Mobocracy or government through mobs

The recent threat of Noynoy to lead massive street protests against the Supreme Court ruling that allowed President GMA to appoint the next chief justice shows he is running true to form. If he was chosen to be the Liberal Party candidate after the well-attended funeral of his mother, Cory Aquino, his strategists can be expected to depend on the massing of crowds as the way to power. He has no where to go but continue with this kind of politics.

Why can’t he wait for the elections in which he has been predicted to win anyway by the dependable SWS and Pulse Asia?. The only answer is he is not really sure he will win the elections. So he and his cohorts have had to resort to mobs, protests, mass gatherings to keep the momentum. He has not done very well in discussions on party programs.

Neither is he an attractive personality with charisma and intelligence. It is not surprising that with his dwindling lead or alleged popularity, he has to return the campaign to mob psychology.

 The Issues and Advocacy Center said to be linked to President FVR recently came out with a survey showing his lead has “significantly dropped.” On the other hand administration standard-bearer Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has been rising.

It also showed NP candidate Manny Villar cut Aquino’s lead by seven points.

These trends can be worrying for the Liberal Party because the entire edifice of Noynoy’s candidacy was built on a castle of sand — a surge of undeserved popularity after the death of his mother.

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Unfortunately, I think more and more Filipinos have tired of government through mobs. Even those against the Arroyo government are less willing to go into the streets every time they want to prove their point. If they are unhappy about the Supreme Court’s decision allowing President GMA to appoint the next chief justice, then they should file their protest in court.

As for President GMA, she should exercise her executive prerogative and not be intimidated by the threat from a presidential candidate who depends on mobs to get into power. A chief executive must do her work to comply with her duty under the Constitution is the way forward.

If the Constitution requires her to appoint a Supreme Court chief justice then she must appoint one within 90 days. Appointing a new justice chief is necessary should there be post-election disputes.

Otherwise, she would renege in her duty to govern especially when a presidential candidate has no compunction to create anarchy through mobs as his way to power.

 If we are to strengthen our institutions going to court is a better way to go than going to the streets. On the other hand, Noynoy’s threat may be a blessing in disguise. How can someone who behaves this way be a suitable leader if we are to move on to good and competent governance. Better to know this before May 10. It will not happen by leading protests through egg throwing and picture burning before the Supreme Court.

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Perhaps the Liberals in our midst especially those who purport to lead the Liberal Party should learn from Karl Popper, the guru of Open Society.

He says: “For if the state is to fulfill its function, it must have more power at any rate than any single private citizen or public corporation; and although we might design institutions to minimise the danger that these powers will be misused, we can never eliminate the danger completely.

On the contrary, it seems that most men will always have to pay for the protection of the state, not only in the form of taxes but even in the form of humiliation suffered, for example, at the hands of bullying officials. The thing is not to pay too heavily for it.

 The difference between a democracy and a tyranny is that under a democracy the government can be got rid of without bloodshed; under a tyranny it cannot.

 Democracy as such cannot confer any benefits upon the citizen and it should not be expected to do so. In fact democracy can do nothing — only the citizens of the democracy can act (including, of course, those citizens who comprise the government). Democracy provides no more than a framework within which the citizens may act in a more or less organized and coherent way.

Institutions alone are never sufficient if not tempered by traditions. Institutions are always ambivalent in the sense that, in the absence of a strong tradition, they also may serve the opposite purpose to the one intended. For example, a parliamentary opposition is, roughly speaking, supposed to prevent the majority from stealing the taxpayer’s money. But I well remember an affair in a south-eastern European country which illustrates the ambivalence of this institution. There, the opposition shared the spoils with the majority.

He also teaches that a Liberal Utopia designed without tradition is an impossibility. “ For the Liberal principle demands that the limitations to the freedom of each which are made necessary by social life should be minimized and equalized as much as possible (Kant). But how can we apply such an a priori principle in real life? Should we prevent a pianist from practising, or prevent his neighbour from enjoying a quiet afternoon?

All such problems can be solved in practice only by an appeal to existing traditions and customs and to a traditional sense of justice; to common law, as it is called in Britain, and to an impartial judge’s appreciation of equity. All laws, being universal principles, have to be interpreted in order to be applied; and an interpretation needs some principles of concrete practice, which can be supplied only by a living tradition. And this holds more especially for the highly abstract and universal principles of Liberalism. “