Panorama

Item

Title: Panorama
Description: All these are either original productions or selective adaptions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publications. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure.
Issue Date: Volume XIX (Issue No. 9) September 1967
Publisher: Community Publishers, Inc.
Language: English
Subject: Books and reading.; Recreational reading.
Rights
Place of publication: Manila
Local URL: Panorama
extracted text: THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZFNE OF GOOD READING mA {edou PANORAMA needs intelligent renders of: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinions 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist apd the engineer, the executive and the farmer, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. Special rates for new and renewal subscriptions to begin on November 1, 1966: 1 copy ...................................... 1 year ..................................... 2 years .................................... Foreign rate: .......................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon') St.. Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Vol. XIX TNI PNIUPPIM MAGAZINE OF GOOD HADING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 7, 1956 MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 9 FREEDOM AND INDIVIDUALITY *He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. * The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. * Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. * The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual. * The despotism of custom is everywhere the stand ing hindrance to human advancement. * A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another. {Not that Mill was opposed to government aid to education; he believed that education thrived on diversity.') — John Stuart Mill. ■ The President of the Philippines is being accused of violating the right of privacy. THE PRESIDENT'S BUGGING OFFICE President Marcos has re vealed that he has bugged his office and has been able to secure tape-recordings of confidential and compromis ing conversations with vi sitors. The revelation was made in Cebu at a public rally in which he presented the NP candidates for sen ator. We have heard of the Russians bugging American and other embassies in Mos cow for purposes of espio nage, but this is about the first time that the President of a free country has secretly tape-recorded his conversa tions with his visitors. In an official press release of Sept. 3, 1967, the Malacanang press office quoted the President as having said in his Cebu speech: "Don’t you know that ma ny of these supposed candi dates (presumably the LP senatorial candidates) fre quent my office in Malacanang asking for favors from me? I have tape-recordings of each and everyone of them. And if they are in terested to find out what they said, I will give them a copy of the tape-recordings. "Some of them can be a basis for criminal action like attempted bribery. So, if they really want proofs, they should come to me. "There is not a single one of them who has not gone to my office begging for favors. "I have refused them, some of them for appointments for high office. I think you know whom I am talking about. Some of them for concessions, some of them for contracts, the Manila Hotel; some of them for re parations items. "I repeat, if they want to hear the tape-recordings, I will accommodate them." There are several ways of looking at the startling pres 2 Panorama idential revelation From his side, the President deli berately recorded confiden tial conversation with him for his own purpose. Has he gathered evidence against his visitors for purposes of prosecution? Has he record ed their own words that would place them in com promising positions, if re vealed, for political pur poses? On the side of the Pres ident’s visitors, it can be said that the President has betrayed their confidence in him. If they talked to him about confidential matters, it is because they trust him. Now they know that the President has something which, if published, would harm their candidacies. Should they not better with draw before the President feels compelled to reveal their conversations to the public? What do the people think of it all? From now on, the President and his office will assume a sinister aspect as far as they are concerned. People see the President for various reasons, most of which are confidential. Some complain against certain pub lic officials for unfairness, arrogance, inefficiency or ex tortion. Others beg him for favors. Oftentimes they do not wish their names to be revealed for fear of retalia tion and persecution, parti cularly if the officials con cerned are vindictive and powerful. Will the people, after knowing that what they say may be tape-recorded, continue to entrust thenconfidences to the President? Or has Mr. Marcos damaged the public image of the pres idency by his bugging and his revelation? — V. Albano Pads, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 6, 1967. September 1967 3 ■ The superior character of President Osmena has not yet been equalled by his successors in the Philippine Presidency; and it has been responsible for the rise of a united country and people. SERGIO OSMENA: RECTITUDE PERSONIFIED Today is Don Sergio’s na tal day. We would do well, I am sure, to look into his luminous life as we march on toward our rightful des tiny. Don Sergio’s life, both pri vate and public, was some thing beyond reproach, stud ded with so many virtues — like simplicity, humility, greatness of heart, and mnd, incorruptibility, and life long dedication to country and people. Self-ostentation and1 the flare for the drama tics, a common weakness of lesser men, were not for him. A life so assiduously plan ned and lived, none may point an accusing finger at Don Sergio. He was recti tude personified, whether in private or public life. But it is as our people’s bene factor, or, to put it in more precise terms, as public ser vant, which interests us most and which, I believe, should be our special concern to be familiar with as we go about to celebrate his birthday an niversary today. Of all the fine things about Don Sergio, I like to think and remember him most as the patron saint of our national unity. This was the cornerstone of his leader ship and of his entire public career, whether as the na tion’s leader or just as "a soldier in the ranks.” Like Abraham Lincoln, Don Ser gio firmly believed that a house divided against itself cannot and will not stand. In his life, man’s vaulting ambition was always relegat ed to the backseat whenever and wherever national unity was at stake. Times there were and they came one after another when Don Sergio’s devotion to our national unity was severely tested, but, to his unfading 4 Panorama glory, it was never found wanting. Now forgotten or dimmed by time, Don Sergio was our first national leader follow’ing the establishment of Am erica’s regime in our coun try, when as Speaker of the Philippine Assembly we start ed our epochal experiment in self-government. Upon the success of this historic experiment depended the ul timate recognition of our fun damental right to be free and independent. It was Don Sergio who piloted us so capably in establishing our capacity for self-govern ment. In the first Osmena-Quezon break up in 1922 on what proved to be an empty issue of collective leadership against unipersonal leader ship; Don. Sergio flatly reject ed the’ allure of sweet re venge by declining to com bine his forces with Democratas, a combination which might have enabled him to retain the national leader ship or, at least, placed him on a vantage position to ha rass his victorious adversary “The question of leadership,” Don Sergio recalled without any sign of bitterness, “soon became at issue, and the Nacionalista party became di vided into two groups — one known as Nacionalistas and the other as Colectivistas. The elections of 1923 x x x did not give a majority to either group and resulted in the increase in the number of the opposition, the Democrata party, but without giv ing the majority capable of organizing the Assembly. "I had to appeal to the sense of patriotism of my fellow Nacionalistas when the lea der of the other group, Pres ident Quezon, started nego tiations for a coalition with his old colleagues in the Nacionalista party.” Consider ing the strength and promi nence of the protagonists. Osmena and Quezon, as well as their powerful allies, our national unity, Don Sergio’s life-long obsession, would have been dealt with a severe blow if the cleavage between the two leaders had not been healed. Again Quezon broke up with Don Sergio on the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Indepen dence Act which Congress rejected, with Quezon lead ing the forces for its rejec tion, only to accept jjs repro September 1967 5 duction, as was the TydingsMcDuffie Act. Rejection of the one and acceptance of the other but identical bill paved the way, of course, for the relegation of Don Sergio to the background and as sured Quezon’s choice as first President of the Common wealth. Don Sergio’s final act of supreme sacrifice at the altar of national duty took place when, by Constitu tional mandate, he was to take over the Presidency of the Commonwealth from President Quezon whose ten ure of office had expired or was about to expire. In a truly admirable spirit of selfrenunciation, the incoming President took the initiative to extend’ the tenure of the ailing Quezon. "Towards the end of the war,” Don Sergio recalled, "with the expiration of the term of office of President Quezon fast approaching the menace of a new cleavage between the Filipino leaders looked inevitable. But faith ful to the principle of na tional unity which had brought me to public life in 1907 and had guided my po licies and actions during all these years whether I was a b leader of the party or a sol dier in the ranks, I took the initiative of presenting the case to the leaders of the United States Congress, and a true friend of the Filipino people, Senator Millard E. Tydings, came to our rescue, who, upon my petition and with his support, a joint re solution was introduced by him xxx extending, for the duration of the war, the term of office of President Quezon. Filipino unity was again preserved.” And, upon approval of the resolu tion, Don Sergio, without losing time, addresesd him self to our people declaring: “These are critical days for individuals as well as nations. Our sense of responsibility as a people and the strength of our national solidarity have once more been tested. We have again proved our unity.” He could have said with Adlai E. Stevenson: “Let there be no tears for me . . . There are things more pre cious than political victory. For there is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and, to see, we have only to look.” — Vicente L. Pastrana, Philippine He rald. Panorama MALAY LANGUAGE ISSUE Troubles in recent years in Ceylon, India, Belgium and Canada have shown that the right to speak your mother tongue is one for which peo ple are ready to fight. Ta mils in Ceylon, non-Hindu speakers in India, Flemings in Belgium, and French Ca nadians have this urge to protect their language in common. But Ceylon, Bel gium and Canada have had to deal with two languages only; in Malaysia, there are four major languages in Western Malaysia, to say nothing of various Chinese dialects. Clearly, the ques tion of Malay as a single National Language is even more delicate than in the cases mentioned above, three of which produced blood shed. The constitutional date for the introduction of Malay as the single national language in Western Malaysia came on Aug. 31. The National Language Bill, which was passed on March 4, represent a significant concession by Malay leaders to the Chinese and Indian communities, and to those educated in English of whatever community. The Paramount Ruler may allow English for official purposes for as long as is thought fit; the central or any state gov ernment may permit the use of any of the communal lan guages; the courts will use English; acts and ordinances will be in English and Ma lay; and members of parlia ment may be permitted to speak English. Behind this sensible-sound ing compromise lies Tengku Abdul Rahman’s understand ing that to “force things down people’s throats whe ther they like it or not” would have produced com munal strife and administra tive breakdown. Instead, he has chosen "the peaceful way”, despite demonstrations from students at the Muslim September 1967 7 College in Kuala Lumpur (which had to be closed), de monstrations outside t h e Tengku’s house, and charges from the state premier of a Malay state that the compro mise was a betrayal of Ma lay aspirations and govern ment promises. On top of this, the influential director of the national language and literature agency, Syed Nasir, resigned over the bill. The opposition of the Ma lays to what they see as con cessions to English-speakers and the Chinese and Indian communities springs from their uncertain position in what they regard as their own country. Malays are in a bare majority over Chinese and Indians combined in Western Malaysia (in Ma laysia as a whole, Malays are in a> minority compared with all non-Malays). While they are well entrenched in poli tics, civil service, police and the army, the vast bulk of Malays, speak only their own language, are rural and agri cultural, and have a small stake in Malaysia’s commerce, industry and banking. Per haps 80 per cent of Malay sia’s economy is in Chinese hands. In addition, barely a quarter of the students at the University of Malaysia are Malays. This economic backward ness not only produces in security among the Malays; it is seen by them as being a direct result of the old colonial-based education sys tem. English-speaking schools were entirely in the towns; an English education was the key to further education, and as there were few Malays in the towns and no Malay se condary education, the sys tem favored Chinese and In dians. While Malay secon dary and university educa tion has expanded since in dependence, the proportion of Chinese and Indians with good education is still much higher. Malays feel that the use of the National Lan guage would not only indi cate that the country, though multi-racial, was basically Malay, but would iron out some of the glaring economic inequalities which actually harm Malay-Chinese rela tions. Naturally the Chinese com munity, who for over a hun dred years were regarded by the British as temporary in habitants and were allowed 8 Panorama their own customs, schools and teachers, are just as fiercely attached to their language. Chinese-language produced, and still produces, people orientated towards China, not to Malaysia. Po litically, the all-Chinese schools tend to be centres for the spread of communism. Where teaching in English and Chinese has been intro duced, the whole tone of the pupils has changed as a re sult. While, therefore, the integration of Chinese schools into a dual-language system with English has not been opposed, the obligatory use of Malay would have been seen as an attack on the Chi nese community and way of life. Politically, the conse quences would have been disastrous. As. it is, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s prime minister since independence, may have his greatest contri bution to racial harmony in Malaysia by personally devis ing and backing this compro mise. As recently as two years ago, there were no signs of deflection in the policy. The national language and literature agency was not on ly modernizing Malay — in venting Malay words for all the thousands of technical and modern terms for which there were no Malay equi valents — but was also run ning national language weeks, which were expanded into national language months. During these pe riods, everyone in govern ment was supposed to com municate only in Malay. As a result, little work was done. Singapore’s premiere, Le Kuan Yew, who was com mitted to Malay as the na tional language in his over whelmingly Chinese Singa pore, but kept Chinese, Eng lish and Tamil as official languages, was warning that to impose Malay would be seen by the other communi ties as an act of Malay poli tical chauvinism. Even gov ernment ministers spoke of fears of "language riots.” By the end of 1966, the tone was noticeably cooler. Tengku Abdul Rahman publicly stated that English could not be abandoned be cause it was an international language and the adminis tration would run down without it. — Forum World Features Ltd. 1967, Manila Bulletin. September 1967 9 ■ The quality, not the number, of members in the Congress of the Philippines is what is desired. TOO MANY SOLONS! Only 10 per cent of our congressmen do their work. Thus, Judge Jesus P. Morfe of the Manila Court of First Instance bitingly criti cized the congressional pro posal to increase the number of congressmen from 120 to 180. Morfe, who has served in the bench for the last 13 years, said the proposal was not needed, and would sad dle the government with multi-milion peso additional expenses, and enable the con gressmen to perpetuate them selves in power through ger rymandering. "Only a little more or ?f not less than 10 per cent of our congressmen perform constructive legislative work,” the judge said in an inter view. The rest of the solons, he said, "merely vote after horse trading for approval of their pet bills — franchise for an electric plant, or changing a municipality’s name.” The 180-congressman pro posal is one of two questions being submittted to the elec torate for approval in a ple biscite on Nov. 14, coincid ing with the general elec tions. Morfe also assailed the other proposed constitutional amendment which would al low members of Congress to be elected to the 1971 consti tutional convention without forfeiting their congressional seats. The judge said the propo sal was discriminatory, and would enable members of Congress to completely domi nate the constitutional con vention, and again result in unnecessary expenses of pub lic funds. On the proposal for more congressmen, Judge Morfe said that if the amendment is ratified by the people, the 10 Panorama congressional budget will carry an additional outlay for the salaries and allow ances of the new solons, and for the salaries, furniture, office equipment, and sup plies of the requisite person nel of the congressmen. "What assurance do the people have that more con gressmen will mean more quality in our legislation?" asked the judge. Morfe said: "If many of our congress men find their legislative district too big for them to serve efficiently, it is be cause they find it all impor tant for their reelection that they devote most of their time to non-legislative work, such as intervening in secur ing 1 reparations, allocations, intervening in such purely executive functions as the ap pointment or promotion of personnel in our civil service, putting ’ pressure on execu tives of private enterprises or industrialists towards the em ployment by them of con gressmen’s constituents, going to the extent of emasculating the rule of law by exerting pressure on internal revenue, customs, and law enforce ment officials to favor their constituents.” The second proposed amendment, the outspoken judge said, is clearly discri minatory since, justices and judges and executive officials are prohibited from becom ing convention delegates un less they forfeit their present positions. It is not true as claimed in some quarters, Morfe said, that the proposal would only extend to members of Con gress the same privilege given to other government officials to run for delegates of the constitutional c o n v e ntion without losing their present posts. He cited Section 2, Article II of the Constitution which provides that members of the judiciary and officials of the executive department cannot take part in any election ex cept to vote. This constitutional provi sion prevails over a congres sional resolution making the position of convention dele gate compatible with any other government post, Mor fe said. Since the present members of Congress have their own political machinery in September 1967 11 the provinces, the judge said the likelihood is that they would all be elected to the convention, should the pro posed amendment be ap proved. Thus, he said, the calling of such constitutional con vention would be a "pure waste of multi-million pesos of public funds.” Congress might as well approve the necessary constitutional amendments by resolution of both houses, thereby obviat ing the necessity of a con vention for the same pur pose, the judge pointed out. — Vic Foz in Manila Times, Sept. 27, 1967. WHAT MAKES A CITY Population, industry, commerce, and agriculture must reach a high stage of development and pro duction at and around a community to make it a city. The modern city is a complicated affair. At times it is “a large body of people living in a re latively small area.” A comprehensive definition of the modern city must indicate that it is a social, political, legal and economic unit all rolled into one. It is a concentrated body of population possessing some significant social characteristics, chartered as a municipal corporation, having its own system of local government carrying on multifarious economic enter prises and pursuing an elaborate program of social adjustment and amelioration. — By Prof. William B. Munro, article on City, 3 Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Macmillan, N.Y.) 12 Panorama ■ A good college graduate should be loyal to his alma mater; and the reasons are given by a great American jurist and leader in this article. ANATOMY of an alumnus What is it that binds us so closely to our alma mater? Why do we respond so warm ly? Why do we do so much in a myriad of ways to de monstrate our love for the institution that brought us to maturity and helped us to develop our latent talents and capacities and our sense of human values, to appre ciate the beauties and the harmonies of art and litera ture, and to strengthen and broaden our intellectual fa culties? I respectfully sub mit that there are three rea sons for this. Doubtless there are others, but I stress these three above all others. I shall discuss them in what I think is the inverse order of their importance, but I real ize others may have different views on the subject. First, there is the psycholo gical urge to be identified as a member of the group, the notion of “belonging.” This enhances one’s indivi dual ego and produces a per fectly human feeling of plea sure and security. People like to get on the band wa gon if given a reasonable op portunity to do so. It is the opposite of a feeling that one is on the outside, more or less regarded as different from the others. Class spirit and class unity inevitably foster this idea of “belong ing.” After the lapse of a few years not a single mem ber of the class thinks he is being left out in the cold. Second, there is that spark of fire between the teacher and the pupil, between the institution of learning and the student, that continues with us through life and ne ver ceases to engender a re ciprocal feeling of warmth and affection and gratitude. As the ripples go out endless ly when one throws a pebble into a pond, the effect goes on and on until we join our loved ones in the great be September 1967 13 yond. Some of us may per versely seek to extinguish this spark of fire, while others nurse and foster it with loving care; but, in either event, and no matter what may happen to us, the spark is never extinguished. This I submit is also a ba sic psychological fact. The third reason is not so widely understood. I shall try to work around to it on the bias, my favorite ap proach. When I was a boy at prep school I simply could not understand why Cicero kept harping on his desire to establish a reputation that would continue down through the ages. Most of the other Greek and Latin authors we studied seemed to be obsessed with the same idea. As I grew older it sud denly dajvned on me that, in varying degrees according to their circumstances, prac tically everyone has an itch ing for fame. People do all sorts of things that can be designed for no other pur pose than to perpetuate their memory, as far as they can. But, when you stop to think about it, where is one to find the lasting, solid quality of permanency in this best of all possible worlds, as Vol taire used to call it. Build ings of great beauty, temples, churches and what not, are constructed, but as the years roll by they are tom down and replaced by others. Think of the millions of books that were thought to bring imperishable glory to their authors, but now lie buried away in some library and forgotten or wholly des troyed and lost in oblivion. A person does not have to be so very bright to realize that nothing he can do will be sure to construct an image of himself that will be per ceptible to anyone in another fifty or one hundred years. Yes, the deeds of men and women as well as those of their friends and relatives and all that is dear to them will pass into the mist and be no more, as Horace so often reminds us. But the college or university stands out as almost the only really solid, permanent fact. It is something we can cling to throughout life, and thus be come a part of its very per manency and stability through the ages. We may leave our mark upon it, per haps our very name, in a 14 Panorama more or less conspicuous way. Even the annals of the col lege or the university and its archives with their refe rences to the records of the students and the benefactions of the alumni run back to the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, as the lawyers say. So I think it is the most natural and the most human thing in the world for our alumnus to act as he does. And as he comes back to warm himself in the sun of the campus and opens his coffers and bestows of his substance to the various drives for Annual Giving and for the Capital Needs of his alma mater, and for the es tablishment of professorships and scholarships and what not else, we may rest assured that he is well repaid not only in the happiness he en joys with his classmates and with the alumni of other classes, but also by the satis faction one always feels in responding to an inner urge and a subconscious motiva tion. — Judge Harold R. Me dina of U.S.A., from Ameri can Alumni Council, Leaflet No. 12. IMPROPER PROPOSALS One beautiful evening, a young man who was very shy was carried away by the magic of the night. “Darling,” he asked, “will you marry me?” “Yes, Bill,” she answered softly. Then he lapsed into a silence that at last became painful to her. "Bill,” she said with a note of doubt in her voice, why don’t you say something?” “I think,” replied Bill, “that I’ve said too much already.” — Alan Swerth. September 1967 15 ■ Complaints have been aired against higher tui tion fees of Private Universities when these are said to be highly profitable to their owners. NEEDED RESTRAINT ON PROFIT SCHOOLS A lot has been written about private schools raising their tuition fees. To begin with we must say that it would be a great mistake to lump all private schools un der one category. We must distinguish between the schools that are non-stock and non-profit from those that declare fat dividends and whose main reason for being is profits. When we were Secretary of Education we were never strict in so far as the rion-stock and non profit schools are concerned. Thepe schools are doing the country a great service, and if they were to cease opera tion it would be no exagge ration to say that our entire educational system — parti cularly on the secondary and collegiate level — would suf fer a blow from which they would never recover. These institutions need all the help they can from the adminis tration. It is unfair to accuse them of profiteering. Yet this is exactly what is hap pening today. Instead of acknowledging the great ser vice that they are doing for the cause of education, they are being branded as pro fiteers. The Admin is tration should get tough with the schools that have been estab lished for profits. They should pass a law to limit the dividends of these insti tutions. It is very difficult to establish an educational institution for profit, and still maintain standards, al though we must admit that some universities have suc ceeded in doing both fairly well. The best example is the University of the .East But this is not an easy task. Why? Because what makes a good educational institu tion and what makes a good business are two entirely op posite factors. It is the large per capita investment per student that is the founda tion of a good college and 16 Panorama university. Investments in a good faculty and educational facilities. A good business, on the other hand, is where you invest little and derive a large profit. The only way to classify private schools is to separate the profit ones from the non profit ones. The non-profit schools should be given a free hand — so long as they follow the rules and regula tions that the government should clamp down on. The University of the Phil ippines, for instance, spends P2,200 a year per student. This is double the tuition of the Ateneo and La Salle, which is only Pl, 100 per an num. The Department of Education is always talking about standards. Yet, it ob viously expects these institute$ of higher learning to maintain ' their high stand ards of excellence at half of what it cost the U.P. If we want to have a high standard of education, we must be willing and ready to pay the price for it. It is the job the Department of Education to educate the public on the facts of the high cost of education. We maintain that it is unfair to accuse non-profit schools of profiteering. These schools should be helped — not con demned. As for the commer cial schools, it is about time that steps were taken so that they would be things of the past. Education costs money. This week’s issue of Time is about the spiralling cost of education. What is true in the United States is also true here. There is no such thing as a bargain basement when it comes to education. If the non-profit schools find it ne cessary to raise their tuition in order to maintain their standards, they should be allowed to do so. The De partment of Education should concern itself with standards — not fees. Clamp down on profit schools, and help the non-profit ones. That should be the policy. — Alejandro R. Roces, Manila Chronicle, June 27, 1967 September 1967 • 17 ■ A dangerous form of nepotism in the upper brackets threatens to undermine the feeble foundations of Philippine democracy. PHILIPPINE POLITICAL DYNASTIES A new twist in the dynasty trend in Philippine politics is in the offing. Witness for instance the following cases: In San Juan, while Mayor Nicanor C. Ibuna is running for reelection as the NP of ficial candidate, his son, Ro dolfo has been nominated to the 8-man NP council. In Caloocan City, Mayor Macario Asistib is the NP official candidate while his son, Macario "Boy” Asistio, Jr. is eyeing a seat in the municipal council, Since the father is the head of the lo cal NP chapter, the selection of the young Asistio to the slate is certain. In Pasay City, Mayor Pablo Cuneta is the LP of ficial candidate. His son, who was earlier being boost ed to run for vice mayor un der the ticket of his father, is reportedly seeking a seat in the LP council slate in stead. Ordinarily, in various parts of the country, the husbandand-wife team has been the vogue, as in the following instances: In Ilocos Sur, while Rep. Floro Crisologo (N-Ilocos Sur), is the congressman of the province’s first district, his wife, Mrs. Carmen “Car meling” Crisologo, is the gov ernor. In Cagayan, while Rep. Tito Dupaya (N-Cagayan) is the congressman in the first district, his wife, Mrs. Teresa Dupaya, is the governor of the province. In Pampanga, while Fran cisco Nepomuceno is the gov ernor of the province, his wife, Mrs. Juanita Nepomu ceno, is also the congresswo man of the first district. The same thing prevails in Albay, where Venacio Ziga is the congressman of the second district, and his wife, Mrs. Tecla San Andres Ziga, is a senator. 18 Panorama In La Union, it is the other way around because Mrs. Magnolia Antonino is the congresswoman for the first district, while her hus band, Gaudencio Antonino, is a member of the senate. Another husband-and-wife team also exists in Cebu un der a different setup. Rep. Ramon Durano (N-Cebu) is one of the seven representa tives of the province, while his wife is the mayor of Danao City. While the husband-andwife team has been existing already for sometime, the father-and-son team will be put to a test as far as local politics is concerned. There existed sometime ago, however, a father-andson team, but under a new setup. This existed in this premiere province when the late Sen. Eulogio Rodriguez Sr., was senator and his son, the late Rep. Eulogio Rodriguez, Jr., was congressman of the second district. Later, while the late sen ator was still a member of the senate, another son, Isi dro S. Rodriguez, became governor of the province and is still the incumbent head of Rizal. — Salvador Elizalde, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 5, 1967. September 1967 19 ■ A different sort of senate was suggested by a Fili pino leader of past days before the Filipino peo ple have had any experience in self-government. MABINI'S IDEA OF A SENATE If President Marcos is cor rect in his campaign belief that we can be “great again” — a piece of rhetoric which, incidentally, he has never ex plained satisfactorily — we should probably look back to the time when we were first great. And that can only be when Filipinos had cour age and patriotism and self sacrifice to spare, (for that is the only greatness that counts) the time of the Phil ippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War and the decades immediately pre ceding and following them. This year’s senatorial elec tions make a good jumpingoff point for this kind of perspective. What was the 1898 view of a Philippine Senate? In the “Constitu tional Program” drafted by Mabini for the First Philip pine Republic there looms a characteristic virtuous and intellectual mood that seems, in retrospect, passionately a political and contemptuous of most of the values that we now hold to be important. At the same time, it is, oddly enough, not without some similarities to our own view of the exalted position of the Senate, that institution being one of the few which we have managed to keep fairly intact. To begin with, one must remember that Mabini’s con stitution was largely original, almost completely underived and uninfluenced by Ameri can, British and French do cuments, and in that sense, indigenous and very much rooted in his times. It was a democratic breakthrough, for an ex-colony, its popu lism diluted only by the exigencies of the existing state of war. It was also an exposition of aristocracy: ta lent, “honest work” and pa triotic service counted more 20 Panorama than all other considerations. It was meant to instruct as well as reflect and was, per haps deliberately, more hightoned than many of the peo ple it sought to encompass. Mabini called the Senate "un cuerpo respetabilisimo”, a superlative body, to be composed of persons who had “distinguished themselves by their honesty and their vast knowledge’ of art, science and industry and had become the elite of society, not by wealth or by position, but by “talent joined with honest work.” The age requirement was 30 (a point in favor of Gov ernor Aquino of Tarlac who, depending on how you look at it, was born either a few days or 69 years too late). Another requirement was “a fixed income which will en sure a decorous and indepen dent life” (without the need of congressional allowances?). An important after-thought in the same article does away with the specifications in the preceding paragraph: all of them were to be outweighed by the fact of “having ren dered great services to the people.” Generals and admirals in active service would automa tically be senators. So would “the erector of the central university” (the equivalent of the president of the Uni versity of the Philippines) and of the other ‘academies,’ as the heads of unions com posed of professionals (Ma bini called them sindicatos, a term which may have been derived from the French syn dic at, and, in that case, trade unions). An encouragement for Secretary of Labor Espi nosa? The “directors of wel fare agencies that are under the immediate supervision of the central government” (still a good breeding ground for the Senate as the SWA has shown) would also merit seats in the first Philippine Sen ate. Industry and commerce, as in our time, would provide a few more senators. These business organizations, spe cially those devoted to rail ways and other means of communications (nothing new in the idea of infra structure, after all?) were to be allowed to choose one member of the Senate “from their midst.” The other sen ators were to be chosen by September 1967 21 “electors appointed by fa culties from colleges” (A point in favor of Miss He lena Benitez) by electors from business and industrial firms who paid the most taxes and by the top tax payers themselves. The emphasis on taxpay ing and "contributores” who were to elect Congress and the Senate in a classic elec toral system that recalls an cient Greece or Switzerland and is worlds removed from the banal, small-minded at mosphere of our time was probably Mabini’s tribute to the American dictum of “No taxation without representa tion.” The senators of that time were merely to advise Con gress and “the central gov ernment” so that “the actions of both may be accompanied by right and justice” — a real council of elders. They were “to propose to the Pres ident the establishment of re forms and of adequate im provements," always giving the advantage to "talent and inventiveness” but their deci sions were not to bind the President in any manner, ex cept in the sense that "three decisions made at different times on the same matter” would oblige him to submit them to Congress, “in order that this body may decide whether they are to have the force of law.” Where is the purity of yes teryear? But wishful think ing can lead only to the fatal compromises with which, this year, we are all faced. Greatness must indeed be reac quired. — By Carmen Guer rero Nakpil. 22‘ Panorama THE PRESIDENT AND SENATORIAL ROBOTS In the election for seats in the Philippine Senate next November, 1967, each of the two major political parties — The Nacionalista and the Liberal — has 8 candidates. The writer of the following paragraphs is a senatorial candidate of the Liberal Party. In answering the ar guments of President Marcos, he has drawn a clear picture of the party and its candi dates which is worthy of no tice and study at this period of Philippine political his tory when election issues, party affiliations, and the personal qualifications of candidates have become se riously confused. “Each of the 16 candidates of the two major parties in this election constitutes an issue. Each is an individual leader, a responsible official. They are bound by certain party ties, but they are not robots. They share certain views of government, but each view is so colored by a host of other considerations, out of principle or personal interest, that it would be presumptuous for anyone to judge them solely on the ba sis of party label. “If these were all they are — loyal and obedient party men — then there would be no need at all to look into their qualifications. One would simply have to write the party name during the election. There would be no need fo~r any discussion of issue. There would be no need for issues. “But the fact is that each candidate is an issue in him self. And when he presents himself to the electorate, the individual voter must look at the candidate’s record and his qualifacations. September 1967 23 “But President Marcos in sists there is but one issue in this senatorial election -his record as President of the country these last two years. “This is an indecent and dangerous presumption. It ignores the constitutional declaration that Congress is an independent and co-equal body with the office of the President. “What he really wants are eight robots who will jump at his command.” — By Be. nigno S. Aquino, Jr. Extracts from Manila Times, Septem ber 16, 1967. BAR HAZARD People who spend too much time in bars can go blind, a Brazilian ophthalmologist warned. Dr. Hilton Rochan called on police to ban the murky lighting of modern bars and night clubs which he termed “black light.” In recommending it outlawed, Rochan noted the same type of light is used by police for ballistic tests, dnd detection of counterfeit money. “It can bring blindness to those who spend too much time in bars,” he said. — Belo Horizonte. 24 Panorama ■ This enlightening article was written by a famous thinker, writer, and mathematician in 1939 before the last World War, It is still full of valid ideas. Under the criteria it mentions, we might ask: Can the Philippines be a democracy? HOW TO BUILD Consider, at the present day, the governments of Ger many and Denmark. These two countries are neighbors, closely akin in race, religion, and language — yet the one exhibits the extreme of auto cracy and militarism; the other, the extreme of demo cracy and pacifism. This example suffices to dispose of the idea that race, in the biological sense, is any degree relevant to our problem; no one can reasonably suppose that Germans and Danes dif fer appreciably in their con genital cqnstitution. It is as regards history, tradition, and opportunity that they differ. Those are the 'forces that mold national character, and it is through these forces that the humanization of po wer must be effected. Democracy was invented as a means of preventing the arbitrary use of power, but its success, so far, has been strictly limited. It is greatest A DEMOCRACY in the small Germanic coun tries — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Switz erland. Next in order comes the United States, but here the system has failed to secure justice for Negroes and to prevent the illegal employ ment of the police on the side of the rich in labor dis putes. England and France are democracies at home but not in their imperial pos sessions. Germany and Italy have made short and preca rious attempts at democracy, which the bulk of their own populations regarded as un successful. Russia, Asia, and Africa have never, even tem porarily, had democratic forms of government. The nations that are democratic have not always been so. The chief conditions for the success of democracy ap pear to be three: first, an educated population; second, a considerable degree of cul tural homogeneity; third a September 1967 25 greater interest in home af fairs than in relations with foreign countries. As to the first of these con ditions, there is much to be said, but for the moment I shall confine myself to the obvious fact that where a majority cannot read it is im possible that there should be any widespread understand ing of political issues. Cultural homogeneity is a vague phrase, and I will try to replace it by something more precise. What I mean exists, for example, in Switzerland, in spite of differences in race, language and religion. It is a matter of sentiment, generat ed partly by history as taught in schools. A Swiss is a man to whom, from earliest infan cy, William Tell has been a natidnal hero. An American is a man who reveres the Declaration of Independence. An Englishman thinks of the Armada and the Battle of Waterloo. A Frenchman is proud of the Revolution, unless he is a reactionary — in which case he gives his alle giance to Joan of Arc. But in addition to these edu cational myths there is an other very powerful source of homogeneity, namely simi larity in national customs, manners, food, games, and so on. This similarity makes life at home more effortless than life abroad and gives rise to a feeling of safety which makes compatriots seem more virtuous than foreigners. Underlying all this is the instinctive love of home which man shares with other animals. Where there is not cultural homogeneity in this sense, de mocracy, if it is to succeed at all, must be federal. A fe deral system is hardly possi ble unless the various groups are separated geographically. Democracy is a method of adjusting internal conflicts of interest and sentiment and seems unnecessary when a nation is primarily conscious of itself as a unit in conflict with others. France in the French Revolution, Russia in the Russian Revolution, and Germany since Versailles were in this situation; and in France and Germany, if not in Russia, foreign enmity was the chief immediate cause of the suppression of democracy by dictatorships. In war the sense of solidarity is such that a leader who 26 Panorama personifies the nation easily persuades men to allow him dictatorial power, especially if there is a serious risk of defeat. War and the fear of war are at the present time the most serious obstacle to democracy. It is obvious that the class war, where it exists in an acute form, makes the rule of force inevitable, not only because all war has this ten dency but because class war destroys cultural homogeneity. When class war leads to dic tatorship, as it has done in Russia, Italy, and Germany, it establishes the dictators as an oligarchical authority and, by arousing foreign enmity, makes them the representa tives of patriotism. As a method of humanizing po wer, therefore, the class war, in its more violent forms, is inevitably doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the problem of humanizing power cannot be solved unless it can be dealt with in the economic as well as in the political sphere. I do not believe that it will be solved in the eco nomic sphere so long as the solution is represented as solely in the interest of the proletariat, because the in dustrial proletariat, in most countries, is a minority and in all countries is too weak to win without such bitter warfare as must lead to dic tatorship and so to the crea tion of a new privileged class. Given democracy, both economic and political, there will still be much to be done before power is completely humanized. There must be freedom to criticize the au thorities, opportunities for removing tnen in power if they act illegally, a spirit of toleration as between oppos ing groups, and a very wide spread respect for legality. This last must be sufficient ly strong to deter soldiers from following a general if he invites them to overthrow the civil government. Such a state of opinion is not im possible: it has existed in England since 1688 and in America since 1776. I conclude that the hu manizing of power is possi ble on certain conditions. First: there must not exist, within one governmental unit, such implacable hatreds as are apt to be associated with militant differences of nationality, intolerant reli gious disagreements, or vio September 1967 27 lent class war. Second: there must be no imminent risk of serious war; that is to say there must be a federal gov ernment of the world, pos sessed of the sole armed forces beyond such as are genuinely needed for police purposes. Third: economic as well as political power must be democratic, which requires that the main sources of economic power should be controlled by the democratic state. — Bertrand Russell, condensed from Fo rum and Century. EQUITY Perhaps the most significant thing that came out of the selection of the eight Nacionalista senatorial candidates was the canning of the “equity of the incumbent’’ business. Of course, the party moguls influenced the dele gates to the national directorate meeting this way and that, but that was Ohly natural. The point is that the delegates were not coer ced into voting for this or that candidate. They were not bought. They absorbed the pressure of influence coming from highly placed quarters in the N.P., and then in the secret balloting, they made their own choices. Definitely, this was one affair where no one could cry “Fix!” or “I was robbed!” — Manila Bul letin, July 31, 1967. 28 Panorama ■ This paper covers the ideas of Vicente G. Sinco which he expressed in answer to some questions directed to him by professors in a radio interview broadcast in the University of the Philippines in the early part of this month of September. UNIVERSITIES AND OUR SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1. Philippine society is in deed plagued with social and moral ills. They may lead to a moral breakdown. But that castastrophe has not yet taken place as of now. How ever, in the present scene there is clearly perceptible a development towards what I would call a state of moral atrophy. This may be easily observed in the prominence our newspapers and maga zines give to reports on crimes, iinmoralities, revolt ing scandals, and illegal acts daily taking place in differ ent parts of the country. Reports of all sorts of frau dulent and violent practices happening in various social levels not only in connection with political elections but also in the regular govern ment and business activities, in our civil service and pro fessional examinations, and in our police services. Pro mises are made by candidates for public offices without any thought of fulfilling them. Public offices, which are supposed to be in the nature of public trust, are in effect bought and sold through bribery in various forms. Decisions of tribunals are ignored and often disre garded with impunity. A notorious example affecting the higher public positions in this respect was the way three senators continued hold ing their seats in spite of a tribunal’s decision that they had no more right to remain there because they spent for their election campaign amounts in excess of the limits the law prescribes. In difference to the proprieties and decencies of social order is shown by men and women in different spheres of our national life without any feeling of moral discomfort September 1967 29 much less any indication of remorse. A considerable number of Filipinos have ac quired wealth and affluence through the indiscriminate exploitation of our forests and natural resources and through abuse or misuse of political positions which they employ for personal glory and material gain. 2. In my opinion, the role that universities should play towards the solution of so cial problems is to revitalize its traditional function as the principal organ in the development of higher edu cation and brain power of men and women who are to plan and operate the insti tutions of society. Concrete ly expressed, universities should religiouly set high standards' of work, of scho larship, of performance in their educational and acade mic tasks assigned to students and instructors. Then with these standards for superior conduct and performance, universities should never tire in insisting that their consti tuencies, from their head to their most humble teacher and student, strive as much as possible to understand and appreciate these standards and to observe them reason ably, faithfully, and consist ently in actual work and life. The idea should be fixed permanently in the student’s mind that being a student is an occupation, a job, the job of studying and learning. 3. The stated aims and goals in the curriculum of ferings of a university do not have to be reoriented because real universities in modern countries have common aims and goals. These are primarily the improvement of the mental, moral, and emotional capacities that should trans form the individual into a responsible and productive member of the community. It has been stated time and again, with great pride and self-praise, that our uni versities have for their aim, among others, the develop ment of leaders. But be tween this claim and the realities with which we should measure university products or alumni, it is quite doubtful if this claim could be validly supported in many instances. The uni versities in this country can not disclaim responsibility for the disgusting social, moral, and political decline of our 30 Panorama national life. We cannot offer convincing proofs that the Philippines today under our new generation of lea ders produced by our uni versities is a much better country, socially, morally, and culturally, than what it was in the past when the country was under the in fluence of the generation of such leaders as Sergio Os mena, Manuel Quezon, Juan Sumulong, Rafael Palma, Claro M. Recto, and other prominent men of yesteryear. Let us bear in mind that in the last 20 years the new generation of leaders, who are the more recent products of our universities, have come to hold the higher po sitions of the government and to direct the political and'social courses the nation has been following. Many observers are of the opinion that they are primarily con cerned about building an impressive public image of themselves but that their re cord leaves much to be de sired. The depressed social conditions of the country to day are the result of inade quate, selfish, and insincere leadership. Dependable and independent observers of the performance of the present men and women in the higher political, economic, and social positions are con vinced that the efforts this new generation of leaders have been exerting are al most wholly directed towards the acquisition of personal political power or economic influence. Their purpose in most cases is that of enrich ing themselves rather than of advancing the general wel fare. The ideas and the lives of Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar have ceased to serve as guiding influences in their conduct and their decisions. It has to be admitted, how ever, that the physical as pects of some of our cities now present a more attrac tive outward appearance than what they were 30 or more years ago. But in gen eral our intellectual, educa tional, moral, and spiritual modes of living and attitudes have gone down in quality. This is why we have this frustrating feeling that the country has been facing a social crisis and a moral breakdown. We have to face the fact that the new genera tion of Filipino leaders, gen erally those under 60 years September 1967 31 of age, have yet to show that they have the qualifications to run honestly and effi ciently a modern, and pro gressive democracy. 4. In my opinion there are two possible loopholes jn our university education that need to be plugged up to make university education more directly pertinent and broadly significant to the na tion’s program and actual work for social improvement. One of these consists in a stronger emphasis on a wellplanned general or liberal education which should be required of every person who enrolls in the university for any academic degree and for any professional course. The other is the adoption of firm standards of conduct and worljL and an insistence that they be used to measure per formance. The program of general education is an essential fac tor for a thorough under standing and appreciation of moral and intellectual stand ards. Without these we can hardly expect our nation to rise above the present threat of social decadence; and with out these, we can hardly dev elop a more human attitude in our social or individual relations. To carry out this program effectively at least two factors are needed: The first is a high degree of con centration on liberal studies such as what is done in su perior types of universities, as Harvard, Chicago, and other strong centers of higher education in America where the administration or the operation of schools or courses for general education is made obligatory on their students and is placed under a separate organization, which at times bear the title of basic or university college. The second is a systematic practice of demanding from students that every one of them do their work to the highest degree of which they are capable. This does not mean that a single and uniform standard of excel lence be required of every student and in every subject of study. We should face the fact that students differ in intellectual abilities; some of them have much higher ta lents than others for certaip studies and some have stronger interests in certain disciplines than others. The important thing is that every one should perform his work to the highest degree he is capable. 32 Panorama 5. As to what specific sub jects should be taken to help strengthen the moral and spiritual stamina of our stu dents in order to enable them to arrest the decline of the social order of our coun try and the deterioration of our moral conditions, I want to say the following: Social problems involve difficult and complex questions. Ob viously, to tackle them suc cessfully group action is ne cessary; but the kind, the quality, and the strength of group action depend upon the quality of the individual. Hence, in the final analysis the individual is the deter mining factor. To a certain extent the environment in fluences the individual; but at the same time the indivi dual has also the power to change the environment to an appreciable degree. The problems of poverty, ignorance, crime, disease, and other social infirmi ties that plague our people are not necessarily insur mountable if properly ap proached and understood. They are at bottom problems of values — intellectual, mo ral, and esthetic values. A study of the natural sciences can help develop an appre ciation of these values to some extent. But in their plenitude and depth, values could be acquired, imbibed, and retained by the students in a fuller measure through the studies of humanities, which cover literature, philo sophy, religion, and the arts. Social problems are pro blems that confront man as a human being, not as a mere element of the natural envi ronment. They are problems that disturb man as a cons cious personality bound by obligations and feelings of relationship with his fellow men. They could be best understood, faced, and solved with courage by men and women who are imbued with a deep comprehension of hu man values and their im measurable worth. These qualities alone can stir a genuine sense of obligation in a person, that human feel ing or impulse which the average Filipino unfortunate ly has yet to develop deeply, to obey implicitly, and to keep as a precious and per manent gift for the good of the individual and the na tion. With it the products of universities could be ex pected to run down, expose, and condemn the liar, the September 1967 33 turncoat, the robber, the fraud, the smuggler, the hy pocrite, the sciolist, and all the other vicious elements that hate irifested our poor country. This — the develop ment of a strong sense of personal and social responsi bility — is an indispensable aim of a university if it is to act as the conscience of the nation. — V. G. Sinco. PARTIES AND POLITICS I must repeat again my conviction that parties are useful, effective, and altogether indispensable instruments of constitutional democracy. A country like the United States, Great Britain, or Sweden might wish or even choose to swap one kind of party system for another, but it could never wish or choose, not while it remained a constitutional democracy, to proceed on its way with no party system at all. The essence of democracy is politics, and politics withiout parties in a widespread and diverse community is really no politics at all. — By Clinton Rossiter in Parties and Politics in America. 34 Panorama ■ The independence of the courts does not mean that they should be free from criticism. The fol lowing is a unique and courageous stand on the subject. CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE SUPREME COURT A middle-aged practicing lawyer, in renouncing his license to practice law as a protest against what he con sidered a grave injustice com mitted by the Supreme Court against his client, accused the high tribunal of offenses so serious that the Court must clear itself. In a written petition to the court, Vicente Raul Almacen of Iloilo, a senior partner in the law firm of Villareal, Almacen, Navarra & Amores, stated: “. . . our own' Supreme Court is com posed of men who are cal loused to our pleas for jus tice, who ignore thdir own applicable decisions and com mit culpable violations of the Constitution with impunity.” Lawyer Almacen was pro voked into his outburst by what he called “short-cut justice” administered by the high court. He had lost an appeal before the Court of Appeals on a technicality; his motion for reconsidera tion of a lower court decision ordering his client to^ay Pl20,000.00 failed to include a notice of hearing. Almacen argued that the omission had caused no harm, that the op posing lawyer was duly noti fied. Almacen appealed the case to the Supreme Court which, in its resolution of denial, gave no reason whatsoever. He filed a motion for recon sideration. It was again de nied without explanation. He filed a motion for reconof court to submit a second motion for reconsideration which the high court again denied. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Almacen. Supreme Court justices are subject to impeachment. Sec tion 1, Article IX of the Constitution states: "The President, the Vice President, September 1967 35 the Justices of the Supreme Court and the Auditor Gen eral shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, or other high crimes.” Almacen has charged the high tribunal with “culpable violations of the Constitution.” His charge is one of the constitutional bau& for impeachment. The Supreme Court cannot let his charge pass without challeng ing its veracity. Perhaps, Almacen had in mind Section 12, Article VIII of the Constitution which states: “No decision shall be rendered by any court of rec o r d without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.’ Is a reso lution denying a petition a decision? Evidently the Sup reme Court does not think so. Maybe a resolution is a routine action that does not deserve to be classified as a decision and, therefore, needs no elaborate reasoning. Perhaps, also, the Supreme Court had in mind the rule that any decision rendered by the Court of Appeals on a case involving only ques tions of facts is final. If this is the case, the Supreme Court need not explain it to a lawyer. A lawyer is pre sumed to know so elemen tary a rule. Yet, what would it cost the high tribunal to state in its resolution that the denial is based on the law defining the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction? It is evidently the think ing of the . framers of the Constitution that in the ad ministration of justice in a free society there is no room for summary and arbitrary action. The power of the courts is perhaps the highest in the state in the sense that it includes the authority to deprive a person of life, liberty and property. Pre cisely because this power is the ultimate, it may not be exercised without due process of law. Does the arbitrary denial of a petition satisfy the requirement of due process? There is no appeal from a decision of the Supreme Court except by petitioning it for reconsideration. If the original decision is rendered by the high tribunal itself it is understood that it has com plied with the constitutional requirement that the facts 36 Panorama and the law on which the decision was based should be expressed. But where the de cision appealed is from the lower courts, it should not be amiss for the Supreme Court to explain the basis of its action, even if it is a mere denial to review the case. This procedure would seem to be more in conformity with the constitutional re quirement. Almost at the same time, the newspapers reported that the Supreme Court also dis missed the appeal of the three senators convicted by the Senate Electoral Tri bunal of election overspend ing in a resolution without explanation. The reason could be lack of jurisdiction or the principle of the sepa ration of powers or the fact that three Supreme Court justices had voted for con viction. But whatever be the reason, there is no deny ing that the senators concern ed would have been less un happy if there had been even the briefest of explanations. As the court’s decision was also precedent-setting, Jt would have been better#-all around if its basis in law had been expressed. Be this as it may, the charge of “culpable viola tions of the Constitution” should be nailed down and exposed as empty — if it is in fact empty. — Vicente Al bano Pads, Manila Chroni cle, Sept. 1967. September 1967 37 ■ New ideas on education and the instruction of the young have been receiving a great deal of atten tion in Europe and in the U.S.A. Filipino educators need to be aware of them. JEAN PIAGET: NOTES ON LEARNING The man behind the ideas of many of the plans and programs to improve the cur ricula in the schools is not an educator. Jean Piaget is the s ev e n t y-one-year-o 1 d French-speaking Swiss direc tor of the Jean Jacques Rous seau Institute in Geneva, the founding director of the In ternational Center for Gene tic Epistemology, director of the International Bureau of Education, and professor of child psychology and of the history of scientific thought at the University of Geneva. Some psychologists are con vinced that his work might become as influential as Freud’s. Some educators are fearful that this may be true. In March, Piaget came to U.S.A, to deliver three lec tures on the nature and nur ture of intelligence and on related matters in science, psychology, and education. He spoke at New York Uni versity and addressed the convention of the American Orthopsychiatric Association in Washington. It has been said of Piaget that he is by vocation a socio logist, by avocation an epistemologist, and by method a logician. He tells his listen ers and readers that he is not an educator, that he is a psy chologist with an interdis ciplinary bent, that he is an investigator using the tools of the related fields of bio logy, psychology, and logic to explore the genesis of intel ligence in the human young. All his long life he has drawn upon these three fields to conduct research and to build his theories of the develop ment of intelligence in child, ren. For Piaget, the crucial question in the study of the growing child is how he ad justs himself to the world in which he lives. And for Pia get there is nothing pejora tive in the word adjustment. It involves backing and fill ing, winning and losing, un 38 Panorama demanding and gaining knowledge. As he expresses it: “Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an ob ject, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy, or image, of it. To know an object is to act on it. To know is to mo dify, to transform the object, and to understand the pro cess of this transformation, and as a consequence to un derstand the way the object is constructed. An operation is thus the essence of know ledge.” This is the voice of the epistemologist, but it speaks from the soul of the teacher. Piaget’s techniques for ob serving, recording, and un derstanding the way a child things is quite literally to get inside of' the child’s mind and see the world through the child’s eyes. One of his notable experiments, for example, was to join in a child’s game as an equal. He would “learn how to make a good shot at marbles, how to make bad ones, and even how to cheat.” Piaget sees four major stages of growth through childhood: the first is the sensory-motor stage, which lasts from birth to about two years. Here the child learns muscles and senses and dev elops certain habits for deal ing with external objects and events. Language begins to gain form. He can deal with and know that things exist even when they are beyond his sight or touch. He be gins to “symbolize,” to repre sent things by word or ges ture. The second stage is the preoperational or representa tional stage. It begins with the beginning of organized language and continues to about the age of six. This is the period of greatest lan guage growth and through the use of word and other symbols the child can repre sent the outside world and his own inner world of feel ing. It is a period when ma gical explanations make sense, when “God pushes the sun around” and stars must go to bed when he does. The child begins to gain a sense of symmetry, depends on trial and error adjustments, and manages things by a kind of intuitive regulation. The third stage, between seven and eleven years, is September 1967 39 one in which the child ac quires the ability to carry out what Piaget calls concrete operations. He can move things around, make them fit properly. He acquires fine motor skills and can or ganize what he has and knows how to solve physical problems. The fourth stage is one of formal operations and pre pares the way for adult thinking. It usually begins between twelve and fifteen years and involves the dev elopment of ‘‘hypothetical reasoning based upon a logic of all possible combinations and to perform controlled experimentation.” In successive studies Pia get and his associates have explored the growth of in telligence, the development of mora'l awareness, the child’s concept of physical reality, and the elaboration of appropriate logic to deal with complex nonrepresentational problems. Although The Language and Thought of the Child was published in English in 1926, it was not until the early 1950s that Piaget’s ideas made any significant impact in the United States. Professor Jerome S. Bruner of Harvard is probably res ponsible for the current public awareness, which can be traced to his important little book The Process of Education (1960), and his most recent book, Toward a Theory of Instruction (1966). Bruner describes Piaget as “unquestionably, the most impressive figure in the field of cognitive development.” Piaget, he says “is often in terpreted in the wrong way by those who think that his principal mission is psycho logical. It is not . . . What he has done is to write the implicit logical theory on which the child proceeds in dealing with intellectual tasks.” Some of Piagets Ideas 1. “If we accept the fact that there are stages of dev elopment, another question arises, which I call 'the Am erican question,’ and I’m asked it every time I come here: If there are stages that children reach at given norms of ages, can we accelerate these stages? Do we have to go through each one of these stages, or can’t we speed it up a bit? Well, surely, the answer is yes ... . but how 40 Panorama far can we speed them up? “A few years ago (Jerome S.) Bruner made a claim which has always astounded me; namely, that you can teach anything in an intel lectually honest way to any child of any age if you go about it the right way. Well, 1 don’t know if he still be lieves that. But I have a hypothesis that I am so far incapable of proving: Pro bably the organization of operations has an optimal time . For example, we know that it takes nine to twelve month before babies develop the notion that an object is still there even when a screen is placed in front of it. Now kittens go through the same stages as children, all the same sub-stages, but they do it in three months — so they’re six months ahead of babies. Is this an advantage or isn’t it? We can certainly see our answer in one sense. The kitten is not going to go much fur ther. The child has taken longer, but he is capable of going further, so it seems to me that the nine months probably were not for nothing. “It’s problably possible to accelerate, but maximal acce leration is not desirable. There seems to be an opti mal time. What this opti mal time is will surely de pend upon each individual and on the subject matter. We still need a great deal of research to know what the optimal time would be.” 2. “Should schools attempt to create individuals who are capable of understanding everything that has been done in the history of ideas, and capable of repeating all this history, or should they focus on forming individuals who are capable of inventing, of finding new things in all areas: in modest technical inventions, or in more highly developed scientific inven tions — that is, people who are capable of going beyond the present and previous generations? This gives us the alternative between two types of pedagogy, one in which the child is receptive, the other in which he is active — education which sti mulates the activities of the child in the area of his in ventiveness.” 3. “Intelligence is born of action. Any act of intelli gence — whether it be on the part of a man involved in September 1967 41 scientific research, or of any normal adult in his everyday problem-solving, or the child of seven and eight — any act of intelligence consists of operations, carrying out ope rations, and coordinating them among themselves.” 4. “Even in order to un dersand we have to invent, or, that is, to reinvent, be cause we can’t start from the beginning again. But I would say that anything is only understood to the ex tent that it is reinvented.” 5. “Each of the stages (of learning) is essential for the development of the follow ing stages. This isn’t simply a linear order in which you could jump over one stage and still get to the next one. Each stage integrates the pre ceding stage and prepares the way for the following one.” — By Frank G. Jennings, Ex tracts from Saturday Review, May 20, 1967. 42 Panorama ■ An interesting and highly informative paper on the status of the salaried man in Japan and the effects on the social changes taking place in that country. THE SALARIED There is a species of ani mal which seems to think alike all over the world, ir respective of an immense diversity in environment. It is called the salaried man. Since I have occupied va rious positions in three coun tries — Japan, Australia and the United States — I believe I have some qualifications for making such a statement. When I was in a bar in Washington or Melbourne, I often thought I was back in Tokyo as my colleagues held forth, at great length, on the boss’s lack of brain power. (Strange to say, a boss is an idiot in every country.) And recently, I head a. section head in an American office in Tokyo reproaching female secretaries for their irregular attendance and for indulging in idle chatter during work ing hours. They obeyed his instruction for two weeks, but by the third week they had returned to their former ways. I have often seen Jap anese secretaries display the MAN IN JAPAN same tactics: when a thun derstorm comes, don’t move, keep quiet for a while, and let it pass. Salaried people of any race have the same instinct. The most impor tant topic of office conversa tion everywhere is promotion or demotion. There are differences, how ever, between salaried people in Japan and those in other countries. They spring main ly from a different historical and social background. First comes their relation with their employer. Japanese salaried people usually stay at one company for their en tire working life. In Japan it is still thought to be a vice to change one’s em ployer, although the concept is now rapidly changing, tie cause of the post-war econo mic and social revolution. When I was with the Cen tral Bank of Japan, then re garded as one of the most conservative organizations in the country, my colleagues September 1967 43 used to tell me with a tone of self-pity that the bank was like a lukewarm bath: if one stayed in it, one would never feel comfortable, but if one dared to emerge from it a cold would surely ensue! This is the wisdom of life challenged and proved by the sad experiences of many daring Japanese. In fact, if a Japanese moves to another company, he will lose, first of all, seniority. He may get a higher salary, but his in tangible prestige and status at the second company will be seriously handicapped, be cause he is a newcomer. He must wait several years, or indefinitely in most cases, be fore he is treated on the same footing as colleagues with a greater length of service. It is still a. basic practice in most Japanese offices for salary, promotion, retirement allowance and various fringe benefits to be determined by length of service. This discourages mobility of la bour and inevitably streng then the sense of dependence on the employer. Many Jap anese salaried people live in company-owned houses or flats at a nominal rent. (In big cities where the hous ing shortage is acute, and rent is exhorbitant, this is a great benefit.) All or part of their fares to and from work is paid by the company. They can make purchases at a discount at a company store. The company serves luncheon in its dining room, and provides free sporting or recreation facilities. Flower arrangement, calligraphy, for eign languages and other arts are taught by companypaid teachers. Once or twice a year, the staff members of a department or a section enjoy a week-end sight-seeing trip, staying at a club-house owned by die company or at an inn specially reserved by it. Senior offices play golf at clubs where the company has corporate membership and dine with customers at luxurious restaurants where the bill is picked up by the company. When a young man and woman marry, he or she will ask a boss of the company to act in a nominal capacity as a marriage gobetween. (The role is very similar to that of godfather in a Western country.) When a Japanese man reaches retirement age, usual ly fifty-five, the company, if 44 Panorama it has an affiliated company, will find him a job in it where he can stay for several years, though on a lower sa lary, until replaced by some body else from the parent company. Thus, the life of Japanese salaried people can not be separated from the company, and this explains why human relations in a Japanese office are very sub tle and intricate. “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” is an accepted philoso phy. On the other hand, compe tition, the struggle for power, is severe, as the arena is con fined. Personal ties form the most effective weapons. Fac tions exist in perhaps every company in Japan: graduates from the same university, people frdm the same district and so on. When I was a youthful officer in one com pany, I once visited a senior officer at his home on a per sonal matter; some months later, I found to my great surprise that his opponents suspected me of belonging to his faction merely because of that one personal visit. Japanese salaried people spend a great part of their lives in this sort of office at mosphere. When, however, they leave their ultra-modern offices for the sanctuary of their homes they encounter some thing different. The Japan ese family, once the citadel of the traditional system, is now quickly changing its character. A family consist ing of grandparents, parents and five or six children is no longer prevalent, and an average family is now com posed of parents and one or two children. The birth rate in Japan fell from the high est level to the lowest in the world during one decade after the war, a change which reflects the growth of indivi dualism. Accompanying the simpli fication of the family struc ture, the status of women, particularly of wives and younger females, has been greatly enhanced. Now a husband, tormented by the office atmosphere during the day, has to contend at home with female and younger members of his family who have absorbed all kinds of free, democratic thinking through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, films or school lectures. Ironically September 1967 45 enough, the products of mass media which are churned out by big companies reflect nothing of the medieval at mosphere in which they are produced. A father can no longer hope to dominate his family as in the old days. Nowadays many husbands and fathers have to work in the kitchen or tend a washing machine at week-ends or take the family out to amusement centres. If they try to tell the family that they have to rest to build up energy for their jobs, they will be talked down very promptly. In fact, Japanese husbands and fa thers themselves are changing their way of thinking. A sample s urvey conducted among 2,300 male workers in Tokyo irl 1961 showed that 57 per cent considered that fenjoying life was more im portant than occupation.. When questioned about their objective in life, 61 per cent chose the happiness of the family, 23 per cent indivi dual pleasure, 7 per cent the wish to make a contribution to society, 6 per cent wealth, and only 1 per cent fame. This emphasis on pleasure and happiness especially of the family, has undoubtedly become more pronounced in the past six years. Before the war, the happiness of the family meant maintaining the order of seniority at home — the prestige of pa rents, and children loyalty to their parents — but it now means enjoyment of life by the whole family. Post-war economic pros perity has greatly improved the living standards of Jap anese salaried people. In 1965, 90.3 per cent of the non-agrarian families owned a television set, 62.4 per cent a refrigerator, 72.7 per cent an electric washer, and 41.4 per cent a vacuum cleaner. The rate of car ownership is also rising, and the English word “leisure” is being na turalized, though it is pro nounced re h jar. Material progress is thus re-modelling the family life of Japanese salaried people, who now spend their time at home in almost the same way as their Western counter parts. They like to watch television. They like to grow flowers in a small garden. They like to chat with friends on harmless subjects. They like to read about 46 Panorama disasters or conflicts (some where else) in newspapers. They like to take the family to holiday resorts from time to time. And yet it is true that Jap anese salaried people live under two sets of different principles: a quasi family system at the office and an individualistic life at home. They are, as it were, amphi bious animals living on land and in water at the same time. But it would be a mistake to think that they can move from one type of life to another without difficulty or pain. There is an undeni able contradiction and it tells on their nerve, even if not all of them are aware of it. You will find a tremendous district of Tokyo and other number of small bars in every Japanese cities and may won der how so many bars can survive. They thrive because it is here that large herds of amphibious animals congre gate nightly to ease their mental tension and enjoy a brief escape from the contra diction in their lives. Since the quasi-family sys tem at the office tends to frustrate a Japanese salaried man’s legitimate ambition, he tends to turn to his fa mily.. and derives increasing satisfaction from pursuing individualistic and material istic pleasure at home. In the long run, however, it is unthinkable that the quasifamily office system can be sustained indefinitely. Recently, I talked with a few top-level businessmen about the future propects of the Japanese economy. There was a striking unanimity of opinion among them. They were all worried whether Japan would be able to maintain its present econo mic progress when indivi dualism expanded among workers. They said: “When the present generation of diligent and obedient workers is replaced by younger indi vidualists, we just don’t know what will happen.” But one thing is clear. Japanese salaried people will, sooner or later, be complete ly domesticised in the West ern way, and it will be very difficult to distinguish them from their counterparts in the rest of the world. — By Sen Matsuda in the Hemi sphere, July 1967 issue. September 19^7 47 CIVIC AND POLITICAL INDIFFERENCE Although the average Filipino rejects political turncoatism as an act that runs against his concept of morality, he, however, does not reject it effectively. He still chooses to vote for the man most likely to win. And it has been proven time and again that a politician, even how famous he may be, is not likely to win if he runs for a high position as an independent candidate. Thus, the Filipino voter is virtually a prisoner of his own narrow political beliefs. On the one hand, he believes that switching parties is immoral. On the other hand, he condones the act on the ground that he wishes to identify himself with the winner. He is a baby as far as the relatively simple act of voting men to public office is concerned. Whe ther he will grow up this time or remain an infant is worth watching. There are good reasons why this particular be havior4 should be watched. The people themselves have been complaining that the same men get elected over and over again. They complain that one set of public officials is as good as another, that electing one party is as good as installing the other, meaning to say that neither has been decisive in giving relief to misery. We say people have no business complaining if they do not act effectively to change the situation they are in. — Apolonio Batalla, Manila Bulletin. 48 Panorama Panorama Reading Association PANORAMA invites the educated public to join its Association of Readers. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION is dedicated to men and women who appreciate the variety and quality of its articles as sources of liberal ideas. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION includes stu dents, businessmen, professionals, proprietors, employers, and employees. It is also open to clubs, schools, and other ac credited organizations. PANORAMA has been in existence for over Thirty Years. PANORAMA piovides excellent material for classes in history, government, economics, political and social studies, lite rature, and science. It may be adopted for secondary and college use. PANORAMA is not a fly-by-night publication. It was bom in March, 1936. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St.. Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents Freedom and Individuality ........................................................ 1 The President's Bugging Office 2 Sergio Osmeha: Rectitude Personified .............................. 4 Too Many Solons! -|Q Anatomy of on Alumnus ............................................................. 13 Needed Restraint on Profit Schools ....................................... 16 Philippine Political Dynasties ................................................... 18 Mabini's Idea of a Senate ................................ 20 The President and Senatorial Robots ...................... 23 How to Build a Democracy .................................................. 25 Universities and Our Social Problems ................................ 29 Critical Remarks on the Supreme Court ........................... 35 Jean Piaget: Notes on Learning ..................................... 3B The Salaried Man in Japan 43 Civic and Political Indifference 48
THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZFNE OF GOOD READING mA {edou PANORAMA needs intelligent renders of: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinions 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist apd the engineer, the executive and the farmer, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. Special rates for new and renewal subscriptions to begin on November 1, 1966: 1 copy ...................................... 1 year ..................................... 2 years .................................... Foreign rate: .......................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon') St.. Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Vol. XIX TNI PNIUPPIM MAGAZINE OF GOOD HADING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 7, 1956 MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 9 FREEDOM AND INDIVIDUALITY *He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. * The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. * Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. * The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual. * The despotism of custom is everywhere the stand ing hindrance to human advancement. * A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another. {Not that Mill was opposed to government aid to education; he believed that education thrived on diversity.') — John Stuart Mill. ■ The President of the Philippines is being accused of violating the right of privacy. THE PRESIDENT'S BUGGING OFFICE President Marcos has re vealed that he has bugged his office and has been able to secure tape-recordings of confidential and compromis ing conversations with vi sitors. The revelation was made in Cebu at a public rally in which he presented the NP candidates for sen ator. We have heard of the Russians bugging American and other embassies in Mos cow for purposes of espio nage, but this is about the first time that the President of a free country has secretly tape-recorded his conversa tions with his visitors. In an official press release of Sept. 3, 1967, the Malacanang press office quoted the President as having said in his Cebu speech: "Don’t you know that ma ny of these supposed candi dates (presumably the LP senatorial candidates) fre quent my office in Malacanang asking for favors from me? I have tape-recordings of each and everyone of them. And if they are in terested to find out what they said, I will give them a copy of the tape-recordings. "Some of them can be a basis for criminal action like attempted bribery. So, if they really want proofs, they should come to me. "There is not a single one of them who has not gone to my office begging for favors. "I have refused them, some of them for appointments for high office. I think you know whom I am talking about. Some of them for concessions, some of them for contracts, the Manila Hotel; some of them for re parations items. "I repeat, if they want to hear the tape-recordings, I will accommodate them." There are several ways of looking at the startling pres 2 Panorama idential revelation From his side, the President deli berately recorded confiden tial conversation with him for his own purpose. Has he gathered evidence against his visitors for purposes of prosecution? Has he record ed their own words that would place them in com promising positions, if re vealed, for political pur poses? On the side of the Pres ident’s visitors, it can be said that the President has betrayed their confidence in him. If they talked to him about confidential matters, it is because they trust him. Now they know that the President has something which, if published, would harm their candidacies. Should they not better with draw before the President feels compelled to reveal their conversations to the public? What do the people think of it all? From now on, the President and his office will assume a sinister aspect as far as they are concerned. People see the President for various reasons, most of which are confidential. Some complain against certain pub lic officials for unfairness, arrogance, inefficiency or ex tortion. Others beg him for favors. Oftentimes they do not wish their names to be revealed for fear of retalia tion and persecution, parti cularly if the officials con cerned are vindictive and powerful. Will the people, after knowing that what they say may be tape-recorded, continue to entrust thenconfidences to the President? Or has Mr. Marcos damaged the public image of the pres idency by his bugging and his revelation? — V. Albano Pads, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 6, 1967. September 1967 3 ■ The superior character of President Osmena has not yet been equalled by his successors in the Philippine Presidency; and it has been responsible for the rise of a united country and people. SERGIO OSMENA: RECTITUDE PERSONIFIED Today is Don Sergio’s na tal day. We would do well, I am sure, to look into his luminous life as we march on toward our rightful des tiny. Don Sergio’s life, both pri vate and public, was some thing beyond reproach, stud ded with so many virtues — like simplicity, humility, greatness of heart, and mnd, incorruptibility, and life long dedication to country and people. Self-ostentation and1 the flare for the drama tics, a common weakness of lesser men, were not for him. A life so assiduously plan ned and lived, none may point an accusing finger at Don Sergio. He was recti tude personified, whether in private or public life. But it is as our people’s bene factor, or, to put it in more precise terms, as public ser vant, which interests us most and which, I believe, should be our special concern to be familiar with as we go about to celebrate his birthday an niversary today. Of all the fine things about Don Sergio, I like to think and remember him most as the patron saint of our national unity. This was the cornerstone of his leader ship and of his entire public career, whether as the na tion’s leader or just as "a soldier in the ranks.” Like Abraham Lincoln, Don Ser gio firmly believed that a house divided against itself cannot and will not stand. In his life, man’s vaulting ambition was always relegat ed to the backseat whenever and wherever national unity was at stake. Times there were and they came one after another when Don Sergio’s devotion to our national unity was severely tested, but, to his unfading 4 Panorama glory, it was never found wanting. Now forgotten or dimmed by time, Don Sergio was our first national leader follow’ing the establishment of Am erica’s regime in our coun try, when as Speaker of the Philippine Assembly we start ed our epochal experiment in self-government. Upon the success of this historic experiment depended the ul timate recognition of our fun damental right to be free and independent. It was Don Sergio who piloted us so capably in establishing our capacity for self-govern ment. In the first Osmena-Quezon break up in 1922 on what proved to be an empty issue of collective leadership against unipersonal leader ship; Don. Sergio flatly reject ed the’ allure of sweet re venge by declining to com bine his forces with Democratas, a combination which might have enabled him to retain the national leader ship or, at least, placed him on a vantage position to ha rass his victorious adversary “The question of leadership,” Don Sergio recalled without any sign of bitterness, “soon became at issue, and the Nacionalista party became di vided into two groups — one known as Nacionalistas and the other as Colectivistas. The elections of 1923 x x x did not give a majority to either group and resulted in the increase in the number of the opposition, the Democrata party, but without giv ing the majority capable of organizing the Assembly. "I had to appeal to the sense of patriotism of my fellow Nacionalistas when the lea der of the other group, Pres ident Quezon, started nego tiations for a coalition with his old colleagues in the Nacionalista party.” Consider ing the strength and promi nence of the protagonists. Osmena and Quezon, as well as their powerful allies, our national unity, Don Sergio’s life-long obsession, would have been dealt with a severe blow if the cleavage between the two leaders had not been healed. Again Quezon broke up with Don Sergio on the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Indepen dence Act which Congress rejected, with Quezon lead ing the forces for its rejec tion, only to accept jjs repro September 1967 5 duction, as was the TydingsMcDuffie Act. Rejection of the one and acceptance of the other but identical bill paved the way, of course, for the relegation of Don Sergio to the background and as sured Quezon’s choice as first President of the Common wealth. Don Sergio’s final act of supreme sacrifice at the altar of national duty took place when, by Constitu tional mandate, he was to take over the Presidency of the Commonwealth from President Quezon whose ten ure of office had expired or was about to expire. In a truly admirable spirit of selfrenunciation, the incoming President took the initiative to extend’ the tenure of the ailing Quezon. "Towards the end of the war,” Don Sergio recalled, "with the expiration of the term of office of President Quezon fast approaching the menace of a new cleavage between the Filipino leaders looked inevitable. But faith ful to the principle of na tional unity which had brought me to public life in 1907 and had guided my po licies and actions during all these years whether I was a b leader of the party or a sol dier in the ranks, I took the initiative of presenting the case to the leaders of the United States Congress, and a true friend of the Filipino people, Senator Millard E. Tydings, came to our rescue, who, upon my petition and with his support, a joint re solution was introduced by him xxx extending, for the duration of the war, the term of office of President Quezon. Filipino unity was again preserved.” And, upon approval of the resolu tion, Don Sergio, without losing time, addresesd him self to our people declaring: “These are critical days for individuals as well as nations. Our sense of responsibility as a people and the strength of our national solidarity have once more been tested. We have again proved our unity.” He could have said with Adlai E. Stevenson: “Let there be no tears for me . . . There are things more pre cious than political victory. For there is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and, to see, we have only to look.” — Vicente L. Pastrana, Philippine He rald. Panorama MALAY LANGUAGE ISSUE Troubles in recent years in Ceylon, India, Belgium and Canada have shown that the right to speak your mother tongue is one for which peo ple are ready to fight. Ta mils in Ceylon, non-Hindu speakers in India, Flemings in Belgium, and French Ca nadians have this urge to protect their language in common. But Ceylon, Bel gium and Canada have had to deal with two languages only; in Malaysia, there are four major languages in Western Malaysia, to say nothing of various Chinese dialects. Clearly, the ques tion of Malay as a single National Language is even more delicate than in the cases mentioned above, three of which produced blood shed. The constitutional date for the introduction of Malay as the single national language in Western Malaysia came on Aug. 31. The National Language Bill, which was passed on March 4, represent a significant concession by Malay leaders to the Chinese and Indian communities, and to those educated in English of whatever community. The Paramount Ruler may allow English for official purposes for as long as is thought fit; the central or any state gov ernment may permit the use of any of the communal lan guages; the courts will use English; acts and ordinances will be in English and Ma lay; and members of parlia ment may be permitted to speak English. Behind this sensible-sound ing compromise lies Tengku Abdul Rahman’s understand ing that to “force things down people’s throats whe ther they like it or not” would have produced com munal strife and administra tive breakdown. Instead, he has chosen "the peaceful way”, despite demonstrations from students at the Muslim September 1967 7 College in Kuala Lumpur (which had to be closed), de monstrations outside t h e Tengku’s house, and charges from the state premier of a Malay state that the compro mise was a betrayal of Ma lay aspirations and govern ment promises. On top of this, the influential director of the national language and literature agency, Syed Nasir, resigned over the bill. The opposition of the Ma lays to what they see as con cessions to English-speakers and the Chinese and Indian communities springs from their uncertain position in what they regard as their own country. Malays are in a bare majority over Chinese and Indians combined in Western Malaysia (in Ma laysia as a whole, Malays are in a> minority compared with all non-Malays). While they are well entrenched in poli tics, civil service, police and the army, the vast bulk of Malays, speak only their own language, are rural and agri cultural, and have a small stake in Malaysia’s commerce, industry and banking. Per haps 80 per cent of Malay sia’s economy is in Chinese hands. In addition, barely a quarter of the students at the University of Malaysia are Malays. This economic backward ness not only produces in security among the Malays; it is seen by them as being a direct result of the old colonial-based education sys tem. English-speaking schools were entirely in the towns; an English education was the key to further education, and as there were few Malays in the towns and no Malay se condary education, the sys tem favored Chinese and In dians. While Malay secon dary and university educa tion has expanded since in dependence, the proportion of Chinese and Indians with good education is still much higher. Malays feel that the use of the National Lan guage would not only indi cate that the country, though multi-racial, was basically Malay, but would iron out some of the glaring economic inequalities which actually harm Malay-Chinese rela tions. Naturally the Chinese com munity, who for over a hun dred years were regarded by the British as temporary in habitants and were allowed 8 Panorama their own customs, schools and teachers, are just as fiercely attached to their language. Chinese-language produced, and still produces, people orientated towards China, not to Malaysia. Po litically, the all-Chinese schools tend to be centres for the spread of communism. Where teaching in English and Chinese has been intro duced, the whole tone of the pupils has changed as a re sult. While, therefore, the integration of Chinese schools into a dual-language system with English has not been opposed, the obligatory use of Malay would have been seen as an attack on the Chi nese community and way of life. Politically, the conse quences would have been disastrous. As. it is, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s prime minister since independence, may have his greatest contri bution to racial harmony in Malaysia by personally devis ing and backing this compro mise. As recently as two years ago, there were no signs of deflection in the policy. The national language and literature agency was not on ly modernizing Malay — in venting Malay words for all the thousands of technical and modern terms for which there were no Malay equi valents — but was also run ning national language weeks, which were expanded into national language months. During these pe riods, everyone in govern ment was supposed to com municate only in Malay. As a result, little work was done. Singapore’s premiere, Le Kuan Yew, who was com mitted to Malay as the na tional language in his over whelmingly Chinese Singa pore, but kept Chinese, Eng lish and Tamil as official languages, was warning that to impose Malay would be seen by the other communi ties as an act of Malay poli tical chauvinism. Even gov ernment ministers spoke of fears of "language riots.” By the end of 1966, the tone was noticeably cooler. Tengku Abdul Rahman publicly stated that English could not be abandoned be cause it was an international language and the adminis tration would run down without it. — Forum World Features Ltd. 1967, Manila Bulletin. September 1967 9 ■ The quality, not the number, of members in the Congress of the Philippines is what is desired. TOO MANY SOLONS! Only 10 per cent of our congressmen do their work. Thus, Judge Jesus P. Morfe of the Manila Court of First Instance bitingly criti cized the congressional pro posal to increase the number of congressmen from 120 to 180. Morfe, who has served in the bench for the last 13 years, said the proposal was not needed, and would sad dle the government with multi-milion peso additional expenses, and enable the con gressmen to perpetuate them selves in power through ger rymandering. "Only a little more or ?f not less than 10 per cent of our congressmen perform constructive legislative work,” the judge said in an inter view. The rest of the solons, he said, "merely vote after horse trading for approval of their pet bills — franchise for an electric plant, or changing a municipality’s name.” The 180-congressman pro posal is one of two questions being submittted to the elec torate for approval in a ple biscite on Nov. 14, coincid ing with the general elec tions. Morfe also assailed the other proposed constitutional amendment which would al low members of Congress to be elected to the 1971 consti tutional convention without forfeiting their congressional seats. The judge said the propo sal was discriminatory, and would enable members of Congress to completely domi nate the constitutional con vention, and again result in unnecessary expenses of pub lic funds. On the proposal for more congressmen, Judge Morfe said that if the amendment is ratified by the people, the 10 Panorama congressional budget will carry an additional outlay for the salaries and allow ances of the new solons, and for the salaries, furniture, office equipment, and sup plies of the requisite person nel of the congressmen. "What assurance do the people have that more con gressmen will mean more quality in our legislation?" asked the judge. Morfe said: "If many of our congress men find their legislative district too big for them to serve efficiently, it is be cause they find it all impor tant for their reelection that they devote most of their time to non-legislative work, such as intervening in secur ing 1 reparations, allocations, intervening in such purely executive functions as the ap pointment or promotion of personnel in our civil service, putting ’ pressure on execu tives of private enterprises or industrialists towards the em ployment by them of con gressmen’s constituents, going to the extent of emasculating the rule of law by exerting pressure on internal revenue, customs, and law enforce ment officials to favor their constituents.” The second proposed amendment, the outspoken judge said, is clearly discri minatory since, justices and judges and executive officials are prohibited from becom ing convention delegates un less they forfeit their present positions. It is not true as claimed in some quarters, Morfe said, that the proposal would only extend to members of Con gress the same privilege given to other government officials to run for delegates of the constitutional c o n v e ntion without losing their present posts. He cited Section 2, Article II of the Constitution which provides that members of the judiciary and officials of the executive department cannot take part in any election ex cept to vote. This constitutional provi sion prevails over a congres sional resolution making the position of convention dele gate compatible with any other government post, Mor fe said. Since the present members of Congress have their own political machinery in September 1967 11 the provinces, the judge said the likelihood is that they would all be elected to the convention, should the pro posed amendment be ap proved. Thus, he said, the calling of such constitutional con vention would be a "pure waste of multi-million pesos of public funds.” Congress might as well approve the necessary constitutional amendments by resolution of both houses, thereby obviat ing the necessity of a con vention for the same pur pose, the judge pointed out. — Vic Foz in Manila Times, Sept. 27, 1967. WHAT MAKES A CITY Population, industry, commerce, and agriculture must reach a high stage of development and pro duction at and around a community to make it a city. The modern city is a complicated affair. At times it is “a large body of people living in a re latively small area.” A comprehensive definition of the modern city must indicate that it is a social, political, legal and economic unit all rolled into one. It is a concentrated body of population possessing some significant social characteristics, chartered as a municipal corporation, having its own system of local government carrying on multifarious economic enter prises and pursuing an elaborate program of social adjustment and amelioration. — By Prof. William B. Munro, article on City, 3 Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Macmillan, N.Y.) 12 Panorama ■ A good college graduate should be loyal to his alma mater; and the reasons are given by a great American jurist and leader in this article. ANATOMY of an alumnus What is it that binds us so closely to our alma mater? Why do we respond so warm ly? Why do we do so much in a myriad of ways to de monstrate our love for the institution that brought us to maturity and helped us to develop our latent talents and capacities and our sense of human values, to appre ciate the beauties and the harmonies of art and litera ture, and to strengthen and broaden our intellectual fa culties? I respectfully sub mit that there are three rea sons for this. Doubtless there are others, but I stress these three above all others. I shall discuss them in what I think is the inverse order of their importance, but I real ize others may have different views on the subject. First, there is the psycholo gical urge to be identified as a member of the group, the notion of “belonging.” This enhances one’s indivi dual ego and produces a per fectly human feeling of plea sure and security. People like to get on the band wa gon if given a reasonable op portunity to do so. It is the opposite of a feeling that one is on the outside, more or less regarded as different from the others. Class spirit and class unity inevitably foster this idea of “belong ing.” After the lapse of a few years not a single mem ber of the class thinks he is being left out in the cold. Second, there is that spark of fire between the teacher and the pupil, between the institution of learning and the student, that continues with us through life and ne ver ceases to engender a re ciprocal feeling of warmth and affection and gratitude. As the ripples go out endless ly when one throws a pebble into a pond, the effect goes on and on until we join our loved ones in the great be September 1967 13 yond. Some of us may per versely seek to extinguish this spark of fire, while others nurse and foster it with loving care; but, in either event, and no matter what may happen to us, the spark is never extinguished. This I submit is also a ba sic psychological fact. The third reason is not so widely understood. I shall try to work around to it on the bias, my favorite ap proach. When I was a boy at prep school I simply could not understand why Cicero kept harping on his desire to establish a reputation that would continue down through the ages. Most of the other Greek and Latin authors we studied seemed to be obsessed with the same idea. As I grew older it sud denly dajvned on me that, in varying degrees according to their circumstances, prac tically everyone has an itch ing for fame. People do all sorts of things that can be designed for no other pur pose than to perpetuate their memory, as far as they can. But, when you stop to think about it, where is one to find the lasting, solid quality of permanency in this best of all possible worlds, as Vol taire used to call it. Build ings of great beauty, temples, churches and what not, are constructed, but as the years roll by they are tom down and replaced by others. Think of the millions of books that were thought to bring imperishable glory to their authors, but now lie buried away in some library and forgotten or wholly des troyed and lost in oblivion. A person does not have to be so very bright to realize that nothing he can do will be sure to construct an image of himself that will be per ceptible to anyone in another fifty or one hundred years. Yes, the deeds of men and women as well as those of their friends and relatives and all that is dear to them will pass into the mist and be no more, as Horace so often reminds us. But the college or university stands out as almost the only really solid, permanent fact. It is something we can cling to throughout life, and thus be come a part of its very per manency and stability through the ages. We may leave our mark upon it, per haps our very name, in a 14 Panorama more or less conspicuous way. Even the annals of the col lege or the university and its archives with their refe rences to the records of the students and the benefactions of the alumni run back to the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, as the lawyers say. So I think it is the most natural and the most human thing in the world for our alumnus to act as he does. And as he comes back to warm himself in the sun of the campus and opens his coffers and bestows of his substance to the various drives for Annual Giving and for the Capital Needs of his alma mater, and for the es tablishment of professorships and scholarships and what not else, we may rest assured that he is well repaid not only in the happiness he en joys with his classmates and with the alumni of other classes, but also by the satis faction one always feels in responding to an inner urge and a subconscious motiva tion. — Judge Harold R. Me dina of U.S.A., from Ameri can Alumni Council, Leaflet No. 12. IMPROPER PROPOSALS One beautiful evening, a young man who was very shy was carried away by the magic of the night. “Darling,” he asked, “will you marry me?” “Yes, Bill,” she answered softly. Then he lapsed into a silence that at last became painful to her. "Bill,” she said with a note of doubt in her voice, why don’t you say something?” “I think,” replied Bill, “that I’ve said too much already.” — Alan Swerth. September 1967 15 ■ Complaints have been aired against higher tui tion fees of Private Universities when these are said to be highly profitable to their owners. NEEDED RESTRAINT ON PROFIT SCHOOLS A lot has been written about private schools raising their tuition fees. To begin with we must say that it would be a great mistake to lump all private schools un der one category. We must distinguish between the schools that are non-stock and non-profit from those that declare fat dividends and whose main reason for being is profits. When we were Secretary of Education we were never strict in so far as the rion-stock and non profit schools are concerned. Thepe schools are doing the country a great service, and if they were to cease opera tion it would be no exagge ration to say that our entire educational system — parti cularly on the secondary and collegiate level — would suf fer a blow from which they would never recover. These institutions need all the help they can from the adminis tration. It is unfair to accuse them of profiteering. Yet this is exactly what is hap pening today. Instead of acknowledging the great ser vice that they are doing for the cause of education, they are being branded as pro fiteers. The Admin is tration should get tough with the schools that have been estab lished for profits. They should pass a law to limit the dividends of these insti tutions. It is very difficult to establish an educational institution for profit, and still maintain standards, al though we must admit that some universities have suc ceeded in doing both fairly well. The best example is the University of the .East But this is not an easy task. Why? Because what makes a good educational institu tion and what makes a good business are two entirely op posite factors. It is the large per capita investment per student that is the founda tion of a good college and 16 Panorama university. Investments in a good faculty and educational facilities. A good business, on the other hand, is where you invest little and derive a large profit. The only way to classify private schools is to separate the profit ones from the non profit ones. The non-profit schools should be given a free hand — so long as they follow the rules and regula tions that the government should clamp down on. The University of the Phil ippines, for instance, spends P2,200 a year per student. This is double the tuition of the Ateneo and La Salle, which is only Pl, 100 per an num. The Department of Education is always talking about standards. Yet, it ob viously expects these institute$ of higher learning to maintain ' their high stand ards of excellence at half of what it cost the U.P. If we want to have a high standard of education, we must be willing and ready to pay the price for it. It is the job the Department of Education to educate the public on the facts of the high cost of education. We maintain that it is unfair to accuse non-profit schools of profiteering. These schools should be helped — not con demned. As for the commer cial schools, it is about time that steps were taken so that they would be things of the past. Education costs money. This week’s issue of Time is about the spiralling cost of education. What is true in the United States is also true here. There is no such thing as a bargain basement when it comes to education. If the non-profit schools find it ne cessary to raise their tuition in order to maintain their standards, they should be allowed to do so. The De partment of Education should concern itself with standards — not fees. Clamp down on profit schools, and help the non-profit ones. That should be the policy. — Alejandro R. Roces, Manila Chronicle, June 27, 1967 September 1967 • 17 ■ A dangerous form of nepotism in the upper brackets threatens to undermine the feeble foundations of Philippine democracy. PHILIPPINE POLITICAL DYNASTIES A new twist in the dynasty trend in Philippine politics is in the offing. Witness for instance the following cases: In San Juan, while Mayor Nicanor C. Ibuna is running for reelection as the NP of ficial candidate, his son, Ro dolfo has been nominated to the 8-man NP council. In Caloocan City, Mayor Macario Asistib is the NP official candidate while his son, Macario "Boy” Asistio, Jr. is eyeing a seat in the municipal council, Since the father is the head of the lo cal NP chapter, the selection of the young Asistio to the slate is certain. In Pasay City, Mayor Pablo Cuneta is the LP of ficial candidate. His son, who was earlier being boost ed to run for vice mayor un der the ticket of his father, is reportedly seeking a seat in the LP council slate in stead. Ordinarily, in various parts of the country, the husbandand-wife team has been the vogue, as in the following instances: In Ilocos Sur, while Rep. Floro Crisologo (N-Ilocos Sur), is the congressman of the province’s first district, his wife, Mrs. Carmen “Car meling” Crisologo, is the gov ernor. In Cagayan, while Rep. Tito Dupaya (N-Cagayan) is the congressman in the first district, his wife, Mrs. Teresa Dupaya, is the governor of the province. In Pampanga, while Fran cisco Nepomuceno is the gov ernor of the province, his wife, Mrs. Juanita Nepomu ceno, is also the congresswo man of the first district. The same thing prevails in Albay, where Venacio Ziga is the congressman of the second district, and his wife, Mrs. Tecla San Andres Ziga, is a senator. 18 Panorama In La Union, it is the other way around because Mrs. Magnolia Antonino is the congresswoman for the first district, while her hus band, Gaudencio Antonino, is a member of the senate. Another husband-and-wife team also exists in Cebu un der a different setup. Rep. Ramon Durano (N-Cebu) is one of the seven representa tives of the province, while his wife is the mayor of Danao City. While the husband-andwife team has been existing already for sometime, the father-and-son team will be put to a test as far as local politics is concerned. There existed sometime ago, however, a father-andson team, but under a new setup. This existed in this premiere province when the late Sen. Eulogio Rodriguez Sr., was senator and his son, the late Rep. Eulogio Rodriguez, Jr., was congressman of the second district. Later, while the late sen ator was still a member of the senate, another son, Isi dro S. Rodriguez, became governor of the province and is still the incumbent head of Rizal. — Salvador Elizalde, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 5, 1967. September 1967 19 ■ A different sort of senate was suggested by a Fili pino leader of past days before the Filipino peo ple have had any experience in self-government. MABINI'S IDEA OF A SENATE If President Marcos is cor rect in his campaign belief that we can be “great again” — a piece of rhetoric which, incidentally, he has never ex plained satisfactorily — we should probably look back to the time when we were first great. And that can only be when Filipinos had cour age and patriotism and self sacrifice to spare, (for that is the only greatness that counts) the time of the Phil ippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War and the decades immediately pre ceding and following them. This year’s senatorial elec tions make a good jumpingoff point for this kind of perspective. What was the 1898 view of a Philippine Senate? In the “Constitu tional Program” drafted by Mabini for the First Philip pine Republic there looms a characteristic virtuous and intellectual mood that seems, in retrospect, passionately a political and contemptuous of most of the values that we now hold to be important. At the same time, it is, oddly enough, not without some similarities to our own view of the exalted position of the Senate, that institution being one of the few which we have managed to keep fairly intact. To begin with, one must remember that Mabini’s con stitution was largely original, almost completely underived and uninfluenced by Ameri can, British and French do cuments, and in that sense, indigenous and very much rooted in his times. It was a democratic breakthrough, for an ex-colony, its popu lism diluted only by the exigencies of the existing state of war. It was also an exposition of aristocracy: ta lent, “honest work” and pa triotic service counted more 20 Panorama than all other considerations. It was meant to instruct as well as reflect and was, per haps deliberately, more hightoned than many of the peo ple it sought to encompass. Mabini called the Senate "un cuerpo respetabilisimo”, a superlative body, to be composed of persons who had “distinguished themselves by their honesty and their vast knowledge’ of art, science and industry and had become the elite of society, not by wealth or by position, but by “talent joined with honest work.” The age requirement was 30 (a point in favor of Gov ernor Aquino of Tarlac who, depending on how you look at it, was born either a few days or 69 years too late). Another requirement was “a fixed income which will en sure a decorous and indepen dent life” (without the need of congressional allowances?). An important after-thought in the same article does away with the specifications in the preceding paragraph: all of them were to be outweighed by the fact of “having ren dered great services to the people.” Generals and admirals in active service would automa tically be senators. So would “the erector of the central university” (the equivalent of the president of the Uni versity of the Philippines) and of the other ‘academies,’ as the heads of unions com posed of professionals (Ma bini called them sindicatos, a term which may have been derived from the French syn dic at, and, in that case, trade unions). An encouragement for Secretary of Labor Espi nosa? The “directors of wel fare agencies that are under the immediate supervision of the central government” (still a good breeding ground for the Senate as the SWA has shown) would also merit seats in the first Philippine Sen ate. Industry and commerce, as in our time, would provide a few more senators. These business organizations, spe cially those devoted to rail ways and other means of communications (nothing new in the idea of infra structure, after all?) were to be allowed to choose one member of the Senate “from their midst.” The other sen ators were to be chosen by September 1967 21 “electors appointed by fa culties from colleges” (A point in favor of Miss He lena Benitez) by electors from business and industrial firms who paid the most taxes and by the top tax payers themselves. The emphasis on taxpay ing and "contributores” who were to elect Congress and the Senate in a classic elec toral system that recalls an cient Greece or Switzerland and is worlds removed from the banal, small-minded at mosphere of our time was probably Mabini’s tribute to the American dictum of “No taxation without representa tion.” The senators of that time were merely to advise Con gress and “the central gov ernment” so that “the actions of both may be accompanied by right and justice” — a real council of elders. They were “to propose to the Pres ident the establishment of re forms and of adequate im provements," always giving the advantage to "talent and inventiveness” but their deci sions were not to bind the President in any manner, ex cept in the sense that "three decisions made at different times on the same matter” would oblige him to submit them to Congress, “in order that this body may decide whether they are to have the force of law.” Where is the purity of yes teryear? But wishful think ing can lead only to the fatal compromises with which, this year, we are all faced. Greatness must indeed be reac quired. — By Carmen Guer rero Nakpil. 22‘ Panorama THE PRESIDENT AND SENATORIAL ROBOTS In the election for seats in the Philippine Senate next November, 1967, each of the two major political parties — The Nacionalista and the Liberal — has 8 candidates. The writer of the following paragraphs is a senatorial candidate of the Liberal Party. In answering the ar guments of President Marcos, he has drawn a clear picture of the party and its candi dates which is worthy of no tice and study at this period of Philippine political his tory when election issues, party affiliations, and the personal qualifications of candidates have become se riously confused. “Each of the 16 candidates of the two major parties in this election constitutes an issue. Each is an individual leader, a responsible official. They are bound by certain party ties, but they are not robots. They share certain views of government, but each view is so colored by a host of other considerations, out of principle or personal interest, that it would be presumptuous for anyone to judge them solely on the ba sis of party label. “If these were all they are — loyal and obedient party men — then there would be no need at all to look into their qualifications. One would simply have to write the party name during the election. There would be no need fo~r any discussion of issue. There would be no need for issues. “But the fact is that each candidate is an issue in him self. And when he presents himself to the electorate, the individual voter must look at the candidate’s record and his qualifacations. September 1967 23 “But President Marcos in sists there is but one issue in this senatorial election -his record as President of the country these last two years. “This is an indecent and dangerous presumption. It ignores the constitutional declaration that Congress is an independent and co-equal body with the office of the President. “What he really wants are eight robots who will jump at his command.” — By Be. nigno S. Aquino, Jr. Extracts from Manila Times, Septem ber 16, 1967. BAR HAZARD People who spend too much time in bars can go blind, a Brazilian ophthalmologist warned. Dr. Hilton Rochan called on police to ban the murky lighting of modern bars and night clubs which he termed “black light.” In recommending it outlawed, Rochan noted the same type of light is used by police for ballistic tests, dnd detection of counterfeit money. “It can bring blindness to those who spend too much time in bars,” he said. — Belo Horizonte. 24 Panorama ■ This enlightening article was written by a famous thinker, writer, and mathematician in 1939 before the last World War, It is still full of valid ideas. Under the criteria it mentions, we might ask: Can the Philippines be a democracy? HOW TO BUILD Consider, at the present day, the governments of Ger many and Denmark. These two countries are neighbors, closely akin in race, religion, and language — yet the one exhibits the extreme of auto cracy and militarism; the other, the extreme of demo cracy and pacifism. This example suffices to dispose of the idea that race, in the biological sense, is any degree relevant to our problem; no one can reasonably suppose that Germans and Danes dif fer appreciably in their con genital cqnstitution. It is as regards history, tradition, and opportunity that they differ. Those are the 'forces that mold national character, and it is through these forces that the humanization of po wer must be effected. Democracy was invented as a means of preventing the arbitrary use of power, but its success, so far, has been strictly limited. It is greatest A DEMOCRACY in the small Germanic coun tries — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Switz erland. Next in order comes the United States, but here the system has failed to secure justice for Negroes and to prevent the illegal employ ment of the police on the side of the rich in labor dis putes. England and France are democracies at home but not in their imperial pos sessions. Germany and Italy have made short and preca rious attempts at democracy, which the bulk of their own populations regarded as un successful. Russia, Asia, and Africa have never, even tem porarily, had democratic forms of government. The nations that are democratic have not always been so. The chief conditions for the success of democracy ap pear to be three: first, an educated population; second, a considerable degree of cul tural homogeneity; third a September 1967 25 greater interest in home af fairs than in relations with foreign countries. As to the first of these con ditions, there is much to be said, but for the moment I shall confine myself to the obvious fact that where a majority cannot read it is im possible that there should be any widespread understand ing of political issues. Cultural homogeneity is a vague phrase, and I will try to replace it by something more precise. What I mean exists, for example, in Switzerland, in spite of differences in race, language and religion. It is a matter of sentiment, generat ed partly by history as taught in schools. A Swiss is a man to whom, from earliest infan cy, William Tell has been a natidnal hero. An American is a man who reveres the Declaration of Independence. An Englishman thinks of the Armada and the Battle of Waterloo. A Frenchman is proud of the Revolution, unless he is a reactionary — in which case he gives his alle giance to Joan of Arc. But in addition to these edu cational myths there is an other very powerful source of homogeneity, namely simi larity in national customs, manners, food, games, and so on. This similarity makes life at home more effortless than life abroad and gives rise to a feeling of safety which makes compatriots seem more virtuous than foreigners. Underlying all this is the instinctive love of home which man shares with other animals. Where there is not cultural homogeneity in this sense, de mocracy, if it is to succeed at all, must be federal. A fe deral system is hardly possi ble unless the various groups are separated geographically. Democracy is a method of adjusting internal conflicts of interest and sentiment and seems unnecessary when a nation is primarily conscious of itself as a unit in conflict with others. France in the French Revolution, Russia in the Russian Revolution, and Germany since Versailles were in this situation; and in France and Germany, if not in Russia, foreign enmity was the chief immediate cause of the suppression of democracy by dictatorships. In war the sense of solidarity is such that a leader who 26 Panorama personifies the nation easily persuades men to allow him dictatorial power, especially if there is a serious risk of defeat. War and the fear of war are at the present time the most serious obstacle to democracy. It is obvious that the class war, where it exists in an acute form, makes the rule of force inevitable, not only because all war has this ten dency but because class war destroys cultural homogeneity. When class war leads to dic tatorship, as it has done in Russia, Italy, and Germany, it establishes the dictators as an oligarchical authority and, by arousing foreign enmity, makes them the representa tives of patriotism. As a method of humanizing po wer, therefore, the class war, in its more violent forms, is inevitably doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the problem of humanizing power cannot be solved unless it can be dealt with in the economic as well as in the political sphere. I do not believe that it will be solved in the eco nomic sphere so long as the solution is represented as solely in the interest of the proletariat, because the in dustrial proletariat, in most countries, is a minority and in all countries is too weak to win without such bitter warfare as must lead to dic tatorship and so to the crea tion of a new privileged class. Given democracy, both economic and political, there will still be much to be done before power is completely humanized. There must be freedom to criticize the au thorities, opportunities for removing tnen in power if they act illegally, a spirit of toleration as between oppos ing groups, and a very wide spread respect for legality. This last must be sufficient ly strong to deter soldiers from following a general if he invites them to overthrow the civil government. Such a state of opinion is not im possible: it has existed in England since 1688 and in America since 1776. I conclude that the hu manizing of power is possi ble on certain conditions. First: there must not exist, within one governmental unit, such implacable hatreds as are apt to be associated with militant differences of nationality, intolerant reli gious disagreements, or vio September 1967 27 lent class war. Second: there must be no imminent risk of serious war; that is to say there must be a federal gov ernment of the world, pos sessed of the sole armed forces beyond such as are genuinely needed for police purposes. Third: economic as well as political power must be democratic, which requires that the main sources of economic power should be controlled by the democratic state. — Bertrand Russell, condensed from Fo rum and Century. EQUITY Perhaps the most significant thing that came out of the selection of the eight Nacionalista senatorial candidates was the canning of the “equity of the incumbent’’ business. Of course, the party moguls influenced the dele gates to the national directorate meeting this way and that, but that was Ohly natural. The point is that the delegates were not coer ced into voting for this or that candidate. They were not bought. They absorbed the pressure of influence coming from highly placed quarters in the N.P., and then in the secret balloting, they made their own choices. Definitely, this was one affair where no one could cry “Fix!” or “I was robbed!” — Manila Bul letin, July 31, 1967. 28 Panorama ■ This paper covers the ideas of Vicente G. Sinco which he expressed in answer to some questions directed to him by professors in a radio interview broadcast in the University of the Philippines in the early part of this month of September. UNIVERSITIES AND OUR SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1. Philippine society is in deed plagued with social and moral ills. They may lead to a moral breakdown. But that castastrophe has not yet taken place as of now. How ever, in the present scene there is clearly perceptible a development towards what I would call a state of moral atrophy. This may be easily observed in the prominence our newspapers and maga zines give to reports on crimes, iinmoralities, revolt ing scandals, and illegal acts daily taking place in differ ent parts of the country. Reports of all sorts of frau dulent and violent practices happening in various social levels not only in connection with political elections but also in the regular govern ment and business activities, in our civil service and pro fessional examinations, and in our police services. Pro mises are made by candidates for public offices without any thought of fulfilling them. Public offices, which are supposed to be in the nature of public trust, are in effect bought and sold through bribery in various forms. Decisions of tribunals are ignored and often disre garded with impunity. A notorious example affecting the higher public positions in this respect was the way three senators continued hold ing their seats in spite of a tribunal’s decision that they had no more right to remain there because they spent for their election campaign amounts in excess of the limits the law prescribes. In difference to the proprieties and decencies of social order is shown by men and women in different spheres of our national life without any feeling of moral discomfort September 1967 29 much less any indication of remorse. A considerable number of Filipinos have ac quired wealth and affluence through the indiscriminate exploitation of our forests and natural resources and through abuse or misuse of political positions which they employ for personal glory and material gain. 2. In my opinion, the role that universities should play towards the solution of so cial problems is to revitalize its traditional function as the principal organ in the development of higher edu cation and brain power of men and women who are to plan and operate the insti tutions of society. Concrete ly expressed, universities should religiouly set high standards' of work, of scho larship, of performance in their educational and acade mic tasks assigned to students and instructors. Then with these standards for superior conduct and performance, universities should never tire in insisting that their consti tuencies, from their head to their most humble teacher and student, strive as much as possible to understand and appreciate these standards and to observe them reason ably, faithfully, and consist ently in actual work and life. The idea should be fixed permanently in the student’s mind that being a student is an occupation, a job, the job of studying and learning. 3. The stated aims and goals in the curriculum of ferings of a university do not have to be reoriented because real universities in modern countries have common aims and goals. These are primarily the improvement of the mental, moral, and emotional capacities that should trans form the individual into a responsible and productive member of the community. It has been stated time and again, with great pride and self-praise, that our uni versities have for their aim, among others, the develop ment of leaders. But be tween this claim and the realities with which we should measure university products or alumni, it is quite doubtful if this claim could be validly supported in many instances. The uni versities in this country can not disclaim responsibility for the disgusting social, moral, and political decline of our 30 Panorama national life. We cannot offer convincing proofs that the Philippines today under our new generation of lea ders produced by our uni versities is a much better country, socially, morally, and culturally, than what it was in the past when the country was under the in fluence of the generation of such leaders as Sergio Os mena, Manuel Quezon, Juan Sumulong, Rafael Palma, Claro M. Recto, and other prominent men of yesteryear. Let us bear in mind that in the last 20 years the new generation of leaders, who are the more recent products of our universities, have come to hold the higher po sitions of the government and to direct the political and'social courses the nation has been following. Many observers are of the opinion that they are primarily con cerned about building an impressive public image of themselves but that their re cord leaves much to be de sired. The depressed social conditions of the country to day are the result of inade quate, selfish, and insincere leadership. Dependable and independent observers of the performance of the present men and women in the higher political, economic, and social positions are con vinced that the efforts this new generation of leaders have been exerting are al most wholly directed towards the acquisition of personal political power or economic influence. Their purpose in most cases is that of enrich ing themselves rather than of advancing the general wel fare. The ideas and the lives of Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar have ceased to serve as guiding influences in their conduct and their decisions. It has to be admitted, how ever, that the physical as pects of some of our cities now present a more attrac tive outward appearance than what they were 30 or more years ago. But in gen eral our intellectual, educa tional, moral, and spiritual modes of living and attitudes have gone down in quality. This is why we have this frustrating feeling that the country has been facing a social crisis and a moral breakdown. We have to face the fact that the new genera tion of Filipino leaders, gen erally those under 60 years September 1967 31 of age, have yet to show that they have the qualifications to run honestly and effi ciently a modern, and pro gressive democracy. 4. In my opinion there are two possible loopholes jn our university education that need to be plugged up to make university education more directly pertinent and broadly significant to the na tion’s program and actual work for social improvement. One of these consists in a stronger emphasis on a wellplanned general or liberal education which should be required of every person who enrolls in the university for any academic degree and for any professional course. The other is the adoption of firm standards of conduct and worljL and an insistence that they be used to measure per formance. The program of general education is an essential fac tor for a thorough under standing and appreciation of moral and intellectual stand ards. Without these we can hardly expect our nation to rise above the present threat of social decadence; and with out these, we can hardly dev elop a more human attitude in our social or individual relations. To carry out this program effectively at least two factors are needed: The first is a high degree of con centration on liberal studies such as what is done in su perior types of universities, as Harvard, Chicago, and other strong centers of higher education in America where the administration or the operation of schools or courses for general education is made obligatory on their students and is placed under a separate organization, which at times bear the title of basic or university college. The second is a systematic practice of demanding from students that every one of them do their work to the highest degree of which they are capable. This does not mean that a single and uniform standard of excel lence be required of every student and in every subject of study. We should face the fact that students differ in intellectual abilities; some of them have much higher ta lents than others for certaip studies and some have stronger interests in certain disciplines than others. The important thing is that every one should perform his work to the highest degree he is capable. 32 Panorama 5. As to what specific sub jects should be taken to help strengthen the moral and spiritual stamina of our stu dents in order to enable them to arrest the decline of the social order of our coun try and the deterioration of our moral conditions, I want to say the following: Social problems involve difficult and complex questions. Ob viously, to tackle them suc cessfully group action is ne cessary; but the kind, the quality, and the strength of group action depend upon the quality of the individual. Hence, in the final analysis the individual is the deter mining factor. To a certain extent the environment in fluences the individual; but at the same time the indivi dual has also the power to change the environment to an appreciable degree. The problems of poverty, ignorance, crime, disease, and other social infirmi ties that plague our people are not necessarily insur mountable if properly ap proached and understood. They are at bottom problems of values — intellectual, mo ral, and esthetic values. A study of the natural sciences can help develop an appre ciation of these values to some extent. But in their plenitude and depth, values could be acquired, imbibed, and retained by the students in a fuller measure through the studies of humanities, which cover literature, philo sophy, religion, and the arts. Social problems are pro blems that confront man as a human being, not as a mere element of the natural envi ronment. They are problems that disturb man as a cons cious personality bound by obligations and feelings of relationship with his fellow men. They could be best understood, faced, and solved with courage by men and women who are imbued with a deep comprehension of hu man values and their im measurable worth. These qualities alone can stir a genuine sense of obligation in a person, that human feel ing or impulse which the average Filipino unfortunate ly has yet to develop deeply, to obey implicitly, and to keep as a precious and per manent gift for the good of the individual and the na tion. With it the products of universities could be ex pected to run down, expose, and condemn the liar, the September 1967 33 turncoat, the robber, the fraud, the smuggler, the hy pocrite, the sciolist, and all the other vicious elements that hate irifested our poor country. This — the develop ment of a strong sense of personal and social responsi bility — is an indispensable aim of a university if it is to act as the conscience of the nation. — V. G. Sinco. PARTIES AND POLITICS I must repeat again my conviction that parties are useful, effective, and altogether indispensable instruments of constitutional democracy. A country like the United States, Great Britain, or Sweden might wish or even choose to swap one kind of party system for another, but it could never wish or choose, not while it remained a constitutional democracy, to proceed on its way with no party system at all. The essence of democracy is politics, and politics withiout parties in a widespread and diverse community is really no politics at all. — By Clinton Rossiter in Parties and Politics in America. 34 Panorama ■ The independence of the courts does not mean that they should be free from criticism. The fol lowing is a unique and courageous stand on the subject. CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE SUPREME COURT A middle-aged practicing lawyer, in renouncing his license to practice law as a protest against what he con sidered a grave injustice com mitted by the Supreme Court against his client, accused the high tribunal of offenses so serious that the Court must clear itself. In a written petition to the court, Vicente Raul Almacen of Iloilo, a senior partner in the law firm of Villareal, Almacen, Navarra & Amores, stated: “. . . our own' Supreme Court is com posed of men who are cal loused to our pleas for jus tice, who ignore thdir own applicable decisions and com mit culpable violations of the Constitution with impunity.” Lawyer Almacen was pro voked into his outburst by what he called “short-cut justice” administered by the high court. He had lost an appeal before the Court of Appeals on a technicality; his motion for reconsidera tion of a lower court decision ordering his client to^ay Pl20,000.00 failed to include a notice of hearing. Almacen argued that the omission had caused no harm, that the op posing lawyer was duly noti fied. Almacen appealed the case to the Supreme Court which, in its resolution of denial, gave no reason whatsoever. He filed a motion for recon sideration. It was again de nied without explanation. He filed a motion for reconof court to submit a second motion for reconsideration which the high court again denied. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Almacen. Supreme Court justices are subject to impeachment. Sec tion 1, Article IX of the Constitution states: "The President, the Vice President, September 1967 35 the Justices of the Supreme Court and the Auditor Gen eral shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, or other high crimes.” Almacen has charged the high tribunal with “culpable violations of the Constitution.” His charge is one of the constitutional bau& for impeachment. The Supreme Court cannot let his charge pass without challeng ing its veracity. Perhaps, Almacen had in mind Section 12, Article VIII of the Constitution which states: “No decision shall be rendered by any court of rec o r d without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.’ Is a reso lution denying a petition a decision? Evidently the Sup reme Court does not think so. Maybe a resolution is a routine action that does not deserve to be classified as a decision and, therefore, needs no elaborate reasoning. Perhaps, also, the Supreme Court had in mind the rule that any decision rendered by the Court of Appeals on a case involving only ques tions of facts is final. If this is the case, the Supreme Court need not explain it to a lawyer. A lawyer is pre sumed to know so elemen tary a rule. Yet, what would it cost the high tribunal to state in its resolution that the denial is based on the law defining the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction? It is evidently the think ing of the . framers of the Constitution that in the ad ministration of justice in a free society there is no room for summary and arbitrary action. The power of the courts is perhaps the highest in the state in the sense that it includes the authority to deprive a person of life, liberty and property. Pre cisely because this power is the ultimate, it may not be exercised without due process of law. Does the arbitrary denial of a petition satisfy the requirement of due process? There is no appeal from a decision of the Supreme Court except by petitioning it for reconsideration. If the original decision is rendered by the high tribunal itself it is understood that it has com plied with the constitutional requirement that the facts 36 Panorama and the law on which the decision was based should be expressed. But where the de cision appealed is from the lower courts, it should not be amiss for the Supreme Court to explain the basis of its action, even if it is a mere denial to review the case. This procedure would seem to be more in conformity with the constitutional re quirement. Almost at the same time, the newspapers reported that the Supreme Court also dis missed the appeal of the three senators convicted by the Senate Electoral Tri bunal of election overspend ing in a resolution without explanation. The reason could be lack of jurisdiction or the principle of the sepa ration of powers or the fact that three Supreme Court justices had voted for con viction. But whatever be the reason, there is no deny ing that the senators concern ed would have been less un happy if there had been even the briefest of explanations. As the court’s decision was also precedent-setting, Jt would have been better#-all around if its basis in law had been expressed. Be this as it may, the charge of “culpable viola tions of the Constitution” should be nailed down and exposed as empty — if it is in fact empty. — Vicente Al bano Pads, Manila Chroni cle, Sept. 1967. September 1967 37 ■ New ideas on education and the instruction of the young have been receiving a great deal of atten tion in Europe and in the U.S.A. Filipino educators need to be aware of them. JEAN PIAGET: NOTES ON LEARNING The man behind the ideas of many of the plans and programs to improve the cur ricula in the schools is not an educator. Jean Piaget is the s ev e n t y-one-year-o 1 d French-speaking Swiss direc tor of the Jean Jacques Rous seau Institute in Geneva, the founding director of the In ternational Center for Gene tic Epistemology, director of the International Bureau of Education, and professor of child psychology and of the history of scientific thought at the University of Geneva. Some psychologists are con vinced that his work might become as influential as Freud’s. Some educators are fearful that this may be true. In March, Piaget came to U.S.A, to deliver three lec tures on the nature and nur ture of intelligence and on related matters in science, psychology, and education. He spoke at New York Uni versity and addressed the convention of the American Orthopsychiatric Association in Washington. It has been said of Piaget that he is by vocation a socio logist, by avocation an epistemologist, and by method a logician. He tells his listen ers and readers that he is not an educator, that he is a psy chologist with an interdis ciplinary bent, that he is an investigator using the tools of the related fields of bio logy, psychology, and logic to explore the genesis of intel ligence in the human young. All his long life he has drawn upon these three fields to conduct research and to build his theories of the develop ment of intelligence in child, ren. For Piaget, the crucial question in the study of the growing child is how he ad justs himself to the world in which he lives. And for Pia get there is nothing pejora tive in the word adjustment. It involves backing and fill ing, winning and losing, un 38 Panorama demanding and gaining knowledge. As he expresses it: “Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an ob ject, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy, or image, of it. To know an object is to act on it. To know is to mo dify, to transform the object, and to understand the pro cess of this transformation, and as a consequence to un derstand the way the object is constructed. An operation is thus the essence of know ledge.” This is the voice of the epistemologist, but it speaks from the soul of the teacher. Piaget’s techniques for ob serving, recording, and un derstanding the way a child things is quite literally to get inside of' the child’s mind and see the world through the child’s eyes. One of his notable experiments, for example, was to join in a child’s game as an equal. He would “learn how to make a good shot at marbles, how to make bad ones, and even how to cheat.” Piaget sees four major stages of growth through childhood: the first is the sensory-motor stage, which lasts from birth to about two years. Here the child learns muscles and senses and dev elops certain habits for deal ing with external objects and events. Language begins to gain form. He can deal with and know that things exist even when they are beyond his sight or touch. He be gins to “symbolize,” to repre sent things by word or ges ture. The second stage is the preoperational or representa tional stage. It begins with the beginning of organized language and continues to about the age of six. This is the period of greatest lan guage growth and through the use of word and other symbols the child can repre sent the outside world and his own inner world of feel ing. It is a period when ma gical explanations make sense, when “God pushes the sun around” and stars must go to bed when he does. The child begins to gain a sense of symmetry, depends on trial and error adjustments, and manages things by a kind of intuitive regulation. The third stage, between seven and eleven years, is September 1967 39 one in which the child ac quires the ability to carry out what Piaget calls concrete operations. He can move things around, make them fit properly. He acquires fine motor skills and can or ganize what he has and knows how to solve physical problems. The fourth stage is one of formal operations and pre pares the way for adult thinking. It usually begins between twelve and fifteen years and involves the dev elopment of ‘‘hypothetical reasoning based upon a logic of all possible combinations and to perform controlled experimentation.” In successive studies Pia get and his associates have explored the growth of in telligence, the development of mora'l awareness, the child’s concept of physical reality, and the elaboration of appropriate logic to deal with complex nonrepresentational problems. Although The Language and Thought of the Child was published in English in 1926, it was not until the early 1950s that Piaget’s ideas made any significant impact in the United States. Professor Jerome S. Bruner of Harvard is probably res ponsible for the current public awareness, which can be traced to his important little book The Process of Education (1960), and his most recent book, Toward a Theory of Instruction (1966). Bruner describes Piaget as “unquestionably, the most impressive figure in the field of cognitive development.” Piaget, he says “is often in terpreted in the wrong way by those who think that his principal mission is psycho logical. It is not . . . What he has done is to write the implicit logical theory on which the child proceeds in dealing with intellectual tasks.” Some of Piagets Ideas 1. “If we accept the fact that there are stages of dev elopment, another question arises, which I call 'the Am erican question,’ and I’m asked it every time I come here: If there are stages that children reach at given norms of ages, can we accelerate these stages? Do we have to go through each one of these stages, or can’t we speed it up a bit? Well, surely, the answer is yes ... . but how 40 Panorama far can we speed them up? “A few years ago (Jerome S.) Bruner made a claim which has always astounded me; namely, that you can teach anything in an intel lectually honest way to any child of any age if you go about it the right way. Well, 1 don’t know if he still be lieves that. But I have a hypothesis that I am so far incapable of proving: Pro bably the organization of operations has an optimal time . For example, we know that it takes nine to twelve month before babies develop the notion that an object is still there even when a screen is placed in front of it. Now kittens go through the same stages as children, all the same sub-stages, but they do it in three months — so they’re six months ahead of babies. Is this an advantage or isn’t it? We can certainly see our answer in one sense. The kitten is not going to go much fur ther. The child has taken longer, but he is capable of going further, so it seems to me that the nine months probably were not for nothing. “It’s problably possible to accelerate, but maximal acce leration is not desirable. There seems to be an opti mal time. What this opti mal time is will surely de pend upon each individual and on the subject matter. We still need a great deal of research to know what the optimal time would be.” 2. “Should schools attempt to create individuals who are capable of understanding everything that has been done in the history of ideas, and capable of repeating all this history, or should they focus on forming individuals who are capable of inventing, of finding new things in all areas: in modest technical inventions, or in more highly developed scientific inven tions — that is, people who are capable of going beyond the present and previous generations? This gives us the alternative between two types of pedagogy, one in which the child is receptive, the other in which he is active — education which sti mulates the activities of the child in the area of his in ventiveness.” 3. “Intelligence is born of action. Any act of intelli gence — whether it be on the part of a man involved in September 1967 41 scientific research, or of any normal adult in his everyday problem-solving, or the child of seven and eight — any act of intelligence consists of operations, carrying out ope rations, and coordinating them among themselves.” 4. “Even in order to un dersand we have to invent, or, that is, to reinvent, be cause we can’t start from the beginning again. But I would say that anything is only understood to the ex tent that it is reinvented.” 5. “Each of the stages (of learning) is essential for the development of the follow ing stages. This isn’t simply a linear order in which you could jump over one stage and still get to the next one. Each stage integrates the pre ceding stage and prepares the way for the following one.” — By Frank G. Jennings, Ex tracts from Saturday Review, May 20, 1967. 42 Panorama ■ An interesting and highly informative paper on the status of the salaried man in Japan and the effects on the social changes taking place in that country. THE SALARIED There is a species of ani mal which seems to think alike all over the world, ir respective of an immense diversity in environment. It is called the salaried man. Since I have occupied va rious positions in three coun tries — Japan, Australia and the United States — I believe I have some qualifications for making such a statement. When I was in a bar in Washington or Melbourne, I often thought I was back in Tokyo as my colleagues held forth, at great length, on the boss’s lack of brain power. (Strange to say, a boss is an idiot in every country.) And recently, I head a. section head in an American office in Tokyo reproaching female secretaries for their irregular attendance and for indulging in idle chatter during work ing hours. They obeyed his instruction for two weeks, but by the third week they had returned to their former ways. I have often seen Jap anese secretaries display the MAN IN JAPAN same tactics: when a thun derstorm comes, don’t move, keep quiet for a while, and let it pass. Salaried people of any race have the same instinct. The most impor tant topic of office conversa tion everywhere is promotion or demotion. There are differences, how ever, between salaried people in Japan and those in other countries. They spring main ly from a different historical and social background. First comes their relation with their employer. Japanese salaried people usually stay at one company for their en tire working life. In Japan it is still thought to be a vice to change one’s em ployer, although the concept is now rapidly changing, tie cause of the post-war econo mic and social revolution. When I was with the Cen tral Bank of Japan, then re garded as one of the most conservative organizations in the country, my colleagues September 1967 43 used to tell me with a tone of self-pity that the bank was like a lukewarm bath: if one stayed in it, one would never feel comfortable, but if one dared to emerge from it a cold would surely ensue! This is the wisdom of life challenged and proved by the sad experiences of many daring Japanese. In fact, if a Japanese moves to another company, he will lose, first of all, seniority. He may get a higher salary, but his in tangible prestige and status at the second company will be seriously handicapped, be cause he is a newcomer. He must wait several years, or indefinitely in most cases, be fore he is treated on the same footing as colleagues with a greater length of service. It is still a. basic practice in most Japanese offices for salary, promotion, retirement allowance and various fringe benefits to be determined by length of service. This discourages mobility of la bour and inevitably streng then the sense of dependence on the employer. Many Jap anese salaried people live in company-owned houses or flats at a nominal rent. (In big cities where the hous ing shortage is acute, and rent is exhorbitant, this is a great benefit.) All or part of their fares to and from work is paid by the company. They can make purchases at a discount at a company store. The company serves luncheon in its dining room, and provides free sporting or recreation facilities. Flower arrangement, calligraphy, for eign languages and other arts are taught by companypaid teachers. Once or twice a year, the staff members of a department or a section enjoy a week-end sight-seeing trip, staying at a club-house owned by die company or at an inn specially reserved by it. Senior offices play golf at clubs where the company has corporate membership and dine with customers at luxurious restaurants where the bill is picked up by the company. When a young man and woman marry, he or she will ask a boss of the company to act in a nominal capacity as a marriage gobetween. (The role is very similar to that of godfather in a Western country.) When a Japanese man reaches retirement age, usual ly fifty-five, the company, if 44 Panorama it has an affiliated company, will find him a job in it where he can stay for several years, though on a lower sa lary, until replaced by some body else from the parent company. Thus, the life of Japanese salaried people can not be separated from the company, and this explains why human relations in a Japanese office are very sub tle and intricate. “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” is an accepted philoso phy. On the other hand, compe tition, the struggle for power, is severe, as the arena is con fined. Personal ties form the most effective weapons. Fac tions exist in perhaps every company in Japan: graduates from the same university, people frdm the same district and so on. When I was a youthful officer in one com pany, I once visited a senior officer at his home on a per sonal matter; some months later, I found to my great surprise that his opponents suspected me of belonging to his faction merely because of that one personal visit. Japanese salaried people spend a great part of their lives in this sort of office at mosphere. When, however, they leave their ultra-modern offices for the sanctuary of their homes they encounter some thing different. The Japan ese family, once the citadel of the traditional system, is now quickly changing its character. A family consist ing of grandparents, parents and five or six children is no longer prevalent, and an average family is now com posed of parents and one or two children. The birth rate in Japan fell from the high est level to the lowest in the world during one decade after the war, a change which reflects the growth of indivi dualism. Accompanying the simpli fication of the family struc ture, the status of women, particularly of wives and younger females, has been greatly enhanced. Now a husband, tormented by the office atmosphere during the day, has to contend at home with female and younger members of his family who have absorbed all kinds of free, democratic thinking through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, films or school lectures. Ironically September 1967 45 enough, the products of mass media which are churned out by big companies reflect nothing of the medieval at mosphere in which they are produced. A father can no longer hope to dominate his family as in the old days. Nowadays many husbands and fathers have to work in the kitchen or tend a washing machine at week-ends or take the family out to amusement centres. If they try to tell the family that they have to rest to build up energy for their jobs, they will be talked down very promptly. In fact, Japanese husbands and fa thers themselves are changing their way of thinking. A sample s urvey conducted among 2,300 male workers in Tokyo irl 1961 showed that 57 per cent considered that fenjoying life was more im portant than occupation.. When questioned about their objective in life, 61 per cent chose the happiness of the family, 23 per cent indivi dual pleasure, 7 per cent the wish to make a contribution to society, 6 per cent wealth, and only 1 per cent fame. This emphasis on pleasure and happiness especially of the family, has undoubtedly become more pronounced in the past six years. Before the war, the happiness of the family meant maintaining the order of seniority at home — the prestige of pa rents, and children loyalty to their parents — but it now means enjoyment of life by the whole family. Post-war economic pros perity has greatly improved the living standards of Jap anese salaried people. In 1965, 90.3 per cent of the non-agrarian families owned a television set, 62.4 per cent a refrigerator, 72.7 per cent an electric washer, and 41.4 per cent a vacuum cleaner. The rate of car ownership is also rising, and the English word “leisure” is being na turalized, though it is pro nounced re h jar. Material progress is thus re-modelling the family life of Japanese salaried people, who now spend their time at home in almost the same way as their Western counter parts. They like to watch television. They like to grow flowers in a small garden. They like to chat with friends on harmless subjects. They like to read about 46 Panorama disasters or conflicts (some where else) in newspapers. They like to take the family to holiday resorts from time to time. And yet it is true that Jap anese salaried people live under two sets of different principles: a quasi family system at the office and an individualistic life at home. They are, as it were, amphi bious animals living on land and in water at the same time. But it would be a mistake to think that they can move from one type of life to another without difficulty or pain. There is an undeni able contradiction and it tells on their nerve, even if not all of them are aware of it. You will find a tremendous district of Tokyo and other number of small bars in every Japanese cities and may won der how so many bars can survive. They thrive because it is here that large herds of amphibious animals congre gate nightly to ease their mental tension and enjoy a brief escape from the contra diction in their lives. Since the quasi-family sys tem at the office tends to frustrate a Japanese salaried man’s legitimate ambition, he tends to turn to his fa mily.. and derives increasing satisfaction from pursuing individualistic and material istic pleasure at home. In the long run, however, it is unthinkable that the quasifamily office system can be sustained indefinitely. Recently, I talked with a few top-level businessmen about the future propects of the Japanese economy. There was a striking unanimity of opinion among them. They were all worried whether Japan would be able to maintain its present econo mic progress when indivi dualism expanded among workers. They said: “When the present generation of diligent and obedient workers is replaced by younger indi vidualists, we just don’t know what will happen.” But one thing is clear. Japanese salaried people will, sooner or later, be complete ly domesticised in the West ern way, and it will be very difficult to distinguish them from their counterparts in the rest of the world. — By Sen Matsuda in the Hemi sphere, July 1967 issue. September 19^7 47 CIVIC AND POLITICAL INDIFFERENCE Although the average Filipino rejects political turncoatism as an act that runs against his concept of morality, he, however, does not reject it effectively. He still chooses to vote for the man most likely to win. And it has been proven time and again that a politician, even how famous he may be, is not likely to win if he runs for a high position as an independent candidate. Thus, the Filipino voter is virtually a prisoner of his own narrow political beliefs. On the one hand, he believes that switching parties is immoral. On the other hand, he condones the act on the ground that he wishes to identify himself with the winner. He is a baby as far as the relatively simple act of voting men to public office is concerned. Whe ther he will grow up this time or remain an infant is worth watching. There are good reasons why this particular be havior4 should be watched. The people themselves have been complaining that the same men get elected over and over again. They complain that one set of public officials is as good as another, that electing one party is as good as installing the other, meaning to say that neither has been decisive in giving relief to misery. We say people have no business complaining if they do not act effectively to change the situation they are in. — Apolonio Batalla, Manila Bulletin. 48 Panorama Panorama Reading Association PANORAMA invites the educated public to join its Association of Readers. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION is dedicated to men and women who appreciate the variety and quality of its articles as sources of liberal ideas. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION includes stu dents, businessmen, professionals, proprietors, employers, and employees. It is also open to clubs, schools, and other ac credited organizations. PANORAMA has been in existence for over Thirty Years. PANORAMA piovides excellent material for classes in history, government, economics, political and social studies, lite rature, and science. It may be adopted for secondary and college use. PANORAMA is not a fly-by-night publication. It was bom in March, 1936. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St.. Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents Freedom and Individuality ........................................................ 1 The President's Bugging Office 2 Sergio Osmeha: Rectitude Personified .............................. 4 Too Many Solons! -|Q Anatomy of on Alumnus ............................................................. 13 Needed Restraint on Profit Schools ....................................... 16 Philippine Political Dynasties ................................................... 18 Mabini's Idea of a Senate ................................ 20 The President and Senatorial Robots ...................... 23 How to Build a Democracy .................................................. 25 Universities and Our Social Problems ................................ 29 Critical Remarks on the Supreme Court ........................... 35 Jean Piaget: Notes on Learning ..................................... 3B The Salaried Man in Japan 43 Civic and Political Indifference 48
■ A good college graduate should be loyal to his alma mater; and the reasons are given by a great American jurist and leader in this article. ANATOMY of an alumnus What is it that binds us so closely to our alma mater? Why do we respond so warm ly? Why do we do so much in a myriad of ways to de monstrate our love for the institution that brought us to maturity and helped us to develop our latent talents and capacities and our sense of human values, to appre ciate the beauties and the harmonies of art and litera ture, and to strengthen and broaden our intellectual fa culties? I respectfully sub mit that there are three rea sons for this. Doubtless there are others, but I stress these three above all others. I shall discuss them in what I think is the inverse order of their importance, but I real ize others may have different views on the subject. First, there is the psycholo gical urge to be identified as a member of the group, the notion of “belonging.” This enhances one’s indivi dual ego and produces a per fectly human feeling of plea sure and security. People like to get on the band wa gon if given a reasonable op portunity to do so. It is the opposite of a feeling that one is on the outside, more or less regarded as different from the others. Class spirit and class unity inevitably foster this idea of “belong ing.” After the lapse of a few years not a single mem ber of the class thinks he is being left out in the cold. Second, there is that spark of fire between the teacher and the pupil, between the institution of learning and the student, that continues with us through life and ne ver ceases to engender a re ciprocal feeling of warmth and affection and gratitude. As the ripples go out endless ly when one throws a pebble into a pond, the effect goes on and on until we join our loved ones in the great be September 1967 13 yond. Some of us may per versely seek to extinguish this spark of fire, while others nurse and foster it with loving care; but, in either event, and no matter what may happen to us, the spark is never extinguished. This I submit is also a ba sic psychological fact. The third reason is not so widely understood. I shall try to work around to it on the bias, my favorite ap proach. When I was a boy at prep school I simply could not understand why Cicero kept harping on his desire to establish a reputation that would continue down through the ages. Most of the other Greek and Latin authors we studied seemed to be obsessed with the same idea. As I grew older it sud denly dajvned on me that, in varying degrees according to their circumstances, prac tically everyone has an itch ing for fame. People do all sorts of things that can be designed for no other pur pose than to perpetuate their memory, as far as they can. But, when you stop to think about it, where is one to find the lasting, solid quality of permanency in this best of all possible worlds, as Vol taire used to call it. Build ings of great beauty, temples, churches and what not, are constructed, but as the years roll by they are tom down and replaced by others. Think of the millions of books that were thought to bring imperishable glory to their authors, but now lie buried away in some library and forgotten or wholly des troyed and lost in oblivion. A person does not have to be so very bright to realize that nothing he can do will be sure to construct an image of himself that will be per ceptible to anyone in another fifty or one hundred years. Yes, the deeds of men and women as well as those of their friends and relatives and all that is dear to them will pass into the mist and be no more, as Horace so often reminds us. But the college or university stands out as almost the only really solid, permanent fact. It is something we can cling to throughout life, and thus be come a part of its very per manency and stability through the ages. We may leave our mark upon it, per haps our very name, in a 14 Panorama more or less conspicuous way. Even the annals of the col lege or the university and its archives with their refe rences to the records of the students and the benefactions of the alumni run back to the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, as the lawyers say. So I think it is the most natural and the most human thing in the world for our alumnus to act as he does. And as he comes back to warm himself in the sun of the campus and opens his coffers and bestows of his substance to the various drives for Annual Giving and for the Capital Needs of his alma mater, and for the es tablishment of professorships and scholarships and what not else, we may rest assured that he is well repaid not only in the happiness he en joys with his classmates and with the alumni of other classes, but also by the satis faction one always feels in responding to an inner urge and a subconscious motiva tion. — Judge Harold R. Me dina of U.S.A., from Ameri can Alumni Council, Leaflet No. 12. IMPROPER PROPOSALS One beautiful evening, a young man who was very shy was carried away by the magic of the night. “Darling,” he asked, “will you marry me?” “Yes, Bill,” she answered softly. Then he lapsed into a silence that at last became painful to her. "Bill,” she said with a note of doubt in her voice, why don’t you say something?” “I think,” replied Bill, “that I’ve said too much already.” — Alan Swerth. September 1967 15
“But President Marcos in sists there is but one issue in this senatorial election -his record as President of the country these last two years. “This is an indecent and dangerous presumption. It ignores the constitutional declaration that Congress is an independent and co-equal body with the office of the President. “What he really wants are eight robots who will jump at his command.” — By Be. nigno S. Aquino, Jr. Extracts from Manila Times, Septem ber 16, 1967. BAR HAZARD People who spend too much time in bars can go blind, a Brazilian ophthalmologist warned. Dr. Hilton Rochan called on police to ban the murky lighting of modern bars and night clubs which he termed “black light.” In recommending it outlawed, Rochan noted the same type of light is used by police for ballistic tests, dnd detection of counterfeit money. “It can bring blindness to those who spend too much time in bars,” he said. — Belo Horizonte. 24 Panorama
CIVIC AND POLITICAL INDIFFERENCE Although the average Filipino rejects political turncoatism as an act that runs against his concept of morality, he, however, does not reject it effectively. He still chooses to vote for the man most likely to win. And it has been proven time and again that a politician, even how famous he may be, is not likely to win if he runs for a high position as an independent candidate. Thus, the Filipino voter is virtually a prisoner of his own narrow political beliefs. On the one hand, he believes that switching parties is immoral. On the other hand, he condones the act on the ground that he wishes to identify himself with the winner. He is a baby as far as the relatively simple act of voting men to public office is concerned. Whe ther he will grow up this time or remain an infant is worth watching. There are good reasons why this particular be havior4 should be watched. The people themselves have been complaining that the same men get elected over and over again. They complain that one set of public officials is as good as another, that electing one party is as good as installing the other, meaning to say that neither has been decisive in giving relief to misery. We say people have no business complaining if they do not act effectively to change the situation they are in. — Apolonio Batalla, Manila Bulletin. 48 Panorama
■ The independence of the courts does not mean that they should be free from criticism. The fol lowing is a unique and courageous stand on the subject. CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE SUPREME COURT A middle-aged practicing lawyer, in renouncing his license to practice law as a protest against what he con sidered a grave injustice com mitted by the Supreme Court against his client, accused the high tribunal of offenses so serious that the Court must clear itself. In a written petition to the court, Vicente Raul Almacen of Iloilo, a senior partner in the law firm of Villareal, Almacen, Navarra & Amores, stated: “. . . our own' Supreme Court is com posed of men who are cal loused to our pleas for jus tice, who ignore thdir own applicable decisions and com mit culpable violations of the Constitution with impunity.” Lawyer Almacen was pro voked into his outburst by what he called “short-cut justice” administered by the high court. He had lost an appeal before the Court of Appeals on a technicality; his motion for reconsidera tion of a lower court decision ordering his client to^ay Pl20,000.00 failed to include a notice of hearing. Almacen argued that the omission had caused no harm, that the op posing lawyer was duly noti fied. Almacen appealed the case to the Supreme Court which, in its resolution of denial, gave no reason whatsoever. He filed a motion for recon sideration. It was again de nied without explanation. He filed a motion for reconof court to submit a second motion for reconsideration which the high court again denied. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Almacen. Supreme Court justices are subject to impeachment. Sec tion 1, Article IX of the Constitution states: "The President, the Vice President, September 1967 35 the Justices of the Supreme Court and the Auditor Gen eral shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, or other high crimes.” Almacen has charged the high tribunal with “culpable violations of the Constitution.” His charge is one of the constitutional bau& for impeachment. The Supreme Court cannot let his charge pass without challeng ing its veracity. Perhaps, Almacen had in mind Section 12, Article VIII of the Constitution which states: “No decision shall be rendered by any court of rec o r d without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.’ Is a reso lution denying a petition a decision? Evidently the Sup reme Court does not think so. Maybe a resolution is a routine action that does not deserve to be classified as a decision and, therefore, needs no elaborate reasoning. Perhaps, also, the Supreme Court had in mind the rule that any decision rendered by the Court of Appeals on a case involving only ques tions of facts is final. If this is the case, the Supreme Court need not explain it to a lawyer. A lawyer is pre sumed to know so elemen tary a rule. Yet, what would it cost the high tribunal to state in its resolution that the denial is based on the law defining the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction? It is evidently the think ing of the . framers of the Constitution that in the ad ministration of justice in a free society there is no room for summary and arbitrary action. The power of the courts is perhaps the highest in the state in the sense that it includes the authority to deprive a person of life, liberty and property. Pre cisely because this power is the ultimate, it may not be exercised without due process of law. Does the arbitrary denial of a petition satisfy the requirement of due process? There is no appeal from a decision of the Supreme Court except by petitioning it for reconsideration. If the original decision is rendered by the high tribunal itself it is understood that it has com plied with the constitutional requirement that the facts 36 Panorama and the law on which the decision was based should be expressed. But where the de cision appealed is from the lower courts, it should not be amiss for the Supreme Court to explain the basis of its action, even if it is a mere denial to review the case. This procedure would seem to be more in conformity with the constitutional re quirement. Almost at the same time, the newspapers reported that the Supreme Court also dis missed the appeal of the three senators convicted by the Senate Electoral Tri bunal of election overspend ing in a resolution without explanation. The reason could be lack of jurisdiction or the principle of the sepa ration of powers or the fact that three Supreme Court justices had voted for con viction. But whatever be the reason, there is no deny ing that the senators concern ed would have been less un happy if there had been even the briefest of explanations. As the court’s decision was also precedent-setting, Jt would have been better#-all around if its basis in law had been expressed. Be this as it may, the charge of “culpable viola tions of the Constitution” should be nailed down and exposed as empty — if it is in fact empty. — Vicente Al bano Pads, Manila Chroni cle, Sept. 1967. September 1967 37
lent class war. Second: there must be no imminent risk of serious war; that is to say there must be a federal gov ernment of the world, pos sessed of the sole armed forces beyond such as are genuinely needed for police purposes. Third: economic as well as political power must be democratic, which requires that the main sources of economic power should be controlled by the democratic state. — Bertrand Russell, condensed from Fo rum and Century. EQUITY Perhaps the most significant thing that came out of the selection of the eight Nacionalista senatorial candidates was the canning of the “equity of the incumbent’’ business. Of course, the party moguls influenced the dele gates to the national directorate meeting this way and that, but that was Ohly natural. The point is that the delegates were not coer ced into voting for this or that candidate. They were not bought. They absorbed the pressure of influence coming from highly placed quarters in the N.P., and then in the secret balloting, they made their own choices. Definitely, this was one affair where no one could cry “Fix!” or “I was robbed!” — Manila Bul letin, July 31, 1967. 28 Panorama
Vol. XIX TNI PNIUPPIM MAGAZINE OF GOOD HADING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 7, 1956 MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 9 FREEDOM AND INDIVIDUALITY *He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. * The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. * Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. * The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual. * The despotism of custom is everywhere the stand ing hindrance to human advancement. * A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another. {Not that Mill was opposed to government aid to education; he believed that education thrived on diversity.') — John Stuart Mill. ■ The President of the Philippines is being accused of violating the right of privacy. THE PRESIDENT'S BUGGING OFFICE President Marcos has re vealed that he has bugged his office and has been able to secure tape-recordings of confidential and compromis ing conversations with vi sitors. The revelation was made in Cebu at a public rally in which he presented the NP candidates for sen ator. We have heard of the Russians bugging American and other embassies in Mos cow for purposes of espio nage, but this is about the first time that the President of a free country has secretly tape-recorded his conversa tions with his visitors. In an official press release of Sept. 3, 1967, the Malacanang press office quoted the President as having said in his Cebu speech: "Don’t you know that ma ny of these supposed candi dates (presumably the LP senatorial candidates) fre quent my office in Malacanang asking for favors from me? I have tape-recordings of each and everyone of them. And if they are in terested to find out what they said, I will give them a copy of the tape-recordings. "Some of them can be a basis for criminal action like attempted bribery. So, if they really want proofs, they should come to me. "There is not a single one of them who has not gone to my office begging for favors. "I have refused them, some of them for appointments for high office. I think you know whom I am talking about. Some of them for concessions, some of them for contracts, the Manila Hotel; some of them for re parations items. "I repeat, if they want to hear the tape-recordings, I will accommodate them." There are several ways of looking at the startling pres 2 Panorama
■ This enlightening article was written by a famous thinker, writer, and mathematician in 1939 before the last World War, It is still full of valid ideas. Under the criteria it mentions, we might ask: Can the Philippines be a democracy? HOW TO BUILD Consider, at the present day, the governments of Ger many and Denmark. These two countries are neighbors, closely akin in race, religion, and language — yet the one exhibits the extreme of auto cracy and militarism; the other, the extreme of demo cracy and pacifism. This example suffices to dispose of the idea that race, in the biological sense, is any degree relevant to our problem; no one can reasonably suppose that Germans and Danes dif fer appreciably in their con genital cqnstitution. It is as regards history, tradition, and opportunity that they differ. Those are the 'forces that mold national character, and it is through these forces that the humanization of po wer must be effected. Democracy was invented as a means of preventing the arbitrary use of power, but its success, so far, has been strictly limited. It is greatest A DEMOCRACY in the small Germanic coun tries — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Switz erland. Next in order comes the United States, but here the system has failed to secure justice for Negroes and to prevent the illegal employ ment of the police on the side of the rich in labor dis putes. England and France are democracies at home but not in their imperial pos sessions. Germany and Italy have made short and preca rious attempts at democracy, which the bulk of their own populations regarded as un successful. Russia, Asia, and Africa have never, even tem porarily, had democratic forms of government. The nations that are democratic have not always been so. The chief conditions for the success of democracy ap pear to be three: first, an educated population; second, a considerable degree of cul tural homogeneity; third a September 1967 25 greater interest in home af fairs than in relations with foreign countries. As to the first of these con ditions, there is much to be said, but for the moment I shall confine myself to the obvious fact that where a majority cannot read it is im possible that there should be any widespread understand ing of political issues. Cultural homogeneity is a vague phrase, and I will try to replace it by something more precise. What I mean exists, for example, in Switzerland, in spite of differences in race, language and religion. It is a matter of sentiment, generat ed partly by history as taught in schools. A Swiss is a man to whom, from earliest infan cy, William Tell has been a natidnal hero. An American is a man who reveres the Declaration of Independence. An Englishman thinks of the Armada and the Battle of Waterloo. A Frenchman is proud of the Revolution, unless he is a reactionary — in which case he gives his alle giance to Joan of Arc. But in addition to these edu cational myths there is an other very powerful source of homogeneity, namely simi larity in national customs, manners, food, games, and so on. This similarity makes life at home more effortless than life abroad and gives rise to a feeling of safety which makes compatriots seem more virtuous than foreigners. Underlying all this is the instinctive love of home which man shares with other animals. Where there is not cultural homogeneity in this sense, de mocracy, if it is to succeed at all, must be federal. A fe deral system is hardly possi ble unless the various groups are separated geographically. Democracy is a method of adjusting internal conflicts of interest and sentiment and seems unnecessary when a nation is primarily conscious of itself as a unit in conflict with others. France in the French Revolution, Russia in the Russian Revolution, and Germany since Versailles were in this situation; and in France and Germany, if not in Russia, foreign enmity was the chief immediate cause of the suppression of democracy by dictatorships. In war the sense of solidarity is such that a leader who 26 Panorama personifies the nation easily persuades men to allow him dictatorial power, especially if there is a serious risk of defeat. War and the fear of war are at the present time the most serious obstacle to democracy. It is obvious that the class war, where it exists in an acute form, makes the rule of force inevitable, not only because all war has this ten dency but because class war destroys cultural homogeneity. When class war leads to dic tatorship, as it has done in Russia, Italy, and Germany, it establishes the dictators as an oligarchical authority and, by arousing foreign enmity, makes them the representa tives of patriotism. As a method of humanizing po wer, therefore, the class war, in its more violent forms, is inevitably doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the problem of humanizing power cannot be solved unless it can be dealt with in the economic as well as in the political sphere. I do not believe that it will be solved in the eco nomic sphere so long as the solution is represented as solely in the interest of the proletariat, because the in dustrial proletariat, in most countries, is a minority and in all countries is too weak to win without such bitter warfare as must lead to dic tatorship and so to the crea tion of a new privileged class. Given democracy, both economic and political, there will still be much to be done before power is completely humanized. There must be freedom to criticize the au thorities, opportunities for removing tnen in power if they act illegally, a spirit of toleration as between oppos ing groups, and a very wide spread respect for legality. This last must be sufficient ly strong to deter soldiers from following a general if he invites them to overthrow the civil government. Such a state of opinion is not im possible: it has existed in England since 1688 and in America since 1776. I conclude that the hu manizing of power is possi ble on certain conditions. First: there must not exist, within one governmental unit, such implacable hatreds as are apt to be associated with militant differences of nationality, intolerant reli gious disagreements, or vio September 1967 27 lent class war. Second: there must be no imminent risk of serious war; that is to say there must be a federal gov ernment of the world, pos sessed of the sole armed forces beyond such as are genuinely needed for police purposes. Third: economic as well as political power must be democratic, which requires that the main sources of economic power should be controlled by the democratic state. — Bertrand Russell, condensed from Fo rum and Century. EQUITY Perhaps the most significant thing that came out of the selection of the eight Nacionalista senatorial candidates was the canning of the “equity of the incumbent’’ business. Of course, the party moguls influenced the dele gates to the national directorate meeting this way and that, but that was Ohly natural. The point is that the delegates were not coer ced into voting for this or that candidate. They were not bought. They absorbed the pressure of influence coming from highly placed quarters in the N.P., and then in the secret balloting, they made their own choices. Definitely, this was one affair where no one could cry “Fix!” or “I was robbed!” — Manila Bul letin, July 31, 1967. 28 Panorama
more or less conspicuous way. Even the annals of the col lege or the university and its archives with their refe rences to the records of the students and the benefactions of the alumni run back to the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, as the lawyers say. So I think it is the most natural and the most human thing in the world for our alumnus to act as he does. And as he comes back to warm himself in the sun of the campus and opens his coffers and bestows of his substance to the various drives for Annual Giving and for the Capital Needs of his alma mater, and for the es tablishment of professorships and scholarships and what not else, we may rest assured that he is well repaid not only in the happiness he en joys with his classmates and with the alumni of other classes, but also by the satis faction one always feels in responding to an inner urge and a subconscious motiva tion. — Judge Harold R. Me dina of U.S.A., from Ameri can Alumni Council, Leaflet No. 12. IMPROPER PROPOSALS One beautiful evening, a young man who was very shy was carried away by the magic of the night. “Darling,” he asked, “will you marry me?” “Yes, Bill,” she answered softly. Then he lapsed into a silence that at last became painful to her. "Bill,” she said with a note of doubt in her voice, why don’t you say something?” “I think,” replied Bill, “that I’ve said too much already.” — Alan Swerth. September 1967 15
■ New ideas on education and the instruction of the young have been receiving a great deal of atten tion in Europe and in the U.S.A. Filipino educators need to be aware of them. JEAN PIAGET: NOTES ON LEARNING The man behind the ideas of many of the plans and programs to improve the cur ricula in the schools is not an educator. Jean Piaget is the s ev e n t y-one-year-o 1 d French-speaking Swiss direc tor of the Jean Jacques Rous seau Institute in Geneva, the founding director of the In ternational Center for Gene tic Epistemology, director of the International Bureau of Education, and professor of child psychology and of the history of scientific thought at the University of Geneva. Some psychologists are con vinced that his work might become as influential as Freud’s. Some educators are fearful that this may be true. In March, Piaget came to U.S.A, to deliver three lec tures on the nature and nur ture of intelligence and on related matters in science, psychology, and education. He spoke at New York Uni versity and addressed the convention of the American Orthopsychiatric Association in Washington. It has been said of Piaget that he is by vocation a socio logist, by avocation an epistemologist, and by method a logician. He tells his listen ers and readers that he is not an educator, that he is a psy chologist with an interdis ciplinary bent, that he is an investigator using the tools of the related fields of bio logy, psychology, and logic to explore the genesis of intel ligence in the human young. All his long life he has drawn upon these three fields to conduct research and to build his theories of the develop ment of intelligence in child, ren. For Piaget, the crucial question in the study of the growing child is how he ad justs himself to the world in which he lives. And for Pia get there is nothing pejora tive in the word adjustment. It involves backing and fill ing, winning and losing, un 38 Panorama demanding and gaining knowledge. As he expresses it: “Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an ob ject, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy, or image, of it. To know an object is to act on it. To know is to mo dify, to transform the object, and to understand the pro cess of this transformation, and as a consequence to un derstand the way the object is constructed. An operation is thus the essence of know ledge.” This is the voice of the epistemologist, but it speaks from the soul of the teacher. Piaget’s techniques for ob serving, recording, and un derstanding the way a child things is quite literally to get inside of' the child’s mind and see the world through the child’s eyes. One of his notable experiments, for example, was to join in a child’s game as an equal. He would “learn how to make a good shot at marbles, how to make bad ones, and even how to cheat.” Piaget sees four major stages of growth through childhood: the first is the sensory-motor stage, which lasts from birth to about two years. Here the child learns muscles and senses and dev elops certain habits for deal ing with external objects and events. Language begins to gain form. He can deal with and know that things exist even when they are beyond his sight or touch. He be gins to “symbolize,” to repre sent things by word or ges ture. The second stage is the preoperational or representa tional stage. It begins with the beginning of organized language and continues to about the age of six. This is the period of greatest lan guage growth and through the use of word and other symbols the child can repre sent the outside world and his own inner world of feel ing. It is a period when ma gical explanations make sense, when “God pushes the sun around” and stars must go to bed when he does. The child begins to gain a sense of symmetry, depends on trial and error adjustments, and manages things by a kind of intuitive regulation. The third stage, between seven and eleven years, is September 1967 39 one in which the child ac quires the ability to carry out what Piaget calls concrete operations. He can move things around, make them fit properly. He acquires fine motor skills and can or ganize what he has and knows how to solve physical problems. The fourth stage is one of formal operations and pre pares the way for adult thinking. It usually begins between twelve and fifteen years and involves the dev elopment of ‘‘hypothetical reasoning based upon a logic of all possible combinations and to perform controlled experimentation.” In successive studies Pia get and his associates have explored the growth of in telligence, the development of mora'l awareness, the child’s concept of physical reality, and the elaboration of appropriate logic to deal with complex nonrepresentational problems. Although The Language and Thought of the Child was published in English in 1926, it was not until the early 1950s that Piaget’s ideas made any significant impact in the United States. Professor Jerome S. Bruner of Harvard is probably res ponsible for the current public awareness, which can be traced to his important little book The Process of Education (1960), and his most recent book, Toward a Theory of Instruction (1966). Bruner describes Piaget as “unquestionably, the most impressive figure in the field of cognitive development.” Piaget, he says “is often in terpreted in the wrong way by those who think that his principal mission is psycho logical. It is not . . . What he has done is to write the implicit logical theory on which the child proceeds in dealing with intellectual tasks.” Some of Piagets Ideas 1. “If we accept the fact that there are stages of dev elopment, another question arises, which I call 'the Am erican question,’ and I’m asked it every time I come here: If there are stages that children reach at given norms of ages, can we accelerate these stages? Do we have to go through each one of these stages, or can’t we speed it up a bit? Well, surely, the answer is yes ... . but how 40 Panorama far can we speed them up? “A few years ago (Jerome S.) Bruner made a claim which has always astounded me; namely, that you can teach anything in an intel lectually honest way to any child of any age if you go about it the right way. Well, 1 don’t know if he still be lieves that. But I have a hypothesis that I am so far incapable of proving: Pro bably the organization of operations has an optimal time . For example, we know that it takes nine to twelve month before babies develop the notion that an object is still there even when a screen is placed in front of it. Now kittens go through the same stages as children, all the same sub-stages, but they do it in three months — so they’re six months ahead of babies. Is this an advantage or isn’t it? We can certainly see our answer in one sense. The kitten is not going to go much fur ther. The child has taken longer, but he is capable of going further, so it seems to me that the nine months probably were not for nothing. “It’s problably possible to accelerate, but maximal acce leration is not desirable. There seems to be an opti mal time. What this opti mal time is will surely de pend upon each individual and on the subject matter. We still need a great deal of research to know what the optimal time would be.” 2. “Should schools attempt to create individuals who are capable of understanding everything that has been done in the history of ideas, and capable of repeating all this history, or should they focus on forming individuals who are capable of inventing, of finding new things in all areas: in modest technical inventions, or in more highly developed scientific inven tions — that is, people who are capable of going beyond the present and previous generations? This gives us the alternative between two types of pedagogy, one in which the child is receptive, the other in which he is active — education which sti mulates the activities of the child in the area of his in ventiveness.” 3. “Intelligence is born of action. Any act of intelli gence — whether it be on the part of a man involved in September 1967 41 scientific research, or of any normal adult in his everyday problem-solving, or the child of seven and eight — any act of intelligence consists of operations, carrying out ope rations, and coordinating them among themselves.” 4. “Even in order to un dersand we have to invent, or, that is, to reinvent, be cause we can’t start from the beginning again. But I would say that anything is only understood to the ex tent that it is reinvented.” 5. “Each of the stages (of learning) is essential for the development of the follow ing stages. This isn’t simply a linear order in which you could jump over one stage and still get to the next one. Each stage integrates the pre ceding stage and prepares the way for the following one.” — By Frank G. Jennings, Ex tracts from Saturday Review, May 20, 1967. 42 Panorama
■ A different sort of senate was suggested by a Fili pino leader of past days before the Filipino peo ple have had any experience in self-government. MABINI'S IDEA OF A SENATE If President Marcos is cor rect in his campaign belief that we can be “great again” — a piece of rhetoric which, incidentally, he has never ex plained satisfactorily — we should probably look back to the time when we were first great. And that can only be when Filipinos had cour age and patriotism and self sacrifice to spare, (for that is the only greatness that counts) the time of the Phil ippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War and the decades immediately pre ceding and following them. This year’s senatorial elec tions make a good jumpingoff point for this kind of perspective. What was the 1898 view of a Philippine Senate? In the “Constitu tional Program” drafted by Mabini for the First Philip pine Republic there looms a characteristic virtuous and intellectual mood that seems, in retrospect, passionately a political and contemptuous of most of the values that we now hold to be important. At the same time, it is, oddly enough, not without some similarities to our own view of the exalted position of the Senate, that institution being one of the few which we have managed to keep fairly intact. To begin with, one must remember that Mabini’s con stitution was largely original, almost completely underived and uninfluenced by Ameri can, British and French do cuments, and in that sense, indigenous and very much rooted in his times. It was a democratic breakthrough, for an ex-colony, its popu lism diluted only by the exigencies of the existing state of war. It was also an exposition of aristocracy: ta lent, “honest work” and pa triotic service counted more 20 Panorama than all other considerations. It was meant to instruct as well as reflect and was, per haps deliberately, more hightoned than many of the peo ple it sought to encompass. Mabini called the Senate "un cuerpo respetabilisimo”, a superlative body, to be composed of persons who had “distinguished themselves by their honesty and their vast knowledge’ of art, science and industry and had become the elite of society, not by wealth or by position, but by “talent joined with honest work.” The age requirement was 30 (a point in favor of Gov ernor Aquino of Tarlac who, depending on how you look at it, was born either a few days or 69 years too late). Another requirement was “a fixed income which will en sure a decorous and indepen dent life” (without the need of congressional allowances?). An important after-thought in the same article does away with the specifications in the preceding paragraph: all of them were to be outweighed by the fact of “having ren dered great services to the people.” Generals and admirals in active service would automa tically be senators. So would “the erector of the central university” (the equivalent of the president of the Uni versity of the Philippines) and of the other ‘academies,’ as the heads of unions com posed of professionals (Ma bini called them sindicatos, a term which may have been derived from the French syn dic at, and, in that case, trade unions). An encouragement for Secretary of Labor Espi nosa? The “directors of wel fare agencies that are under the immediate supervision of the central government” (still a good breeding ground for the Senate as the SWA has shown) would also merit seats in the first Philippine Sen ate. Industry and commerce, as in our time, would provide a few more senators. These business organizations, spe cially those devoted to rail ways and other means of communications (nothing new in the idea of infra structure, after all?) were to be allowed to choose one member of the Senate “from their midst.” The other sen ators were to be chosen by September 1967 21 “electors appointed by fa culties from colleges” (A point in favor of Miss He lena Benitez) by electors from business and industrial firms who paid the most taxes and by the top tax payers themselves. The emphasis on taxpay ing and "contributores” who were to elect Congress and the Senate in a classic elec toral system that recalls an cient Greece or Switzerland and is worlds removed from the banal, small-minded at mosphere of our time was probably Mabini’s tribute to the American dictum of “No taxation without representa tion.” The senators of that time were merely to advise Con gress and “the central gov ernment” so that “the actions of both may be accompanied by right and justice” — a real council of elders. They were “to propose to the Pres ident the establishment of re forms and of adequate im provements," always giving the advantage to "talent and inventiveness” but their deci sions were not to bind the President in any manner, ex cept in the sense that "three decisions made at different times on the same matter” would oblige him to submit them to Congress, “in order that this body may decide whether they are to have the force of law.” Where is the purity of yes teryear? But wishful think ing can lead only to the fatal compromises with which, this year, we are all faced. Greatness must indeed be reac quired. — By Carmen Guer rero Nakpil. 22‘ Panorama
MALAY LANGUAGE ISSUE Troubles in recent years in Ceylon, India, Belgium and Canada have shown that the right to speak your mother tongue is one for which peo ple are ready to fight. Ta mils in Ceylon, non-Hindu speakers in India, Flemings in Belgium, and French Ca nadians have this urge to protect their language in common. But Ceylon, Bel gium and Canada have had to deal with two languages only; in Malaysia, there are four major languages in Western Malaysia, to say nothing of various Chinese dialects. Clearly, the ques tion of Malay as a single National Language is even more delicate than in the cases mentioned above, three of which produced blood shed. The constitutional date for the introduction of Malay as the single national language in Western Malaysia came on Aug. 31. The National Language Bill, which was passed on March 4, represent a significant concession by Malay leaders to the Chinese and Indian communities, and to those educated in English of whatever community. The Paramount Ruler may allow English for official purposes for as long as is thought fit; the central or any state gov ernment may permit the use of any of the communal lan guages; the courts will use English; acts and ordinances will be in English and Ma lay; and members of parlia ment may be permitted to speak English. Behind this sensible-sound ing compromise lies Tengku Abdul Rahman’s understand ing that to “force things down people’s throats whe ther they like it or not” would have produced com munal strife and administra tive breakdown. Instead, he has chosen "the peaceful way”, despite demonstrations from students at the Muslim September 1967 7 College in Kuala Lumpur (which had to be closed), de monstrations outside t h e Tengku’s house, and charges from the state premier of a Malay state that the compro mise was a betrayal of Ma lay aspirations and govern ment promises. On top of this, the influential director of the national language and literature agency, Syed Nasir, resigned over the bill. The opposition of the Ma lays to what they see as con cessions to English-speakers and the Chinese and Indian communities springs from their uncertain position in what they regard as their own country. Malays are in a bare majority over Chinese and Indians combined in Western Malaysia (in Ma laysia as a whole, Malays are in a> minority compared with all non-Malays). While they are well entrenched in poli tics, civil service, police and the army, the vast bulk of Malays, speak only their own language, are rural and agri cultural, and have a small stake in Malaysia’s commerce, industry and banking. Per haps 80 per cent of Malay sia’s economy is in Chinese hands. In addition, barely a quarter of the students at the University of Malaysia are Malays. This economic backward ness not only produces in security among the Malays; it is seen by them as being a direct result of the old colonial-based education sys tem. English-speaking schools were entirely in the towns; an English education was the key to further education, and as there were few Malays in the towns and no Malay se condary education, the sys tem favored Chinese and In dians. While Malay secon dary and university educa tion has expanded since in dependence, the proportion of Chinese and Indians with good education is still much higher. Malays feel that the use of the National Lan guage would not only indi cate that the country, though multi-racial, was basically Malay, but would iron out some of the glaring economic inequalities which actually harm Malay-Chinese rela tions. Naturally the Chinese com munity, who for over a hun dred years were regarded by the British as temporary in habitants and were allowed 8 Panorama their own customs, schools and teachers, are just as fiercely attached to their language. Chinese-language produced, and still produces, people orientated towards China, not to Malaysia. Po litically, the all-Chinese schools tend to be centres for the spread of communism. Where teaching in English and Chinese has been intro duced, the whole tone of the pupils has changed as a re sult. While, therefore, the integration of Chinese schools into a dual-language system with English has not been opposed, the obligatory use of Malay would have been seen as an attack on the Chi nese community and way of life. Politically, the conse quences would have been disastrous. As. it is, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s prime minister since independence, may have his greatest contri bution to racial harmony in Malaysia by personally devis ing and backing this compro mise. As recently as two years ago, there were no signs of deflection in the policy. The national language and literature agency was not on ly modernizing Malay — in venting Malay words for all the thousands of technical and modern terms for which there were no Malay equi valents — but was also run ning national language weeks, which were expanded into national language months. During these pe riods, everyone in govern ment was supposed to com municate only in Malay. As a result, little work was done. Singapore’s premiere, Le Kuan Yew, who was com mitted to Malay as the na tional language in his over whelmingly Chinese Singa pore, but kept Chinese, Eng lish and Tamil as official languages, was warning that to impose Malay would be seen by the other communi ties as an act of Malay poli tical chauvinism. Even gov ernment ministers spoke of fears of "language riots.” By the end of 1966, the tone was noticeably cooler. Tengku Abdul Rahman publicly stated that English could not be abandoned be cause it was an international language and the adminis tration would run down without it. — Forum World Features Ltd. 1967, Manila Bulletin. September 1967 9
■ Complaints have been aired against higher tui tion fees of Private Universities when these are said to be highly profitable to their owners. NEEDED RESTRAINT ON PROFIT SCHOOLS A lot has been written about private schools raising their tuition fees. To begin with we must say that it would be a great mistake to lump all private schools un der one category. We must distinguish between the schools that are non-stock and non-profit from those that declare fat dividends and whose main reason for being is profits. When we were Secretary of Education we were never strict in so far as the rion-stock and non profit schools are concerned. Thepe schools are doing the country a great service, and if they were to cease opera tion it would be no exagge ration to say that our entire educational system — parti cularly on the secondary and collegiate level — would suf fer a blow from which they would never recover. These institutions need all the help they can from the adminis tration. It is unfair to accuse them of profiteering. Yet this is exactly what is hap pening today. Instead of acknowledging the great ser vice that they are doing for the cause of education, they are being branded as pro fiteers. The Admin is tration should get tough with the schools that have been estab lished for profits. They should pass a law to limit the dividends of these insti tutions. It is very difficult to establish an educational institution for profit, and still maintain standards, al though we must admit that some universities have suc ceeded in doing both fairly well. The best example is the University of the .East But this is not an easy task. Why? Because what makes a good educational institu tion and what makes a good business are two entirely op posite factors. It is the large per capita investment per student that is the founda tion of a good college and 16 Panorama university. Investments in a good faculty and educational facilities. A good business, on the other hand, is where you invest little and derive a large profit. The only way to classify private schools is to separate the profit ones from the non profit ones. The non-profit schools should be given a free hand — so long as they follow the rules and regula tions that the government should clamp down on. The University of the Phil ippines, for instance, spends P2,200 a year per student. This is double the tuition of the Ateneo and La Salle, which is only Pl, 100 per an num. The Department of Education is always talking about standards. Yet, it ob viously expects these institute$ of higher learning to maintain ' their high stand ards of excellence at half of what it cost the U.P. If we want to have a high standard of education, we must be willing and ready to pay the price for it. It is the job the Department of Education to educate the public on the facts of the high cost of education. We maintain that it is unfair to accuse non-profit schools of profiteering. These schools should be helped — not con demned. As for the commer cial schools, it is about time that steps were taken so that they would be things of the past. Education costs money. This week’s issue of Time is about the spiralling cost of education. What is true in the United States is also true here. There is no such thing as a bargain basement when it comes to education. If the non-profit schools find it ne cessary to raise their tuition in order to maintain their standards, they should be allowed to do so. The De partment of Education should concern itself with standards — not fees. Clamp down on profit schools, and help the non-profit ones. That should be the policy. — Alejandro R. Roces, Manila Chronicle, June 27, 1967 September 1967 • 17
turncoat, the robber, the fraud, the smuggler, the hy pocrite, the sciolist, and all the other vicious elements that hate irifested our poor country. This — the develop ment of a strong sense of personal and social responsi bility — is an indispensable aim of a university if it is to act as the conscience of the nation. — V. G. Sinco. PARTIES AND POLITICS I must repeat again my conviction that parties are useful, effective, and altogether indispensable instruments of constitutional democracy. A country like the United States, Great Britain, or Sweden might wish or even choose to swap one kind of party system for another, but it could never wish or choose, not while it remained a constitutional democracy, to proceed on its way with no party system at all. The essence of democracy is politics, and politics withiout parties in a widespread and diverse community is really no politics at all. — By Clinton Rossiter in Parties and Politics in America. 34 Panorama
■ A dangerous form of nepotism in the upper brackets threatens to undermine the feeble foundations of Philippine democracy. PHILIPPINE POLITICAL DYNASTIES A new twist in the dynasty trend in Philippine politics is in the offing. Witness for instance the following cases: In San Juan, while Mayor Nicanor C. Ibuna is running for reelection as the NP of ficial candidate, his son, Ro dolfo has been nominated to the 8-man NP council. In Caloocan City, Mayor Macario Asistib is the NP official candidate while his son, Macario "Boy” Asistio, Jr. is eyeing a seat in the municipal council, Since the father is the head of the lo cal NP chapter, the selection of the young Asistio to the slate is certain. In Pasay City, Mayor Pablo Cuneta is the LP of ficial candidate. His son, who was earlier being boost ed to run for vice mayor un der the ticket of his father, is reportedly seeking a seat in the LP council slate in stead. Ordinarily, in various parts of the country, the husbandand-wife team has been the vogue, as in the following instances: In Ilocos Sur, while Rep. Floro Crisologo (N-Ilocos Sur), is the congressman of the province’s first district, his wife, Mrs. Carmen “Car meling” Crisologo, is the gov ernor. In Cagayan, while Rep. Tito Dupaya (N-Cagayan) is the congressman in the first district, his wife, Mrs. Teresa Dupaya, is the governor of the province. In Pampanga, while Fran cisco Nepomuceno is the gov ernor of the province, his wife, Mrs. Juanita Nepomu ceno, is also the congresswo man of the first district. The same thing prevails in Albay, where Venacio Ziga is the congressman of the second district, and his wife, Mrs. Tecla San Andres Ziga, is a senator. 18 Panorama In La Union, it is the other way around because Mrs. Magnolia Antonino is the congresswoman for the first district, while her hus band, Gaudencio Antonino, is a member of the senate. Another husband-and-wife team also exists in Cebu un der a different setup. Rep. Ramon Durano (N-Cebu) is one of the seven representa tives of the province, while his wife is the mayor of Danao City. While the husband-andwife team has been existing already for sometime, the father-and-son team will be put to a test as far as local politics is concerned. There existed sometime ago, however, a father-andson team, but under a new setup. This existed in this premiere province when the late Sen. Eulogio Rodriguez Sr., was senator and his son, the late Rep. Eulogio Rodriguez, Jr., was congressman of the second district. Later, while the late sen ator was still a member of the senate, another son, Isi dro S. Rodriguez, became governor of the province and is still the incumbent head of Rizal. — Salvador Elizalde, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 5, 1967. September 1967 19
■ The superior character of President Osmena has not yet been equalled by his successors in the Philippine Presidency; and it has been responsible for the rise of a united country and people. SERGIO OSMENA: RECTITUDE PERSONIFIED Today is Don Sergio’s na tal day. We would do well, I am sure, to look into his luminous life as we march on toward our rightful des tiny. Don Sergio’s life, both pri vate and public, was some thing beyond reproach, stud ded with so many virtues — like simplicity, humility, greatness of heart, and mnd, incorruptibility, and life long dedication to country and people. Self-ostentation and1 the flare for the drama tics, a common weakness of lesser men, were not for him. A life so assiduously plan ned and lived, none may point an accusing finger at Don Sergio. He was recti tude personified, whether in private or public life. But it is as our people’s bene factor, or, to put it in more precise terms, as public ser vant, which interests us most and which, I believe, should be our special concern to be familiar with as we go about to celebrate his birthday an niversary today. Of all the fine things about Don Sergio, I like to think and remember him most as the patron saint of our national unity. This was the cornerstone of his leader ship and of his entire public career, whether as the na tion’s leader or just as "a soldier in the ranks.” Like Abraham Lincoln, Don Ser gio firmly believed that a house divided against itself cannot and will not stand. In his life, man’s vaulting ambition was always relegat ed to the backseat whenever and wherever national unity was at stake. Times there were and they came one after another when Don Sergio’s devotion to our national unity was severely tested, but, to his unfading 4 Panorama glory, it was never found wanting. Now forgotten or dimmed by time, Don Sergio was our first national leader follow’ing the establishment of Am erica’s regime in our coun try, when as Speaker of the Philippine Assembly we start ed our epochal experiment in self-government. Upon the success of this historic experiment depended the ul timate recognition of our fun damental right to be free and independent. It was Don Sergio who piloted us so capably in establishing our capacity for self-govern ment. In the first Osmena-Quezon break up in 1922 on what proved to be an empty issue of collective leadership against unipersonal leader ship; Don. Sergio flatly reject ed the’ allure of sweet re venge by declining to com bine his forces with Democratas, a combination which might have enabled him to retain the national leader ship or, at least, placed him on a vantage position to ha rass his victorious adversary “The question of leadership,” Don Sergio recalled without any sign of bitterness, “soon became at issue, and the Nacionalista party became di vided into two groups — one known as Nacionalistas and the other as Colectivistas. The elections of 1923 x x x did not give a majority to either group and resulted in the increase in the number of the opposition, the Democrata party, but without giv ing the majority capable of organizing the Assembly. "I had to appeal to the sense of patriotism of my fellow Nacionalistas when the lea der of the other group, Pres ident Quezon, started nego tiations for a coalition with his old colleagues in the Nacionalista party.” Consider ing the strength and promi nence of the protagonists. Osmena and Quezon, as well as their powerful allies, our national unity, Don Sergio’s life-long obsession, would have been dealt with a severe blow if the cleavage between the two leaders had not been healed. Again Quezon broke up with Don Sergio on the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Indepen dence Act which Congress rejected, with Quezon lead ing the forces for its rejec tion, only to accept jjs repro September 1967 5 duction, as was the TydingsMcDuffie Act. Rejection of the one and acceptance of the other but identical bill paved the way, of course, for the relegation of Don Sergio to the background and as sured Quezon’s choice as first President of the Common wealth. Don Sergio’s final act of supreme sacrifice at the altar of national duty took place when, by Constitu tional mandate, he was to take over the Presidency of the Commonwealth from President Quezon whose ten ure of office had expired or was about to expire. In a truly admirable spirit of selfrenunciation, the incoming President took the initiative to extend’ the tenure of the ailing Quezon. "Towards the end of the war,” Don Sergio recalled, "with the expiration of the term of office of President Quezon fast approaching the menace of a new cleavage between the Filipino leaders looked inevitable. But faith ful to the principle of na tional unity which had brought me to public life in 1907 and had guided my po licies and actions during all these years whether I was a b leader of the party or a sol dier in the ranks, I took the initiative of presenting the case to the leaders of the United States Congress, and a true friend of the Filipino people, Senator Millard E. Tydings, came to our rescue, who, upon my petition and with his support, a joint re solution was introduced by him xxx extending, for the duration of the war, the term of office of President Quezon. Filipino unity was again preserved.” And, upon approval of the resolu tion, Don Sergio, without losing time, addresesd him self to our people declaring: “These are critical days for individuals as well as nations. Our sense of responsibility as a people and the strength of our national solidarity have once more been tested. We have again proved our unity.” He could have said with Adlai E. Stevenson: “Let there be no tears for me . . . There are things more pre cious than political victory. For there is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and, to see, we have only to look.” — Vicente L. Pastrana, Philippine He rald. Panorama
THE PRESIDENT AND SENATORIAL ROBOTS In the election for seats in the Philippine Senate next November, 1967, each of the two major political parties — The Nacionalista and the Liberal — has 8 candidates. The writer of the following paragraphs is a senatorial candidate of the Liberal Party. In answering the ar guments of President Marcos, he has drawn a clear picture of the party and its candi dates which is worthy of no tice and study at this period of Philippine political his tory when election issues, party affiliations, and the personal qualifications of candidates have become se riously confused. “Each of the 16 candidates of the two major parties in this election constitutes an issue. Each is an individual leader, a responsible official. They are bound by certain party ties, but they are not robots. They share certain views of government, but each view is so colored by a host of other considerations, out of principle or personal interest, that it would be presumptuous for anyone to judge them solely on the ba sis of party label. “If these were all they are — loyal and obedient party men — then there would be no need at all to look into their qualifications. One would simply have to write the party name during the election. There would be no need fo~r any discussion of issue. There would be no need for issues. “But the fact is that each candidate is an issue in him self. And when he presents himself to the electorate, the individual voter must look at the candidate’s record and his qualifacations. September 1967 23 “But President Marcos in sists there is but one issue in this senatorial election -his record as President of the country these last two years. “This is an indecent and dangerous presumption. It ignores the constitutional declaration that Congress is an independent and co-equal body with the office of the President. “What he really wants are eight robots who will jump at his command.” — By Be. nigno S. Aquino, Jr. Extracts from Manila Times, Septem ber 16, 1967. BAR HAZARD People who spend too much time in bars can go blind, a Brazilian ophthalmologist warned. Dr. Hilton Rochan called on police to ban the murky lighting of modern bars and night clubs which he termed “black light.” In recommending it outlawed, Rochan noted the same type of light is used by police for ballistic tests, dnd detection of counterfeit money. “It can bring blindness to those who spend too much time in bars,” he said. — Belo Horizonte. 24 Panorama
■ The President of the Philippines is being accused of violating the right of privacy. THE PRESIDENT'S BUGGING OFFICE President Marcos has re vealed that he has bugged his office and has been able to secure tape-recordings of confidential and compromis ing conversations with vi sitors. The revelation was made in Cebu at a public rally in which he presented the NP candidates for sen ator. We have heard of the Russians bugging American and other embassies in Mos cow for purposes of espio nage, but this is about the first time that the President of a free country has secretly tape-recorded his conversa tions with his visitors. In an official press release of Sept. 3, 1967, the Malacanang press office quoted the President as having said in his Cebu speech: "Don’t you know that ma ny of these supposed candi dates (presumably the LP senatorial candidates) fre quent my office in Malacanang asking for favors from me? I have tape-recordings of each and everyone of them. And if they are in terested to find out what they said, I will give them a copy of the tape-recordings. "Some of them can be a basis for criminal action like attempted bribery. So, if they really want proofs, they should come to me. "There is not a single one of them who has not gone to my office begging for favors. "I have refused them, some of them for appointments for high office. I think you know whom I am talking about. Some of them for concessions, some of them for contracts, the Manila Hotel; some of them for re parations items. "I repeat, if they want to hear the tape-recordings, I will accommodate them." There are several ways of looking at the startling pres 2 Panorama idential revelation From his side, the President deli berately recorded confiden tial conversation with him for his own purpose. Has he gathered evidence against his visitors for purposes of prosecution? Has he record ed their own words that would place them in com promising positions, if re vealed, for political pur poses? On the side of the Pres ident’s visitors, it can be said that the President has betrayed their confidence in him. If they talked to him about confidential matters, it is because they trust him. Now they know that the President has something which, if published, would harm their candidacies. Should they not better with draw before the President feels compelled to reveal their conversations to the public? What do the people think of it all? From now on, the President and his office will assume a sinister aspect as far as they are concerned. People see the President for various reasons, most of which are confidential. Some complain against certain pub lic officials for unfairness, arrogance, inefficiency or ex tortion. Others beg him for favors. Oftentimes they do not wish their names to be revealed for fear of retalia tion and persecution, parti cularly if the officials con cerned are vindictive and powerful. Will the people, after knowing that what they say may be tape-recorded, continue to entrust thenconfidences to the President? Or has Mr. Marcos damaged the public image of the pres idency by his bugging and his revelation? — V. Albano Pads, Manila Chronicle, Sept. 6, 1967. September 1967 3
■ An interesting and highly informative paper on the status of the salaried man in Japan and the effects on the social changes taking place in that country. THE SALARIED There is a species of ani mal which seems to think alike all over the world, ir respective of an immense diversity in environment. It is called the salaried man. Since I have occupied va rious positions in three coun tries — Japan, Australia and the United States — I believe I have some qualifications for making such a statement. When I was in a bar in Washington or Melbourne, I often thought I was back in Tokyo as my colleagues held forth, at great length, on the boss’s lack of brain power. (Strange to say, a boss is an idiot in every country.) And recently, I head a. section head in an American office in Tokyo reproaching female secretaries for their irregular attendance and for indulging in idle chatter during work ing hours. They obeyed his instruction for two weeks, but by the third week they had returned to their former ways. I have often seen Jap anese secretaries display the MAN IN JAPAN same tactics: when a thun derstorm comes, don’t move, keep quiet for a while, and let it pass. Salaried people of any race have the same instinct. The most impor tant topic of office conversa tion everywhere is promotion or demotion. There are differences, how ever, between salaried people in Japan and those in other countries. They spring main ly from a different historical and social background. First comes their relation with their employer. Japanese salaried people usually stay at one company for their en tire working life. In Japan it is still thought to be a vice to change one’s em ployer, although the concept is now rapidly changing, tie cause of the post-war econo mic and social revolution. When I was with the Cen tral Bank of Japan, then re garded as one of the most conservative organizations in the country, my colleagues September 1967 43 used to tell me with a tone of self-pity that the bank was like a lukewarm bath: if one stayed in it, one would never feel comfortable, but if one dared to emerge from it a cold would surely ensue! This is the wisdom of life challenged and proved by the sad experiences of many daring Japanese. In fact, if a Japanese moves to another company, he will lose, first of all, seniority. He may get a higher salary, but his in tangible prestige and status at the second company will be seriously handicapped, be cause he is a newcomer. He must wait several years, or indefinitely in most cases, be fore he is treated on the same footing as colleagues with a greater length of service. It is still a. basic practice in most Japanese offices for salary, promotion, retirement allowance and various fringe benefits to be determined by length of service. This discourages mobility of la bour and inevitably streng then the sense of dependence on the employer. Many Jap anese salaried people live in company-owned houses or flats at a nominal rent. (In big cities where the hous ing shortage is acute, and rent is exhorbitant, this is a great benefit.) All or part of their fares to and from work is paid by the company. They can make purchases at a discount at a company store. The company serves luncheon in its dining room, and provides free sporting or recreation facilities. Flower arrangement, calligraphy, for eign languages and other arts are taught by companypaid teachers. Once or twice a year, the staff members of a department or a section enjoy a week-end sight-seeing trip, staying at a club-house owned by die company or at an inn specially reserved by it. Senior offices play golf at clubs where the company has corporate membership and dine with customers at luxurious restaurants where the bill is picked up by the company. When a young man and woman marry, he or she will ask a boss of the company to act in a nominal capacity as a marriage gobetween. (The role is very similar to that of godfather in a Western country.) When a Japanese man reaches retirement age, usual ly fifty-five, the company, if 44 Panorama it has an affiliated company, will find him a job in it where he can stay for several years, though on a lower sa lary, until replaced by some body else from the parent company. Thus, the life of Japanese salaried people can not be separated from the company, and this explains why human relations in a Japanese office are very sub tle and intricate. “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” is an accepted philoso phy. On the other hand, compe tition, the struggle for power, is severe, as the arena is con fined. Personal ties form the most effective weapons. Fac tions exist in perhaps every company in Japan: graduates from the same university, people frdm the same district and so on. When I was a youthful officer in one com pany, I once visited a senior officer at his home on a per sonal matter; some months later, I found to my great surprise that his opponents suspected me of belonging to his faction merely because of that one personal visit. Japanese salaried people spend a great part of their lives in this sort of office at mosphere. When, however, they leave their ultra-modern offices for the sanctuary of their homes they encounter some thing different. The Japan ese family, once the citadel of the traditional system, is now quickly changing its character. A family consist ing of grandparents, parents and five or six children is no longer prevalent, and an average family is now com posed of parents and one or two children. The birth rate in Japan fell from the high est level to the lowest in the world during one decade after the war, a change which reflects the growth of indivi dualism. Accompanying the simpli fication of the family struc ture, the status of women, particularly of wives and younger females, has been greatly enhanced. Now a husband, tormented by the office atmosphere during the day, has to contend at home with female and younger members of his family who have absorbed all kinds of free, democratic thinking through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, films or school lectures. Ironically September 1967 45 enough, the products of mass media which are churned out by big companies reflect nothing of the medieval at mosphere in which they are produced. A father can no longer hope to dominate his family as in the old days. Nowadays many husbands and fathers have to work in the kitchen or tend a washing machine at week-ends or take the family out to amusement centres. If they try to tell the family that they have to rest to build up energy for their jobs, they will be talked down very promptly. In fact, Japanese husbands and fa thers themselves are changing their way of thinking. A sample s urvey conducted among 2,300 male workers in Tokyo irl 1961 showed that 57 per cent considered that fenjoying life was more im portant than occupation.. When questioned about their objective in life, 61 per cent chose the happiness of the family, 23 per cent indivi dual pleasure, 7 per cent the wish to make a contribution to society, 6 per cent wealth, and only 1 per cent fame. This emphasis on pleasure and happiness especially of the family, has undoubtedly become more pronounced in the past six years. Before the war, the happiness of the family meant maintaining the order of seniority at home — the prestige of pa rents, and children loyalty to their parents — but it now means enjoyment of life by the whole family. Post-war economic pros perity has greatly improved the living standards of Jap anese salaried people. In 1965, 90.3 per cent of the non-agrarian families owned a television set, 62.4 per cent a refrigerator, 72.7 per cent an electric washer, and 41.4 per cent a vacuum cleaner. The rate of car ownership is also rising, and the English word “leisure” is being na turalized, though it is pro nounced re h jar. Material progress is thus re-modelling the family life of Japanese salaried people, who now spend their time at home in almost the same way as their Western counter parts. They like to watch television. They like to grow flowers in a small garden. They like to chat with friends on harmless subjects. They like to read about 46 Panorama disasters or conflicts (some where else) in newspapers. They like to take the family to holiday resorts from time to time. And yet it is true that Jap anese salaried people live under two sets of different principles: a quasi family system at the office and an individualistic life at home. They are, as it were, amphi bious animals living on land and in water at the same time. But it would be a mistake to think that they can move from one type of life to another without difficulty or pain. There is an undeni able contradiction and it tells on their nerve, even if not all of them are aware of it. You will find a tremendous district of Tokyo and other number of small bars in every Japanese cities and may won der how so many bars can survive. They thrive because it is here that large herds of amphibious animals congre gate nightly to ease their mental tension and enjoy a brief escape from the contra diction in their lives. Since the quasi-family sys tem at the office tends to frustrate a Japanese salaried man’s legitimate ambition, he tends to turn to his fa mily.. and derives increasing satisfaction from pursuing individualistic and material istic pleasure at home. In the long run, however, it is unthinkable that the quasifamily office system can be sustained indefinitely. Recently, I talked with a few top-level businessmen about the future propects of the Japanese economy. There was a striking unanimity of opinion among them. They were all worried whether Japan would be able to maintain its present econo mic progress when indivi dualism expanded among workers. They said: “When the present generation of diligent and obedient workers is replaced by younger indi vidualists, we just don’t know what will happen.” But one thing is clear. Japanese salaried people will, sooner or later, be complete ly domesticised in the West ern way, and it will be very difficult to distinguish them from their counterparts in the rest of the world. — By Sen Matsuda in the Hemi sphere, July 1967 issue. September 19^7 47
■ The quality, not the number, of members in the Congress of the Philippines is what is desired. TOO MANY SOLONS! Only 10 per cent of our congressmen do their work. Thus, Judge Jesus P. Morfe of the Manila Court of First Instance bitingly criti cized the congressional pro posal to increase the number of congressmen from 120 to 180. Morfe, who has served in the bench for the last 13 years, said the proposal was not needed, and would sad dle the government with multi-milion peso additional expenses, and enable the con gressmen to perpetuate them selves in power through ger rymandering. "Only a little more or ?f not less than 10 per cent of our congressmen perform constructive legislative work,” the judge said in an inter view. The rest of the solons, he said, "merely vote after horse trading for approval of their pet bills — franchise for an electric plant, or changing a municipality’s name.” The 180-congressman pro posal is one of two questions being submittted to the elec torate for approval in a ple biscite on Nov. 14, coincid ing with the general elec tions. Morfe also assailed the other proposed constitutional amendment which would al low members of Congress to be elected to the 1971 consti tutional convention without forfeiting their congressional seats. The judge said the propo sal was discriminatory, and would enable members of Congress to completely domi nate the constitutional con vention, and again result in unnecessary expenses of pub lic funds. On the proposal for more congressmen, Judge Morfe said that if the amendment is ratified by the people, the 10 Panorama congressional budget will carry an additional outlay for the salaries and allow ances of the new solons, and for the salaries, furniture, office equipment, and sup plies of the requisite person nel of the congressmen. "What assurance do the people have that more con gressmen will mean more quality in our legislation?" asked the judge. Morfe said: "If many of our congress men find their legislative district too big for them to serve efficiently, it is be cause they find it all impor tant for their reelection that they devote most of their time to non-legislative work, such as intervening in secur ing 1 reparations, allocations, intervening in such purely executive functions as the ap pointment or promotion of personnel in our civil service, putting ’ pressure on execu tives of private enterprises or industrialists towards the em ployment by them of con gressmen’s constituents, going to the extent of emasculating the rule of law by exerting pressure on internal revenue, customs, and law enforce ment officials to favor their constituents.” The second proposed amendment, the outspoken judge said, is clearly discri minatory since, justices and judges and executive officials are prohibited from becom ing convention delegates un less they forfeit their present positions. It is not true as claimed in some quarters, Morfe said, that the proposal would only extend to members of Con gress the same privilege given to other government officials to run for delegates of the constitutional c o n v e ntion without losing their present posts. He cited Section 2, Article II of the Constitution which provides that members of the judiciary and officials of the executive department cannot take part in any election ex cept to vote. This constitutional provi sion prevails over a congres sional resolution making the position of convention dele gate compatible with any other government post, Mor fe said. Since the present members of Congress have their own political machinery in September 1967 11 the provinces, the judge said the likelihood is that they would all be elected to the convention, should the pro posed amendment be ap proved. Thus, he said, the calling of such constitutional con vention would be a "pure waste of multi-million pesos of public funds.” Congress might as well approve the necessary constitutional amendments by resolution of both houses, thereby obviat ing the necessity of a con vention for the same pur pose, the judge pointed out. — Vic Foz in Manila Times, Sept. 27, 1967. WHAT MAKES A CITY Population, industry, commerce, and agriculture must reach a high stage of development and pro duction at and around a community to make it a city. The modern city is a complicated affair. At times it is “a large body of people living in a re latively small area.” A comprehensive definition of the modern city must indicate that it is a social, political, legal and economic unit all rolled into one. It is a concentrated body of population possessing some significant social characteristics, chartered as a municipal corporation, having its own system of local government carrying on multifarious economic enter prises and pursuing an elaborate program of social adjustment and amelioration. — By Prof. William B. Munro, article on City, 3 Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Macmillan, N.Y.) 12 Panorama
■ This paper covers the ideas of Vicente G. Sinco which he expressed in answer to some questions directed to him by professors in a radio interview broadcast in the University of the Philippines in the early part of this month of September. UNIVERSITIES AND OUR SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1. Philippine society is in deed plagued with social and moral ills. They may lead to a moral breakdown. But that castastrophe has not yet taken place as of now. How ever, in the present scene there is clearly perceptible a development towards what I would call a state of moral atrophy. This may be easily observed in the prominence our newspapers and maga zines give to reports on crimes, iinmoralities, revolt ing scandals, and illegal acts daily taking place in differ ent parts of the country. Reports of all sorts of frau dulent and violent practices happening in various social levels not only in connection with political elections but also in the regular govern ment and business activities, in our civil service and pro fessional examinations, and in our police services. Pro mises are made by candidates for public offices without any thought of fulfilling them. Public offices, which are supposed to be in the nature of public trust, are in effect bought and sold through bribery in various forms. Decisions of tribunals are ignored and often disre garded with impunity. A notorious example affecting the higher public positions in this respect was the way three senators continued hold ing their seats in spite of a tribunal’s decision that they had no more right to remain there because they spent for their election campaign amounts in excess of the limits the law prescribes. In difference to the proprieties and decencies of social order is shown by men and women in different spheres of our national life without any feeling of moral discomfort September 1967 29 much less any indication of remorse. A considerable number of Filipinos have ac quired wealth and affluence through the indiscriminate exploitation of our forests and natural resources and through abuse or misuse of political positions which they employ for personal glory and material gain. 2. In my opinion, the role that universities should play towards the solution of so cial problems is to revitalize its traditional function as the principal organ in the development of higher edu cation and brain power of men and women who are to plan and operate the insti tutions of society. Concrete ly expressed, universities should religiouly set high standards' of work, of scho larship, of performance in their educational and acade mic tasks assigned to students and instructors. Then with these standards for superior conduct and performance, universities should never tire in insisting that their consti tuencies, from their head to their most humble teacher and student, strive as much as possible to understand and appreciate these standards and to observe them reason ably, faithfully, and consist ently in actual work and life. The idea should be fixed permanently in the student’s mind that being a student is an occupation, a job, the job of studying and learning. 3. The stated aims and goals in the curriculum of ferings of a university do not have to be reoriented because real universities in modern countries have common aims and goals. These are primarily the improvement of the mental, moral, and emotional capacities that should trans form the individual into a responsible and productive member of the community. It has been stated time and again, with great pride and self-praise, that our uni versities have for their aim, among others, the develop ment of leaders. But be tween this claim and the realities with which we should measure university products or alumni, it is quite doubtful if this claim could be validly supported in many instances. The uni versities in this country can not disclaim responsibility for the disgusting social, moral, and political decline of our 30 Panorama national life. We cannot offer convincing proofs that the Philippines today under our new generation of lea ders produced by our uni versities is a much better country, socially, morally, and culturally, than what it was in the past when the country was under the in fluence of the generation of such leaders as Sergio Os mena, Manuel Quezon, Juan Sumulong, Rafael Palma, Claro M. Recto, and other prominent men of yesteryear. Let us bear in mind that in the last 20 years the new generation of leaders, who are the more recent products of our universities, have come to hold the higher po sitions of the government and to direct the political and'social courses the nation has been following. Many observers are of the opinion that they are primarily con cerned about building an impressive public image of themselves but that their re cord leaves much to be de sired. The depressed social conditions of the country to day are the result of inade quate, selfish, and insincere leadership. Dependable and independent observers of the performance of the present men and women in the higher political, economic, and social positions are con vinced that the efforts this new generation of leaders have been exerting are al most wholly directed towards the acquisition of personal political power or economic influence. Their purpose in most cases is that of enrich ing themselves rather than of advancing the general wel fare. The ideas and the lives of Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar have ceased to serve as guiding influences in their conduct and their decisions. It has to be admitted, how ever, that the physical as pects of some of our cities now present a more attrac tive outward appearance than what they were 30 or more years ago. But in gen eral our intellectual, educa tional, moral, and spiritual modes of living and attitudes have gone down in quality. This is why we have this frustrating feeling that the country has been facing a social crisis and a moral breakdown. We have to face the fact that the new genera tion of Filipino leaders, gen erally those under 60 years September 1967 31 of age, have yet to show that they have the qualifications to run honestly and effi ciently a modern, and pro gressive democracy. 4. In my opinion there are two possible loopholes jn our university education that need to be plugged up to make university education more directly pertinent and broadly significant to the na tion’s program and actual work for social improvement. One of these consists in a stronger emphasis on a wellplanned general or liberal education which should be required of every person who enrolls in the university for any academic degree and for any professional course. The other is the adoption of firm standards of conduct and worljL and an insistence that they be used to measure per formance. The program of general education is an essential fac tor for a thorough under standing and appreciation of moral and intellectual stand ards. Without these we can hardly expect our nation to rise above the present threat of social decadence; and with out these, we can hardly dev elop a more human attitude in our social or individual relations. To carry out this program effectively at least two factors are needed: The first is a high degree of con centration on liberal studies such as what is done in su perior types of universities, as Harvard, Chicago, and other strong centers of higher education in America where the administration or the operation of schools or courses for general education is made obligatory on their students and is placed under a separate organization, which at times bear the title of basic or university college. The second is a systematic practice of demanding from students that every one of them do their work to the highest degree of which they are capable. This does not mean that a single and uniform standard of excel lence be required of every student and in every subject of study. We should face the fact that students differ in intellectual abilities; some of them have much higher ta lents than others for certaip studies and some have stronger interests in certain disciplines than others. The important thing is that every one should perform his work to the highest degree he is capable. 32 Panorama 5. As to what specific sub jects should be taken to help strengthen the moral and spiritual stamina of our stu dents in order to enable them to arrest the decline of the social order of our coun try and the deterioration of our moral conditions, I want to say the following: Social problems involve difficult and complex questions. Ob viously, to tackle them suc cessfully group action is ne cessary; but the kind, the quality, and the strength of group action depend upon the quality of the individual. Hence, in the final analysis the individual is the deter mining factor. To a certain extent the environment in fluences the individual; but at the same time the indivi dual has also the power to change the environment to an appreciable degree. The problems of poverty, ignorance, crime, disease, and other social infirmi ties that plague our people are not necessarily insur mountable if properly ap proached and understood. They are at bottom problems of values — intellectual, mo ral, and esthetic values. A study of the natural sciences can help develop an appre ciation of these values to some extent. But in their plenitude and depth, values could be acquired, imbibed, and retained by the students in a fuller measure through the studies of humanities, which cover literature, philo sophy, religion, and the arts. Social problems are pro blems that confront man as a human being, not as a mere element of the natural envi ronment. They are problems that disturb man as a cons cious personality bound by obligations and feelings of relationship with his fellow men. They could be best understood, faced, and solved with courage by men and women who are imbued with a deep comprehension of hu man values and their im measurable worth. These qualities alone can stir a genuine sense of obligation in a person, that human feel ing or impulse which the average Filipino unfortunate ly has yet to develop deeply, to obey implicitly, and to keep as a precious and per manent gift for the good of the individual and the na tion. With it the products of universities could be ex pected to run down, expose, and condemn the liar, the September 1967 33 turncoat, the robber, the fraud, the smuggler, the hy pocrite, the sciolist, and all the other vicious elements that hate irifested our poor country. This — the develop ment of a strong sense of personal and social responsi bility — is an indispensable aim of a university if it is to act as the conscience of the nation. — V. G. Sinco. PARTIES AND POLITICS I must repeat again my conviction that parties are useful, effective, and altogether indispensable instruments of constitutional democracy. A country like the United States, Great Britain, or Sweden might wish or even choose to swap one kind of party system for another, but it could never wish or choose, not while it remained a constitutional democracy, to proceed on its way with no party system at all. The essence of democracy is politics, and politics withiout parties in a widespread and diverse community is really no politics at all. — By Clinton Rossiter in Parties and Politics in America. 34 Panorama
the provinces, the judge said the likelihood is that they would all be elected to the convention, should the pro posed amendment be ap proved. Thus, he said, the calling of such constitutional con vention would be a "pure waste of multi-million pesos of public funds.” Congress might as well approve the necessary constitutional amendments by resolution of both houses, thereby obviat ing the necessity of a con vention for the same pur pose, the judge pointed out. — Vic Foz in Manila Times, Sept. 27, 1967. WHAT MAKES A CITY Population, industry, commerce, and agriculture must reach a high stage of development and pro duction at and around a community to make it a city. The modern city is a complicated affair. At times it is “a large body of people living in a re latively small area.” A comprehensive definition of the modern city must indicate that it is a social, political, legal and economic unit all rolled into one. It is a concentrated body of population possessing some significant social characteristics, chartered as a municipal corporation, having its own system of local government carrying on multifarious economic enter prises and pursuing an elaborate program of social adjustment and amelioration. — By Prof. William B. Munro, article on City, 3 Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Macmillan, N.Y.) 12 Panorama

Item sets: Panorama

Media: Panorama; Anatomy of an alumnus.pdf; Bar hazard.pdf; Civic and political indifference.pdf; Critical remarks on the Supreme Court.pdf; Equity.pdf; Freedom and Individuality.pdf; How to build a democracy.pdf; Improper proposals.pdf; Jean Piaget. Notes on Learning.pdf; Mabini's idea of a senate.pdf; Malay language issue.pdf; Needed restraint on profit schools.pdf; Parties and politics.pdf; Philippine political dynasties.pdf; Sergio Osmeña. Rectitude personified.pdf; The president and senatorial robots.pdf; The President's bugging office.pdf; The salaried man in Japan.pdf; Too many solons!.pdf; Universities and our social problems.pdf; What makes a city.pdf