s greeted with derisive laughter. I’m asked: am I from another planet? What am I smoking? Am I a citizen of Singapore?

Some years ago when I was still a regular visitor to China, I was handed a booklet detailing the human rights and accompanying responsibilities of Chinese citizens.

It was intended to show that human rights were also promoted in China, but not in the western concept. Countries evolve differently, Chinese officials explained, and western-style democracy can’t be imposed willy-nilly across the globe.

The explanations reminded me of the Singaporean outlook on rights and responsibilities, although Chinese officials will not acknowledge that the tiny city-state is their model.

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Democracy advocates will point out that Singapore achieved Asian tiger status under the long rule of its founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, when the city-state was described as the “city of fines” – with hefty fines slapped even for chewing gum and failure to flush public toilets. Singapore officials, on the other hand, describe Lee’s rule as strong – not strongarm – government.

Among the five founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, we have slipped from the top in 1967 to the bottom in terms of many economic and human development indicators. We are now behind even the sixth ASEAN member Brunei and the seventh, Vietnam.

This year Vietnam’s nominal per capita GDP is at $4,623, while ours is at $4,123. Yesterday, pollster Social Weather Stations released its September survey showing self-rated poverty at its highest since 2008, with 59 percent or 16.3 million Filipinos considering their families poor.

You can see what President Marcos thinks of poverty alleviation, in his selection of Larry Gadon as his anti-poverty adviser. If BBM wants to repay Gadon for political support in 2022, there are still thousands of vacancies in government, and there must be a post worthy of Gadon’s talents.

But politicians have a stake in keeping the masses poor; it ensures continued dependence on patronage and tax-funded ayuda especially during elections.

You can’t have a government of, for and by the people if the majority of the people are focused on where to get their next meal and are comprehension-challenged, and who are stunted physically and mentally due to poverty.

We’re giving democracy a bad name.