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Philippine Star
Sunday Life
HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes
Sunday, October 19, 2008
I have been caught up in the US presidential race lately. It is easy
to see why this election is so important. The US — still the world’s
largest economy — stands on the brink of economic disaster, and could
take the rest of the world with it. But while the economic picture is
of the most immediate emergency crying out for a solution, I believe
there are a lot of other issues at stake for America’s future and its
standing in the world.
The battle is beginning to look classically and mythically symbolic
in many aspects. There is the angle of the new and the young standing
up to the old and increasingly irrelevant. There is the angle of the
rich Senator John McCain (who owns 13 houses and is worth $100 million)
versus Senator Barack Obama (who owns one house and is worth $1
million).
There is also the race issue. Is America really ready to vote for a
black man as president? I really wonder about that. The election
results will speak volumes about where America is now and how much of
what it preaches about the American Dream is actually possible in
America.
My main interest in these elections is how Obama is presenting the
idea of change and how this can be applied to the Philippines. Obama
has presented new alternatives in the way of handling his campaign,
from fundraising (where he chose to go directly to the people instead
of relying on federal funding) to the way he has presented his ideas
and inspired people with his message, using not just the traditional
media but also the Internet. His campaign has been unique and the
response has been unprecedented.
Our own elections in the Philippines will happen in 2010 (unless the
politicians manage a coup via Cha-cha), and no one who has positioned
himself or herself as a candidate has excited nor inspired a lot of
people, including myself, one bit. All these wannabes have done well in
our political and economic system that is broken, corrupt and
dysfunctional. And their pronouncements on issues and the way they have
conducted themselves in public show no fundamental difference from one
another, much less any hint of a new vision or paradigm that could
bring change to our country.
I have been meeting with different groups for some months now,
people who are impatient and aching for real change to happen in our
country. Some of them are veterans of the two EDSAs, or people long
steeped in NGO culture and work. Some are young, idealistic politicians
themselves who see no real hope for things to change unless some new
people with fresh ideas are voted into power and initiate a new
national conversation that will impel us into a new trajectory.
I have seen too many reformers take on the political scene with the
aim of changing it only to be rebuffed by the system itself and the
very people they wanted to help. It is disheartening to see, too, many
Don Quixotes bleeding by the wayside while the bad guys continue to
win. And I often ask myself why they have not succeeded. Most political
observers will give the easy answer and say that what these defeated
candidates lacked was money. Perhaps they are right.
But then, I don’t recall the Cory campaign in 1986 as having even
half the funds that the Marcos campaign had; and yet she managed to
pull it off and win the presidency. So as much as money is needed,
there may be other factors that are equally important.
Everywhere I go, whether here or abroad, I hear Filipinos talk about
the near hopelessness they harbor about the quality of our leaders.
Everyone is upset at the present dispensation and they feel that there
is no leader in sight to replace the present, and worse, that the next
elections will result in more of the same type of leadership and lack
of good governance.
While this can be downright depressing, one thing is clear: there
is, in this country, a constituency for change, though it is seemingly
passive right now. People are really quite fed up with the situation,
so much so that they are opting to migrate and live elsewhere. If only
someone could harness this discontent into a vibrant movement that will
sweep the country and demand real change, perhaps we could really get
somewhere as a nation.
Living through the ‘70s as a young man and up to the end of the
Marcos regime, I saw the cultural shift that occurred which made the
end of the dictatorship possible. The spread of new, bold and frankly
subversive ideas coming from the left was enough to fire up the First
Quarter Storm generation to imagine new possibilities. And many of them
were cultural and social and not necessarily aimed directly at the
political jugular. The spread of Pilipino as the national language, the
birth of OPM, the new political jargon that encapsulated and simplified
the explanation for many of our problems — terms like burgis,
feudalism, imperialism, fascism, etc. — became political catchphrases.
To be fair, many of the definitions from the left were
over-simplifications but they managed to insert themselves into the
national conversation and pushed many people to act.
The new reformers who wish to join the elections have something to
learn from recent history. The arena for the changes they want to
achieve must go beyond the political. They must engage the electorate
in many other aspects. There are cultural, social and environmental
problems that must be addressed, and it must be done in a novel and
engaging way. The battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate
must not only be a political battle but a culture war as well.
If it took the opposition against Marcos so many years to state
their case to the people, it will take the new politicians of today
much less time with an aggressive media, plus the Internet, cell phones
and other ways of communicating.
The leaders that this new constituency is looking for are those who
do not only have fresh ideas that will impel the country to change,
inspire its citizens to sacrifice and act for the common good, but also
are willing to die if need be to achieve the necessary change.
Incorruptibility, decisiveness and the ability to harness opposing
energies into common action will also be needed. The new leaders will
also have to have the guts to stand up to the traditional institutions
that stand in the way of progress.
In turn, they will need to demand that the people do not just go
along passively but actively express support for programs that are
meant to have far-reaching consequences for the common good.
It will not be an easy task.The road is long and hard and reaching
the desired destination is not guaranteed. But it’s a step in the right
direction.
In one of the meetings I attended, someone pointed out that for our
generation (baby boomers, mostly), this is the last chance to effect
real change. Either we succeed in 2010 or we fade away and spend our
last 20 years on golf courses, or in retirement mode. While looking at
the faces of my friends, I recalled the line from Dylan Thomas: “Do not
go quietly into the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Oddly enough, in a world that has long been described as belonging
to the young, this may be the moment for aging Baby Boomers to live out
and pursue what really matters.
