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SOMETIMES
we must listen to our political leaders even if they give
us the feeling that they are just leading us by the nose.
We may even take them seriously, if only because we have
no choice: we elected them. But first we must unravel the
meaning of their words when they seem to speak earnestly
and dramatically. At this time, the words are Moral
Revolution.
In its
common sense, revolution is the attempt to carry out a
radical change in the system of government. It often
involves the transfer of power by force. Revolutionaries
will tell you that their intentions are moral in the sense
that they make revolution to inaugurate a regime of
justice, freedom and equality. But our political leaders,
in affixing “moral” to revolution, clearly rule out the
use of force: they want a peaceful rather than violent or
bloody revolution. Their moral revolution entails the
achievement of a “corruption-free society” led by no less
than the president of the Strong Republic.
Students,
if not advocates, of revolution will tell you that a
corrupt society cannot be drastically changed by those who
are on top of it unless the majority of the elite and the
masses undergo a change of heart similar to what St. Paul
went through on the road to Damascus. That is not a
downright dismissal, for if Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
could come close to that epiphany (he acknowledged that he
was not without sin), there is reason to hope that others
can undergo a transformation as well—the same thing that
happened at the height of the Cursillo movement in the
late ’50s. In many parts of the country, in houses on
rolling hills and convents, men and women (separately)
underwent three days and nights of spiritual cleansings,
listened to rolios delivered by graduate cursillistas,
some of whom were redeemed charlatans, awakened at dawn
with crosses on their faces, sang and danced to De Colores,
immersed and emerging as sinners in an orgy of saintliness
as they were called “to jump without a parachute” in a
leap of faith. Errant husbands left their mistresses (who
understood their transformation), and men and women formed
wholesome friendships; sots became teetotalers, gamblers
gave up the habit, businessmen kept their promises and
paid their debts, policemen, soldiers and politicians
mended their ways.
That the
cursillistas went back to normal (though there must be
those who have remained so in their hearts) and the
movement faded through the years has probably some
affinity with the history of “moral revolution” in our
country. For Moral Revolution is far from new or original,
as our political moral revolutionists must be reminded.
The
Philippine Moral Commission
In the
Commonwealth days of the ’30s, the Filipinized colonial
government was under the protection (Aguinaldo’s words) of
the Great North American Nation. The Philippine Moral
Commission was created under the leadership of Sen. Jose
P. Laurel with prominent Filipinos as members in response
to American resistance to our struggle for complete,
absolute and immediate independence. The anti-independence
Americans had sent scholars to inquire into the Filipinos’
performance in government who found out that our Muslim
brothers were against independence, as they would be
placed under the rule of Christians who robbed them of
their lands. They also unearthed corruption in the
bureaucracies that ran the railroads, titled the lands,
the customs and the internal revenues, and thereby
concluded that Filipino officials would run the country
down. After serious study, the Philippine Moral
Commission saw in the Japanese Bushido ethic a model for
our own code of ethics, suggesting without intending to
that the so-called “moral values” of our ancestors were
either chimerical or unsuited to the task of governing an
independent nation. The Philippine Moral Commission
dwindled into a historical footnote with World War II
while Japan, because of its occupation record, became the
object of all that was hateful and undesirable, since
apart from the slaps, tortures, rapes and massacres, their
only lasting legacy is the queue. Japan, of course, was
to become less hateful because of its economic miracle,
its reparations and its economic assistance. So much for
the Bushido; had it been adopted, the country would have
suffered from a scarcity of “leaders” due to an epidemic
of resignations and suicides arising from scandals.
(However, for a time, rich politicians were impoverished
in office and one or two resigned their positions out of
hurt sensitivities—a virtual “golden age.”)
The
postwar years
Under
three presidents, there was no talk of “moral revolution,”
as there were real threats of revolution and insurgencies
from the Hukbalahap to Kamlon. The buzzword was “social
justice” which began with Manuel Luis Quezon and continued
through the presidencies of Manuel A. Roxas and Elpidio
Quirino. As Douglas MacArthur, “American Caesar” and
“Liberator of the Philippines” remarked in 1945: “They
tell me that the Huks are socialistic, that they are
revolutionaries, but I haven’t got the heart to go after
them. If I worked in the sugar fields, I’d probably be a
Huk myself.” Along with social justice was the agitation
for land reform, resisted fiercely by congressmen and
landlords as they were also the demands of communists in
the midst of the raging Cold War.
This was
also the period of reconstruction and rehabilitation, from
which the country emerged until the early ’60s as the most
politically and economically advanced, second only to
Japan.
Although graft and corruption was also a campaign issue,
the political concentration was on democracy, which became
triumphant when Ramon Magsaysay, riding on his success as
defense secretary, was elected President by a landslide.
The masses firmly believed in him. His presidency was
regarded then as now as the Rule of the Masses; today he
remains the symbol of sincerity and honesty in office.
Under
Carlos P. Garcia, corruption became the major national
issue, for which he was defeated by Diosdado Macapagal,
who proclaimed himself as the “most intellectually and
morally qualified to be President” (a phrase cribbed by
Loren Legarda when she ran as vice president against Noli
de Castro). It also helped that CPG was accused by DM of
“veering away from America,” and whose Filipino First
policy, which made some Filipino businessmen rich or
richer, was politically seen as a nationalistic disguise
for corruption. True or not, he was defeated by Macapagal
who spoke of “moral regeneration,” a credible slogan for
the poor boy from Lubao, the last president who spoke of
“dignified poverty.”
But he was
defeated by Ferdinand E. Marcos on the issue of rampant
corruption, though FM also had a “secret weapon” in the
presidential campaign of 1966. His ringing slogan was
“this nation can be great again.” And as it was in the
time of John F. Kennedy, Marcos’s was also Camelot, his
Cabinet composed of young men and women said to be the
brightest of their generation.
The
‘revolution from above’
The
justification for the proclamation of martial law in 1972
was that society was so rotten that it needed a reform so
radical as to be almost “revolutionary.” The “revolution
from above” would also bring about a moral transformation
of the (New) Filipino under a New Society. In the early
years of “constitutional authoritarianism,” a study group
composed of UP academics and young businessmen was tasked
to come up with ideas and propositions for achieving the
avowed aims of a truly new society. Since power was
concentrated, almost everything was possible, but
somewhere along the line, society “back-slided,” as Marcos
said when he inaugurated the Day of the Long Knives, the
wholesale dismissal of errant public servants, including
some already dead and buried. (Not a few were restored,
however.) Again corruption, not to mention differences
with American Philippine policy experts, and finally the
assassination of Ninoy Aquino and the snap election
brought down Marcos through a peaceful revolution. This,
indeed, was the Moral Revolution that would not only
restore Philippine democracy but strengthen it. The Aquino
government included “moral values” in education, a more
sophisticated version of our younger days’ “good manners
and right conduct.” Democracy would be further ingrained
in the nation’s consciousness.
But what
followed was more discontent and disillusion over the
Moral Revolution that never was. You can choose your own
causes: the risen oligarchy; a strong military; a corrupt
police, judiciary, legislature and executive; all the
things that Speaker de Venecia broadly painted.
Moral
rearmament
During the
presidency of Fidel V. Ramos, the concentration was on
economic growth, “hitting the ground running” and
rejecting the “trickle-down effect,” the last quite
successful because there was no trickle from thriving
business enterprises. Globalization and privatization was
the focus, with all its advantages to some and
disadvantages to others. But the power crisis was solved,
the government coffers were replenished, and there was
some big drive to redeem the country through the Moral
Rearmament Movement. This, too, became a footnote, to be
replaced by evangelical movements that consoled the poor
and enriched the local versions of Oral Roberts. The most
influential came to town and buttressed the movements.
Prayer breakfasts and rallies were virtual campaigns in
between periodic elections. It isn’t so because
evangelists-cum-political leaders aren’t sincere in their
piety as with other things, but there has been no “moral
revolution” in spite of them.
Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo doesn’t preach “moral revolution” because
she rightly believes that national unity, responsible
politics and focusing on economic growth will eventually
widen a middle class that will have the right values, a
belief belied by the current malaise of human-rights
violations and other unexplained phenomena like missing
contracts.
We need
not dwell too much about “moral revolution” in the
short-lived Erap regime, although Edsa II was again a
public action against corruption, a.k.a. plunder. But to
many, it’s not so much a moral revolution as a Palace
coup, aggravating rather than rooting out corruption.
The
Moral Revolution
The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for
all, with lying.
—T. H. Huxley
Like all
formulations, Huxley’s on morality is as simple as Thomas
Jefferson’s: “I never believed there was one code for a
public man and another for a private man.” If you come
down to it, who can improve on the tenets of a moral
revolution that were writ on the tablets in
Mount Ararat: the Ten Commandments? These commandments were not mere
personal commands but counsel for men and women in
society. They are not between us and God but between us
and our fellow men. Together, we make society the way we
want it.
Still,
giving Speaker de Venecia and certain congressmen the
benefit of the doubt, if one person, a president, should
lead a “moral revolution,” how do they propose that person
go about it? Wear a sack cloth and ashes and walk to the
Vatican with bare feet? Or follow Jesus Christ’s diktat to
give all to the poor? Or the Sufi’s advice not to sleep at
night when there’s a hungry man a mile away from his
house? If that were followed, there would be a pandemic of
insomnia.
There’s,
of course, something in the thought that the problem can
be part of the solution. This is what I think the Speaker
means. All the same, the problem of method remains, not to
mention its possibility.
A “moral
revolution,” like all revolutions (as Stalin said), needs
the support, active or passive, of the great masses. But
since the government is a large and uncontrollable
bureaucracy, how can one person without absolute power
lead a moral revolution, since if that person has absolute
power, there’s no telling how that person will behave?
At this
juncture, Lee Kuan Yew’s achievement in Singapore comes to
mind. Good behavior and prosperity is possible without
“too much democracy.” But he also had the good fortune of
sharing power with men who adhered to his principles.
According
to Hebrew legend, Ten Just Men kept society whole by their
probity and fortitude.
Do we have
Ten Just Men or, like
Sodom and
Gomorrah,
don’t we even have One? |
