The elections that just passed, for all the rewarding feelings it has rendered me and multi-million others for catapulting Mayor Rody Duterte to the Presidency, is still unacceptable as a “democratic” political exercise. It is what I have unequivocally described as a veritable circus, a farcical comedy that exhausts the human and financial resources of the nation to scandalous waste.
What the apologists of the “free enterprise” Status Quo has been harping as the fundamental blessing of this system is the people’s sheer enjoyment of inalienable rights — life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (?) — under an inclusive umbra of democracy. Free enterprise is equated with democracy. And ‘democracy’ boasts of a litany of freedoms and civil rights, such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship and conscience, freedom of association and assembly, the right of domicile, and many other guarantees, including and especially the right of suffrage and the matter of national sovereignty.
But a very big question arises in a discussion of national freedom and sovereignty. Ever since the birth of the Philippine republic, national sovereignty has already been compromised. The grant of Philippine independence by the United States of America is a big joke. It exists only as a magic tune from the lips of a citizenry who have emerged thoroughly brainwashed from years of colonial bondage. The Filipino people’s colonial-mindedness has served well the unilateral interests of US Imperialism vis-à-vis the Philippines.
Nevertheless, in the interest of a dialectical reality-grounded discourse on the question of freedom, I deign to take the path of expounding on its antithesis—unfreedom. Let me just present excerpts of my earlier discourse published in my column as
Parameters of Unfreedom, to wit –
The bare facts are disclosed in the realities of life and social conditions experienced first hand by the masses of the people. And what are these realities?
POVERTY is a wide chasm that separates the less than ten percent affluent from the 90 percent impoverished. It is the Mother of all Unfreedoms endured by the masses since time immemorial until the present.
Where Poverty deprives the masses of enough food to eat everyday in their lives —
There is NO FREEDOM FROM HUNGER AND WANT. We thrive in the sarcasm of our country being blest with vast tracts of agricultural lands and we suffer from insufficiency of rice, the chief staple food of our people.
Where Poverty deprives the great masses of the right to proper nutrition and health care as well as the right and privilege to avail of medical and other health services, then —
There is NO FREEDOM FROM DISEASE AND OTHER HEALTH RISKS AND HAZARDS.
Where Poverty forbids many to own houses or lots whereon to erect dwellings, then —
There is NO FREEDOM OF DOMICILE OR THE RIGHT TO HAVE SHELTER OR HOME. As a matter of fact the great many of our people are concentrated in slums where they dwell in the ironic reality of being “squatters in their own country.” A good many lie starry-eyed in the night with the sky for their roof and the breeze and the winds for their walls, in public plazas and parks and boulevards and other city streets. Good if foreign dignitaries’ conferences are about to be held in our country—such as the APEC Summit late in the year—and they are carted away to be hidden from the eyes of the visitors!
Where Poverty denies our people of the opportunities for employment and livelihood and have to seek for work in foreign lands as OFWs where they suffer from untold indignities and inhumanities by their employers but which they agonizingly endure just so their families survive and live decent lives, then —
There is NO FREEDOM TO LIFE AND DECENT LIVELIHOOD.
Where Poverty deprives the majority of the people of meaningful education and the opportunities for the development of the people’s mental and intellectualfaculties —
There is NO FREEDOM FROM IGNORANCE AND OBSCURANTISM.
Where Poverty deprives the many of the significant knowledge and information about issues and concerns and other social problems because of lack of education, then —
There is NO REAL FREEDOM OF INFORMATION.
And corollary to this lack of freedom of access to information, the masses are deprived of the channels to know the actuations of public officials and politicians such that during elections, they have no real basis for choice and are vulnerable to vote-buying, and thus —
There is NO REAL FREEDOM TO VOTE OR RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE.
And where Poverty denies the moneyless but qualified and principled people from running for public office, the line-up of candidates to an elective post are limited to the wealthy whose interests run counter to the welfare of the poor, compounded by the conduct of the electoral system that gives high premium to the role of money and gimmickry, then –There is NO REAL FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
Where Poverty begets and nurtures criminality and lawlessness — theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc. —
There is NO FREEDOM FROM FEAR AND INSECURITY.
Where Poverty deprives the poor people of the capacity to hire lawyers to defend and protect their rights as complainants or as accused in the Courts of Justice, especially in cases that involve conflicts between the rich landlords and the poor farmworkers, or between management and employees in factories and business establishments, then —
There is NO FREEDOM FROM WRONGS AND SOCIAL INJUSTICES.
Where Poverty prompts the poor masses to assemble and seek redress of grievances and their gathering is dispersed and their organization’s leaders are threatened and killed or summarily executed by the State security forces who roam the countryside in a policy of militarization meant only to protect foreign capitalist interests such as mining, then —
There is NO FREEDOM BUT STARK VIOLATIONS OF PEOPLE’S HUMAN RIGHTS.
Where Poverty prohibits the moneyless from availing of costly transportation facility,-
and only moneyed people like Kris Aquino have the luxury of tours around scenic spots of our beautiful country, and the poor don’t even have the time and opportunity to move out within half a kilometer radius from their places of abode until their dying hours, then–
There is NO FREEDOM TO TRAVEL OR THE RIGHT TO GO PLACES.
Finally, where the leaders who run the government are obeisant to foreign interests, mainly American imperialist interests, our national sovereignty is compromised, as in fact and in truth, our national leadership caters to the wishes and dictates of these foreign interests, making of our foreign policy a matter of ridiculous happenstance, then–
There is NO REAL INDEPENDENCE AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY TO SPEAK OF IN OUR LANDS.
To sum it up, Poverty deprives the 90 percent of the Filipino people of their Human Rights as guaranteed in the Constitution, and this is tantamount to denying the great majority of the Filipino people of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Democracy, Freedom, National Independence, National Sovereignty are but hollow words and phrases that insult our intelligence and rational sensibility and stretch the elastic limits of our integrity as a people.
Addendum
As we seriously reflect on the meaninglessness of our so called Independence, an overwhelming stroke of sarcasm hits our heart like a Cupid’s arrow. Our President Noynoy, a veritable Fly –a table fly that can fly, yes!—sits prettily on the back of the Big US mascot the look-alike of a Carabao—and flaps its wings, and thought he is now bigger than a Carabao he is sitting or standing on—and shouts. . .shouts almost angrily at China to let it stop doing what it is doing in the South China Sea! President Noynoy is practicall y teaching China some basic lessons on Sovereignty! But what it drives away by its left wing, it welcomes very sweetly by its right wing. His is a marvelous sarcasm that says:
“Get out of our sovereign territory, China! Come and build your Military Bases on our sovereign lands, America!”
