BIMBO CABIDOG
Politics is part of every citizen’s daily life. We may
not be conscious of it, but it is a regular activity of all of us. No matter
how an individual isolates himself/herself from the rest, engaging in some form
of social relationship is inescapable as all that he/she needs and wants today
is a product of many laboring hands and gotten through markets.
Of course, decadent tradition has narrowly pegged
politics to elections, how politicians behave, what they do, and which party one
or the other is affiliated. These juicy topics are most often the meat of
conversation whenever two or more people gather to talk of news and issues of the
day. They dominate and define political thought.
The misconception comes from what politics has meant to the
citizenry over the years. One is that it is only about elections. The idea has
fixated the common people to the practice of politics as a repetitive exercise with
practically nothing of value to their aspiration of a better life and the shaping
of the future by themselves.
Another is that the foremost subject of politics is
merely what political personalities talk and act on the electoral stage. They
mesmerize with bombastic orations, titillate with gaudy humor, regale with
garish entertainment numbers, and make themselves out to be the showbiz
celebrities audiences idolize. This, to the ordinary citizenry is politics at
its core.
A third is that the ultimate political act is the one-on-one
transaction between patron and beneficiary, office-seeker and employer, the
wily candidate and the hoodwinked voter. The affair ends up favoring the selfish
ambitions and vested personal interests that the political contenders advance. The
gullible majority realizes and accepts the fact that the so-called democratic
exercise is no more than a way to foster the rule a tiny minority and serve
self-gain by a few over and above the rest of the vast polity.
But what really is the proper meaning of politics? First,
it is about how segments of the population or communities find and advance
unity to achieve collective goals or purposes. It builds power for action and, with empowerment never experienced before politics takes place, enables them to move processes
in the direction of commonly aspired change. Politics essentially means the
tilting of the balance of socio-political forces towards that end.
Why is the above understanding important? In answer,
let’s get to the second meaning. Politics clarifies and establishes the trajectory
amidst the confusion of elements in society pulling in different directions; all
the more so, when contrary objectives pull opposite each other. As populations grow
at a rapid pace, deepening social divides surface, and loss of cohesion among
members becomes highly precarious.
Thirdly, politics is the sphere of human-social activity
where contradictions are resolved whether by annihilation or reconciliation. To
limit it to the mere act of going to the polling precinct and writing of a
preferred candidate’s name on the ballot negates the larger context in which
its role should be played. It also eliminates the much more important function
for which it is purposed: the knocking down of the divisions that stall or
obstruct social progress.
Relationships in the various dimensions of society –
political, administrative, cultural, economic as well as environmental, grow
more complex, along with the exponential increase in the number of people in it. They
also tend to be strained by the tighter competition for resources. Thus, society
becomes prone to profound instabilities. Identifying and defining bases for unity
to manage conflicts are imperative. It is one of the great missions of
politics.
In the country, however, politics is a different ball
game. It is played with the collateral intent to disunite rather than close
gaps. It fragments society rather than cement collectivity. It inflicts painful
wounds that folks carry up to the grave. It is engaged to defeat rather than
simply win and kiss and make up later.
This is because of narrow mindedness enclosed in
individual self-serving agendas. Most people have habituated to viewing politics
as merely a matter of besting the other side in the electoral contest. And
winning the race is not only everything, but the only thing. Sportsmanship at
the very least and magnanimity are taboo. Supporters, rooters and mere
followers take the obvious personal fight of their candidates as theirs, become
even more personal than the principal contenders, and wax into ugly emotional
states.
A very valid but mostly ignored critique is that
political enterprise in the country is not and has never been a party affair. It
has always been a personal or dynastic saga. The people have learned enough to
disown the enterprise and fought the deception that it is for them.
Voters become very demanding and egocentric during the
election season. They throw into the ring just any conceivable demand for
favors. Many of these are already capricious, like asking for a relative’s fare
to go home from Manila to the province, or money for fiesta preparation. But
the politicians, because they neither espouse any socio-political ideology nor
advance any agenda for the common good, indulges them in every tricky way. With
transaction consummated in real-time, promises of good public service lapse
into oblivion later.
Elections are only a part of politics as a whole. Their
exercise is opted to attain certain ends. They are held to decide which leadership
of opposing forces will assume office to use power in a certain way. But there
are other options. A revolutionary leader once said: “Political power grows out
of the barrel of the gun.” In this political option, the people do not just
risk losing sweat going to the voting venue, but their very own lives going to
the battlefields.
Four days of massive civilian upheaval, where millions
of people took to a twelve-lane highway in February 1986 to effect the
overthrow of a dictator, brought up peaceful uprising as a more decisive way to
achieve a political end. The “Edsa Revolution” or people power revolution
proved that elections are not the only means and in fact not the best means to meet
political objectives.
The non-violent Edsa demonstrations turned out to be a milestone
in democratic political change throughout the globe. The four-day epic stimulated
a train of other similar actions that changed regimes and redrew the political
landscape all over the world. Totalitarian states would fall in Eastern Europe.
The world order hinging on the power of the Soviet-block would never be
the same again.
There are indeed other ways and means to engage politics
for socio-political change. But Filipinos to date seem to know only one and the
wrong one: electoral politics deflected towards realizing individual ambition
to capture power and amass wealth by a run for office. Thus, an exercise to enshrine
the rule of the majority ends up championing the rule of a tiny few. The
vaunted rule of the people, by the people and for the people by stroke of black
magic called election, ends up having nothing to do with the people, or more
accurately, the people having nothing to do with it.
The exclusionary practice makes democracy a mere design
to get off the people, fool the people, and buy the people in a zarzuela that
is visited once every cycle.
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