What was the meeting in Club Filipino all about

A different meeting of thinking Filipinos took place in Club Filipino last Thursday. I ought to explain. Usually meetings are about people who know each other in real life.  In Club Filipino, the meeting was an interesting mix of people who were friends in real life as well as others who were friends only in the Internet. In our case, our meeting place in the Internet is a website called bayanko.org.ph which as of today has 149,590 hits and 126,846 visits.

These numbers will increase through the days as we search and look for friends with the same ideas and values for the country. We will communicate through each other through our computers. We will use technology for political protest.

This is the alternative to massing at Edsa and we can do it as often as needed.

We can all be talking and listening to each other everyday, every hour if need be, with a click on the computer. But we realized that we should not only be friends through our computers if we wanted to organize politically. We had to meet in real life if we were to launch a revolution, peaceful or otherwise, if it became necessary. That is what we did by holding an acquaintance party in Club Filipino.

This was the first party but we will meet as many times as needed as individuals and groups in real life to be friends beyond the Internet.

So it is not surprising that the audience was an interesting mix as my friend, Francis Manglapus, son of the late Raul Manglapus who was one of the most progressive Filipinos in his time, told me.

 “So you are Ethel,” I greeted an FB friend. We have been liking and posting in FB but we hugged each other as if we had known each other for many years. The fact is we met only months ago in the internet and has since helped disseminate bayanko.org.ph

We gathered together as we would in Edsa to listen to our betters and elders and they vice-versa. Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa gave the invocation. By his side was Archbishop of Davao and former president of the CBCP. Also there were Pastor Art, administrative minister of United Church of Manila and Datu Benjie Andong, chairman of Bangsa Moro Transformation Council.  We tried to make the meeting as all inclusive as possible and invited various members of the community to talk about the political situation There were community leaders like Bicol Autonomy’s Dante Jimenez, Movement  Against Dynasty Danny Olivares, Masbate Talks, Save the Coconut, Tanggulang Demokrasya etc. and youth leaders Gerry Dacudao, Mark Rosal, Jody and Christie Nebrida. The military or as the rumors put it, the retired military was also present with Generals Esperon and Jose T. Almonte. There were more than a hundred individuals who signed in for membership. Others who could not come said they wanted their membership cards sent by mail.

Former President Fidel V. Ramos who supports the movement for a new constitution for a new country could not come because of a previous engagement. Instead he sent us his ideas and observations on the political situation. We certainly would have been better informed from his criticism of what he called the “World Bank’s rosy prognostications.”

World Bank President (Dr.) Jim Yong Kim had recently praised President Benigno Aquino III for his continuing work on“The Good Governance Challenge” before an audience of businessmen.

“Among the most important things is to tackle corruption and that’s one of the things that the government is doing, frankly, better than just about any other government in the world….  And so, if it continues down that path, if it continues making reforms it has already committed to do, if it continues to manage market policy and maintain the strong macro-economic fundamentals, I see very strong growth,” Dr. Kim prognosticated.

He said it at the time when the DAP controversy was raging with the Supreme Court 13-0 decision declaring it illegal and unconstitutional. 

But as Ramos said he was taken aback by the World Bank president’s prognostication. He heard the two broadcasts from Malacanang.

The first was a replay of P-Noy’s defense of the “Development Acceleration Program” (after the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional ruling), and the second was the live Malacañang forum on “Good Governance” with Dr. Kim and P-Noy as co-leaders. So he was taken aback by Dr. Kim’s “rosy prognostications.“

Dr. Kim just waded into the country’s affairs without the correct information. He should have been told about the continuous decline of P-Noy’s trustworthiness and credibility due to the ongoing PDAF-DAP-Malampaya, etc. alleged plunder of public funds.

It demonstrated once again another Ramos exhortation that government can not be outsourced.

When countries need iron ore, financial capital, scientists, or whatever, they can nowadays ‘outsource’ such essential requirements. He said “capital, manpower, materials, and even intellectual resources, however, no longer hold the key to competitiveness — because countries which lack any of these assets can ‘import’ or ‘outsource’ them.

The most  important thing he said was good government cannot be outsourced.

He repeated a theme that he has repeatedly said in his sermons. “The only thing that countries cannot outsource is good government which must be homegrown along with national cohesion, leadership, competence, teamwork and a culture of excellence.”

Had he said in our Club Filipino gathering the audience would have agreed with him and more. He might have met a barrage of rebukes by angry citizens who had gathered there precisely to talk about how badly we are governed today by this incompetent government.

“In our interdependent world, good governance has become the crucial element in a country’s competitiveness.  As citizens, we must insist that government — in its every branch, department, agency, and local government unit — should begin dealing seriously and consistently with the hindrances to our people’s competitiveness in the world.  We, the sovereign and concerned citizenry, must make Philippine governance worthy of the Filipino.

Our people’s strengths are our country’s strengths — but government’s weaknesses have now become the nation’s weaknesses. The alarming but logical conclusion is that the primary barriers to Philippine modernization are the government’s dysfunctions.”

The Club Filipino audience of ordinary but civic spirited Filipinos would have been more appropriate for the Ramos riposte to Dr. Kim of Korea rosy prognostications for the Philippines.

Dr. Kim should have been reminded that South Korea (the country of Dr. Kim) could not have prospered because of big business or chaebols as Koreans call it by themselves alone. It depended on “its people’s spirit of self- discipline, self-sacrifice and discipline.”

“The World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim, as leader of South Korea’s younger generations should remember (CNP: the next time he comes) to listen also to the commoners in the Philippines given the development mandate of the World Bank as an “international people’s support organization.”

We will post the Ramos’ statements in bayanko.org.ph.