Common sense / Vice President Guingona and OFWs

I met up recently with a rather perceptive friend who agrees that perhaps we need to reexamine certain assumptions by which Filipinos live by. Our accidental conversation inevitably veered into politics. I told him about favorable reactions to my column last Thursday on "Educated Filipinos are the real funny guys". The friend, Oscar Barrera, son of the late distinguished justice and nationalist, Jesus Barrera, who at first did not want to be identified, came up with his own morbid example of educated funny guys.

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In 1992, he was on one of the provincial sorties of senatorial candidates which included Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who was then campaigning for senator. The emcee, an educated Filipino no doubt, had barely told the audience about her academic background and qualifications for public office, when he volunteered that kailangan nating makita ang galing, ang abilidad ng ating kandidato -- and for a moment there was breathless expectation —- sumayaw ng boogie. Bang. All came crashing down. But the emcee was unfazed by what he said and instead he cajoled the audience to clap and so did the rest of the men and women on the stage, all, I would have to presume, also educated Filipinos turned funny guys. Did you think that the poor, the overwhelming poor in the audience would know better? They too, responded to the sight before them and clapped. What was there to do? Poor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. With the crowd of the unwashed poor clapping for her to dance the boogie, did she have a choice? She had to dance and dance she did.

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"I pitied her," says Oscar. Here was a person he knew well as one who had many capabilities and the academic credentials to serve in public office being told to dance to prove her worthiness as a candidate. He was squirming in his seat but he could not save her from the affront, the shame of being told to dance when this was repugnant to her own appreciation of what makes good public officials. "I thought then that if we had a different system of electing public officials, she and many others equally qualified for public office need not demean themselves, when running from exalted public office," Barrera continued. The episode volunteered by Oscar Barrera may have been about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but she was not the only victim of the present system. It can be safely said that every president and most of the senator were made to sing or dance to campaign for the exalted office they had aspired for.

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This is not to preempt the debate that must be undertaken as soon as possible between the strengths and merits of the presidential system vs. the parliamentary system. I will be the first to admit that many of us, including myself, are not well-informed enough about the parliamentary system to conduct or indeed to follow such a debate. But there are qualified Filipinos who have stayed in the background and kept their peace through all this time, despite the unmitigated disaster of a flawed presidential system that saw an aging actor capture the presidency on the basis of his box-office popularity. It is time to be bold and say what it is —- the flawed presidential system we have adopted since our independence as a nation is ineffective in advancing the nation forward. Let us hear from those who can tell us why.

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Or even better, maybe we should not start by calling for a Constitutional Convention which will only be shot down by many educated Filipinos turned funny guys. We should just assemble into little groups, among friends and relatives and conduct among ourselves private debates on presidential vs. parliamentary systems. These debates need not be overly academic. Indeed, such debates should be guided by common sense, by the way we know and do things every day of our lives. I do not think anything could be more effective in re-examining the present political system of the country than loading up on common sense.

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Certainly had we a parliamentary system, President Macapagal-Arroyo need not have danced the boogie that evening to prove her capability to be a senator of the nation. Nor would we have to give credence to stories that she won the top spot in the senatorial contest because she looked like Nora Aunor. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for whatever position she aspired for then and aspires for in the future, should be voted for her capabilities as a leader. When and if we finally have a system which makes that possible I believe we will get better, more adequate leaders who will not need to be shamed into dancing or singing. As for the people, the teeming masa, they will be grateful for it.

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Vice President Teofisto Guingona and his mission for OFWs. There was a time when it seemed impossible to put the concerns of overseas Filipinos on top of the government’s agenda. During the Marcos years when Filipinos first looked abroad for jobs, there were government officials, especially in the foreign service who paid lip service to them although they were considered a nuisance when they began to grow in numbers and brought their problems at the doorsteps of embasssies.

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In a more genteel time, Philippine embassies were the social preserve of privileged Filipinos with enough money to travel or those who had made abroad their home while remaining Filipinos at heart. There was little work for our career diplomats who served a small and select community except perhaps in San Francisco or Los Angeles where there had been a sizeable community even before the Filipino diaspora began. But times change. As a resident in London for many years, I saw this transition in a city where the Philippine Embassy there had once been a genteel place in tree-lined Palace Green, immediately behind the Kensington Palace that had once been the home of the beloved Princess Diana. But from the 70s to the 80s Filipinos in London, once a sprinkling of tourists, students and businessmen became the official home to thousands and thousands of Filipinos, most of whom had come to live and work in the lowliest jobs in this great city as domestics, waiters, medical aides, and nurses etc. These Filipinos have helped to prop up the Philippine economy then and now with dollar remittances to their families background and they were rightly praised.

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But less talked about is how this exodus of workers to London, a beloved city for the Philippine elite, lost some of its cache. It was no longer as fashionable to be ambassador to the Court of St. James circa 2001 than it had been in the 60s or even the early 70s. These days, a Filipino ambassador to the Court of St. James, apart from other concerns, will also have to deal with the problems of domestics and illegal workers. This was unknown when the Filipino community in London were wealthy tourists, students and businessmen.

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This is not to criticize the rich and wealthy of the Philippines or even ambassadors who had once enjoyed a more sedate life in a manor with the address no 8, Palace Green, Kensington, W.8, in bygone times. This is only to say that because times have changed, the foreign service of the Philippines, that is to say, its diplomats, must adopt to this change.

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It is in this light that this column would like to recognize the wisdom of Vice President and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teofisto Guingona, Jr. He has come under attack, rightly or wrongly, for some perceived faults by those who have been far longer in the foreign service. But if true, these faults are trivial and pardonable against the background of Mr. Guingona’s exemplary policy direction to put our foreign service in the service of the well-being and welfare of overseas Filipinos.This policy is underpinned by a sound belief he articulated in a radio interview. "Filipinos, our people – not gold, or other natural resources – are our most precious resource," Vice President Guingona said

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I had an opportunity to hear from him first hand about this policy as we discussed dual citizenship and absentee voting during the taping of a DZRH radio program hosted by Cecile Alvarez Guidote and co-hosted by Inquirer’s Bel Cunanan. As a political exile for many years, I know these concerns first hand. It was my husband, former Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union Alberto Pedrosa, who delivered the first manifesto of concern for overseas Filipinos which included these two issues among others, in the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii in 1980. Although this was an academic forum, the questions were relevant to what was being celebrated then —- the centenary of Filipino migration to the US. We flew at our own expense to Honolulu to deliver the paper that later became the cri de coeur of all overseas Filipinos.

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This column is grateful to Vice President Guingona for taking up the cudgels for overseas Filipinos. He is on the right track but he needs the support not only of Filipinos abroad and their families here but all those who work with him in the foreign service. With Guingona’s commitment to the welfare of Filipinos overseas, we look forward to an invigorated and renewed foreign service in tune with the times under his stewardship.

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Last minute shopping: Global Planners Inc. is organizing what they have described as the ultimate in last-minute Christmas shopping. The bazaar called, Holiday Gifts Galore, will be held at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club on December 19 and 20 from 9 a.m. till 7 p.m. Proceeds from the bazaar will help various projects of the Kababaihan Kakaiba ng Mandaluyong (KKM), a womens advocacy group for the women in the city. Funds will go to livelihood opportunities. Indeed many of the items in the bazaar are their work.

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My e-mail is [email protected] or [email protected].