Hope in 2019

AREN’T

you tired of the mutually shared view of the regime and the main opposition that our most pressing problems, including the campaign and elections, are simply the public’s fault? Aren’t you sick that the elites skirt and blur their individual and collective accountability?

On one hand, the regime claims its impending victory is a mandate for tyranny, for martial law, for selling out to China, for more killings, for cracking down on the press, and for more violations of human rights. It is a gross oversimplication of what the public wants.

Lest we forget, Duterte isn’t in the ballot. Voters choose based on a variety of factors, and they are known to vote for candidates regardless of party affiliation.

On the other hand, the main opposition and its supporters demand and shame voters into “correcting” their mistake of electing Duterte. It is a gross misreading of the 2016 elections and a refusal to accept the fact that voters then repudiated the past regime.

Moreover, voters cannot bear responsibility for the failure or inability of institutions, structures, and officials that — supposedly, under our Constitution — are out there providing a check and balance, the duty to fiscalize, the obligation to review.

Voters vote not just for the president, but also for other elective officials. They vote for a House of Representatives and a Senate. Is it the voters’ fault that lawmakers do not do their job as foil to an abusive and overreaching chief executive?

Is it the voters’ fault for instance that the Senate did not even raise a howl about the Palace declarations that the Philippines didn’t ratify the Rome Statute ( fact is, the Senate concurred with the Philippine ratification), and that Senator Miriam Defender Santiago’s candidacy for and election as ICC judge was actually void? Isn’t this the individual and collective accountability of senators and this Senate under Tito Sotto?

Is it the voters’ fault that political dynasties thrive and continue to dominate our political and economic lives? Why hasn’t Congress passed a law to ban political dynasties, as provided in the Constitution? If Duterte is truly for reform, why did he actively court, recruit, and mobilize as the main forces of his Hugpong and PDP-Laban the majority of these political dynasties, including convicted grafters, plunderers, and diploma mill graduates?

Is it the voters’ fault that the political parties decide exclusively and without any public participation on who to field as candidates and whatever their criteria are for even considering them? Is it the voters’ fault that these parties, political analysts, and the media misuse the term “winnability” to hide the fact that these “winnable candidates” enjoy such stature mainly because of “guns, goons, and gold”?

As we approach the final stretch of the national campaign, let’s seize the opportunity to pleasantly surprise the public with fresh, emancipator, and progressive views and solutions. Let’s challenge and put a stop to the “blame the voters” mentality of the traditional politicians.

One powerful way to challenge the deceitful and deceptive narratives is to highlight and make as subjects of debate and discussion the issues that truly matter. Let’s demand that candidates present their view, for instance, on the massacre of 14 farmers in Negros.

The significance of the March 30 bloodbath in Negros cannot be understated. It is a sign of the regime’s desperation and inability to solve the problem facing farmers nationwide. Its solution to the destitution of farmers at the hands of big landlords is simply to accuse them of being rebels and then to kill them in cold blood.

We must demand a Congress that takes care of farmers, implements land reform, and abolishes landlordism nationwide. This is a fundamental democratic cause dating back to the 1896 revolution. The system’s perpetuation of landlordism and feudalism deprives not only the farmers of their freedom, but keeps the landlords economically and politically powerful. Landlordism and feudalism fuel traditional politics in most places nationwide. That’s where political dynasties and their guns, goons, and gold come from.

And there are other issues, all important: Endo and contractualization. Mass transportation and low wages. The artificial water shortage and the elite’s greedy monopoly of public services. The starving of public hospitals and the promotion of private medical insurance. The declaration of war and the ending of peace talks. Extrajudicial killings of drug suspects and political killings of activists. The filing of trumped-up charges against rebels, oppositionists, and the critical press. China and the US. The new Duterte TRAIN taxes and the higher cost of living. We must fight for these issues because only the people, only us, would fight for them.

That the Hugpong and PDP-Laban are running away from debates is already a signal that their candidates don’t wish to respect the voter. They are running only for themselves and for Duterte. They are smug and confident because the political dynasties they belong to and the traditional politicians would work day and night to ensure their victory. They will do so because they are their candidates.

There’s still hope as long as we don’t blame the people. We must go to the people, and together with them raise their issues as loudly and as convincingly as possible. Perhaps only then can we regain their confidence as their brain trust, and help give the likes of Neri Colmenares, Ka Leody de Guzman, Sonny Matula, other oppositionists and indepents the full hearing they deserve and the votes they need to win.