Pebrero beinte sais, nang si Apo ay umalis, ngiti mo hanggang tainga – Kamusta Na by Yano
Manolo Quezon writing in the Inquirer today believes that the New Society will be rehabilitated. I agree with MLQ3. I have suggested long before the blog age that someone ought to do a study of the Marcos era by going beyond Imelda’s shoes! Of course none of my lechon manok commando friends ever took it seriously. :-)
Much later in 2002 I learned from some academics from UP CSSP that Imee Marcos has commissioned prominent academics to organize a bibliography of the Marcos record. I don’t know if Ms Marcos has released the document for scholars and researchers but when it is published, it should make it easier for scholars to make sense of those years.
I inherited my dad’s Rizaliana and Marcosiana. Reading the Marcos’ works, especially the ideological works “Towards a New Society”, “Towards a Filipino Ideology” and “Today’s Revolution”, will allow us to agree or disagree with MLQ3. The Marcosian ideology is premised on a “revolution of the centre” which places importance on the role of the middle class (as Marcos assumed that he was part of it). The Marcosian revolution is not about making the proletariate supreme but making the middle class supreme. The ideological values that unite this class, free enterprise, self-reliance, adherence to the externals of democratic behaviour, work ethic and law and order are what should be supreme.
So it wasn’t suprising that this is the same class the found it apropros that long haired hippies cut grass. I was a 5 year old kid in 1973 and I clearly remember these teenage “non-conformists” cutting grass along the road island of EDSA.
Marcos also held the theory that there can’t be a “genuine class revolution” in the Philippines for Filipinos haven’t been truly oppressed by political systems but by personalities. Thus they revolt against certain personalities but not against a system. And for this simple reason, Marcos believed in a “revolution from the centre”.
Now there might be some kernel of truth in this. Examples: 1) The Joma Sison Maoist dream is a 41 year old continuing flop.,2) EDSA 1 failed to initiate real reforms and it is a recurrent flop that the middle class in this country tries to deny, 3) EDSA 2 is best described by a word popularized in “Gone with the Wind” and 4) No one can even get to dethrone Queen Gloria and Trillanes can’t even get out of jail but his supporters held a Tea Party at the Pen.
Filipinos seem not to be able to disestablish oppressive systems even if they disestablish oppressive personalities. So Marcos may have had it right after all.
The Marcosian ideology is a critique of or for me a sort of Marxist spoof but significantly Marcos believed his ideology can evolve. After all why should the Great Apo cite Karl Popper? His ideas can be be falsified!
In the context of Marcosian ideology, EDSA 3 (whose importance is denied by the Palace, derided by the Left, denied by the middle class, and couldn’t be made sense of the gurus in the CSSP and scared the wits of the carpetbagging elite) gets a new and important dimension. Marcos himself predicted that it won’t be the Joma Sison inspired revolution that would incite class based rebellion. EDSA 3 if it has been successful may have been the first rebellion in our history as an independent Republic that could have resulted in overturning the system that Marcos believed he was the only one that could do so.
But that is a counterfact. Manolo writes about the present middle class
” the remnants of the old and the growing new middle class are more deeply wedded to preserving property rights at all costs, and less demanding of reform but more insistent on “law and order” at all costs than ever before.”
The Marcosian idea of law and order prevails but without the work ethic that Marcos assumed. So we are tempted to conclude that this middle class is part of is trying to be part of that carpetbagging elite. This is the same elite that Marcos tried to knock down. But we know what happened afterwards, and EDSA 1.
MLQ3 may have made a daring prediction. I believe that he is right. The New Society rehab will stick to an idea of effective social engineering. However he stops short of identifying who will rehabilitate the Marcosian vision of a New Society. It won’t be the reigning Queen but the one that would succeed her in 2010. This successor should trumpet “order” and has a firm commitment to expanding the middle class or making the poor “feel like” one of them. Well the Pink and Blue parade is here! And the name Bayani is appropriate for the Neo-Marcosian movement. But unlike the Great Apo, our Celebrity Duet King hasn’t been elected to national office!
Popularity: 2% [?]
madonna, that would be to assume you are typical. all i can say is you can see a concern for stability and order among a great portion of the middle class, for example their refusal to open up their villages for public access (paranaque being a good example) out of concerns for.. stability and order. what is the reason you hear given by many of the old middle class for moving abroad? “this is no longer a country in which i want to raise my children” or “to give my children a good future we have to move abroad.” so we agree on the social mobility perhaps, but more in that the old middle class is afraid of no longer being middle class, so to preserve their status they must go abroad, feeling alienated and persecuted by governments at home and fearful and resentful of the majority being coddled by the politicians.
the upper classes too are concerned with stability and order -but as i;ve pointed out, the socialization of the middle mirrors the upper, in terms of their clubs, churches, and schools, which formed their culture, preparing them for managerial positions for the upper class. now the upper class is concerned because they are having a hard time finding qualified managers.
gabby, the idea was a revolution from the center as pointed out above, a preservation of property rights and basic liberties while recognizing obligations to the state, and the purging of some of the fetishes of western democracy out of a recognition of the unique characteristics of the nation -for consensus, paternal leadership, etc. personally i have always seen it as the following:
1. to preserve life, liberty, and property, a dictatorship is required.
2. that dictatorship is justified if it improves the life, liberty, and property of the majority.
4. (and most crucially) 1 and 2 are required, because they have in mind the objective of reinventing the filipino, because the filipino can be reinvented and society remolded, if only enough political will is applied.
i think that is how many people understood the new society, and how many of those serving it saw themselves and their role. i think too, that no. 4, stolen from the marxists and readopted, remains the defining mentality today… “if only we got rid of oligarchs, if only we got rid of mestizos, if only we got rid of chinese, if only, if only…”
MLQ3,
Why are you talking in the Future Tense?
Isn’t Bong Austero already a part of the Establishment?
Hasn’t the Middle Class huddled under Gloria’s skirts and rejected another Edsa People Power from sheer fatigue and a very wise cost-benefit analysis.
Rule of Law died with your Urban Uprising of 2001. We have been living under a Rule of Force as Alan Paguia described it in 2002. When the Constitution is violated, it is more than an argument. Something happens to the balance of power and as Marcos did in 1972, somersaulting from Commonwealth charter to his New Society, so did GMA capture the Judiciary and become its Ventriloquist.
Your fears have already come true. It isn’t 1971 now. It’s 1985.
that is not how the gma supporters see it, of course, djb.
@mlq3 on February 28th, 2009 1:49 pm
thanks! this is much clearer to me than your inquirer piece:
“Corpuz outlined what he felt should be the basic concentration of government: “…to contain revolutionaries; to cope with rising prices and steer the country towards increased production; to redistribute the national income along the lines of less inequality; to attend to all tasks while the political and governmental systems undergo reassessment and possibly some fundamental restructuring to accommodate new social attitudes and sentiments.”
There, in one sentence, was the justification and formal aspirations of the New Society…”
so i thought that NEW SOCIETY is something that ALL societies want.
and then you/Blackshama talk about “social turmoil” and social uprising and how important this is to new society… and connect this to the alienation of the working/middle class…
and you titled ur piece “the end of social mobility” so i thought, is NEW SOCIETY NO social mobility? are you saying ” whats coming up is lets keep order and not have social mobility”?
but then you have your point 2, which requires improved living conditions for the majority. so, NEW society allows for social mobility?
last, your point 4 seems disconnected to points 1 and 2.
1 and 2 says : “preserve life…” etc, which is static moderate
then 4 says : “remolding” the filipino with “political will, which seems radical to me…
thanks! i’m just confused. i should pick up some of these books you reference…
gabby, my apologies for the confusion. “the” new society was a particular era, the martial law government set up in september 1972 by means of marcos’s assuming martial law powers, with the avowed aim (never mentioned in the 1935 charter as a justification for emergency rule) to reform society.
marcos argued the country had to be reformed to purge it of undue influence by the very wealthy, and to save it from destruction at the hands of communist rebels and their sympathizers in media and academe. echoing criticism of philippine society going back to the 1930s, he argued filipinos had become soft, quarrelsome, irresponsible, lazy, chaotic etc and that discpline was required to get the country back on track.
he described his vision as a revolution from the center, primarily a middle class project to uplift the poor and reduce the undue influence of the rich, but geared towards the creation of an educated, property-owning majority.
on a related note, if you talk to many middle class people a concern is to maintain quality of life. there are many things that contribute to that, and among them is simply the feeling that one can safely go about one’s business, and that one’s life isn’t spent treading water merely to preserve what one has, and that one’s children can expect to live as well if not better. for the old middle class this is increasingly difficult because however hard they work it seems the best they can do is stay in place; by contrast elsewhere they can improve their standing. their places are being replaced by a new middle class which had little or nothing and is happy and content to be where they never dreamed they could be, with access to all the outward manifestations of middle class life. they haven’t been in the situation long enough to wonder if it can be preserved or passed down.
mlq3,
gloria is no marcos. she does not have da apo’s hunger or imagination. she just want to survive long enough to retire. the only question is can she keep the ramshackle economy together long enough to buy a mansion house in makiki heights. she’s a hippie at heart. she wants to retire with the pleats of her Assumption Convent uniform still properly pressed and unsullied. she wants to see the world and be the youngest looking elder stateswoman in the world. she’s had a nice run: nine years of our acquiescence. That’s enough for her, I hear. She just wants off the Tiger without getting her head bitten off.
Merceditas Gutierrez has till 2012 under the Constitution. Seven effin years! She will see to a Clean Getaway, I would think.
Now if somehow the House impeached the Ombudsbabe in 2010…Gloria has to think about that. Plunder stalks her dreams.
Who would make a good Ombudsman?
mlq3,
After Barack Obama’s “clenched fist of corruption” remark, and the State Dept’s recent failing grade for GMA, it’s hard to imagine her reaching for dictatorship now. On the contrary, we must expect her to now make NICE NICE to Hillary and MIchelle O. and the Democratic Party. She has many assets she has been cultivating in the US that are on that side of the aisle so expect a charm offensive of a new more liberal more progressive Gloria. Perhaps some inconsequential head or two might even roll, say Resado at Justice or some ASec at D.A. Maybe even a DPWH director or two.
Et voila Gloria becomes Elliot Ness. Abangan!
“Now if somehow the House impeached the Ombudsbabe in 2010…Gloria has to think about that.” – DJB
Or, Mercie Guiterrez will be fed to the Congressional lions so to speak.
The Ombudswoman is not nobility but a plebeian.
And Richard Gordon is no Marcus Brutus.
Nothing new with the autocratic social contract.
Sacrifice civil rights for economic well being. What happens when economic downturns occur most especially influenced by outside forces?
Then the clamor for civil rights will be greater. That should be about the time of elections.
Will historical forces catch up with her?
Abangan
J_AG,
The “historical forces” are breathing down her neck as you blog.
DJB,
Your “…we must expect her to now make NICE NICE to Hillary and MIchelle O. and the Democratic Party. She has many assets she has been cultivating in the US that are on that side of the aisle so expect a charm offensive of a new more liberal more progressive Gloria.” is NEWS.
How about favoring as with a full-blown piece, Kuya? :)
You think she’ll still have time to get her face time with the Obamas?
What’s your prognosis, MLQ3?
“but more in that the old middle class is afraid of no longer being middle class, so to preserve their status they must go abroad, feeling alienated and persecuted by governments at home and fearful and resentful of the majority being coddled by the politicians.”
Yun na nga e. Which comes to a scenario that in the future if things don’t change within a generation: we’ll only have two classes: the rapacious elite and the impoverished masses.
Sabagay, we could always do a Benigno if things get worse enough LOL.
‘What happens when economic downturns occur most especially influenced by outside forces?’ – J_AG
I dunno? All indicators are falling (exports, FDI, remittances, tourists, and ODA) portend a very harsh economic environment indeed.
But precisely, there is the possibility of explaining away the situation on global financial meltdown. A blame game on outside forces plus a few scapegoats (the secretaries of trade, finance, and labor) would calm the citizens.
Long live the queen!
“Long live the queen!”
The queen is a goner! Long live the new king!
Haha, so that’s Bong Austero and his open letter dated Feb 2006. So funny, I never heard of this guy before I made a google search today.
What a conyotic rant. Although, cvj, he did make sense on a lot of things. Good shot at liberal eggheads haha.
Bert,
He he. Senator Loren and gay presidentiables won’t like that. It could be long live the q—r!
But seriously, the government has a good positional advantage in the coming economic downturn.
The positioning would be like this: the entire global economy is melting. Look at our neighbors Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
But thanks to RP’s sound macro-economic reforms implemented earlier, strong efforts to balance the budget in the past years, increased revenues through expansion of VAT, sound central banking reforms, etc. etc. we are not doing as bad.
Coupled with strong visibility that our leaders are pro-active in creating new markets for OFWs, ayos na babe. An administrative order was issued last December for a ‘paradigm shift’ (believe me it was in the order!) mandating the POEA to shift from regulatory to promotion mode.
Three Point Shot Slam Dunk! (if there’s one)
Phil Manila,
Interesting bit o info there about POEA’s “paradigm shift.” The Palace knows what butters our bread and what’s keeping this kettle of fish afloat. All she’s doing is slicing and dicing the OFW’s repatriation.
But it bears watching how our mobile OFW workforce actually does in the toughest job environment the world has seen in living memory.
Either they do well during the recovery and also get swept up when the economy of the US for example, comes back. Or they could locked out and then where would we be?
Heavy promotion and direct assistance in deployment will be needed if we are to weather the storm basically on the strength of OFW repatriations.
This will require nimble and expert moves on the part of POEA. If a large number of OFWs are being laid off somewhere, it is impt for POEA to find other states or countries that can absorb OFWs. The importance of keeping the domestic economy afloat (food shelter clothing education) can’t be overemphasized. Increasingly that has depended on OFW contributions.
DJB,
It was all over the news. In case you missed it:
http://www.pinoy-abroad.net/img_upload/9bed2e6b0cc5701e4cef28a6ce64be3d/AO247.pdf
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/145777/POEA-remains-vigilant-as-a-regulatory-body
it may be useful to explore what’s called alternative history, for those so sure of themselves in disparaging edsa and the overthrow of the dictatorship.
edsa itself was a reaction to two things: on one hand, the planned coup and junta to be established under enrile, and what was going to be a long drawn-out campaign of civil disobedience against marcos and his supporters by the opposition. it would be interesting to explore the trajectory of either if they’d occured, instead of the chatty ram being found out by marcos and ver.
yet another is if ver had been a better general and gone on the immediate offensive and nipped the ram withdrawal to crame and aguinaldo in the bud; or if marcos had gone through with a tiananmen-style crackdown on edsa; or he’d withdrawn to the ilocos and fought a civil war.
another is that in 1987 and 1989 the government could have been overthrown by violent means, either resulting in the return of marcos or a junta again led by enrile and other martial law types. again, explore where that might have ended up.
another still is if cojuangco and imelda hadn’t split their forces and one or the other had won in 1992. still another is if the edsa forces had united and prevented estrada’s victory in 1998.
yet another is if estrada had been acquitted in an impeachment trial, or convicted; or if he had hunkered down in the palace and fought it out.
any one of these should let you put the survival of our democracy in perspective.
“any one of these” mentioned by mlq3, the result could not have been worse than this one.
else, we should be accepting it as it is now. let’s “move on” then, and on with the cha-cha as well, heheh.
i’m getting out of logic, tired lang siguro.
To make sense of MLQ3′s
“another is that in 1987 and 1989 the government could have been overthrown by violent means, either resulting in the return of marcos or a junta again led by enrile and other martial law types. again, explore where that might have ended up.”
We have to ask
WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IF DOY LAUREL RAN THE GOVERNMENT AS PRIME MINISTER OF THE PHILIPPINES?
AND CORAZON AQUINO LIMITED HERSELF AS HEAD OF STATE AND A FOCUS OF UNITY TO CONSOLIDATE HER REVOLUTION?
To answer these questions, we have to dispose of our yellow tinted glasses in the shredder! :-) LOL!
Also central to the Marcosian system IS THE OUR ADAPTATION of the cabinet system. This system was beginning to work until the Aquino abolished parliament. (Legislative historians write that more opposition bills were passed in the Batasan than in the present series of Congresses we have) I am of the opinion that this adapted cabinet system would have survived Marcos and put us on the road to a more responsible system of government.
Also a responsible system of government should minimize the chances of another EDSA.
I am of the opinion that A NEW CONSTITUTION as an amendment to the present one should reinstitute the cabinet system but with more constitutional safeguards.
The 1973 constitution places reserve powers in the President such that he/she may dissolve the parliament. However he/she in the charter can only “accept the resignation” of the Prime Minister and cabinet. The President has no option to withdraw the commission of the Prime Minister and cabinet as the ultimate check and balance on the executive.
Also the provision that executive power is vested in the Prime Minister and assisted by the cabinet should be removed. Executive power is vested in the President and exercised by the Prime Minister and Cabinet as long as he/she holds the confidence of parliament. Also executive powers of the President are exercisable only with advice from the cabinet.
Of course we will have to take out that infamous Amendment 6 that is so contrary to the idea of responsible government. The proclamation of a state of emergency is a power of the President and the Prime Minister should advise him/her accordingly.
In responsible government public pressure dictates that the reserve powers of the President and the theoretically unchecked powers of the Prime Minister are exercised in responsibly. If the PM becomes a tyrant, public pressure may cause parliament to withdraw confidence leading to the President sacking the PM.
Over time as our society becomes more democratic the exercise of these powers beyond what convention dictates can provoke a constitutional crisis and the President is at peril to ignore the public.
Now our 1987 Constitutional mess, as MLQ3 writes in his blog, the President just ignores the public when there is a constitutional crisis a-brewing. Thus we have the spectacle of the Chief Justice and Supreme Court determining political questions and not that of law.
Forgive me for coining this oxymoron. People Power EDSA style is a CONSTITUTIONALLY ENSHRINED FORM OF CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS. There is no check and balance and we have seen that so many times.
For the sake of Inang Bayan let us get rid of the 1987 Constitution and replace it with a more workable one according to what the law provides.
Blackshama (at 11:50am), as the example of Thailand (with its parliamentary system) shows?
In Thailand, the King has tremendous reserve powers (not enjoyed by any monarch even by Elizabeth II) but he chooses which faction to seek advice. In a constitutional monarchy, the King should only seek advice from the PM (that is what convention dictates) and let the PM seek advice from and bargain with all factions. (again that is how parliament works).
Thailand is at a crossroads in its evolution as a workable constitutional monarchy. But that doesn’t mean that the cabinet system is a failure. In fact we should get lessons from exporting our famous brand of people power there.
Blackshama, actually, i was not referring to the King but to the parliamentary system that you have been advocating. Even with such a system, it did not spare Thailand from the people power-type upheavals that were driven by inequality and the politicians who exploited this condition.
I take it that you would’ve preferred Doy to be the working-level head of government and for Cory to be a titular head of state, i.e. our de-facto Queen. With the coming Charter-change, maybe you may yet get your wish, although with a different prime minister and Queen.
BTW we can have a Senate in a Parliamentary system. However like Britain’s Lords, it will have much less power.
well now we enter the parliamentary system debate. the only manner in which the public would accept a prime minister is in a thoroughly subordinate position to a president like the french model. much of the reasons for de gaulle’s setting up the french system applies to us.
MLQ3
I agree totally. Our system was evolving to our own kind Gaullist model and if it had not been killed by Cory, then our subsequent PMs would have been more prominent politicians good at horsetrading unlike the economic technocrat Cesar Virata.
My question to you is this. Would that system be very much like what the Malolos Constitution envisioned?
In fact I believe that my co-alum CHIZ would be better as PRIME MINISTER rather than PRESIDENT. :-)
this is out of topic:
blackshama,
you and chiz better start hollering, your beloved alma mater UPIS is on the verge of extinction, it’s poised to be eaten by the C-5 Road.
mlq3,
if by an exploration of alternative histories you mean to suggest that what actually happened in history is somehow preferrable, I would be unable to refute your conclusion based on your choices of alternatives. But I think the argument is rhetorically flawed, because it depends on precisely what choice of alternatives we make. There are acceptable and superior alternate histories I could imagine but that wouldn’t prove the case either.
I think it is much better to quit trying to justify what happened and judge what did happen according to our now, far better lights. One thing I wish would go away is all the adulation for the supposed heroism of the two or three days on Edsa. It demeans real and far more bloody sacrifices made by the Filipino people in the march through history.
There ought not to be a repeat of Edsa Dos certainly, since that was a masquerade for a repeat of Edsa One. But these “ought nots” of mine have a master ought not: There ought not be another Marcos to justify another Edsa.
djb, am just interested in exploring what used to be a genre of science fiction but apparently has been used to good effect in exploring questions of history, most notably by niall ferguson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_history
re: above, of course it depends on how the question is posed, but it helps bring into relief the question of whether it was revolution in 1986, what people wanted, could it have been different, etc.
“In Western countries, politicians and civil servants are expected to be relatively poor. In most of the rest of the world, a political career is regarded as a quasi-legitimate road to wealth. But the broad conclusion remains: wealth is conditional on services. When the services fail, the position of the wealthy is threatened.” Robert Sidelsky
Edsa I replaced one set of the so called landed elite with another. Naturally the entire Cory bunch including the military groups that she favored simply took up where Marcos and Co. left off.
Everyone united under the “Ibagsak si Marcos” line…
Will it be different today with OFW support keeping the economy going?
As long as there is an external economic lifeline- coconuts, sugar, bananas, mangoes and human exports the underdevelopment continues.
The total public sector debt (national government + GOCC’s) is approximately Php 6 trillion. The debt service that we pay for that total debt apart from the budget is the total bill the Pinoy people have thanks to the system and structure of governance in this country.
If that debt has also left us with the a degree of public goods it would be alright. Just look at the state of public goods in the country.
My favorite lunatic economist Monsod can simply call it sunk costs. She lives in Dasmarinas Village. The political economy has been kind to her and her lawyer husband.
Hence GMA looks at the bond markets everyday. She has added the most of the debt compared to her past four predecessors.
Just watch the bond markets as it is a good thermometer for political seismic activity. It is a good indicator. Financial markets are very good seismographs for political earthquakes…..
So far so good.
shama, an interesting question. malolos i think would have been delightful to the provincial leaders as it would have set up an oligarchy in the purest sense; and recall that at its terminal point what aguinaldo seriously considered was a baronage in the literal sense -the creation of titles of nobility. a strong executive was the model preferred, temporarily at least, by mabini though his own instincts were parliamentary as he outlined, with the courts subordinated to the legislature, i believe.
the other point at which things branched out was the debate whether to adopt the rules of the cortes or the us congress during the first philippine assembly,. it was significant that the advocates of spanish parliamentary practice lost out.
then the debate over whether palma as a legislator should be allowed to hold a cabinet portfolio, again, resolved against the parliamentary model. but then the repeated referendums on policy in the 20s were all held in the model of parliamentary government.
the 1930s on the other hand, all tended to show the evils of unicameralism and its abandonment in favor of bicameralism.
personally i have no objection to the cabinet being formed from members of the legislature because since the 1930s this has proven to be where executives prefer to find executive talent, your pm just formalizes the innovation of the executive secretary, an institution the americans themselves adopted when eisenhower set up the white house chief of staff.
and i do think temperamentally and institutionally, while we prefer an elected head of state and government, it is organically suitable to have a cabinet sourced from the lower house -this would restore the senate to being the body that screens executive appointments, a power lost when a compromise had to be reached with the lower house to restore the senate in 1941.
no, there’s that spike in the bond ratings of the country, seems a default is expected…
nick nichols pointed to this chart, philippines’ steep climb is in yellow.
sorry here’s the chart: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3619/3317999213_a3c6b33398_o.jpg
mlq3,
On the question of revolutions, I like to think that the adoption of a new Constitution marks the completion of successful revolutions. Without such a supreme political act to punctuate their history, all other Regime Changes are coup d’etats. The Commonwealth Constitution basically formalized the defeat of the Philippine Revolution against America, though the Malolos Constitution safely conducted us to the First Republic long enough that we can claim that characterization. The Philippine American War was the first real war America fought in the Far East. Not World War II. Though the First Republic lost that war, enough of it survived that the Second Republic saw both yours and my generation born. Marcos’ Constitution was the result of the New Society Revolution, 1987s Edsa One a restoration.
Edsa Two of course flies the skull and crossbones.
But one reason I am not a Big Adorer of even Edsa One is that I still cannot see what it was Filipinos did in 1986 that they could not have done in 1976 after three years of dictatorship instead of 13.
You yourself have
my god people are starting to think alike. that’s what i and my girlfriend are rooting for- call me insane, but a revival of the spirit of the New Society as envisioned by Marcos would definitely be a game changer as far as the development history of this nation is concerned. i like the fact that you pointed out that filipinos are not oppressed by systems, but by personalities. but let us remember that the church, as an institution, is also a big big factor in the nondevelopment of this nation by actively dabbling in secular affairs.
let’s just hope that the next one will not be corrupt.
wanderer, you sure is proud of your girlfriend, must be some girl. inggit ako, heheh.
your hope for our country is our hope too, magdilang-anghel ka sana!
djb i’d only quibble in terms of whether that constitution was ratified in a free plebiscite or not; for that reason, the 1899 constitution is on par with the 1943 constitution, ratified by the leadership but because of circumstances, not by the people. for that reason the phil. organic act and the jones law colonial impositions; 1935 and 1987 are the freely-ratified constitutions while 1973 was ratified by farcical people’s assemblies.
but as you know that’s where i believe 1986 haunts 2001 because the logical conclusion of people power is discarding the institutions of the previous regime, and what reduced 2001 to coup status was that i believe public opinion would have supported a new constitution, and there lies my greatest criticism of cory and the cardinal in that they thwarted that process.
Bert
Thanks. I missed out on the alum photo op before they demolished the basketball court and football field!
The UPIS alums have been briefed on the road expansion and they say that they won’t block progress. I don’t think that C5 will cause extinction of the school. The UP central administration has tried to do that many times starting in the Angara presidency. The students rallied and shouted in Quezon Hall “patalsikin si Angara!” to the horror of the teachers. The late Irene Cortes had to go down and talk to the students on the request of the Regents.
The political position of the UP system is this. It is extremely politically damaging to diss out the UPIS and its alums!
The UPIS alumni are what makes the University of the Philippines work. Many heads of university departments are alums. More significantly many heads of non academic divisions are alums. If they go on warpath, expect a chancellor’s head to roll!
Wanderer
Methinks you are a martial law baby. Don’t worry that generation has the highest approval rating for Mr Marcos in a recent survey. Consequently that generation believes that EDSA 1 was a betrayal.
But my call to arms is: Let’s make the Constitution work. We are the Constitution!
Even if I believe that present one needs to be replaced!
Not quite MLQ3 on the bond markets. Indonesia and the Philippines have the almost the same ratings.
However in the recent dollar bond sales Indonesia had to pay a spread of over 8-9 points over comparable U.S. treasuries (10 year) while we have to pay only 5-6 points over the same in our recent dollar bond sales.
We cannot default as most of our principal payments are longer term and the bonds that will become due are smaller than what we have in reserves.
Also short term domestic ROP’s are even lower than the BSP’s overnite rate.
Nichols referring to the yield curve is totally wrong.
MLQ3,
“Public opinion would’ve supported a new Constitution.”
Really? But you yourself believe that FPJ won the 2004 election don’t you? Without Garci and cheating we should have seen whether the above assertion is right or wrong.
I think the Bishops and Cory knew better than we that the People would have rejected such a new Gloria Constitution. Indeed what the Acquiescent and SCORP did in 1972, SCORP and the Acquiescent again did in 2001!
They submitted to a coup d’etat against the two ratified constitutions we do have: 1935 and 1987!!!!!!
MLQ3,
Why did they not ratify and promulgate a new Constitution in 2001?
You do not like my answer and think it was just an oversight on their part.
That demeans their intelligence, for it is utterly inconceivable to me that on 21 Jan 2001, a jurist as learned as Davide did not know he had wantonly violated the Philippine Constitution the day before. But he could live with it because his Christian Ideology is actually stronger in him than the Cold Impartial Justice demanded by Democracy. The Holy Book means more to him than the Book of the Constitution. But the result is, he may think he has saved his souls, yet has he condemned the people to the tender mercies of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, high priestess of the small woman syndrome.
I say Davide 2001 is Marcos 1972 because they both committed the SAME CRIME: “chartericide”. Davide for killing 1987, Marcos for doing in 1935!
Likewise, it is inconceivable that after he had declared as much to his General Staff on 19 Jan 2001, that Angelo Reyes did not know on Day One of his ascendancy to Glory that it had been done on the dishonorable Act of Mutiny.
After TIME Magazine called it Mob Rule, I was mad. It took a year and half for me to discover the truth of what happened. Now I’m still mad. At myself!