The Krisis in our society

Pardon me for interrupting my conversation with our foremost political scientist, Jose. V. Abueva. I have to let go of this observation on Kris Aquino, otherwise, I will be corroded by it.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue announced last week that the President’s youngest sister paid millions in income tax, much more than the biggies like Henry Sy, the Ayalas, the Lopezes.

Here is a showbiz personality who can hardly act, who doesn’t sing or dance or, at the very least have pithy things to say, and yet she earned an undreamed of sum compared to the pittance made by thousands of hardworking teachers dedicated to their vocation.  What must our abused women domestics abroad think? But maybe, they don’t think at all or concern themselves with this bitterest of ironies  — that to make a pile in this country, you don’t have to be brilliant, creative and industrious. All you must have is a pedigree, a passable face enlarged on billboards all over the land and looking down on the clod. This affluent status was made possible only because we have a greedy and irresponsible media. But the final acceptance, is, alas, made by us.

We should now probe deep into ourselves, our values, and ask what has become of us.

Now, back to the conversation with Professor Abueva: Why the constitution must be amended. 

My Senate Choice

In the first portion of this interview, he listed down his choices for the Senate.

I must now inflict on my readers my choices, too, which in some instances are about the same. Topping my list is Ramon Magsaysay, Jr.; he has already proven his mettle and is the real heir to his father’s noble legacy. I also like Dick Gordon, his record as a public servant. We must have in the Senate leaders who are salty, capable of taking unpopular positions. For this I opt for Risa Hontiveros and Teodoro Casiño. I like Loren Legarda’s platform, agricultural and cultural development; she is in the same mold as former Senators Letty Shahani and Geronima Pecson. Mindanao and/or the Moros should always be represented in the Senate, this is where Miguel Zubiri comes in, the former military officer and gentleman, Ramon Montaño, Bam Aquino for youth and entrepreneurship. And Sonny Angara — may he continue his exalted father’s agenda.

THE PHILIPPINE STAR: Now we go to education. Was Senator Edgardo Angara correct in creating the Commission on Higher Education?

JOSE V. ABUEVA: Yes. We needed the institution to supervise the tertiary system. When I became UP president, I heard that for 18 years they had been talking about socialized tuition but never really implemented it. So I said, let’s do it. Since everybody is subsidized by the government, the richest student pays a little more tuition. But looking at the tuition of UP as a whole, it is a pittance. So let’s change the system of subsidies, the poor should get much more, not only free tuition but stipend as well, because even if they have free tuition if they don’t have money or transportation, they still cannot study. So I said, let’s structure the subsidies. I introduced the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program or STFAP. I divided students into five categories. The fifth — the wealthy students should pay a higher tuition. The first two levels should be completely free of tuition and get a monthly subsidy. Thousands of our poor benefitted from this from the time I instituted it in 1987.

You’re in favor of using the regional languages in the schools.

Yes, I’m fully behind it; in fact we formed the Kadugong Bisaya. The idea was to promote the learning and use and becoming literate not just being able to speak the language but being able to write in it. My language policy was to promote the use of Filipino in UP at par with English. Why should our national language be subordinate to English at least in undergraduate education? The second part is to promote the regional languages and enrich the national language with regional concepts. I set up the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino and got an award for it. But I got into trouble with my Visayan friends in Congress (laughter). They were going to cut the budget of UP I had to tell them it’s just an accident of history. If the Spaniards made Cebu the capital of the country, Cebuano would be the national language. But it’s not really an accident. Luzon is our biggest island. We should promote the insertion of other major languages.

It is still Tagalog.

Yes, Tagalog, because we have not learned the lesson of English. It is so acceptable because it borrows from all languages.

Or even Japanese; it borrows. It’s not a pure language.

The Hiragana. The Indonesians they just convert…

Ethnography, they say etnograpi (laughter). Anthropology, they say antropologi.

Bureaucracy, burokrasya. Anyway, what I learned from UP ay mayabang yung taga UP. I conducted a survey by sociologists. Two questions: teachers, what are you teaching the students; and students, what are you learning from your teachers. We teach students to become leaders, articulate, hardworking. The lowest item in what we are teaching and what the students are learning is ethics, love of country, moral values. So, I said something is wrong with UP education. Citizens have to be imbued with moral values. So I bridged the idea of education learning for leadership, citizenship and social transformation. We will lose all our science and art without social transformation.

 What made you set up Kalayaan College?

Every year 70,000 high school graduates take the UP entrance examination. UP can accept only 9,000. So many who need a subsidized education cannot enter UP. So UP is really exclusive, and those who go to good high schools are likely to pass the examinations. We, retired UP professors said, let’s give a chance to those who cannot enter UP. That is the motivation of Kalayaan College.

How is it doing?

Not too well. We need to have our own land and building in Metro Manila.  When we were in Marikina, we were paying P400,000 rent a month.  We’ve been looking for a partner institution. We didn’t have a campus to speak of. Parents want a campus, which we cannot afford.  And I think we have one now. We have found a partner — Claret School in Quezon City. They are willing to put up a building for us.

We have so many rich Filipinos, the taipans….

They buy commercially profitable institutions. All our tycoons own universities now.

How do you look at the future? First, our population?

In the Sixties our population was about 30 million. So I really believe in putting down our birth rate. We really need the RH bill. Thailand is a good example — the same per capita income, population in the Sixties, Seventies and so on. Then they adopted a population policy. Now, they are so much ahead of us and their population is less than ours. They are teaching us a lesson but our Catholic church….

I suggested that all churches should be taxed. What do you think?

Why not?

They’re taxed in Europe.

Ateneo and La Salle are making so much money. We’re a small college and are taxed heavily. 

The Iglesia ni Kristo, El Shaddai — they should be taxed. I also take the broader view, the moral deterioration of society means that the churches have failed. And food security —what are your thoughts on this?

We neglected agriculture and are dependent on food importation. We cannot be self sufficient in everything, but in agriculture we should be. In fisheries, we still import sardines. I understand China is trying to lease agricultural land from us.

That’s the next question — our relationship with China. How do you look at it as a political scientist?

I wish that China would be a different kind of a political power. We know that China was a victim of Western imperialism, Hong Kong, Macau — all kinds of impositions were made on China. The Japanese destroyed much of China, too. I thought China, with its communist ideology, would be different from the Western imperialist countries, teach them that China is superior but it is just following the western imperialist powers the way they treat us and the ASEAN countries, claiming ownership of the whole South China Sea and even our territories within the 200 mile economic zone. Maybe, they are going to teach everybody a lesson. Many say I am dreaming of a kind of weak European Union.

The European Union might collapse.

The same kind of union without a common currency, where China will be the leader and all of us — East, Northeast and Southeast Asian countries — would be together. China would be some kind of a benign big brother. I hope it could assume that role. Maybe it must go through the stage of reminding us who is in power. But China is threatening us instead.

How do we deal with our long and continuing hangover with the United States?

I don’t think our culture is so Americanized. What worries me is why we spend so much to watch American entertainers…

 That’s part of the hangover.

A very popular band, Glenn Miller, came here. The Philippine International Convention Center was full, some came in wheel chairs. Our love songs — they’re all American. And we are critical of the present generation for worshipping American singers. Our generation was the same.

So, will this continue or will we get rid of it?

We revive, strengthen our regional languages, cultures. Our Kadugong Bisaya — we already mounted two free concerts, one in Cultural Center. Our Bisaya Musical Extravaganza — Si Lapu-Lapu and Rosas Pandan. Our best Bisayan singers were there.

Some of our best singers are from Cebu.

But you know, we had to raise two million.

Really. Did you get it back?

No, hardly. And then in Cebu, we also staged our Bisayan classic songs, all unknown to the present generation.

Incidentally in Bohol — his name is Lutgardo Labad — he is leading the cultural renaissance there. The folk crafts as well like weaving, basket making.

I was also there a couple weeks ago at the Bohol Tropics in Tagbilaran. There’s a band playing American songs the whole evening. Not one Tagalog or Bisayan. And then to Loboc River  — it’s the same. So I started singing Bisayan songs and they joined me.  We have no cultural policy, administration after administration does not promote, revive or popularize our own music.

Are you in favor in creating a Department of Culture?

We already have a National Commission on Culture and the Arts. But our leadership does not patronize our own cultural endeavors.

I have always believed in the necessity of a revolution, the continuation of 1896; a) not so much because we continue to be an American colony but against the Filipino oligarchy. The oligarchy must be emasculated, destroyed. Peacefully, if not by violence. The communist-led rebel movement—for 40 years after thousands of our young people have died—the malignant conditions haven’t changed, the poverty. What are your views on this?

I believe in non-violence. I set up this non-killing movement, the movement for a non-killing Philippines; I have book on it. The Global Peace Index ranks the Philippines very low — the 19th most violent country in the world. We are collaborating with the International Center for Global Non-Killing. I hope we will have more adherents. We are known to be friendly, caring, helpful. These, in contrast to the killings since 1972, the Maguindanao massacre in 2009 unresolved till now.

Just like Pepe Diokno, He was already in his deathbed, he said, “Frankie once you accept violence there’s no way of controlling it.”  But even Marx said a revolution need not be violent. Simply, it’s the transfer of power to the powerless.

I believe in Rizal and Bonifacio. Against the Spaniards and Americans—yes, but not against our own people.

When our soldiers and the rebels kill one another — and most of them come from the lower classes — who profits? Our enemy is the oligarchy, the irresponsible, oppressive rich.

Our religion, our faith teaches us not to kill.

I measure patriotism in how patriots live and die. Otherwise is just an empty word.

I honor them. Who were their enemies? They were the Spaniards, the Americans, the Japanese.

But sometimes we are our own enemy.

 That’s true. We are our worst enemies.

That’s what Salvador Madariaga, the Spanish writer, told me:  “A country need not be colonized by a foreign power, it can be colonized by its own elites.”

That’s our system.

Given this tremendous liability, how do you rate us as a people? How do you look at our future, the destiny of a hundred million Filipinos?

Today we rank eighth behind mostly former Spanish colonies in terms of happiness, if this is defined as a festive attitude toward life. According to the Associated Press, the top 10 most positive were people in Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Guatemala, Eduador, Costa Rica and the Philippines. The least positive were Singaporeans, who also emerged in another Gallup poll as the least emotional people in the world. Our real hope for fundamental change rests in more transforming leaders and a growing middle class of independent, educated and activist members who will demand and work for fundamental change in our institutions and public policies; steady economic growth that is inclusive in its benefits; good education and improved science and technology to promote industry, agriculture, and services. All of which will steadily reduce the poverty, insecurity and dependency of our poor and transform our political culture and unite and build our nation.