A NATION'S development begins exactly from being a nation;
that is, a nation in a state of sovereignty. Unless a nation engages
in a pursuit of relative independence, any measure of progress in
the realm of politics, economics, and culture belongs to the hegemon.
Any yoked nation that aspires for sovereignty naturally subverts the
current global configuration. From this point of sovereignty, I measure
the nation's development by indices of political stability that ensures
its survival, economic growth that provides for the needs of its populace
and does not endanger their environs, and cultural strength that binds
its people together.
In politics, our nation continues to be beholden to the United States.
These ties perpetually define us such that any move forward requires
a stance against the influence of this superpower. Our national interests
become virtually shackled to foreign interests and led as if a dog
by its chain, willy-nilly, until it can only walk and bark at its
master's behest. The oligarchs pander to the whim of foreign powers
and capital and divide the spoils, never really working for the sovereignty
where we could base a nation and later, its development.
At the outset of renewed 'democracy', Aquino - with her lethal combination
of colonial mentality, noblesse oblige, and stupidity - committed
the Philippines to foreign debts only Marcos really owed. Today, the
words 'foreign debt' sounds diminutive compared to the referent's
magnitude at the rate of its interest. Meanwhile, the nation remains
faithful to the neo-liberal model that, despite its high soundings,
does not really give us much hope against the absurd burden of our
continuous debt.
The people bound its mass to uncritical consumerism patterned after
the activities and fashions of its counterparts. The gears of foreign
debt, insatiable multinational corporations, and luxuries of the individual
Pinoy crush among meshed teeth the ecology the very vitae of our islands.
Every day, we eat, drink, and inhale nothing but the wastes of our
progress. Or, as is often the case, we leave the Philippines, these
gears encouraging our diaspora.
Within this mesh too, we sacrifice any form of self and self-esteem
that we managed to preserve, excavate, or conjure. Culture proves
valuable only as a vacuous icon for the capital and voyeurism of tourists.
Culture remains subjugated by the dominant model followed by the
two spheres. For the politics of the elite, Filipino culture best
serves as the locally colored leash of declaiming politicians. In
the realm of economics, culture provides the value-added of products
and the rest and recreation of businessmen.
The great outdoors of the global beckons us with occupations, money,
and dissolved identities, all leavings of a generous amo. Those who
occupy the lower rungs appear to hold on to their culture more powerfully
than the weak-willed elite who relish the taste of foreign languages
to the point of shedding their own tongues. We settle identities in
many ways. Who still asks bagoong, Rizaliana, and house lizards sent
to them from the Philippines? Who still casts the vote from abroad?
Who brings home dollars for shopping? Who can own land? Who carries
a green card? Who pays taxes to which flag?
The question of identity divides the people between regions, ideologies,
religions, and classes. The government that needs conflicts to justify
its power and the incessant need for aid cannot address these divisions.
Crime riddles the nation from the lumpen with petty thefts, arsons,
rapes, kidnappings, and murders. The same crimes seethe from the elite
on a larger scale leaving in their wake disenfranchised peoples, regions
yoked to dynasties powered by gambling and drug money, and the mutilations
and murders of those who act against their interests.
All these questions appear arbitrary in the debates of the academe.
In this sphere too, culture becomes a mere commodity, fodder for disinterested
dissertations, degrees, and discourse. In the arts, the two pervasive
models we acknowledge as ideal dismember themselves from their culture.
On one hand, we have the alienated bohemian devoted to the Western
bourgeois construct of nihilism. This creator crafts beauty out of
paralysis or wild negation and makes these, therefore, the beautiful
options. On the other, we have the Lea Salonga international type
who sings Vietnam to the tune of French Saigon in European theaters
further reinforcing colonial aesthetics and perpetuating the ills
of our identity in a postcolonial condition. Between these two ends
are the local artists of various successes in the measure of the popular
and 'heights' in the spectrum of high and low culture. We model ourselves
after actors who are supposed to model us. I find too high the cost
of this seemingly benign admiration: in the recent years, we leave
the nation in the hands of such actors to model as they see fit.
Meanwhile, the romanticized masses toil under their respective, specialized
burdens, channeling their pesos as taxes to fund the platforms, debts,
and ambitions of its elite while the police, military, talk shows,
and soap operas keep them in line.
No, the government does not address these problems. It promotes Philippine
dependency to US politics to the point that we lose face in the global
arena, and none - not even ourselves - recognizes sovereignty as anything
other than a foreign word for a subservient nation. The oligarchs
continue to feed on its own. The debt becomes an overarching excuse
for any economic pitfall and budget cut. The government continually
feeds on the frenzied consumerism of its people. It negates hope by
packing it with culture in large crates and little Filipiniana boxes
off too tourists and businessmen.
In my view, the government as it is cannot solve these problems.
It has grown so dependent on the existence of these problems to become
anything truly other than a problem itself. If it will be part of
the solution, it needs to undergo several profound overhauls in not
only bureaucracy and policy but also in the very paradigm of development
it embraces. This move however points to corollary paths of change
that reach far down into the mindset and construction of its oligarchs.
Yes, maybe we can reduce dependency on the US by promoting the alternate
route of regionalism and a richer network of bilateral and multilateral
ties. Maybe our policies would be at some point, truly in favor of
national interest. We may even gather guts enough to eschew and deny
the debts attributed to us. Maybe somehow too, despite my failure
to imagine how, we can address both ecological progress and economic
concerns within the IMF-WB framework. After this, what will drive
us? What will even motivate an 'us'?
Thus, we must build exactly from this grounded, toiling 'us'. The
center only pays lip service to its peripheries with the token Tagalog,
Cebuano, or regional language of its choosing. However, its stifling
actions deny the margins from the discourse and creation of the nation,
save by the subjugation to laws and taxes. We must recognize that
we must root any true sense of nation and thus development exactly
from the grounds of the vast peripheries that we now exclude. I posit
that our core values remain strong, and we continue to embody them.
However, we devalue these values by commodifying their manifestations.
We reduce them by subjugating and mutilating them within the Western
models, those mythical beds of Procrustes. We distance ourselves from
them by embracing foreign models at the expense of our own heroes
and history. Without an active identification, an identification that
is inherently subversive in the world order, any achievement - like
all the failures that comprise us without our unequivocal recognition
- will become meaningless. Culture must be set alongside economic
and political concerns, in truly active discourse with the measures
of the two spheres. If anything, it should ascend as the focus of
the nation. It is the very 'I', the recognition of sovereignty, the
mastering mindset of a true nation, the only self-respecting locus
from which the Philippines can move politically and economically in
the global society of its peers. My study of national development
favors further diagnoses, further commitment, and further construction
of the nation.
