Strong institutions

DEMOCRACY is weak and wobbly in the Philippines because the political empowerment of peoples needed for a workable democracy is near impossible in the context of the nightmarish extent of the economic exclusion and marginalization of the Filipino masses.

This is mainly because past governments dominated by oligarchs have always been authoritarian and they maintained a firm grip on power by keeping public institutions equally authoritarian and biased for the rich, powerful and well connected.

Thus, all previous governments never went beyond cosmetic fool-proofing of public institutions. On the contrary they consistently allowed key institutions (the elections, for one) to remain weak so they can have their pro-rich and anti-poor way with the country’s political and economic resources.

Our institutions of justice are clearly anti-poor. If you have not been a victim, you only have to look at the demographics in our jails to see this. Educational institutions also favor the rich. Collaterally, institutions of the press are anti-poor as they cater to the biases of their rich ownerbackers of those in authority.

Hence, even if “yellows” might be right about President Rodrigo Duterte’s blunt authoritarian ways on some issues, it does not give them the right to take the moral high road because they have been and are just as authoritarian (only more subtle and deceptive) as any other political party that came to power in this country.

The alternative to Duterte’s authoritarianism is not the authoritarianism of the yellows or of any other party including the communist party. The alternative is for patriotic lead personalities to apprise the public of what they are doing to build democratic institutions that have no anti-poor bias.

Thus, the institutions of the Ombudsman, the Supreme Court, the Electoral Tribunal, etc. cannot be just defending themselves from incoming arrows by hurling back their own arrows from the relative safety of their constitutionally erected and protected castles. They have also to assure the public that they are truly democratic, fair and not mata-pobre (as one columnist puts it) as the underprivileged usually experience them.

We cannot solve the problems of democracy by any form of authoritarianism. As a reader correctly reacted to a recent column, the only way is to strengthen institutions and, if I may add, in a manner that they become less authoritarian and without an anti-poor bias.

Incidentally, the basic institutions are the home, the school and the church. These should be the first to become less authoritarian and more democratic. We cannot hope to have institutions run by democratic leaders if these were nurtured in authoritarian homes, schools and chur ches.

— Orlando P. Carvajal