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ALBERT B. CASUGA, a Philippine-born writer, lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write poetry, fiction, and criticism after his retirement from teaching and serving as an elected member of his region's school board. He was nominated to the Mississauga Arts Council Literary Awards in 2007. A graduate of the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas (now University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Literature and English, magna cum laude), he taught English and Literature (Criticism, Theory, and Creative Writing) at the Philippines' De La Salle University and San Beda College. He has authored books of poetry, short stories, literary theory and criticism. He has won awards for his works in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Philippines. His latest work, A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems was published February 2009 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. His fiction and poetry were published by online literary journals Asia Writes and Coastal Poems recently. He was a Fellow at the 1972 Silliman University Writers Workshop, Philippines. As a journalist, he worked with the United Press International and wrote an art column for the defunct Philippines Herald.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A NATION ON FIRE? WHAT MUST BE DONE.




The Philippine Republic continues to be in turmoil. The present leadership, buttressed by a politicized Armed Forces cabal, has apparently lost its mandate: all sectors of Philippine society have all but given up on this leadership.

Déjà vu? Except for the absence of the EDSA People’s Power protest marches, (they appear to have lost their efficacy) observers are intrigued by a replay of practically the same conditions before the declaration of Martial Law in the 70s by the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In fact, nothing seems to have changed for the better since that fateful Declaration of Martial Law. Ironically, the media visage of that episode---the former Press Secretary of Mr. Marcos, the youngest cabinet member in Philippine history, and former senator of the island republic Francisco S. Tatad---has presciently described this condition in 2002 when he came out with his A Nation On Fire, an in-the-thick-of things book on the unmaking of deposed President Joseph Estrada (who ironically was the most popularly elected leader since the inception of the republic) and the “remaking of democracy in the Philippines.”

In the final chapter of his book (Book IV Remaking the Nation, Chapter 21, What Is to Be Done?), Mr. Tatad said:

“All our institutions, values, and norms are in disarray. They must be rebuilt, and the nation with them. The Philippines has lost its standing not only in the world but even in the eyes of its own people. It must be relaunched both at home and in the community of nations. This is the only way to rise again.” (pp. 594 etseq)

Practically all expatriate newspapers and forums of the Filipino diaspora all over the globe have had a stab at analysing what ails the East Asian nation of about 90 million people, now considered the economic basket case in the Asian region (where it used to be second only to Japan in economic productivity in the 60s to the 70s). All are diatribes with scarcely any insight into the factual conditions obtaining in the Philippines. There is hardly an effort to propose viable solutions, assuming that lingering patriotism of even the most desperate exile is mustered.

In Canada alone, where more than a hundred Filipino tabloids are published by the disparate Filipino communities from coast to coast, there is no abatement in the criticism of Philippine leadership and the dire conditions plaguing that country. It reaches shrill proportions but nary a solution is proffered. Every editor is a pundit, however ignorant he is. (Recalls the villification campaign against Mr. Marcos before he declared martial law! Deja vu, indeed.)

In his book, Mr. Tatad does not hold his punches. While he criticises leaders, institutions, and even the people, he – in the eyes of this observer – is among the very few who have bothered coming up with “What is to be done.”

Although articulated in 2002, these solutions remain au courant seven years after.

What is to be done in remaking democracy in the Philippines? (When he announced the declaration of martial law as the Press Secretary of President Marcos in the 70s, one suspects that Mr. Tatad could not have predicted [one might now found it ironic] that he is now among the most prominent citizens in the Philippines who have come out fighting for the “remaking of democracy” in the Philippines, once the sterling prototype of American democracy in the East.)

“What is to be done?” He asks. Former senator Francisco S. Tatad proposes the following:

“These are hard times. We need hard facts for hard times. Here are some of the more unpleasant ones.

1. The problem begins with us, not with others. We must learn to admit our own mistakes and stop blaming everyone else.

2. We have become a corrupt society. The society is corrupt not because the government is corrupt. It is rather the government is corrupt because the society is corrupt. The war on corruption will not be waged or won by the corrupt going after the corrupt. Those who fight corruption must first have clean hands.

3. There are no quick fixes, no overnight solutions. We must plan long-term. Like Rizal’s Tasio, we must be willing to plant the tree under whose shade we shall not sit. But whatever we can do, we must do now.

4. Education is the key. But if we are to establish a truly responsive theory and system of education, we must first know who we are and what we want to becomes.

5. The media—notably television—have become as powerful as government. They threaten to co-opt government. With no constitutional accountability whatsoever, they can be used to foment or support anarchy and disorder. They must reform or be reformed.

6. Politics has become the nation’s biggest business. This is a serious disorder, a major cause of underdevelopment.

7. Our presidential system has not worked. We must replace it now. We must reform the Constitution.

8. The Church has an indispensable and irreplaceable role to play in society. It must be preserved and protected from intervention by the State and from any kind of misuse by those who would use it for worldly ends.

9. Injustice, not poverty, is the gravest social evil. We have too many laws, but not enough justice. Too many justices, but not enough just men. We have become a lawless people.

10. We are poor not because we have not been killing unborn children, but because we have, among other things, failed to train our people well, tap into relevant technology, make use of idle capital. The poor hold so much idle capital. We must release it into the economy now.

11. After years of neglect, we have succeeded in making the country look like one big “Smokey Mountain.” Squalor, which should never be synonymous with poverty, has become a national symbol. We must clean up and recast our physical environment as part of a genuine and thoroughgoing reform.

12. We have no sense of the common good. It is “every man for himself.” The only thing that matters is that we get what we want, no matter at whose expense. This situation cannot go on.” (End of quote.)

Mr. Tatad explains each of the above in pithy and clear terms in his final chapter. Every well-meaning Filipino might profit from his insights -- realities that are not unlike those cited by an idealistic Jose Rizal who mercilessly criticised the foibles of his beloved countrymen at home or abroad because he loved them.

A big book by any measure (658 pages), its thickness is matched only by the vastness of the author’s grasp of his country’s ills. It is a pity not all Filipinos could buy the copy.

Quite some time ago, I published an untitled short story of Mr. Tatad in the Journal of Arts and Sciences that I edited in the Liberal Arts College of the University of Santo Tomas. I appended a title which he thought might not be apropos—“The Country”. It was a fictional limning of an artist, suffering from abject poverty and disillusionment. It was a moment of prescience for this writer – some five decades, thereafter, Mr. Tatad would publish a book on a nation on fire – his country: The Country.

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