The Philippine Online Chronicles

You know this to be true.  This is the Filipino nation today.

Places like Sitio Maislap (image to your left) are very much real.

The Filipino nation is a land of monumental and continuing heartbreak.  Whether in private or in public, corruption eats at our nation’s soul.  Our laws are usurped and bent to the Will of Power and Wealth and an Age of Feudalism exist.   From the disasters of Ondoy and Pepeng in the North, to Mayon in our East and in our South, a tragedy so horrendous, the river of blood is unending.   And our Filipino family is scattered across the world, a Diaspora in search for a better way of life that they could never find from the home they had left behind.

History has a way of marking forks in the road.  You may agree or not, nearly ten years ago, a nation and the world decided to acclaim the choice to remove Erap Estrada from the Presidency of the Philippines and to sweep into office, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and that day was ripe with jubilation.  That day Erap Estrada lost power was a fork in the road.  That was the moment as a people, as a nation, we lost our footing, our belief in democracy.  That was the moment we lost our way.

The logic of the hour was to right a wrong:  remove a president who had amassed unimagined wealth through illegal gambling.  In our righteous indignation, could we have known that by doing so, we would set the stage for nearly a decade of nightmare?  Like Karma, how else would we know by usurping an election, we would open the door that with impunity, our leaders trample not just our rights but game every aspect of the system?

It is time to right that wrong.  We right our compass by stepping forward, mindful of our trespasses, and hopeful at a chance for redemption. The tired and the cynical say, “we can no longer afford another six years of incompetence.”

Fair enough.

We can no longer afford a nation driven by the same tired and old politics that brand itself as experience.  We can no longer afford six years of gaming the system.  We can no longer afford rivers of blood in Mindanao.  We can no longer afford to be afraid.  We can no longer afford to be timid.   We can no longer afford to be old and unimaginative.

On the 10th of May 2010 we must set ourselves on a path for a new beginning.  It must be a new dawn.   And on that day, we must take the first tentative step to bind our nation’s wounds, even as a nation defends itself from the clear and present danger of Congresswoman Arroyo.

We must have our Voice heard, as clear as morning sunshine.  We must consciously defy gravity.  We must bind our wounds with Our Common Credo.

Will you believe that we must maintain an unshakeable faith in the Filipino?

Will you believe that Our Common Credo is the promise of Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas and that is the heart, the guiding compass of a future Aquino Administration?

Will you believe that to forge ahead towards tomorrow, we must marshal every resource, rally every mind, deploy every hand, and mobilize every Filipino?

Will you believe in a platform that begins with righteous indignation at corruption and not hatred that fuel Aquino and Roxas as fighters of corruption?

Will you believe that Tomorrow is about jobs that empower people?

Will you believe as education is a central strategy, it is about investing in people to reduce poverty and build national competitiveness?

Will you believe in a platform for the protection of public health that include responsible parenthood as a cornerstone of governance and the promotion of equal gender opportunities, policies and programs?

Will you believe in the promise to execute the laws of the land with impartiality and more importantly, decisiveness?

Will you believe that farms and rural enterprises are vital to food security and worthy of reinvestment?

Will you believe in the dream that we will create jobs at home and that jobs beyond our nation’s shores will one day become a choice, and not a necessity?

Will you believe in a government that creates an atmosphere where small, medium and big business can all thrive in a fair and competitive environment?

Will you believe in government service based on integrity, competence, and performance aimed at serving the public good?

Will you believe in the dream to transform our civil service into an even more professional, highly motivated and energized bureaucracy?

Will you believe in planning alternative, inclusive urban developments where people of varying income are in a productive, healthy and safe community and will you believe in a government that will encourage sustainable use of resources?

Will you believe in the Vision that seeks a broad supported Just Peace in Mindanao that will redress decades of neglect of the Moro and other peoples of Mindanao?

May 2010 is not merely a battle between good and evil. Is it a battle between personal and institutional integrity and honesty over material wealth? Is it a war between power by the consent of the governed against power by a few? Is it freedom over the iron grip of control? It isn’t a battle of who is right and who is wrong. It is a battle of values.

Manuel Buencamino documented Noynoy’s legislative record, which includes amending the Government Procurement Reform Act, and the Budget Impoundment Control Act, among a laundry list of his accomplishments.

As a senator, Noynoy Aquino has held chairmanship on the Committee on Local Government. He Co-Chaired the Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He has been a member of Urban Planning, Ways and Means, Youth, Woman and Family Relations, as well as Public Works, Trade and Commerce as well as Peace, Reunification and Reconciliation.

And Mar Roxas? He too must win if only because he champions and authored the Freedom of Information Act, which is one of the promises of the 1987 Constitution that has yet to be implemented for lack of an enabling Law. This is that law. It is a cornerstone of Philippine Democracy that will allow for transparency in our Government. It will allow any Filipino to petition our government for information of its activities and make it harder to hide material that is important for every Filipino.

That’s not enough, people will argue.

Manny Villar can argue about experience because he can. He has a lifetime of trials that has put him at this point in time. He must be respected for that hard work and for the Will to get here. For his dedication, it must be commended, respected and his good intentions applauded. His work in the legislature is impressive and his footing with OFWs, appreciated. His life’s work is an inspiration for many Filipinos who are in dire straits. It is precisely that opportunity to be better than we are now that Generations of Filipinos yearn for without knowing it, and hope one day to pass as gift for future Filipinos.

It was a choice between Erap Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, on that morning in January nearly ten years ago, it was the safer hand that won. In a contest between Fernando Poe, Jr., and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, it was the experienced Arroyo that won.

Manny Villar likes to talk about experience and the sureness of a steady hand.

It was experience and sureness of a steady hand of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that brings us to this point in our nation’s history. The fundamentals of our economy are strong, Arroyo constantly argues. The Philippines is a Strong Republic with excellent credit ratings. And we’ve made great progress so the government line goes.

The State of the Filipino Nation is consistent positive growth across many quarters and without our people feeling its effects. A teacher who has gone to college is scrubbing floors in some posh apartment in Hong Kong. A doctor who has gone through med school in the Philippines is working as a nurse in America. That is gift of consistent positive growth.

A child from one of Manila’s slums would throw water at an incoming car to blackmail the driver for money. Pay up to avoid your car getting washed by dirty water. And a woman suffering from a tumor would wait months before being subjected to radiation therapy, simply because the lines are really that long everywhere. That is the foundation of a Strong Republic.

Other indications? In the Signs of Christmas, Dean dela Paz narrates, “Past is prologue and Christmas is as good a time as any to start early. In informal settler neighborhoods, squatter enclaves and slums, street children are happily engaged in a fantasy world, immersed in imagination and role-playing deep within the universe of make-believe. The most popular toys are no longer dolls or train sets. At this time of the year, street urchins from three to sixty-three can be seen racing after each other, leaping over fences, gutters and canals with the most realistic, lethal- and deadly-looking plastic replicas of Smith and Wesson, Glock and Uzi.”

Then there is the question of our place in Cyberspace.

Much of our computing resources are across cybercafés and what sluggish, unreliable bandwidth that passes for broadband is spread all over this vast archipelago. This resource is used to render flash animation to harvest on Facebook, as opposed to solving the vast challenges of tomorrow. Our people see these access points to a greater universe no more than cheap arcade games, because no one teaches them any better.

Too few of our people could grasp that the fundamental building blocks for Silicon Valley are right there for the taking.

There are too few people who would open our people’s eyes to the rich and diverse power of what the Internet can be for them: a game changer. And we subject ourselves to anti-cybercrimes, without protection or regard for privacy, nor Internet rights that must be protected for the day our People will wakeup and be ready to take that place in Cyberspace were we can shine.

Nearly a decade of experience and steady hand, and our nation lies even more broken.

It is hard to love again, after a terrible heartbreak. If that fear holds you back, if that pain stops you, is it a question of preferring to spend cold nights alone or to leap once more and dare to be stupid? That’s what we have here, don’t we? How does one take a leap of faith in this age or cynicism?

I do not know about you, but I am willing to try the inexperienced.

Six months before the election, forty-four percent of people are for Noynoy Aquino versus Manny Villar’s twenty-three percent. The Juggernaut Noynoy Aquino is unstoppable. That is, if surveys could be judged. That is if surveys hold a steady course.

That’s twenty-one points that separate Aquino from Villar.

I do not know about you, but isn’t that a clarion call for the inexperienced?

We’ve a long way to go until ballots are cast. It is a long drawn out battle where Arroyo is very much in play, as much as Villar is.

In recent days, we’ve seen someone like Nick Perlas, who is intelligent and passionate idealistic and who also seem to be crazy enough to join the circus of the stars and get thrown out of the ring. He has neither money nor machinery and outside a small circle of people, not famous enough to be recognized. Is he a fool? Or are we the fool? Are we fools to waste such resource? Are we Fools to discard his passion and his idealism, who could be put to use solving the problems of tomorrow? Are we fools then to allow for more than 2 or 3 people to vie for the presidency?

Isn’t the race for the Presidency a microcosm of what’s wrong with the Philippines: the culture of every man for himself, the culture that chops of the right hand the hour before the war. What waste we make.

Right before Noynoy Aquino became Senator, he gave an interview with the Inquirer podcast crew.

“One of the things my father taught me was,” Noynoy Aquino started, “you should not exclude those who are opposed to your ideas. Your ideas and their ideas might result in a cross-fertilization of your good ideas mixing with these good ideas [and] coming up with the better product than either of you could have come up with individually.” Will the Yellow Army share this belief? Are you a Force of inclusion or Army of exclusion?

Recently, Paul Krugman wrote about the United States Health Bill. It is dysfunctional, a seriously flawed bill and America will spend years trying to fix it, he said. Nonetheless, it is “a huge step forward”. I cannot help but think, in the language of people on the fence about Mr. Aquino and Mr. Roxas that they can think about it this way. That for all its dysfunction, for all the flaws you see, perhaps an Aquino and a Roxas in the palace might be the huge step forward in the right direction.

People argue that Hope is nothing more than an empty promise. That it is the certainty of experience that would carry the day. On his acceptance speech for his Party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy talked about the New Frontier.

“The New Frontier,” he said, “is here whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. It would be easier to shrink from that new frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good intensions and high rhetoric…”

That’s what we have here today.

To think that our Duty as Filipinos end on Election Day is a false Gospel and Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas are not Messiahs to save us. It is only together, marching side-by-side can we go beyond that frontier.

The clarion call is clear and as loud as Sunrise and the clear blue sky that greets it.

There are great quarrels of yesterday that we must solve: the problem of Mindanao, our unresolved ignorance and prejudices, the unrelenting drudge of poverty, of our differences and unanswered questions of Justice. I believe that bravely, with Our Common Credo, with hope and a sure compass, with our minds fill with imagination, our hearts full of courage and perseverance we must equally face the unknown challenges of Tomorrow.

Let’s put our head in the cloud for just a moment. Many years from now, a generation of Filipinos will look back at this time, as an age of courage and perseverance and imagination as they erect a landmark like Taipei 101 in Manila. Imagine it to be a tower, its architectural influence, very Filipino that combine the best of what our culture has to offer. And that great skyscraper is a symbol of what the Filipino had achieved and hope to accomplish standing shoulder to shoulder with our friends from around the world. A good dream as any, but it would have to wait, right?

What’s important today is to answer the question, is the Juggernaut Noynoy Aquino, ready to lead?

In that chat three years ago that I mentioned earlier, Alex Villafania asked Noynoy Aquino, “Sir, regarding education and IT as we've already touched on the subject. Many graduates, college graduates, right now are working as call center agents, and being a call center agent does not really entail graduating from a very specific course. Do you support the call for more graduates to actually work in call centers right now?”

I think his reply is indicative of his leadership style and his capacity to lead.

“Well, at this point in time, when we have such a high unemployment rate, I don't think we can really be choosy. Which indicates also, why with the mistakes we have, that we are not giving them any other opportunities.

For instance, I find it hard to reconcile the fact that a country that can produce a malicious [computer] virus called “I Love You” that was the consternation of everybody in this whole world...cannot re-channel that energy in that drive that creativity to something more productive.

So, there's seems to be a discontinuity in our basic abilities... perhaps our education system, the value formation aspect, the opportunities, so that we can achieve the potentials, the fullest potentials of what is intrinsic in us.

So, babalik--review--what are the focus of our IT schools for instance. Why is India so successful? Why have been able to re-attract their immigrants who have gone on to Silicon Valley, and have gone back to India.

Can we not do the same thing? Can we not? There are so many things that can be done. And again, a core philosophy is I will not dictate on anybody, I'm open to all ideas and that would seem to be the most possible and most promising, should be supported.”

The Juggernaut Noynoy Aquino is benevolent and ready to lead but his philosophy of leadership is one that requires that we all participate. “At the end of the day,” Noynoy Aquino said, “like a core philosophy of mine is that a public servant is not the dictator, nor the boss, eh, in a democracy, or preserving the democracy. At the end of the day you are aware first of your limitations.”

Image of Sitio Maisap is from the personal blog of Rochelle Sy Chua and used here with her permission. My profuse thanks. Image “believe” was inspired by this noypipol entry based on Wordle.

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