Social division and privileges in PH
THE unnumbered hardships of living in a permanent state of confinement because of the coronavirus are somehow more bearable if the patient citizen sees that the elected politicians behave similarly. This has not been the case recently. While most of the population cannot have access to testing kits even when showing symptoms, a group of politicians and their families behaved clannishly and got themselves tested unnecessarily. As a response to criticism and in trying to explain that there was no VIP treatment, the Department of Health has publicly acknowledged that it accords courtesy “to officials holding positions of national security and public health.” So, yes, the complaining Filipino citizens are right because courtesy is just a euphemism for “VIP treatment,” which does not sound so good.
We read or watch the news now even more often than usual because we spend so much time at home connected to the internet. We then get informed about a homeless woman being arrested for actually sleeping in the street or two health workers getting fined for riding a motorbike, which is their only means to get to work. And then we got to know about the case of a very well- known politician, infected by the coronavirus, putting in danger the lives of frontliners in a hospital and in a supermarket. On these occasions, an unconvincing apology seems to suffice to escape the action of justice.
Although social classes and hierarchies do exist in all societies, I have seen things here that are quite uncommon in other countries, like a condominium building with special elevators for maids, a “maid menu” in a luxury resort, wealthy individuals throwing their money disrespectfully at cashiers, famous actresses calmly jumping the queue to vote or a doctor publicly humiliating a traffic enforcer who was merely doing his job. Situations like these happen too often and everyone knows of similar examples.
In pre- Hispanic Philippines, this behavior was widespread because of social divisions granted by birth. When friars were told to know the existing laws among the tagalog, kapampangan and Visayan, it turned out that the unwritten law always depended on the social status of the person. So, the penalties or punishments depended on the person who committed the crime and not on the crime itself. These inequalities accompanied unfortunate individuals until their death. Rich people were buried with their jewels in the belief that they will need them in the next life because they will belong to the same social class, even in the afterlife.
Spanish intrusion somehow interrupted this unequal status quo by introducing two disruptive elements: Christianity and Roman law. The idea of someone being equal to anyone in the eyes of God surely would have been revolutionary. Roman law, at the same time, was also useful in mitigating the situation of vulnerability of the lower classes to abuse. This, of course, did not mean the end of injustices, but it made difficult the impunity of the crimes of the higher classes. Colonial chronicles and cases inform us about workers who filed cases against their abusive masters and won! Liberal ideas penetrated the archipelago and, in the last century, the United States colonial authority encouraged the participation of all citizens in public affairs regardless of social class.
Despite these improvements, colonialism was sending, at the same time, a message that Filipinos can understand quite well: some people are better than others. The failure to create a strong, educated and wide middle class after independence made the rest, and now we see, more often than we wished, certain kinds of behavior among the political and economic elite that we can easily identify as abusive, unfair, unequal, humiliating, privileged, clannish or even tribal.
The good news, I believe, is that these uncivilized scenes will become rarer in the years to come. Cameras and mobile phones are everywhere and we can now witness what we only suspected to be happening before. Thankfully, Filipinos are extremely sensitive to injustice and they are less and less willing to accept special courtesies, VIP treatment, undeserved privileges and mestizo arrogance.
The recent outraged reaction on social media toward an individual who, using his surname and his political status, put at risk the health of other members of the society, tells us something good: Filipinos are already fed up with this, and anyone trying to make unfair use of his social status will have to think twice before taking advantage or face social, political or even legal consequences.