The challenge of nation-building

Title

Creator

Sumulong, Lorenzo

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XIX (No. 12) December 1967

Year

1967

Subject

Nation building

State formation

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

From a speech at the Far Eastern University, December 9, 1967

Fulltext

■ A critical comment and analysis of the slow de velopment of the Philippines and its causes. THE CHALLENGE OF NATION-BUILDING Twenty-one years have come and gone since the founding of our Republic, and still our task of nation building remains unfinished. Painful though it is to state, the sad truth is that in eco nomic and social progress we are far behind other newly-emergent nations with poorer and lesser natural and human resources than ours. Let me cite a few of these other nations that have pro gressed much faster than we. Take first the case of Is rael. She was a land of desert and sand dunes when she emerged as an indepen dent state in 1948. In less than two decades she had been transformed into a land of flourishing gardens and plantations. In size she is only 7,993 square miles as compared to our area of 115,758 square miles, or about 1/16 our size. Her population is only 2 1/2 mil lions as compared to our population of 32 millions, or about 1/13 our population. And yet, she has progressed by leaps and bounds. So much so, that recently she startled the whole world by defeating in battle in six days the hostile Arab na tions surrounding her with an aggregate population of 60 millions. Then take the case of Tai wan, our neighbor to the north. She is only 13,886 square miles in area, or about 1/10 our size, and on ly 12 million in population, or about 1/3 our population. And yet, her production of rice per hectare is about 4 times greater than ours, and she has progressed so well that the United States con sidered it unnecessary to continue extending economic aid to her since last year. I was invited by her gov ernment to go there in 1964, and I was jolted when I was told by one of their 26 Panorama agricultural experts that if they could borrow three of our big provinces in Central Luzon, they could make these three provinces pro duce enough rice to feed our entire population. Then there is Japan and there is West Germany, both of them defeated in the last war, both of them suffering heavily from carpet bombing and from atom bombs in the case of Japan, both of them demilitarized after their sur render and subjected to mi litary occupation by the vic tors. And yet, both of them have risen from the ashes of their defeat and destructions, both of them have startled the world by their rapid strides not only towards an economic prosperity even greater than they were en joying before the war. To day they are categorized among the rich and highly developed nations, needing no aid from others, and even able to afford to extend aid to poor and underdeveloped nations. It cannot be due to our natural resources, which are rich and which we have in abundance. It cannot be due to the extent of our human resour ces, for we have them in vast numbers. I attribute the slow pace of our economic progress to lack of proper orientation and to lack of proper train ing of our human resources. We spend too much of our time, too much of our energies, and too much of our money, in politics. We profess interest and concern in the development of our agriculture, industry, and commerce, but read the daily newspapers, turn on the ra dio or television, listen to conversations in the street, in coffee shops, in business offices, in government offices, and what do you read or hear? Very little, if any, of economies, and much too much of politics. We have elections every two years. We just had an election this year 1967, and the air is already filled with talks of who will run against whom and what will happen in 1969. The mind reels and the imagination staggers when we read and hear of the money spent by the govern ment and by the candidates in every election. December 1967 27 Take the last election for instance. The Comelec chairman was asked by the President to account for the millions spent by the Come lec, and the Comelec chair man countered by asking the President to instruct his Bud get Commissioner to give an accounting of the millions spent for public works dur ing the last election cam paign. It would even be harder to get a true and correct ac counting of the expenses of candidates. We have a law making it a criminal offense for a candidate to spend more than one year’s salary corresponding to the office for which he ran. Natural ly, in the affidavit that he files after the election, the candidate certifies that his expenses did not exceed the limit fixed by law. It is an open secret however, that this law is honored more in the breach than in the ob servance. It is an open se cret that the candidates who get nominated and elected are, more often than not. those who have the money to burn and/or who are backed by party machines or personal machines. The ever-mounting expenses of candidates in party conven tions and in elections are shocking and dismaying. We hear of senatorial candidates spending millions of pesos, of gubernatorial candidates who spend as much, of con gressional candidates who spend as much, of candi dates for city mayors and for municipal mayors who spend hundreds of thousand of pesos. Where do these millions spent by candidates in con ventions and elections come from? Only God and the candidate know. We all do know, however, that if this unlawful, corrupt, and scandalous spending continue unabated, only mil lionaires or the tools of mo neyed and vested interests will be nominated and elec ted to public office. The democracy ordained in our Constitution will be reduced to a mockery and a farce, and in its place will be erec ted a government of pluto crats, and for plutocrats. Surely, we do not want that to happen. We do not want this orgy of over-spending by the gov ernment and by the candi 28 Panorama dates in times of election to continue. We want election expenses to be reduced to reasonable proportions, so that a larger part of the fi nancial resources of the gov ernment and of the private sector may be used to ac celerate development of our agriculture, industry, and commerce. We do not want such elec toral over-spending because it causes inflation which is the worst thief of the pur chasing power of the masses of our people. Over-spend ing by the government in times of election works hard ship on the private sector and on the poor, because when inflation results, the usual remedies resorted to by the Central Bank and by the government is to impose more restrictions on private credit and to levy new or additional taxes which weighs heavily on the poor. We do not want such elec toral over-spending because it breaks the moral fibre of the corruptors as well as of the corrupted involved in the evil practice of vote-buying, it destroys the honor of the vote-buyer and the self-res pect of the vote-seller, and when people lose their sense of honor and of self-respect they cannot be expected to be enthused to join in any undertaking designed to make the nation great eco nomically or otherwise. We do not want this over exertion and over-emphasis in politics because it only increases the number of our professional politicians, and it only multiplies the number of spoilsmen and job seekers after each election who in voke alleged political ser vices rather than fitness and merit for their appointment to government offices. What our country sorely needs to day are not political hacks and parasites, but first-rate entrepreneurs, honest and competent administrators, responsible labor leaders, agricultural experts, engi neers, chemists, skilled tech nicians, laboratory workers and researchers, knowledge able men in science and technology who can plan well and build well, whose crowning achievement is the fruit of their labors rather than the sound and fury of their words. It is high time that the habits, the attitudes, and the December 1967 29 mores of our people and our leaders be re-oriented, and their training and everyday activities readjusted and at tuned to the needs and ex igencies of the times. To you, the graduates we are now honoring, I appeal to you in particular, and T charge you to rise up to the challenge and lead in this vital task of reorientation and readjustment. In the 1970 election of delegates to the coming Con stitutional Convention, sup port and vote for those who can be relied upon to work for constitutional amend ments which will lessen the frequency and bring about synchronization of elections, which will insure the hold ing of elections free as much as possible from over-spend ing by the candidates and by the government and from the evil of vote-buying and power play in conventions and elections. As you go to your respec tive communities, use your talents and skills not only to project yourself and to advance your own interests, but even more so to promote the common good especially to minister to the needs of the least of your brethen. Practice more and preach less about the imperative ne cessity of abandoning the bad habits and wrong va lues which afflict our pre sent-day body politic, and of developing instead the virtues of honor, self-respect, and self-reliance. Lead peo ple to engage in home gar dening, cultivate farms, turn to poultry or piggery or cat tle raising, construct fish ponds or engage in deep sea fishing, invest in any other productive enterprise which will make them as self-suf ficient as possible in the ne cessities of life. Help in the establishment of home and cottage industries which can provide means of livelihood to our womenfolk. Help disseminate information re garding better methods of farming, and the credit fa cilities afforded by govern ment agencies and the rural banks to small farmers and merchants. Be the first in patronizing locally made goods in pre ference to imported ones whenever the quality and the price are more or less the same. Stress the need for diversification, exploring the 30 Panorama things we can produce, with comparative advantage in the competitive world market, so that if and when we lose the U. S. market we would still have other export goods to sell in the other markets of the world. Help organize cooperatives to do away with alien middlemen. To the extent that we succeed in making our people do these things, to exactly the same extent will we succeed in hastening the day when the task of nation-building will have been brought to a suc cessful conclusion. In so doing, you will have justified the faith of Rizal in the youth of our land, and will have reflected honor and credit to your beloved alma mater. — Senator Lorenzo Sumulong. From a speech at the Far Eastern Univer sity, December 9, 1967. December 1967 31

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