Otherwise Maladroit

21 January 1999 To Sing Our Own Song

21 January 1999

To Sing Our Own Song

The repressive nature of the Philippine government, and the inhuman conditions featured in the documentary To Sing Our Own Song is neither new nor surprising to me. Today, slums have tripled with the growth of population and unemployment; laborers, child and old alike are still abused; prostitution has never wavered and has even swelled to include pedophilia; there is still a need for Land Reform; and the omnipresent Americans are pushing back their bases, with progress.

The problems were never miraculously solved by the so-called EDSA "revolution". In fact they were continued by a member of the same league of elite as the dictator was, who in turn was succeeded by a general in that dictator's military. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire" as the saying goes.

If not more effective, I think that the present Philippine government is more dangerous than the dictatorial one. Since the existing administration is not openly repressive (at least, in the media), and is able to build-up a farce of progress and hope of prosperity, the people may even (and has, to some extent) come to like it. Worse, the people may even defend it, as foolhardy loyalists of Marcos blindly do. Since it is very easy to be assimilated into the newly recycled administration, little attention is being allocated to the issues of the society, which are very telling in the exploitation of the masses.

The New People's Army (NPA), and the Muslim rebels were portrayed as heroes and guardians of the interests of the masses under the regime of the dictatorship. It was evident in the BBC documentary that public sympathy was on these "rebels". They still have the same convictions, and are still fighting for the same cause, but how does general society treat them now? Every other incident, or act of terrorism and violence are immediately blamed, or are in suspicion, on them. Why has the public forgotten them, when nothing of groundbreaking character has changed their goals and desires? Is it then that the people have become apathetic? If this is so that what are these organizations fighting for? The people they defend, have seemingly turned their backs to them, lured by the opportunities that an imperialist power offers.

As the Marcoses have done, there is still much image-building by the Philippine government. Not as extravagant as Imelda's wardrobe, but just enough to show that foreign investments are not lost in the Philippines. Ramos, for one, kept denying the existence of economic problems when it was obviously undeniable. He arrogantly puffed his chest in his foreign visits, and practically placed the Philippines at Asia's throne. Now, it is the regime of "Erap". The slick movie actor that wriggled into politics just by sheer image-building. " Erap para sa masa," he says.

Joseph Ejercito Estrada did his image-building way before he even dreamt of the presidential seat. As a movie actor he took up roles that set him as the swaggering, hard-hitting defender of the oppressed. In real life, how can an immoral womanizer, an elite, and an Ateneo dropout at that, whose only real shared experience of being poor is publicly eating dried fish and rice, understand the masses and much less sympathize with them?

Yesterday it was a blatant "fairy-tale", then "people's power", then "Asia's economic tiger", so today it is "Erap para sa mahirap". What else is in store for the Philippines? And even more important, when will it break our backs?

posted by Otherwise Maladroit @ 5:13 PM