EDITORIAL - Independence
It’s been 111 years to the day Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, standing on the balcony of his home in Cavite, declared Philippine independence from Spain. He proclaimed the Filipinos’ readiness for independence as the guns of the American armada were trained on the shores of Manila Bay, after having obliterated the entire Spanish fleet.
Today the Philippines is a sovereign country that remains heavily dependent on the international community for assistance in development and even national defense. Millions of Filipinos still need liberation from the bonds of poverty and illiteracy.
Will the nation ever be free from these shackles? Not while the country’s policy-makers are preoccupied with pursuing their personal agenda ahead of national interest. The country’s neighbors, also emerging from colonial rule and devastated by the last World War and battles for independence, have sprinted ahead in the race to progress. Even Vietnam, whose civil war ended just three decades ago, is poised to overtake the Philippines in terms of economic development. What are they doing right?
And what are we doing wrong? Many things come to mind, but one of them has to be a chronic inability to rise above narrow self-interest to pursue the common good. The current political situation is a case in point. Amid the global economic slowdown, the International Monetary Fund has revised its growth projection for the Philippines this year, from a big fat zero to negative 1 percent. In addition to the impact of global factors, no less than the central bank governor and the economic planning secretary have warned that civil unrest from the latest effort to amend the Constitution, this time through a constituent assembly without Senate participation, would only worsen the country’s economic woes. Meanwhile, the New York-based think-tank GlobalSource has warned that the con-ass plan could push the Philippines into a recession.
With the nation busy preparing for general elections, why are President Arroyo’s allies pursuing con-ass? The consequent political instability is too steep a price to pay simply for the President to delay slipping into lame-duck status as June 30, 2010 approaches. The public reaction to con-ass was hardly unexpected; survey after survey has shown public opposition to Charter change at this time. Such insensitivity to public sentiment in pursuit of partisan interest is one of the many factors that have made liberation from poverty and underdevelopment an arduous slog.
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