Sacrificial politics

Sacrifice has become a buzzword in Philippine politics. Literally meaning to make holy, it now graces practically every politician’s public vocabulary. Since President Arroyo invoked the term in announcing her decision not to seek re-election in May 2004, other politicians appear to have been overwhelmed by a similarly commendable fit of patriotic self-denial. Sacrificial politics – giving up one’s personal gain to effect the nation’s greater gain – has become the mantra of mostly everyone who might be someone in Philippine society.

The structural form that sacrificial politics appears to have taken is a much-trumpeted "government of national unity". Prominent politicians identified with the national administration, the various opposition groups as well as the politically hard to situate, multipurpose aggru-pations of rainbowed interests have been preaching self-sacrifice and national unification as the only possible way of life. Each personal or group interest must yield to the overall interests of the nation. No compromise is deemed feasible, no middle way is possible. The clarion call, sounded by the president herself in one of her more strident public speeches, is for Filipinos to work together – to unify – or perish!

Beyond the professional politicians are numerous others who make sure press conferences initiate their laudable efforts at national unification. Name personalities from the business sector, the various religious denominations and their presumably other-worldly organizations, the indubitably down-to-earth entertainment world – and given the extremely wide range of personalities involved in the Magkaisa! crusade, even those who might have profitable linkages to the netherworld – all of these glitterati are stepping over each other in publicly announcing their irrevocable conversion to sacrificial politics.

Magkaisa! No longer Makaisa! Filipinos have never before encountered such plenitude of patriotism and goodwill among the most powerful figures in their society. Not even in 1986, when many Filipinos clenched their (left? right?) fists and sang Bayan Ko to the right accompaniment of constricted throats and flowing tears.

Yellow was then the color of the moment, but there was so much courage among the plundered citizenry that EDSA yellow might as well have been a shade of red – that same shade of red bouncing off a nation’s badge of courage as its people, fully confident of their national leadership, bravely anticipated the future.

Between 1986 and 2003, most Filipinos lived the lie of sacrificial politics. Too many of the influential and the powerful who called for personal sacrifice and national unification in 1986 were among the first to live lifestyles that betrayed their most clarion call. More than sixteen years later, there has been little for the citizenry to celebrate in the economic, political and social life of the nation. Frailty is the truer name of this country’s economy, oligarchy and instability the enduring realities of its political governance, and erosion, corruption, even breakdown the lead characteristics of its primary social institutions. Media, churches, schools and families had not been spared from the institutional degradation that attended so much of Philippine society during this time.

One cannot expect most Filipinos to react with much enthusiasm to the current calls for personal sacrifices and national unification. If 2003 were theater, then most of the dramatis personae – the lead actors – would suffer from comparison with an earlier 1986 cast, one that portrayed itself as not only herculean but promethean. It is difficult to credibly project the present cast as such; on the contrary, given the public’s sense of approval and trust in most of these actors, one might suspect a popular sense that hobbits dominate the current play.

The play itself suffers from being suspected by a now deeply skeptical public of being no more than a rerun. For most of them, sacrificial politics might be read historically as a play where the public is made to sacrifice, is indeed the full sacrifice, while the politically eminent and their influential cohorts, in politicking the economy, government and society no less, arrogate to themselves all the gains that a sacrificed nation might conceivably make.

For most adult Filipinos now, having lived the ignoble lie of sacrificial politics since at least 1986, there is hardly a chance that something may be truly made holy when politicians and allied life forms call for – or allege having made – a sacrifice. Not being dumb, Filipinos now immediately suspect the operational meaning when politicians speak of making a personal sacrifice. It is simply being forced to do something bad to avoid something worse. That kind of sacrifice has nothing to do with the national interest. It has to do with everything that is selfishly personal and most unholy, the full compass of most – thank God, not all – politicians!