Back to square one

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will soon deliver his second State of the Nation Address (Sona),which should be the more substantive one considering that the first Sona last year was when he had just assumed his post.

When I look back at the past year under Duterte, I actually ask myself why we reached this stage in our history when values are shoved down the drain. I say the country was most progressive during and immediately after the 1986 Edsa people power uprising.

Since then, the pendulum began moving to the center, right of center and finally to the right. The progressives who advance people’s rights, the rule of law and respect for democratic institutions are now being outnumbered by those who are either ignorant of these or are outright reactionaries.

I would compare this stage in our history to the early years of the military rule Ferdinand Marcos declared in September 1972. Aside from the widespread fear the Marcos regime planted in people’s hearts with the harshness of its early actions, a segment of the population was actually either hopeful of the success of martial law’s avowed goals or was supportive of Marcos.

If surveys were already the vogue at that time, I think Marcos’s satisfaction rating would be high. Our place in the early ‘70s was being frequented by criminal types including jail escapees because of its unique setup, with the lower portion straddling the eastern bank of a river.

That area can only be reached through the length of the community’s lone road, exposing anybody, including law enforcers that would conduct raids there. Those criminal types vanished in the early years of military rule. But the truth was the country was pushed to the far right during the Marcos years.

As they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The pendulum only started to swing to the left after years of painstaking education and later the holding of protest actions. I say we are now almost back to zero in efforts to push the social pendulum back to at least the center. I say “almost” because unlike before we already have the lessons of the past to guide us.

The hold of progressive thinking now is also bigger than when martial law was declared in 1972. Besides, the setup now is different in that in 1972 Marcos swiftly destroyed most democratic institutions. Interestingly, the revolutionary Left that was among the targets of the Marcos dictatorship (aside from the dictator’s rival politicians) are in an awkward position now than before.

The Left was instrumental in efforts of raising people’s awareness of the excesses of the dictatorship then because its status was clear. These days, the Left has a foot in the Duterte administration and another foot outside.

This has weakened its position as government critic. How can it arouse, organize and mobilize the masses against the government when it is now inside the government?

I think this contributed to the further weakening of the opposition against the Duterte administration and its rightist policies. I think new and daring leaders are needed to lead in efforts to re-educate the people and reestablish the hold of progressive principles in the country. SSCebu