When I was in college in the early ‘80s, I began to practice dissent. The rule of the “original Macoy,” Ferdinand Marcos Sr., was nearing its second decade and, despite the many years that my mind was shaped in FM’s image, I eventually rebelled. I joined rallies protesting the rule of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who had installed himself as a dictator by then. And when those mass actions failed to drive away FM Sr., I went to the countryside determined to change Philippine society for the better. But, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
A new generation of rallyists are once more taking to the streets to protest against corruption in the government bureaucracy. I am a senior citizen now and am homebound partly because the “fire in my belly” has died and partly because I don’t have the money to fund outings that my parents partly paid for as my student allowance at that time. And, ironically, I am more pro-Marcos now than I am pro-Duterte. As they say, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Besides, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (Bongbong) is more of a liberal democrat than the original Macoy we once hated.
Sometimes, I wonder if things would have been better had the Left not fumbled when the Edsa People Power uprising broke out in 1986. Would government corruption (or bureaucrat capitalism, as we termed it then) not have happened now? That’s a rhetorical question that can attract as many answers or scenarios as there are existing points of view. My thinking is that bureaucratic corruption would still have happened, though on a limited scale.
One thing I learned from this is that no one man can change society’s course. Even in communist countries, bureaucratic corruption still exists. When I was younger, I dreamed of having a truly pro-people government. I now realized that such a government, a pure one, does not and will not exist without a determined push by the people in unison. And true people’s unity can never become real.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a straight arrow I know, recently admitted that a group wanted him to join a civilian-military junta that would be installed if the current leadership were forced to step down. There may not be a problem with Lacson, but what about the other members of the proposed junta? And how long will the promise of a clean government hold in this junta?
That is precisely the reason why, despite its weaknesses, the current liberal democratic setup is the one I prefer more now. The danger with radical change is the blood that would be spent to mount it. And how long will that change hold until another round of bureaucratic corruption takes over? Wouldn’t it be just “much ado over nothing?”
So we replace Bongbong with another president in 2028 and try to ensure that the next president will be cleaner. If we fail in the selection process, we will have another chance six years later. We endure, then start anew until we get better as a nation. It’s a slow process, true, but the alternative would be bloody and, if we miss, we may yet need decades before we can start a new bureaucratic cycle.