Finish line
Sen. Kiko Pangilinan, speaking for the Liberal Party, urges Filipinos to fight for democracy in 2018. His call rides on the assumption that we have a working true democracy to protect while his partisan political motive is evidenced by his exclusive reference to the threat of the Duterte administration’s moves to change the constitution.
It is clear that he is not asking us to protect our democracy from the violent threats of the Communist Party of the Philippines- New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). He sidesteps the fact that the CPP-NPA’s armed struggle is based on the contrary assumption that our democracy is a sham that needs to be replaced with what the latter consider true democracy, a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Moreover, the good senator’s political motive blindsides him to the fact that many people, who do not agree with the CPP-NPA’s definition of democracy and their armed struggle to attain it, are also fighting a peaceful constitutional battle for democracy on the same contrary assumption that what we have is an illusion of democracy.
The essential virtues of democracy are liberty, equality, justice and fair play as paths towards prosperity for all. The fact that thirty percent of the population until now live in absolute poverty is solid proof that democracy has not worked yet in this country. For this marginalised sector there is very little liberty, equality, justice/fair play, and prosperity to protect.
Instead we have an oligarchy where a rich and powerful few pull the strings on their puppets in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government behind a façade of democracy. If the Senate, for instance, were an institution of democracy as Senator Franklin Drilon claims, who represents in that body the poorest-of-the -poor farmers and workers who compose the majority of our voters? Our elections are a mockery of democracy because they are won on vested-interest money and not on the programs of government of honest, competent and true representative candidates of all sectors of society.
The 1987 constitution focused only on preventing a Marcos-style martial law but essentially kept power in the hands of the oligarchy by neglecting to reform the electoral system and to put in place a system of proportional sectoral representation. There is a need for a new constitution with self-implementing provisions that loosen the oligarchy’s exclusive grip on the country’s power and wealth.
We cannot protect something we don’t have. We can only fight to acquire it. What we have is an illusion of democracy. Protecting that illusion cannot be the starting line of our fight. Acquiring true representative democracy is the finish line we should fight to cross.