‘By merely ensuring personal incorruptibility, he will begin the process of meaningful change.’
BARACK Obama promised it in 2008. He rallied Americans of all ethnic origins and all persuasions to embrace change. Change, he said, that they could believe in. Because it was doable. Because it would be an improvement from a failed economy where the excesses of a few and the abuses of some were made at the expense of the ordinary workingman who held that thrift and prudence paid future dividends, only to realize that they had been skinned by the smarter few. It was a battle cry that resonated because the average American felt helpless and hopeless.
Noynoy Aquino appeared from left field when Filipinos felt so hopeless about their future and helpless to change a government that seemed bent on perpetuating its hold on illegitimate power. There were those who held some promise, but had little wherewithal to pursue their ambitions. There were those who made promises, but had little by way of credibility for the people to repose their trust on them. Because he was the son of a courageous Ninoy and an honest Cory, the public believed Noynoy. And from all walks of life, they hearkened to his message, that without corruption, poverty could be eradicated.
It was, to be sure, simplification as all messages encapsulated in slogans go. But it was not over-simplification. Because it rang true. The Filipino had heard candidate after candidate launching a "crusade" against corruption, election after election, only to realize that in the end, they had been had. Now came one who was credible because his parents lived it once, and his own simplicity of lifestyle bordering on the austere amplified it.
The message was credible coming from him, especially because those who opposed him in the recent campaign were either corrupt, or were accomplices of the corrupt. The few who were neither, had little chance of making it, ruled out by the measure of dismal survey ratings. And so the electorate pinned their hopes for meaningful change on this heir to a legacy of heroism and selflessness.
But would being incorruptible alone guarantee meaningful change? Would eradicating corruption, assuming it could be achieved within reasonable measure, and given the slow and tedious processes of our shattered institutions, really bring about an escape from the wretchedness of poverty?
Political economists and sociologists tell us that minimizing corruption can only best add wherewithal to government’s ability to provide a modicum of basic services, but it does not exactly create jobs or better incomes, because the economic system we have embraced, and the global economic order it has become but a small particle of, is essentially oppressive of the marginalized. Perhaps.
And perhaps in some other time that order of international economic relationships will self-destruct, just as an order which held that regimentation along with central planning in a totalitarian policy could effectively bring better and equitable lives has been discarded by a good half of the world. Perhaps the inequality and inherent weaknesses of our present order will ultimately give way to a better system. Perhaps a raft of good governance reforms now will pave the way for more deep-seated and systemic reforms by the next leadership.
But for the moment, in a country where the few who compose the landed elite have been joined in their conspicuous wealth only by those who have abused political power and influence to enrich themselves several times over, corruption, nay, too much corruption, has become the single most identifiable culprit for continuing and worsening public misery. And improvement in the delivery of basic services especially to the poor, though marginal in the macro sense, is great change in every Filipino’s micro measure. For that alone, gratitude towards the new leadership will be profuse.
It is in this cusp of change that the 15th president of the Philippines, this child of destiny, finds himself. By the power of good example, and by ensuring the same good example among those he shall appoint to help him run government, he shall be able to make enough of a difference, in comparison to a predecessor who has herself abetted corruption and even engaged herself in its transactions. By merely ensuring personal incorruptibility, he will begin the process of meaningful change.
While that is not enough, that is improvement enough. And if the new president is able to inspire, cajole, require all other government officials to follow his example, then that would be meaningful improvement. That would be the kind of change we can all believe in.
Barack Obama did not rant and rail against official corruption, because that was not the issue in wealthy America. He spoke against a federal polity where the big were pampered because of the philosophy that their financial health provided more jobs and more opportunities. That was an equation shop-worn with abuse, He spoke for change where government would weigh in for the least able.
But Obama, almost midway into his elected term, finds that the going is rough, because the forces of static conservatism are not about to surrender their beliefs and their ways to this upstart’s crusade for meaningful and equitable change.
Aquino faces similar challenges. Those who have wallowed in corruption far too long are not about to change their ways, nor surrender the power that has benefited them far too much. They are in Congress, in the judiciary, in the police, in big business, in the bureaucracy, even in the religious sector.
But unlike Obama, Aquino’s battlefield is not so much in a Congress where new laws are not as important as implementing old laws decisively and effectively. He need not transact as much as his predecessor, hobbled by impeachment threats because there was reason to question her very legitimacy.
The police nor the bureaucracy either, for as long as he brooks no violation of law or his example. As they have shown in past brief episodes in our history, they follow the leader. They can be shocked into obedience.
It is more in the area of judicial reform where the new president must find an ally against corruption. That judiciary must be his ally in slaying the culture of impunity which has made a mockery of our justice system and made the official fight against graft and corruption nothing but a sick joke. That alone is a tall order, and short of revolutionary change, it is going to be tedious effort.
The religious sector, whether through the bishops of the numerous Church or the leaders of the other denominations, can hopefully be where the new president’s power of good example will evoke resonance. If these leaders of their flock would only rekindle their moral fundamentals and eschew their moral compromise with the old and discredited leadership, then they could be a vital partner in the effort towards meaningful change. And if these religious leaders can ditch the attitude that intervention in the policies and praxis of politics is par for the course, as has been tolerated in past leaderships, while the new president stands his ground on his principles and beliefs, then we are off to good start.
For all that, we can only pray and hope. And so to our new President, Godspeed!
LITO BANAYO
MALAYA Column for Thursday, 01 July 2010
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