Quo vadis, Philippines?

The Philippines is in the grip of history where a mighty collision course approaches between the greatness of man’s spirit as exemplified by its heroes and its baseness and depravity as exemplified by its politicians. Apocalyptic words these. But like a movie whose script I have read beforehand, I see this collision coming. Can it be prevented? Maybe yes and maybe no. Of late, I have been meeting with some ranking members of the Philippine elite – anonymous they shall be – who sought my views on what the morrow could bring to our ill-starred republic. I sought theirs too and what transpired was spirited and heartening dialogue.

Of course, we all agreed on one thing.

The Philippines is teetering on the brink. Nothing is really working anymore. By every yardstick, we are going deeper and deeper into the sinkhole. Our democracy is mostly façade and flimsy democracy. And more than any other major crisis in the past, today’s crisis is unprecedented, even worse than the turbulence immediately before President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law Sept. 21, 1972.

Let me explain. Today’s crisis is the result of the confluence of seven huge waves on a stormy sea rushing to the shore at almost the same time. When they converge, they could have the terrible impact of a tidal wave destroying almost everything in its path. This never happened before. We had one or two at most three at a time. The nation managed to survive. Largescale violence never occurred. People Power I and II, the so-called EDSA Tres steered clear of bloodshed. There was no guillotine, no cutting of heads, no settling of scores. Unique? Most certainly.

And what are these waves hurtling at us today? You know them well.

Primo, and probably at bottom, a collapsing or collapsed economy. The Asian Development Bank underscored this just recently. The ADB depicted the Philippines as having the worst – or scraping the bottom – economic climate for foreign investments in this part of the world. That makes us a hideous leper at a time we are already the basket case of Asia.

Secundo, and corollarily, crushing, widespread, again unprecendented poverty has bent the Philippines to its knees. There is no sign this poverty will ease. There is every sign this poverty will worsen. Already the gap between rich and poor has reached the Les Miserables level which Victor Hugo forecast would lead to revolution. And it did.

Tertio, mine eyes have seen graft and corruption year after year, decade after decade. But at no time has thievery reached the shameless, colossal proportions it has today. I cannot see a congressman or senator or Malacañang biggie without his pockets bulging with pork barrel and filthy under-the-table deals. I cannot see a rich man or a businessman without singling him out as a fraud, a sneak, a racketeer, tax evader and a swindler. I see many in the Makati Business Club as such.

Quarto, the Philippines is probably the Murderer’s Row of Asia where crime and violence are concerned. The hyenas howl, the banshees scream as throats are slit from day to day, hour to hour. Salvagings are now common as bodies are dumped almost everywhere. The biggest bank is robbed in broad daylight. Shabu, other drugs, are the enticing hangman’s noose luring millions of Filipinos to their premature decapitation. The police are among the most notorious drug pushers. How do you fight terror if our police are corrupt?

Quinto, with an economy close to shambles, how do you feed 83 million Filipinos? About 60 percent of Filipinos are classified as poor, most getting by on two spare meals a day. This demographic explosion is a time bomb. When the day comes the poor can no longer adequately feed their families, when the babies have no more milk to suckle, and the sick just wither and die in their decrepit homes, the thing all of us fear most can explode. The social volcano.

Sexto, our leadership has almost completely abdicated its responsibility – nurture the nation, educate it, civilize it, immerse it in work and the knowledge society. That’s the only way the Philippines can catch up with the economic tigers of Asia. What we have for leadership are the deepest pockets in Asia, the greediest hands, who don’t give a hoot as the rest of the nation grovel in poverty and ignorance. And this includes the Church. Spare me bishops who stand like mediaeval potentates at the EDSA shrine, barring the very people who hallowed that shrine with People Power.

Septimo, our system, whatever you may call it, has failed over the decades to regenerate itself. The Lee Kuan Yews have gone, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is going, Park Chung Hee has long departed, Chiang Ching-kuo has long joined his ancestors. Mao-Chou En-lai, Deng no longer rule China. But their successors have vaulted to the same power, the same competence, the same talents, the same will no national success and triumph. Since Ninoy Aquino was murdered, the Philippine landscape is barren scrubland, its political inhabitants all dwarfs, mincing men and women all below five feet, nosing the ground like Quasimodo.

This is what I mean. When all these seven waves roll towards shore at the same time, you have what we have today. And what is that? A nation in trepidation, a nation in fear. Diminishing hope. There is everywhere the smell of decay and decomposition. Recent and current events are but a symptom of a republic cracking up. The Ping Lacson exposé. The Jose Pidal brouhaha. The Oakwood mutiny, or is it coup d’etat? The resignation of Angelo Reyes. Galloping talks of another coup. The demand that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo step down. The massing of opposition forces out to grab power by hook or by crook. And the Left and the Right (young, idealistic officers) are supposed to be united in this loop. The gathering storm?

What is worse is this.

The flotsam and jetsam of two disreputable and discredited presidencies, those of Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada, are back on the political cakewalk. I am utterly stupefied. I see again the old messiahs and Merlins, weaned on the hobnail of the dictator, sprung from the rotting political rib of Joseph Estrada, back in town with a vengeance. All I have to do is mention the name of Tessie Oreta, the dancing Desdemona and you know what I mean. Add Gringo Honasan. Add Ping Lacson. On an entirely different plane, I really cannot see how Juan Ponce Enrile, Kit Tatad, Ernie Maceda, Danding Cojuangco can extricate our nation from the quagmire it is in today. They had their chance. They booted it. Git.

The question begs to be asked: Can we stop the hemorrhage and save the nation, save it from the terrible turbulence that can possibly engulf it into revolution or civil war? And a military takeover?

The answer is yes – with ifs. But let me say outright that the so-called political summit scheduled this week will not amount to anything. It is a conclave of the political Mafia. As Joker Arroyo said, they will come with daggers hidden in their backs. What is meet, what is urgent is that the ablest representatives or emissaries of the elite gather together. This includes the Church, business, academe, politicians, the military and police, the youth and studentry, the professions. A group of 50 to 100, maybe.

They will have to agree to the following:

First set up or establish a provisional government. Make sure this government has a fixed agenda of major reforms. I told a key member of the elite this government would have to cut heads – arrest and jail the biggest crooks and criminals, if necessary execute the worst cases without too much delay. This way, the people will be convinced there is justice.

Second, pour all available funds into the war on poverty. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt did during the Great Depression, we must set up food brigades and kitchens all over the country, engage in massive pump-priming to give jobs to the jobless, rush legislation from Congress to spread welfare among the downtrodden, conscienticize the rich and demand they put an end to their greed, their voracity. Actually FVR boomed his cannon on his kind, for he was as elite as elite could be. The people loved him.

Third, launch a program of massive and free education for the poor. Hell, P200 billion go into the sinkhole of government graft and corruption every year. Let’s use this money to set up a modern educational program. Scholarships here and abroad should benefit the best of our studentry. As I have said again and again in this space, at any given time there are 55,000 Chinese students in America, absorbing the latest in science and technology, engineering, management, administration. This way in 20 years or less, we would have forded the deep waters of economic progress, set up a huge and prosperous middle class, developed leaders of the finest cut.

This means the rich, the powerful, the mighty will have to abdicate huge portions of their power and realize they can save themselves from the coming holocaust only if they rescue the poor.

This way, through such a provisional government, lies the possibility of annihilating the boa constrictor gradually strangling this nation to death.

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TCB VACATION. Starting Wednesday, September 3, I shall take my annual one-month vacation. This column will be back Wednesday, October 1.