Successor generation questions each other - Gotcha

CLARK SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE -- One of the 150 delegates chuckled that what they obviously don't lack is self-esteem. All under 50, they consider themselves leaders in their fields: business and technology, politics and governance, arts and culture, media and academe. They each have a conviction on where Filipinos should head in the 21st century, and how to get there. They know the time is ripe to assert their views. So they gathered here for a by-invitation-only Philippine Forum: Convergence in the Millennium to present their respective advocacies, hoping to convince the rest to go along with them.

The conference was patterned after the World Economic Forum in which the world's best and brightest social and natural scientists gather yearly in Davos, Switzerland, to track and direct global trends. Politician Mar Roxas and businessman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala hit upon the idea of doing it in RP after watching last year a smaller Singapore summit examine East Asia's emergence from crisis. In last weekend's Philippine Forum, the "successor generation" sought to determine, among others, how they must create the future wealth of the nation, and what they want government and social institutions to be.

For all the elitist ring that their objective sounded, the participants were down-to-earth. They questioned each other -- and themselves -- on the validity of their causes. They ended up humbled upon learning that, their diverse specializations notwithstanding, they had similar criticisms about each other's sector, same weaknesses, parallel desires and designs on how to improve society.

Some of them are national celebrities by virtue of their craft: Aga Muhlach who runs a foundation that helps deaf children, Edu Manzano who is vice mayor of the country's richest city, recording stars Joey Ayala, Jim Paredes and Ryan Cayabyab; philosopher-film maker Marilou Diaz-Abaya, broadcasters Jessica Soho and Korina Sanchez.

Others are in or had served national administration: Neric Acosta, Jimmy Galvez-Tan, Ciel Habito, Guido Delgado, Popo Lotilla, Mario Taguiwalo, Bimbo Salazar. Or local governments: Victor Agbayani, Josie de la Cruz, Nabil Tan, Francis Tolentino.

Many are noted not only for personal achievement but also fine lineage: Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Tito Yuchengco, Fernando Zobel de Ayala, Mike Tan, Lance Gokongwei, Doris Magsaysay-Ho, Joey Concepcion, Tonyboy and Choy Cojuangco, Txabi Aboitiz, Tommy Osmeña, JV Ejercito, Andy Locsin, Gina Lopez, Butch Jimenez, Toby Monsod, Jondi Flavier, TS Sy-Coson, Vincent del Rosario.

All are held up by their peers for setting trends: Lulu Tan-Gan, Bart Guingona, Jessica Zafra, Nonong Cruz, Joey Reyes, Bill Luz, Kiko Pangilinan, Jun Palafox, Gigi Montinola, Danton Remoto, Ambeth Ocampo, Bobi Tiglao, Karina Bolasco, Alex Magno, Feny Bautista, Cecile Manikan, Trina Belamide, Opap Villonco, Rina Jimenez-David, Francis Chua, Marian Roces, Mardi Mapa-Suplido.

Most of them nodded that wealth creation must aim not only for individual happiness, but also for community harmony and preserving earth's beauty. Not one defined wealth as something material like cold cash, but as warm values like love, family ties, and social equity. They defined capital not as money but as intellect, and thus debated hotly the direction of formal education in schools and informal education through mass media. Yet this wealth can be stolen -- if people are deprived of the means to learn and use what the world has to offer.

Theirs is a strange world-view, for theirs is different time and space. This became apparent in the fellowship night, when they needed little prodding to express their real selves by singing. No Elvis Presley songs here; the first tune belted out was "Aquarius: Let the Sunshine In." It reminded them of their hippie or radical activist or bumming days, when they were young and angry and their parents' biggest headaches.

They are themselves parents now, worried not so much about their own children than the thought that what they've been fighting for all these years will come to naught.

They wish government to be more devolved, local and participatory. They want less control of ideas and movement, coupled with more individual responsibility, less restraint in media but more responsiveness to the need to inculcate values.

They wondered why, if they have such common dreams, then why is it that these look so difficult to make come true. Why can't they break down the political and class barriers that prevent their goals from being done? They even searched inward: what is wrong with us?

Yet they are unafraid of globalization. The more specific -- and so the local must be fixed -- the more globally desirable or marketable.

At forum's end, journalists in their 30s were disappointed to find out that the "successor generation" arrived at no specifics to change the nation. Not even a common leader. Perhaps it was too early for that; the forum was the first meeting of its kind. Perhaps such consensus will never come. The participants agreed only to meet again, in a year or two, maybe a decade.

For now, they left content with the knowledge that while they all have changed much since their youth, they have not really changed. And there are more of them out there. For now, they will return to their own fields elated, as one delegate noted, that if they remain the same, then the future doesn't seem so bleak after all.

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