If 50 million or more of us rate ourselves poor, one would think we want to change our country’s political and economic laws and policies. Yet, from election results, it doesn’t look like we do. Most of those we elected to Congress are from the oligarchy. Presumably, albeit subconsciously afraid of losing their domination of Philippine society, oligarchs have never lifted a finger to change the existing unjust economic system.
The last election turned out to be a fight between the Marcos and the Duterte dynasties that the Dutertes surprisingly yet explicably won. But since both are oligarchs, the real winner is the oligarchy. Big-time losers are once more the Filipino people for, as the song goes, the winner takes it all.
Yet, signs are afoot that voter preferences might be shifting. Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan are not just in but in close to the top, a sure sign that people appreciate integrity and honesty. Corruption-buster Heidi Mendoza didn’t win but got enough votes to warn a corrupt establishment that its days might be starting to be numbered.
Worse than illusion, our elections are a mockery of democracy. Only the few rich can afford ultra-expensive runs for office. Campaigns are launched and victories celebrated with a Mass in Church; but no-holds-barred mudslinging and vote-buying are standard practices in between. Bottom line: a minority rule over the majority, the anti-thesis of democracy.
Yet, we are doing nothing about it. We do nothing more than complain about our totally miserable social condition but continue to vote dynasties in. Why when we are clearly holding the short end of the stick?
Cultural hegemony, that’s why. As used by Italian sociologist Antonio Gramsci, this refers to the domination of a country by its ruling class through the promotion of a worldview that sees existing economic conditions as “natural and inevitable.” Thus Spain colonized us by using religion to make us accept hell on earth (when we became their serfs) as in exchange for a glorious heaven after life. Talk about religion as opiate. The masters have since changed but the culture of acceptance of the will of so-called God’s representatives continues to this day.
Reason tells us that the poverty of millions is not God’s will but the result of an economic system the ruling class imposes on a politically and culturally dominated people. The results of the recent elections tell us the misery of more than half the population will continue as decision-making in this country remains firmly in the grip of self-serving political dynasties.
If the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections are correct in tracing last election’s positive developments to the youth’s votes then there is hope of a future liberation. In any case, it’s the call of future generations of Filipinos to reject a culture that accepts mass poverty as “natural and inevitable” and replace it with a culture of change and development. Today’s generation is just so hopelessly under the spell of an immobilizing cultural hegemony.