A few months back, there was this case of a policeman who was relieved from his post because of a usual petty crime in the ranks of policemen—pangongotong. His family and neighbors could not believe that this offense of pangongotong would be committed by the said policeman. He was such a virtuous man. The whole neighborhood in the village he belonged to could attest to his integrity as a person. He was a PSL (Pangulo sa Liturhiya), almost like an alter ego of the priest in their small Christian community. But there were witnesses who testified against him giving the offense a semblance of unassailability, as though the suspect was caught red-handed.
Nevertheless, the fact shows a pathetic situation wherein the offender, in spite of the integrity of his personal background, is caught in a system of corruption much much bigger than what his supposed virtue is able to cope. The vagaries that go alongside one’s calling or employment are part of a system of corruption that could present itself in a collision course with whatever principle or virtue he holds aloft in his life. Even the most honest of individuals can be enmeshed in a concatenation of circumstances that could push him to engage in criminality spawned by the very system that has entrapped him. In other words, he is swallowed by the system.
In most cases, the petty crimes or offenses committed by persons in the lower echelons of society proceed from compelling reasons or needs under the circumstances of poverty. And the system of corruption prevailing in his milieu as an impoverished citizen provides an opportunity to survive a grave problem, perhaps in the family? Or to rise above a compelling need amid a miserable oppressive circumstance.
And since “systems is systems”, it soon becomes a tradition that is followed unconscionably, much like a bad habit that develops in one’s culture. And so the system of corruption becomes a culture of corruption. As such, it does not anymore astound us, much more jolt us to scandalous proportion. In a very nonchalant fashion our conscience would whisper, “Ay, natural na man na!” And the system survives and prevails through the ages. And the virtuous who survives the system is an extraordinary happenstance—nay, a very rare exception.
In a much larger scale, we witness the unspeakable misery that befalls the factory workers who were burned to the death because of flagrant criminal neglect and the intolerable system of exploitation [panlulupig at pagsasamantala] in the Kentex Manufacturing Company in Valenzuela City. No matter what statements and pronouncements by the factory owners — or even if one of them walks with knees from the gates of their factory to the doors of the victims’ homes — in a most sincere act of contrition for what happened—that won’t rectify the system of exploitation followed by most every commercial establishment in the country. The act of kneeling accompanied by tearful weeping could be a touching act that proceeds from a compassionate heart that knows not the consequences of exploitation that prevails like a morning habit of washing one’s face after a night of a “legitimate” dream—the dream of amassing wealth or the most profit one can get from his factory. But the system of exploitation remains.
Last week, I came upon a news feature that recounts how a Chinese billionaire from mainland China gave thousands of his employees [I forgot the exact figure, but it was somewhere in the tens of thousands] a vacation period with all expenses paid, complete with hotel accommodations and pleasure trips around such fabulous places in Europe as Paris and the like! Wow! That’s a real record-setting event! It’s one in a million chance of this planet’s lifetime!
But. . .but wait a minute! Does that erase from our minds the unavoidable query? How did that benevolent Chinese become a billionaire? Through some heavy rains of treasures from heaven? No Sir-reee! As a capitalist—and China, mind you, is not a true socialist society*— he thrives by a system of capitalist exploitation! Well, his exploitative ways may not be as direly cruel and blatantly inhuman as what we experience here in our country, but just the same, it is still exploitation— wage slavery in its very essence! Otherwise there wouldn’t be any billionaire while all the rest are middle classes and poor toiling masses in that society that pretentiously calls itself socialist.
And in a still much much more wholesale and comprehensive scale, we as a people are suffering under the yoke of a social system that has since weighed down our society to underdevelopment and has spawned poverty and misery among the teeming millions. This social system has adopted a nice-sounding catchword as its cornerstone— “democracy” or “free enterprise”—and it calls itself a “republic”. Its existence, having straddled 69 years from its birth in 1946, has proudly journeyed through seven decades of puppetry to its former colonial master, the United States of America. This system of puppetry and canine devotion to the US is what is totally the matter with our society. Because of the adherence of our national leadership to the interests of the US, our government allows the exploitation of our natural resources by the American monopoly capitalists. By this, our laws and legal apparatus are so tailored that it favors the American business interests. The Filipino leaders, of course, share in the looting of the our natural wealth! They are not just puppets for nothing! What are they in power for if not to serve their own personal aggrandizement? And so, the favors and privileges rendered to the Americans are also the same benefits enjoyed by the elite in our society. Who would wish to lose these favors and privileges? And so, puppetry has its tremendous enormous rewards! “O my G! This is paradise like no other!” any Philippine President would exclaim, even as he wields his extraordinary powers to let this state of affairs continue .
No! Not even the much adored Ramon Magsaysay would have the guts to steer the Ship of State away from this system that is so generous to him and his family and friends. Not the purity of intentions of then President Cory Aquino would have the heart (corazon) to distribute to the farmers her family’s Hacienda Luisita—the Hacienda Luisita that has been fertilized by the sweat and blood of poor poor farmers who have been there as tenants from so long ago they and their succeeding generations have outlived the many Agrarian Reform Laws enacted since the time of Manuel L Quezon.
Historians and journalists may write and rewrite events with deliberate bias for personalities who have climbed and attained leadership stature at the helm of power. Adulatory praises may come in abundance for individual virtues and whatever leadership qualities as may be made to appear among Filipino leaders and bureaucrats from Roxas to Noynoy Aquino. But for as long as the system of puppetry to American imperialism is the very sustenance of each of their individual ideological policy, the prevailing system of corruption, exploitation and injustice will remain—forevermore.
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*China is ruled by a Communist Party, but this Party has since abandoned its ideological principle of Communism. It is a revisionist party—meaning, it has since followed the capitalist road. The relations of production in its economic base is therefore basically capitalist, not socialist. It is a setback in the task of socialist construction as a road to Communism.
