Van Vugt: The New Society

OLD-timers among us will remember that the idea of a New Society was first launched by Dictator Marcos, his ‘famous’ Bagong Lipunan. When Marcos in 1972 decided to declare martial law, after the now Honorable Senator Enrile gave him a reason to do so by faking an ambush on himself, Marcos thought that he could create a so-called New Society overnight, by decree. His New Society turned out to be a fake like the ambush on Enrile was a fake.  
 
The idea of a New Society is exactly the opposite of what a new society is all about. Actually now is the time to launch that New Society under President Noynoy Aquino. And the Catholic Church should now give its full cooperation with the President to realize this New Society in society as well as in the Church.

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To Marcos the CBCP gave critical collaboration, albeit more collaboration than critical. Because the Church should have realized that time that the idea of a New Society is actually implied by the Social Teachings of the Church.  
 
The Church has kept this Social Teachings instead a secret. When it was launched after the Second Vatican Council, the Church failed to implement this doctrine within its own ranks, let alone to implement it in secular society. In the Church there is still the hierarchy which obstructs a real democracy in the Church. The same is true with the old society under the previous administrations since Cory Aquino.  
 
Central to Catholic Social Teaching is the principle of subsidiarity. What can be done by society on a lower level should not be taken over by a higher level. It is the higher level that can facilitate the process of democratization at the lower levels, but it can never dictate it. At the lowest level of society there is the individual and his family. The individual is not an absolute autonomous human being. He is a social human being and as such he is called to cultivate in himself and his family the basic human virtues of reciprocity, solidarity, generosity and righteousness. If the individual isolates himself from the community he becomes a mere consumer in a capitalist society.  
 
The cooperative movement must be the driving force in this New Society. Marcos in his time killed the cooperative movement through his Masagana 99 program for the farmers. The cooperative movement cannot be imposed from above; it has to grow from below. Cooperativism is a moral imperative resting on the individual and it is beyond the reach of government.  

Neighborliness, the Filipino bayanihan spirit, is a free gift of the individual human being; it cannot be imposed by rule and regulations from above. In this New Society there must be a switch from ‘my good’ to the ‘common good’. Everyone should show responsibility for this common good.

Now is the time to build up this New Society under President Noynoy Aquino through truly Filipino values of bayanihan, of pagtinabangay and pagbinuligay in the Church as well as in the State.
 
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