Privilege and status
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Privilege and status
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XXI (No. 4) April 1969
- Year
- 1969
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- PRIVILEGE AND STATUS The responsibility of lead ership shrugged off in the name of patronage, political expediency, and general pakikisama, is falling under harsh light. The national mood is to be less tolerant and more demanding of leadership. Now from the halls of congress comes the call for austerity and our only reaction is to throw back the challenge to them. The ills of this country, it is by now evident, are dir ectly traceable to our elite, or more precisely to the pri vileged class. The persons who are privileged change with each change of admi nistration and ruling family, but by and large they thrive as a class on privilege. The legislators may change with every election, but the pro tection of their group privi lege is perpetuated. The malakas-mahina syndrome is nothing but the conflict for privilege. This is something our so ciety should seek to shatter. The great love for public office along with grandious display of the swearing-in ceremonies, is nothing but die mad aspiration for pri vilege, rather than desire to serve. Recent public en couragement given to the appointment of technocrats, the emerging group of trained young men who function outside the dyna mics of personalism and party politics (concentrating on performance instead), is one healthy sign. Similar direction could help make privileged status anachro nistic and extinct. On the other hand, one must point out that it is the heady irrelevancies of privilege that has caused the decay of once-principled reformers and even technocrats. By privileged we mean the powerful and wealthy who fatten and become even more wealthy and powerful by brazenly placing them selves as exemptions on the simple basis of official posi30 Panorama tion, class status, or technical legalism. Legislators, for ex ample, obtain various exemp tions, e.g. franking privi leges, P2-to-$l exchange rate, when they should set the ex ample in order to demand sacrifice. It is generally the influential who frustrate the law. It is only the public officials, including law en forcers, who can make crime pay. Kinship is regarded as a privilege even when it is against the common good. The corruption of segments of the society, such as law enforcers and-or the press, is done by providing them with privileged status. Any austerity program must be gin with the removal of pri vilege because of official sta tus. When one tries to compare the Communist countries with the Philip pines, it is the dedication of the leadership in some of these countries premised on the removal of privilege, that makes the difference. We cannot change this nation and the quality of leader ship, until we renounce the social status of privilege. — The Manila Times Editorial, December 19, 1968. THIS OUR TIME This is not a time for malice, but for magna* nimity; not for propaganda, but for patience; not for vituperation, but for vision. — Lyndon B. John son (in his speech as U, S. President on June 19, 1967, at Washington) April 1060 31
- pages
- 30+