Saturday, September 06, 2008 Roperos: Political maturity By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
THERE was this bit of news that came out in this daily almost a week ago that said that the politics in this republic is still “immature.”
The notion of political maturity in Philippine politics is something that has long been thought about and longed for by our political scientists. This was a favorite subject of some of my professors at the UP in Diliman many decades ago.
Thus, there is veracity in the comment of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) chief regarding the absence of maturity in our country’s politics even up to this day.
Secretary Cerge Remonde pointed out the case of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic Party presidential nomination in the US. Clinton threw “her full support behind Barack Obama after he was named the party’s bet for president.
But really, what the PMS chief said is something most keen observers of Philippine politics cannot deny. This is true in the ranks of professional, as well as aspiring politicians among the nation’s top leaders down to the barangay tanod.
It is a situation that truly calls for inner behavioral reform.
Our country’s dynamics of growth and development has been fueled by politics. That much we should thank our politics for. The competitiveness of political practice in this republic also pushes economic growth and development.
But this positive feature is not enough excuse for the latent immaturity that has persisted in our postwar politics.
While politics has been a driving force in the nation’s social and economic progress, it is also a factor in the often erratic growth and development of the nation’s economy.
In a sense, there is both good and bad features in the nation’s political life. And this is one reason, I believe, in the hesitance or absence of determined efforts to undertake reorientation in our political outlook and push for genuine behavioral reforms.
Even at this point in our history, our leaders still don’t have well-defined political ideals.
It is difficult to compare Philippine politics with that of the US. Our version of democracy and democratic governance is almost a complete copy of the US, but ours is only about a hundred years old. That of the Americans has existed for more than three centuries.
It is thus a political state we should hope to achieve, what Cerge has admittedly accepted we still do not have. But it should be within the reach of our politicians if they want to.
