Understanding the Philippine Situation In the light of Humanist Social Teaching

Original Posting June 29, 2017

1. Introduction

Down the decades and the centuries history has seen the social teaching of humanist and faith-based traditions bring about a great movement of peoples and nations for the defence of the human person and the safeguarding of human dignity. 

History has seen this movement affirming freedom, justice and peace against all forms of tyranny, including savage capitalism and totalitarian communism – two systems of ideas, practices and institutions deemed and experienced as cruel to human life and degrading of the human condition.

We as a people through our own present Constitution and our continuing struggles make clear to ourselves and to the world that we strive to be part of this great movement of humanity.

This is our basic law – our social agreement. It expresses our self-image as a community. It enunciates an ideal before which present realities admittedly fall far short.

Some of these negative realities are, first of all, wild capitalism with its unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities, where the powerful feed upon the powerless and as a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape other than through the export of warm bodies.

Secondly, as if all that were not bad enough, something worse pretends to fight this “extreme right” of savage capitalism, and that is the “extreme left” or that sometimes-creeping but now quite speedily-advancing specter of “leftist” fascism – a populist authoritarianism currently promoted, fostered and propagated by the Duterte administration.

1. Leftist Fascism? Populist Authoritarianism

Fascism comes in different forms at different times so that people expecting fascism to develop in the “classic way” fail to recognize it even when it is already there. In 2016, writer Walden Bello noted, fascism arrived in the form of Rodrigo Duterte. This event, however, continues to elude a big number of our people, “some owing to fierce loyalty to the man of the hour, some out of fear for what the political and ethical consequences might be of admitting that naked force – the essential fascist principle – now rules Philippine politics.”

When it had become clear to the world that the Philippines did, in fact, have a man after the image of Hitler and Idi Amin who meant business in the exercise of illegal powers,  – unafraid to threaten and curse publicly, unhesitant to expose the real and imagined sinfulness of others while jocularly admitting and covering up his own, boastful of his readiness to ignore constitutional mandates and the rule of law – when the world became almost a hundred percent sure that his carefully manufactured popularity would brook no resistance, the immediate response from media and politicians and even moral leaders alike was fear not fight, accommodation not revolt.

It is natural for people to identify with such a man – a winner seemingly fighting against the established order. Why not? Most people have nothing to lose but their misery and poverty. They go for the promised change at all cost; for the better, surely, but even for worse, if need be – for, as the fallacious temptation goes, there will always be time later to set things in order. “The enemies of this man are our original foes – so laugh off his foul language and his threats, ignore the mounting killings and contradictory explanations, and give him a chance…” so the tune goes, which some people are whistling in the dark.

Duterte, after all, is not like predecessors Hitler and Mussolini, who seemed to be waging a counterrevolution against a progressive left.  He is, rather, and has been for some time now, one of those instrumentalizing a deadly left, to which he in fact belongs.

And like the Germans of old, most Filipinos today were in the dark about the regime’s basic weapons: an army of trolls and an extra-judicial-killing army or EJK. Now, apparently, more people have come to know that these two – tools of shaming and terrorizing – are for real as is the havoc that they can wreck on one’s life and the lives of countless families and friends. In chronic, spasmodic type of taking to the tri-media, Duterte habitually uses gutter talk to cast all legal constraints aside and see whether his popularity could stand – and quite apparently it has…so far. How is this possible?

1. The Psychology of Populist Authoritarianism

Hannah Arendt spent a big deal of her life studying how the group of Hitler and Goebbels took over and broke the will of the German people so thoroughly that they would allow and participate in mass murder – a people whose state of evolved civilization had already manifested some of the finest specimens of the human race in music, art, science and philosophy.

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world [such as Germany then and the Philippines by the time of the PNoy regime till now] the mass majority had reached the point where they could and would believe everything and nothing – that everything was possible and nothing was true. They only had to consider, for instance, the Smartmatic-PCOS phenomenon and immediately they were unsure. Are these “leaders” the ones we voted for? Are they legit? To what degree?

Whether reluctantly or with eagerness it would now be possible for one bold character or another to take on the mantle of strong leadership, instinctively basing propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under conditions of great fear combined with the hope of some economic satisfaction, one can make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism. Instead of deserting the fearsome leaders who had lied to them they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

Under such circumstances of mental confusion, “people” cannot stand wimps; they want their leaders strong. Even the killing of masses of people (10,000 to date? Who really knows?) is now interpreted as a sure sign of strong leadership – a desirable trait. Why? It is only because of strong leaders that it is possible to imagine real change in the offing.

But why the constant, often blatant lying? For one thing, it is a means of fully dominating subordinates, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the leader by shame and complicity. Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. In fact, it is a requirement for the success of authoritarianism.

Hannah Arendt’s studies saw it – that being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless. She also recognized the function of an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist.

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie is now accepted as truth and truth is defamed as a lie. Rather, something more fundamental happens: the moral sense is being destroyed – the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is an essential means to this end. Moral behavior becomes unreal.

Thus the real enemy of populist authoritarianism are authentic humanists, faith-based forces, prophets who are unafraid to urge people to wake up and go back to basic moral values – which, unfortunately, are often few and far between. In the Philippines today, however, after almost a year of Duterte these forces may finally be getting self-organized. One can sometimes sense their flickering light – a light that was quite bright in 1986 and to a lesser extent in 2001.

1. Strange Bedfellows?

It has now also become clear to many that Duterte’s target is democracy – the imperfect oligarchic democracy of our country. But rather than opting for social democracy or some other constitutional route to real democratic reform, he seems to have chosen for his vehicle of “change” the hitherto-failing-if-not-quite-failed extreme left Communist Party of the Philippines – believe it or not. Some, indeed, found this hard to believe as they had no longer been able to see in their political screen the serious capabilities of the CPP-NPA-NDF (CNN). But there it was – a de facto coalition government with the CNN even before the so-called Peace Talks could be under way. And when it did, one could only see a CNN-dominated government negotiating with itself.

Hence they are right who described the Duterte regime as a case of “Leftist Fascism.” The simple truth is that the extreme left in the Philippines for many decades now never abandoned the armed struggle. It never stopped killing thousands of innocent civilians and thousands of enlisted men and women defending the Philippine constitution and the Filipino people. It never stopped exacting “revolutionary” taxes from rich and poor alike. It only added a tactical electoral dimension to its strategic armed struggle, effectively taking on a new deceptive image of nonviolent parliamentary struggle while at the same time enriching its coffers.

Now, in governmental coalition, it suddenly comes in control of tremendous resources and organizational opportunities. Would it be bothered in conscience and image by the regime’s use of trolls and mass murders? Hardly, needless to say.

Would it be able eventually to control the AFP? Again, hardly likely, if not well-nigh impossible. Thus they would always go back to “walking on two legs” (an old advice by the late Chairman Mao): be in coalition with government but never accept DDR or the policy of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. And in the special case of Muslim separatism, hide from the government the fact and never confirm that their Moro Army Committee (MAC) which is organic to the NPA or New People’s Army helped guide, train, and provision the jihadists – the so-called DIWM or ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah Wilayat al-Mashriq, which in English is “the Eastern Province of the Islamic State” – and fought alongside them against the government forces.

Why? Because their aim beyond tactical coalitions is the complete capture of state power. Duterte will come and go but the CNN plans to stay after decades and long years of incessant armed fighting and war on all fronts. And now that Duterte has been evidencing clear signs of mortality, the rush is on. A revolutionary government, with them in control, must be put up before his final breath. How will they provoke him? As in Marawi? The conspiratorial mind hardly runs out of imagination.

In the past the left never got quite near to capturing state power – not till Duterte, one of its own, became President of the Philippines, riding on the crest of the anti-establishment tsunami in the 2016 elections. Yes, it was PNoy who got the broad masses of people to reject his own oligarchic regime and brought about the inevitability of Duterte’s victory, hard as it may be to believe then or now – but it is true.

• The Lipa Declaration

A few years back in the time of PNoy (President BS Aquino III), a multi-sectoral group of Filipinos saw the Philippine situation as quite a moral challenge: “hocus pcos” to start with; the most audacious appropriation of more than a trillion pesos a year with neither authority nor transparency, incontrite and holier-than-thou; a business community in full support so long as the top guy would just let them be (laissez faire); a majority populace who only got poorer amid a much-vaunted national economic growth:

“A crisis of unprecedented proportions has befallen our nation. The life of the nation is in grave peril from the very political forces that are primarily ordained to protect, promote and advance its well-being, but which are aggressively undermining its moral, religious, social, cultural, constitutional and legal foundations.”

They bewailed the fact that:

“Unbridled and unpunished corruption and widespread misuse of political and economic power in all layers of society have not only destroyed our common conception of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, legal and illegal, but also put our people, especially the poor, at the mercy of those who have the power to dictate the course and conduct of our development for their own selfish ends.”

But who were they, to start with? As they said in their “Lipa Declaration: An Urgent Call for National Transformation,”  to which they affixed their signatures:

“We are Filipino citizens of different personal, professional, social and economic backgrounds and political persuasions and religious beliefs. We have gathered here in Lipa city on this 27th day of August A.D.2014/2nd day of Dhu Al-qa’da A.H. 1435, under the auspices of the National Transformation Council, to reaffirm our deeply held convictions and beliefs about the common good and our highest national interests, in the face of the most pressing challenges.”

Not mincing words, the signers of the declaration went to the heart of the matter by accusing PNoy no less:

“Far from preserving and defending the constitution, as he swore to do when  he assumed office, the incumbent president Benigno Simeon Aquino III has subverted and violated it by corrupting the congress, intimidating the judiciary, taking over the  treasury, manipulating the automated voting system, and perverting the constitutional impeachment process”

Logically exploding the bombshell, the signatories said:

“Therefore, faithful to the objective moral law and to the universally honored constitutional principle that sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them, we declare that president Benigno Simeon Aquino III has lost the moral right to lead the nation, and has become a danger to the Philippine democratic and republican state and to the peace, freedom, security and moral and spiritual well-being of the Filipino people.

“We further declare that we have lost all trust and confidence in President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, and we call upon him to immediately relinquish his position.”

Then they talked about the National Transformation Council. What is this? What are its functions? Most certainly there was no talk here of one single personality being groomed to replace the erring President; no talk of politicians and political parties; and yet the subject matter was unquestionably political.

The National Transformation Council is that which must:

“Assume the urgent and necessary task of restoring our damaged political institutions to their original status and form before we begin to consider electing a new government under normal political conditions. The role of the council will not be to succeed President Aquino, but solely to prevent the total destruction of our political system, and to rebuild and nourish its institutions back to health so that all those interested could join the political competition later, without the dice being loaded in anyone’s favor.

“Like a crew whose task is to put everything in order before a commercial carrier, which had earlier developed some problems in midair, is cleared again for take-off, the council’s duty will be only to repair the battered tripartite system [legislative-executive-judicial] and to make sure that the people are once again able to freely and intelligently elect their own leaders.”

There was no doubt among those present regarding the deceitful and fraudulent character of the 2010 and 2013 elections due to the “hocus-PCOS” electoral cheating machines. A presentation by a CPA-Lawyer of the abundant evidence in this regard refreshed everyone’s memory of so much they had been fighting against the past few years.

Hence, they emphasized that:

“Whatever the final form of government the citizenry decide to adopt, absolutely indispensable are the integrity and independence of the courts, and the existence of an incorrupt electoral system by means of which we, the people, are able to freely and intelligently choose our own leaders in free and honest elections. Without these we cannot speak of a normally functioning democratic and republican government.

“Thus we fully support the council’s position that until we have such a fraud-free electoral system, we should refrain from holding any farcical election. But once we have it, we should encourage the best qualified men and women in the country to participate in the open electoral process so that together we could put an end to the stranglehold exercised by the corrupt and incompetent political dynasties upon our elections.”

Then, of course, the transformation they sought was not merely one-dimensional but total; not merely political but, as well, socio-economic and religio-cultural. They were committed both to working on personal conversion and achieving social transformation:

“With political reform there must go hand in hand comprehensive economic reform. With one strong voice, we must now say a vigorous ‘no,’ as Pope Francis has suggested, to an economics of exclusion and inequality, coming from a misguided vision of the human being and of society harmfully acted upon through myopic laws, policies and programs.”

Clearly, then, the National Transformation Council –initiated by the moral leaders of this country in response to a moral crisis whose effects if not stanched in time would certainly lead to national destruction – is an effort of a non-violent nature, neither illegal nor unconstitutional in character but creatively restorative of a severely damaged constitutional order abetted by an administration chemically clean of any sincere regard for the rule of law.

It is a time of trouble; it is also a time of great opportunity for genuine reform. The movement for national transformation must be protected, defended, warmly welcomed and fostered.

“As the council prepares to embark upon the necessary reforms, we call upon the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as the constitutional ‘protector of the people and the state,’ to extend its protective shield to the council, and not to allow itself to be used in any manner to undermine the council’s purely transitional and non-partisan role, nor to allow any armed group to sow violence, disorder or discord into its peaceful ranks.

“Adopted in Lipa City, this 27th day of August A.D. 2014/2nd day of Dhu Al-qa’da A.H.1435.”

• Post-Lipa Challenge

Obviously, the Call of Lipa was insufficiently heeded in 2016. The planned PCOS-flawed fraudulent elections proceeded but PNoy’s maneuvers succeeded only in the Vice-Presidency, terribly losing the No. 1 post, the only one that mattered. He could not stop Duterte, the protest candidate, who ran away with a big gap despite the Smartmatic regime. In electoral historical terms, however, Duterte only had a plurality – the second lowest on the record, next only to FVR’s lowest win way back in 1992. Many of his people claim that had he not been cheated he would have won by a whooping majority. No matter, because a victory by plurality and not a majority is one thing but great popularity is another thing altogether which he has since consistently enjoyed, till today – or so the survey pundits say.

But does such protest popularity confer upon the man every license to kill (metaphorically and literally)? Does it put him above the Constitution and the Rule of Law? Does it give him permission to talk, if not behave, like an absolute despot? Most important of all, what do we as a people really think about all this, if we ever have the grace to find time and stillness to begin to think at last.

Removing a President, even if one could, is not necessarily the answer to a deep-seated civic illiteracy, a moral bankruptcy, a corrupt political system and a contempt for reason that has been decades in the making. Removing a President – it has been shown time and time again – may only lead sooner than later to another one as bad, if not worse, than before.

We must face the real challenge now and it is nothing less than the struggle for the soul of the Philippines. The movement for national transformation must not stop. In an age of habituation to overstimulation, and an ever-accelerating overflow of information, an authentic people’s movement can yet overcome the Uncertainty Strategy of populist authoritarianism with the certitude of moral values among even a few who have kept the faith.

This is the challenge especially to our moral leaders – to birth such a movement of the people, by the people and for the people. This is the challenge to our military – to become once again true guardians of the nation. This is the challenge to a country’s active minority – not to cease with their job of awakening a passive majority but rather prepare concretely and in detail for a time soon when that majority suddenly wakes up for, in the wise words of their national hero Apolinario Mabini, the majority often moves so much faster than the active minority can ever imagine.

They might then insist on the installation of a true National Transformation Council – by this name or by any other name – that will have to assume the urgent and necessary task of restoring our damaged political institutions to their original status and form before we begin to consider electing a new government under normal political conditions.

As earlier outlined in Lipa, and echoed in many regional consultations throughout the Philippine archipelago, the role of the Council will not be to succeed the President, but solely to prevent the total destruction of our political system, and to rebuild and nourish its institutions back to health so that all those interested to join the political service later, can do without the dice being loaded in anyone’s favor.

The transformation the Council seeks will be not merely one-dimensional but total; not merely political but, as well, socio-economic and religio-cultural, committed as its members are both to working on personal conversion and achieving social transformation.

The Council will surely depend upon the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as the constitutional ‘protector of the people and the state,’ to extend its protective shield to them, and not to allow itself to be used in any manner to undermine the Council’s purely transitional and non-partisan role, nor to allow any armed group to sow violence, disorder or discord into its peaceful ranks.

To reiterate, the real struggle now is for the soul of the country. It is not merely to be able to write a better script for political theater but to humbly recognize that we are locked in a battle over the character of our nation, a battle that is not only against present flesh-and-blood but against all the demons that we have allowed to invade and pervade the many little nooks and corners of our sacred house. We must clean up and start anew. To die to the old is never easy or without pain but so necessary before we can rise to new life.

This way we rejoin humanity’s inexorable movement for the defence of the human person and the safeguarding of human dignity, or, in the original words of our sacred covenant, “promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law, and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality and peace.” FINIS