Re: Philstar Editorial -- "Commitments"


On a somewhat related topic...here is what I wrote to Tony C. Abaya of
<tappatt.org>, in response/reaction to his article, attached hereto,
likewise.

<Tony,

I have already forwarded this article to Dee for posting in
<iskandalo.com>.

<My comments>

1. Political Freedom versus Economic Freedom - one hell of a
controversial issue.

The Quezonians would prefer "...to see a country run like hell by
Pilipinos, than to see one run like heaven, by Americans (foreigners)."


McKinley and his so called "imperialist" supporters put it quite the
opposite: "We cannot give the Philippines back to Spain...that would
be ignoble. Nor ought we sell it to England, Germany or France...as it
would be bad business to engage in business with countries whose
perceptions of human values are not supportive of ours. And we cannot
afford to return the Philippines to the Pilipinos, because they are
incapable of self-rule and self-governance...and they will have
anarchists worse than those they had experienced under their 350 years
of Spanish colonization. And so I have decided to keep the Philippines
as an annex and commonwealth of the USA and there it will stay for as
long as I am president."

Unfortunately (for those who believe to date that the Philippines would
have been better off under the Americans), but exhuberantly (for those
who imagined that political sovereignty equated with economic
independence), McKinley's term of office was abrubtly cut short when he
was felled by an assassin's bullet....and his successor Woodrow Wilson
and his cabinet worked towards the gradual and eventual political
independence of the Philippines. That was some 100++ years ago. So
far, the Quezonians have been winning with MLQ's self-fulfilling cursed
hope.

>>From 1946 thru 1965 (19 years of new-found political freedom), we had 5
different leaders who took turns trying to propel the economic wheels
towards progress. Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Garcia, Macapagal...then
the A-hole "Muck Farcos" came along and for the next 20 odd years
1965-1986 intentionally and purposefully and mercilessly screwed and
sodomized the country. That was some 28 years ago.

And now, we still have all the "loyalistang-balimbings," - the sipsips
of Imelda, the same "mga tuta ni Marcos"...(except that now they are
old, decrepit, ranting, raving na mga "asong ulol") - hanging on to
lost political power, in their last desperate effort to salvage their
equally diminishing economic possessions and stranglehold...

Indeed, Tony, a society that FORGIVES too readily, FORGETS too easily,
and DENIES, too adamantly, all too soon ignores the lessons of the
past...and inevitably becomes doomed to a dismal future.

Pepeton J’anton, pusongpinoye2@xxxxxxx
February 26, 2004

ON THE OTHER HAND
Economic or Political Freedom?
By Antonio C. Abaya
February 18, 2004


“Ideally,” he said “you give economic freedom with tight political
control. Political freedom will come when, with the improved economy,
people are no longer hungry.” If a country insists on having political
freedom first, then its economy will grow at a much slower pace.

If that sounds, to communist and liberal Filipino ears, like the
ranting of your friendly neighborhood fascist, it may come as a
surprise that the speaker was none other than Washington SyCip, one of
the most respected wise old men in Philippine business circles. Who,
nevertheless, would still rank as a friendly neighborhood fascist in
the estimation of those who subscribe to either Marxist-Leninist
orthodoxy (which rejects any accommodation with “rightist” regimes
which routinely decimate their ranks) or American-style liberalism
(which theoretically rejects any diminution of political and civil
rights under any circumstances but actually supports it whenever it is
in their national interest to do so).

Said SyCip, as reported in the Feb. 9 issue of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer: Freedom of the press and of political expression are “still
quite distant” in China, “but the drop in poverty levels has been the
fastest in world history”….The Philippines demonstrated the highest
growth rates in 1973 and 1974, during martial law, he pointed out.

SyCip’s observations are by no means original or suddenly revelatory.
Many other observers of the Asian or Philippine scenes have been saying
or writing as much for many years, but they were usually ignored or
overwhelmed by the usual liberal concerns about our “cherished
democracy.”

That someone of SyCip’s stature has chosen to come out openly with such
heretical opinions should spark some debate in media (which, however,
is almost totally liberal and often radchic pro-Marxist in
orientation). My own views have been expressed in earlier columns,
principally ‘The Dilemma of Liberalism’ (Aug. 1, 2002) and ‘Even Raul
Roco Would Fail’ (Dec. 15, 2002).

In the euphoric few years after EDSA 1, before disappointment and
despair set in, many thinking Filipinos consoled each other with the
thought that, although South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia,
Thailand and China had overtaken us in per capita income, export
earnings, tourist arrivals, domestic savings rates, tax collection as %
of GDP, gross international reserves, foreign direct investments,
quality of education, ratings of schoolchildren in science and math,
and just about every other indicator in the books – and Suharto’s
Indonesia was about to do the same - we, however, were more developed
politically than they were because we were a liberal democracy, while
they were refugees from, or were still under, authoritarian regimes and
had little or no experience with such liberal-democratic niceties as a
free press and free and open (though not necessarily honest) elections.

The election to the presidency in 1998 of a criminally inclined
ignoramus has settled that argument conclusively and has shown our
boastful claim of political superiority over our economically
successful neighbors to be not even a consuelo de bobo. The Philippines
is, it has long been apparent, not only economically retarded but
politically backward as well. The looming election in 2004 of other
wildly popular ignoramuses suggests that we will retain this dubious
distinction for at least another 12 years, perhaps even 18, perhaps
forever.

I do not know what Wash SyCip thinks about it, but my own feel is that
our political system is so far gone in the spiral of irreversible decay
and trivialization that it is no longer capable of cleansing and
regenerating itself. SyCip mentioned education as “the most effective
equalizer” between the socio-economic classes. True, but with our best
teachers now working as maids in Hong Kong, Singapore and Western
Europe, who will do the educating? And what about the population bomb
ticking ever so loudly in our front yard, backyard and every room in
our over-crowded and dilapidated bahay kubo?

The thesis that economic freedom should come ahead of political freedom
is certainly borne out by the successes of South Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Suharto’s Indonesia, Vietnam and the
People’s Republic of China. The Philippines is unique in this part of
the world in trying to do it the other way around, or at least in
trying to have both at the same time, with palpably disastrous results
as is graphically evident from the tattered condition of our body
politic and our limping economy.

Sure, we enjoy the freedom to criticize, demonize and pulverize every
government official, from the president down, but half the population
have sunk below the poverty line, and their numbers are increasing with
each passing year. Sure, we got from the Americans the right to vote
for our leaders way ahead of everyone else in East Asia, but not even
the Americans could have predicted that we would use that right to vote
into power criminally inclined ignoramuses, convicted child rapists,
fugitives from the FBI and certified electoral cheats. In the meantime,
the peso keeps on sinking and everyday 3,500 (or almost 1.3 million a
year) of some of the best Filipinos leave for jobs abroad that they
cannot find here.

On the other hand, to this day, the Internal Security Act (ISA), which
the governments of Malaysia and Singapore inherited from the British,
still pointedly excludes “subversives” (meaning, communists and their
sympathizers) from their politics and their economics, as did the
military governments which modernized South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and
Suharto’s Indonesia with much more draconian measures than the ISA. For
their part, the communist governments of Vietnam and China do not allow
anyone to challenge the primacy and monopoly of power enjoyed by their
communist parties.

Such diminution of political freedom has not impeded their march to
broad-based economic prosperity (hence the economic freedom of most of
their people), largely through the export of manufactured goods. On the
contrary, it can be argued that economic freedom would not have been
achieved by any of the above countries, on either side of the
ideological divide, if their malcontents had been given the political
freedom to protest, pillory and put down viciously every act, every
program, every initiative of their governments. And the negative
example cited to illustrate this principle is often none other than
Philippines, My Philippines.

So, on which side are the angels ranged, economic freedom or political
freedom?

I recall that more than ten years ago, when a multi-choice survey asked
Filipinos which world leader they admired the most, Lee Kwan Yew of
Singapore received by far the most votes. Which suggests that even
then, when things had not yet deteriorated to their present state,
Filipinos were already instinctively choosing economic freedom over
political freedom, the contrarian voices of communists and liberals
notwithstanding..


*****

The bulk of this article appears in the February 28, 2004 issue of the
Philippines Free Press magazine.

.

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