There's life after Gloria and 'Hello Garci' tapes
Amando Doronila
Inquirer News Service
DESPITE their ideological predilections, academics at the University of the Philippines, during moments of grave political crises, have seldom failed to assert their intellectual responsibility to intervene in setting the national agenda and rescuing it from the muddle of corrosive political conflict.
One such recent intervention was the launching on Aug. 8 at the UP Third World Study Center of a "Blueprint for a viable Philippines." The blueprint was drafted by a group of academics led by former UP president Francisco Nemenzo after 20 roundtable discussions with nonpartisan civil society groups.
The blueprint seeks to serve as "a comprehensive and coherent strategy to address the crisis, arrest public cynicism, and reverse the rapid decline of the State as an instrument for achieving the collective goals of the national community."
It follows the intervention several months earlier of the 11 UP School of Economics academics who issued a paper warning that the country was headed toward financial collapse unless the administration undertook tough reforms to attack the fiscal deficit crisis. The paper scored the Arroyo administration for not exercising enough political will to implement reforms to avert the deficit.
What is remarkable about the "blueprint" of the Nemenzo group is that it represents a fresh attempt to refocus national discourse from the sterile and sordid debate over the tapes that have provoked demands for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and over proposals calling for constitutional revision as way to end the current political crisis.
Above partisan fray
It stayed above the partisan fray over the tapes which have dominated the political debate during the past few weeks following their disclosure last month. It avoided reference to the scandals rocking the Arroyo administration.
By doing so, the blueprint refocused national attention to the more fundamental issues that it considered were at the root of the decline of the Philippine State and the current crisis.
The fact that the blueprint was drafted by a group associated with the nationalist-left tendency at the UP -- among them Nemenzo, Randy David and Renato Constantino Jr., none of whom is a great fan of Ms Arroyo -- puts it above suspicion the initiative was intended to divert attention from the scandals buffeting the Arroyo administration and threatening its survival.
Nemenzo et. al did the unexpected and unpredictable. Given their ideological perspective and their history of political activism, they would have been expected to get into the center of the "great debate" on constitutional revision and to put their intellectual weight behind any of the sides in the conflict that has deeply divided the nation.
Their academic detachment from the issues fueling the scandals allows them to redirect the agenda toward a vista that offers some hope to the nation, away from the demoralizing state of politics and the debate that is feeding on a frenzy of misinformation and unverified accusations.
The blueprint only makes indirect reference to the scandals. "Unbridled corruption and cynicism are rampant both in the public and private sectors," the document says.
Diminishing credibility
"The credibility of our electoral process is fast diminishing because of massive vote buying and electoral fraud," it says. "Our confidence is declining in the ability of the present political leadership to lead the country out of the rut."
From this perspective, the blueprint comes as a much-needed relief from the poisonous atmosphere generated by the intensely partisan debate over the tapes and other perceived faults and shortcomings of the Arroyo administration.
It offers fresh perspectives through which solutions for the crisis may come. It seems to send the message that while it is true that the nation has now sunk into a deep crisis, and that the survival of the Arroyo regime remains in doubts, there is life after Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the tapes, no matter what is the outcome of the impeachment proceedings against the President.
The blueprint describes the current situation, offering an alternative analysis of national problems, and outlines a set to approaches to these problems.
"The best way to present the blueprint's distinctive features is to contrasts analysis and recommendations with those offered the present government and/or conventional frameworks," says the paper.
Highlights
The paper highlights the elements of a "nation in crisis," tracing them to more structural causes. These include:
The economy "is not growing fast enough to meet the needs of a rapid multiplying population," an issue that is being avoided by the Arroyo administration in the face of the Catholic Church's opposition to population control programs.
The economy is "extremely vulnerable to external conditions because of its excessive dependence on earnings from overseas workers and on foreign loans and investments."
Political stability "remains elusive because of mass poverty and the exclusion of a large number of our people from meaningful participation in the nation's life."
"The future of our young people is bleak because of the deterioration in the quality of public and private education."
The government is increasingly unable to make ends meet, as indicated by chronic budget deficits. It is also increasingly unable to service the public debt without having to take out new loans.
Public infrastructure is deteriorating. The national environment is being degraded.
Contrasting view
Coming after the President's State of the Nation Address on July 25, the blueprint offers a contrasting view of the state of the nation. It reduces the SONA to a hackneyed reprint of old programs, except for the call to fast-track constitutional revision. It contradicts the President's vision of a "strong Republic."
The blueprint says that the establishment of a "strong Developmental State" is needed for its realization and implementation.
Contrasting it with the Arroyo mantra of a "strong Republic," the blueprint says that a Strong Developmental State "is strong not in the sense of being authoritarian or arbitrary, but in the sense of being willful in the enforcement of its laws and resolution in the pursuit of its programs."
The principal objective of such a state "is to toughen our institutions and restore public confidence in them, free them from captivity by vested interests, and enshrine the rule of law in our society. Such a state, says the blueprint, aims to establish the conditions for sustained and equitable economic growth, so that private enterprise may flourish hand in hand with, rather at the expense of, realization of the vital social objectives."
The blueprint "prioritizes the fulfillment of the people's minimum basic needs, the termination of patronage as a mode of governance, the curbing of corruption at all levels."
The constitutional revision call stands high on the list of the blueprint's critique of the "conventional approaches." It says constitutional revision is being undertaken in a time of cynicism.
The alternative approaches of the blueprint will be examined in forthcoming essays.
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