WHEN we speak of development in Mindanao there are different aspects to development. There is the political, the economic and the cultural aspect of development. On the political aspect, I want to make some remarks. Assuming that the federal form of government will be adopted in the Philippine political system in the near future, we have to develop also in Mindanao a new type of political leadership.
Traditionally politics in the Philippines have been characterized by the three Gs: gold, guns and goons.
I would propose to take these three Gs away from the political scene and replace it with one G (with a capital letter) God. We need a faith-based politics, a politics that is based on God. Faith tells us that God created the world and He accompanies his creation through his Spirit. He created mankind and gave man dominion over his creation. God accompanies man and the society in which he lives, in order to accomplish that task. The socio-political system that is man-made should be driven by God’s Spirit and not by the Spirit of Evil.
Our present political system is characterized by a struggle of good versus evil and it is evil that dominates the political scene. Our political leaders have become a personification of evil.
That is the sad reality. The question now is, how do we change that political system? During the martial law years, when we were fighting the Marcos dictatorship, the people from the movement used to tell us, we must overthrow that system through armed struggle. Once the system is overthrown, an ideal society will almost automatically follow and be built up, because it is the system that makes people corrupt. According to them, the three big evils of the system are: US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. Mao Zedong taught us in addition to this, that aside from the political revolution we need also a cultural revolution, in order to mold the behavior of man and bring about that ideal society.
Marx says that this ideal society would be the dictatorship of the proletariat. We know now that this is an illusion, a wishful thinking, an utopia. But a cultural or rather a moral revolution we need. That is the revolution taught by Christ. The Marxist struggle for nationalism and democracy becomes then a Christian struggle for democracy, a struggle for a Christian democratic society. The Christian democratic vision is not ideological but pragmatic, it is a vision that is based not on theory but on faith.
As Christians, we believe that human beings are created by God in his image. As such every human being is unique and therefore different also. It is the task of politics to create the framework conditions for all individuals, rich and poor, Christians and non-Christians, to develop their own strengths. We should not be afraid or ashamed to bring back into politics our faith in God and the working of his Spirit.
President Noynoy Aquino, if he were true to the legacy of his parents Ninoy and Cory Aquino, would be the right person to inspire our nation towards that new politics.
[Email: Arnold van vugt@gmail.com]