Does democracy work in the Philippines?

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Part of The Cabletow

Title: Does democracy work in the Philippines?
Creator: Drilon, Rex D.
Language: English
Source: The Cabletow Volume XXXVIII (No. 4) October 1962
Year: 1962
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Fulltext: Does Democracy Work In The Philippines? By REX D. DRILON Rafael Palma Lodge No. N7 To the question — Does democ racy work in the Philippines? — the answer could well be yes and no, probably more no than yes. Or a belter answer might be, su perficially yes. And very seriously, no. If the question were phrased dif ferently — "Can democracy work here?” — the answer would have to deal with the “ability” and "power” of the people to make it work. That ability and that power are shaped and limited by the framework of the prevailing institutions. There fore, the answer in essence could well be the same, “Democracy doesn’t work here because it can’t.” It can’t, because of the character of the frame work. Our traditions, habits, and tem perament are against the very spirit of democracy. This judgment may seem to be too sweeping, for a good case can be made in support of democratic gains in the past 60 years. However, a counter-case can be made that the “gains” were superficial and were mostly concerned with “forms,” "mo tions,” or "words" rather than sub stance. But first let us attempt to frame our own working definition of de mocracy. Although there are many definitions of democracy and none is all-inclusive enough to be satis factory, it seems to me that democ racy in its pure essence is the aspi ration of the human spirit to attain the highest fulfillment in dignity, self-respect, and freedom through the use of legitimate techniques, methods, and tools consistent with this aspiration. Note that the em phasis is on the quality of “fulfill ment” and on the quality of "meth ods.” The term "highest fulfill ment” could spell the difference be tween a people stirred by what the poet calls divine discontent on the one hand and a people self-satisfied, self-complacent, and self-righteous on the other.. "Methods” could spell the difference between lights of civil ization and darkness of unciviliza tion. Democracy, therefore, is more than a • “form” or “structure" of govern ment with the familiar mechanics and appendages of a constitution, separation of powers, popular suf frage and representation, periodic elections, public debate, party sys tem, and all the rest. We may have all these, and more, and yet miss the spirit of democracy. The spirit is deeper than any and all of these. The spirit is more than can be for mulated in creeds, structural forms, or techniques. 101 At this writing, strictly speaking, in the Philippines democracy docs not work and cannot work because we have the wrong kind of social institutions. Maybe it is more ac curate to say that nothing is wrong will our social institutions, but some thing is wrong with the people who man these institutions, because they distort their functions and veer them away from the democratic orienta tion. The people who distort the functions of democracy cannot help doing so because they operate under a different value-system. And, too, while individuals powerful enough shape the institutions, in the long process as the institutions become established and rooted, they tend to grow more rigid and in the end they shape the individuals. This inter action goes on forever and it is not easy to locate the exclusive lines of demarcation and to determine where to detect and arrest the retrogression and where to encourage the desir able growth. Our folkways and mores (the whole gamut of our liabits of think ing and doing) arc expressions of these institutions. There are deterministic limits im posed by his culture, in which the I-'ilipino moves without his being conscious that he is in a psychological prison-house, fasliioned by his pecu liar social structure, within which he develops a deceptive feeling of freedom of choice and dignity. Hence his naive faith that, because he was handed on a silver platter a democratic ‘‘form” of government by the United States, he has auto matically a democratic society. To change the figure, a simple fact is often forgotten that transplantation produces transmutation. Democracy as a social and psycho logical acquirement is learned and appropriated only after a long lesson in first-hand experience. One can learn it by rote, it is true, but this kind of learning does not have much meaning and cannot last. In order for it to be meaningful and lasting, it must become part and parcel of the crystallized traditions extending back to the long past. We have had no such traditions. All we had was the experience revolving around the tiibc, the barangay, the feudal land, colonialism, and of course the scries of revolts, revolutions, and invasions. For example, we make much of our democracy because we have a "democratic constitution,” which shows how significantly we miss the point. Constitutions are not diffi cult, to write, especially if there are models galore to copy from, and can be only so much paper if their spirit is not understood, respected, and implemented. Any people can have the most democratic constitution in the world and yet act and think most undemocratically. Thus, in this sense and for this reason, are the “demociratic” constitutions of the SSviets and off many republics in the world mere “paper constititions.” I have said that we have the wrong kind of social institutions here, so wrong or so wrongly manned and implemented that democracy doesn’t work and can’t. The most puwer102 THE CABLE TOW October, 1962 ful and pervasive social institution we have is our exclusivistic and au thoritarian religion. The merits of this great religion have been given a monolithic twist by its ruling elite at the lop, and its unhappy historical record in this country is an open book for all social scientists to ana lyze. There is no one factor that has socially conditioned the Filipino people in such profound and seem ingly irretrievable manner as this particular version ol the Christian religion. This is at once its chief merit as well as its heavy respon sibility. To a people so conditioned by high authority to think alike, uni formity in thought is no surprise as a hallmark of their "unity” as a na tion. A phenomenon so common as censorship in all its forms - di rect and indirect, subtle and lrontal — is accepted without question. Censorship, for example, as to what ’ right” movies to see, what “sale" books to read, what “correct” ideas to write, what "acceptable” schools to attend on pain of “ex-communi cation,” the sterile indoctrination and meaningless memorization in the leaching and learning process, etc., etc. — all this is accepted and taken for granted because of the long years of social conditioning. To think, to question, to follow wherever truth leads — why, this is unpardonable heresy. 1'rue democracy which took long and painful centuries for the AngloSaxon peoples to learn is not com patible with our kind of social con ditioning. Totalitarianism and au thoritarianism over the whole ga mut of life, encompassed in the words, “faith and morals,” which a leligious-political church says by im plication arc no less than the words of God as interpreted by an infal lible monolithic source, do not en courage the nurturing, much less the maturing of democracy here. It is worthy of note that this same ver sion of religion, developing as a minority in truly democratic lands where the social climate is benign, such as in the United States, is a far cry from the kind we have span n ed. 'Flic Spanish aims and the Fil ipino responses, as discussed by Phelan (The Hispanization of the Philippines), are in instructive stu dy to an extent. I hc success or failure of any hope for democracy here will depend much upon the behavioristic record of our majority religion. I think the eas ing of the pressures is possible only if the ruling religious elite will re vise its strangle-hold upon the mas ses and allow the energies ol thought to reach and permeate all possible levels. There is no guarantee, how ever, that if the Iglcsia Ni Kristo or Protestant or Moslem religion should take the place of the present major ity religion, there would be a mark ed change in our social outlook favorable to democracy. For, as de veloped by the Filipinos in the very ecology of their habitat, these differ ent versions of religion could b< as authoritarian as any we have known. Another institution responsible lor the inhospitable reception of the democratic idea is our authoritarian home. Except for a very few eman cipated families, our people in genDOES DEMOCRACY WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES 103 cral, especially in the far-flung bar rios where 75 per cent of them live, do not question the authority of the parents and elders, on the one hand, and the almost sacrosanct customs and traditions that have shaped our lives, on the other. In such ovcrdictated homes, it is considered bad manners to differ with one's elders, and it is good breeding always to accord neighborhood (public) opin ion due respect, no matter how tyran nical or backward. Disobedience, deviation, or variety exacts a high price. This is an unconscious ex tension of too much church author ity. Industrialization may change the authoritarian character of our home. With industrialization will come in creased economic independence for individual persons and the conco mitant loosening of too much fam ily dependence and control. There will be a re-examination of old val ues and a consequent change of at titudes. If this should happen, then democracy may have a chance. But that industrialization — the real one -- is far off, very far off in the future. Our schools are in the main still authoritarian in spite of the com munity-type education, which is of scry recent experimental vintage. From the primary grades to the uni versity, there is still plenty of in doctrination and preaching going on and there are still many tyrants and many bigots. It has been rightly observed that teachers tend to be set in their ways, and in their think ing they are inclined to be more bi goted than the bigots they criticize. Free discussion and sharing of views, disagreements with authority, ques tioning of dogmas — these arc still very much an expensive luxury. Our curricula are still generally strait-jacketed and are constructed by legislative fiat. On the admin istrative levels and at faculty meet ings and forums — all over the coun try — ideas are still the monopoly of school superiors, and as for the rank and file of teachers or profes sors, their safety lies in the discrct use of silence and conformism as the better part of valor. Our economic institutions, rigidly “structuralized” for centuries, find the country without a middle class, which is the base of any meaningful democracy. If there are 28 million Filipinos today (estimate) and if 75 per cent of them live in rural areas, that means more than 21 mil lion live in the most backward por tions of the country, cconomicallv speiking. But this enormous figure of 21 million can still be swelled to, say, 21 million, out of our popu lation of 28 million, because most of our towns not officially classed as ‘‘barrios” are in fact barrios (rural areas) due to their isolated geogra phy, backward culture, and neglected economy. No wonder, therefore, that a coun try like ours, with a few rich people at the top owning too much, and with so many poor people at the bottom owning too little or nothing, cannot understand democracy. The middle or in-between position is a vacuum and will take long years to 104 THE CABLE TOW October, 1962 fill, if at all. The land tenure sys tem is hardly scratched for all the legislative attempts at relief. Strong resistance by the "haves” is to be expected, and social change on the land-tenure front is going to be deathly slow. And yet a paradox stares us in the face and mocks us, for there is right now plenty of land to be had — jungles and non jungles rich and waiting to be hus banded. But no capital, no know how, no venturesomeness, no incen tive. Our tragedy, as f have repeatedly pointed out on many occasions, is tltat the Philippines, resources-wise, is one of the richest countries in the world for its size and yet is actually, also for its size, one of the hungriest countries in the worid. There is going to be no political democracy in this country unless and until there is economic democracy first, which, for us Filipinos, is still in the womb of the unforeseeable future. The dignity and self-respect, therefore, of the Filipino in terms of his present economic condition are so low as to mock the democra tic requirements. The economic development of this country cannot be entrusted wholly to the responsibility of the government, but our people, again through a wrong social condition ing for centuries, lean upon the government for many, many tilings, including those that they themselves can do and ought to do. In the political realm, we do many things against every rule in democ racy's book. We make so much of our popular elections. We can have as many elections as we like, but that does not mean a thing until we can make those elections clean and representative and enlightened — and so peaceful that we do not have to call out the army and the constabulary to prevent bloodshed. Imagine having a population of 28 million and the registered voters arc no more than seven million at the most and the actual votes cast are a little over five million only. (These are round figures, and the difference in estimates above or be low these figures is not significant enough to alter the point.) Even if we assume, generally, that wc have seven million votes actual ly cast in our elections (which is only one-fourth of our total popu lation), has anyone asked where those votes come from? From the provinces, of course. When wc say "provinces,” we mean our towns and barrios. How enlightened, therefore, arc those votes? I.et us stop kidding ourselves. ..And so we arc called the "show window of democracy in Asia” and we like it very much, but a window indeed whose contents arc really "showing.” For, haven't we in the past, in many places, finished our elections before election day, as ty pified by the classic performance of 1949? Don’t we consistently aiert the armed forces and the police during elections, and shortly before? Don't wc move with ease from one party to another on mere personal peeve and become “guest enndiDOES DEMOCRACY WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES 105 elates”? Don’t we discourage oppo sition parties and forge “allied ma jorities"? Don’t we place party in terest above national interest (“what are we in power for?”), and feather our personal nests in such a way as to provide amply for our future, thereby giving us a license to raid a public office with all the resource fulness of our private lust? Don’t we carry political hatreds to the grave? Don’t we brandish religion as a shield to hide our scanty vir tues and make it a subtle test for employment and use it without con science to bolster our eleclioneciing stock? Etc., etc. In short, aren’t we behaving politically in a manner to prove that democracy simply does not and cannot work in the I’Jiilippines? We reveal our immaturity in many unconscious ways, and wc revealed ii last November in a most classic manner when wc kept repeating from the housetop a shollow scllserving pronouncement that in the presidential elections of 1961 the 1 ilipino people had attained mat urity. As it maturity, instead ol being a process of centuries, were merely a matter of periodic political elections in which almost no holds were barred. Is not the very lack ol insighi in the pronouncement eloquent of our immaturity? We have yet to find another coun try which can compete with us in the serious preoccupation of making politics a veritable industry'. Our image in this regard is reflected faithfully in Latin America, where the social conditioning is strikingly similar, but even that part of the world, which is reportedly full of "banana republics,” has nothing on us when it comes to the intensity and crasstiess of our politics. The habits and attitudes men tioned in this brief article resist the growth of democracy. When and how they can be changed to create a different value-system is hard to say. Our only guide is history. Other societies, historically, have changed their social institutions, through revolutions, peaceful and armed. Armed revolutions, aside ftom being expensive in lives and treasure, create more problems than they solve, but they have happened in every clime ami age with a re lentlessness of a destiny, as if to impress a hard-learned lesson that ir. any developing society conditions have to become worse before they can get better. If ways can be found to use the evolutionary method as an engine of change, provided people and in stitutions know how to be resilient enough to reshape themselves and reorient their spirit, democracy in this country may have a chance ol growing. Otherwise, we have indeed a very long way to go, or if we are going and moving at all, it may be in authoritarian directions which seem most natural, because after all wc really only had sixty years of America here, which is not even a drop in the ocean of Spain’s 400. 106 THE CABLE TOW October, J 962