Since we have never been ruled by any other bunch, we can arguably conclude that the continuing mass poverty in the country is the product of the sustained rule of political dynasties. A faulty electoral system that allows wealthy candidates to buy votes (and the Comelec’s computerized vote count?) has kept this power-chain unbroken. We have to reduce the role of money to zero in our elections if other sectors are to have a fair share of the country’s political, economic and cultural resources.
No volume, however, of critical social analysis and/or moral exhortations by the politically savvy and/or morally sensitive among us will make this electoral reform happen. This has to be placed on the national legislative agenda by a political party that must be formed to run and struggle to win on the platform of electoral and socio-structural reforms.
That brings up the question: Who should organize the political party that would push for fair elections and an equitable social structure? To answer that, we need to ask why the exclusive grip on political power by political dynasties has never been programmatically challenged in spite of the power-wielders’ corruption, criminal impunity and neglect of the welfare of the majority.
Middle-class complacency is the answer. Our problems have persisted not only because the wealthy five percent have loads of staying power but also because the 40 percent educated middle class are complacent and have not challenged that power in any programmatic and organized manner.
They are content to analyze the social situation and wail against the dire results of dynastic rule but never risk taking the organized political action required for an effective push-back. Many are happy to just choose which dynasty’s wagon they will let their fortunes ride on. As a foreigner friend of mine accurately puts it: “The system is criticized while at the same time quietly accepted… The current posture of the educated middle class in the Philippines often appears to be a mixture of moral cowardice and bourgeois complacency. The problems are clearly recognized but little is risked to change them.”
If anybody should do something to break the monopoly of power by political dynasties, it should be the educated middle class. It is principally their productivity, their taxes, that political dynasties waste in self-serving projects or divert to their pockets. Consider how much OFWs contribute to the country’s economy. That much do political dynasties owe to these economic heroes alone.
Radical reforms have always been led by the middle class. They have the intellectual and economic freedom to choose between accepting an unfair situation or pushing back against the dynastic rule that is causing it. The lower class cannot be blamed for preoccupying themselves with the business of making ends meet. Hence, as long as the educated middle class remains complacent and passive, inequality and mass poverty will continue to define the face of this country.
P.S. Before the middle class gets mad at me, know that I am middle class myself and writing to rouse my complacency up towards serious, as in organized, political action.