The Dielectics of Enslavement
Like what we have said at the start, the different shapes and forms of enslavement that beset our society as consequences of our leaders’ unbridled puppetry to US imperialism are not independent and in isolation of each other. They are interdependent, interconnected and interrelated and they interpenetrate in profound ways such that the surfacing of an unsettling event may not be fully grasped without knowing its intimate connection to historical occurrences in the cultural, political or economic field.
. The pernicious trait aptly described as “iyahay’g pasirit”, or as the Boholano would call it—“idya-idya, aho-aho”[to each his own]— without regard to whether one’s acts would cause detrimental impact on society or whether good or bad might befall on the many—is an outcome of the neo-liberal policies rooted in the economic interest of the American imperialists and embraced by the elite managers in the government. This is evident in the arrogance by which a President stubbornly pursues unjust programs or projects that tend to worsen the plight of the masses already burdened by impoverishment. This also reinforces “patronage politics” whereby opportunists and carpetbaggers destroy each other in dog-eat-dog scramble for favors from the powers-that-be.
Individualism in its extreme manifestations is true in the undeterred criminality among the deprived as it is within the circle of the wealthy and the economic elite. Petty thefts involving minors, hold-ups, robbery, kidnaps for ransom and other forms of gangster activities are not unlike those obtaining in the US during the depression of the 1930s. It is a kind of “kapit-sa-patalim” manner of coping with the scourges of hunger and want.
But theft and robbery among the affluent politicians are worse crimes that are not motivated by the necessity for survival, but by sheer greed. Perhaps, bureaucratic corruption as a child of puppetry has lived so long it has been hailed by the unscrupulous as an art or a virtue. The thieves and robbers among the millionaires and the political elite readily escape from the pointing fingers of the law.
Government programs and projects play a significant role in propagating deleterious modes of thought and attitudes among the masses. The 4Ps program, for example, promotes a mentality of mendicancy which never redound to general emancipation of the masses from poverty, but benefits only a small fragment of the countless millions among the needy.
The tourism promotion program is another measure that showcases “bongga” or “pasikat” hullabalo-style of activities bereft of sustainable meaningful benefits to the general public. Here, a warped mentality is being propagated among the people—a mentality that gives credence to exploitative assaults on the cultural treasures of indigenous tribal communities who are often mobilized as exotic entertainment attractions for tourists. The ultimate tourist destination, after all, is our lands’ rich bounties and mineral resources liberally opened for exploration and exploitation by foreign capitalists.
This liberal entrance gates for foreign investors are paralleled by massive influx of cultural products from the West such that our native artists have become veritable “copycats” of the Americans and Europeans. One eye-bulging example of this anomalous pop-art celebrations is the TV program tagged as “Voice of the Philippines” where American or Western artists’ voices are channeled through the versatile throats and lips of Filipino performers. It addles the mind why they are called Philippine voices at all when it’s all foreign artists’ voices that are celebrated. Alongside this bizarre cult personification of the West is the preferential treatment accorded to American artists who are frequently featured by our cultural capitalists to perform on our ‘stageshow lands’.
Furthermore, the collective consciousness of our people are distorted by the ideology of “consumerism” as a result of the neo-liberal or import-oriented policies cultivated by our economic adventures. A twin partner to this is the warped mentality that encourages exploitation of human anatomy especially the woman’s body which is invariably used as a commercial good or commodity—commodification, is this! This only gives incentives to unscrupulous capitalists and politicians for the blossoming of prostitution in the interest of the tourist industry.
These phenomena in our cultural life are accorded vague justifications as part of the onslaughts of globalization. They push our moral sensibilities to extreme limits. It behooves us to realize that the mythic dimension to which globalization is given acquiescence is, after all, a monstrous invention of American Imperialism in its design to control the economies of the world to make it a one global village—one economic community that would eventually obliterate national boundaries and identities where the American imperialists must reign supreme.
The Oplan Bayanihan of Noynoy Aquino as a deceptive program of “peace and development” has continuously displaced tribal inhabitants and dispossessed indigenous peoples of their ancestral domains. But it only succeeds in sowing unpeace and conflicts by its tyrannical massive militarization of the countryside upland communities. The government soldiers, in licentious martial law fashion, are continuously conducting harassments, murders, tortures, kidnappings and other brutal violations of human rights against those who oppose this program of militarization. But it is public knowledge that the military’s prime purpose for their presence in the areas is to safeguard the foreign mining corporations , occupying and destroying the ancestral domains of the indigenous peoples.
Indeed, the multifarious bizarre occurrences in the cultural, political and economic realms are a totality of intertwining effects of the unabated system of puppetry of our national leadership to US imperialism. These obnoxious effects are felt in worsening degrees in all aspects of our social life as a nation. It is only apt and correct to call the Philippines a veritable neocolony of the United States of America.
