Ludicrous: The idea of an incumbent leader declaring his a ‘revolutionary government’
(Photo source ABS-CBN)
The trouble with Filipinos is they are shortsighted. They are focused on instant gratification and consistently fail to see the long view. This is evident today seeing all major political camps, the Yellowtards, the Dutertards, and the commies calling for measures that can only be implemented outside of the Constitution.
The Yellowtards, of course, mount their traditional push towards their tired old “people power” uprising thing which involves middle class folk gathering in hordes on a street in Imperial Manila clutching rosaries while waving hands shaped in an “L”. The commies, like the Yellowtards also continue their Cold War era “armed revolution” of the “proletariat” also massing on streets sporting their tubaos, waving their fists in the air and chanting their overused anti “US Imperialist” slogans. Meanwhile, their terrorist comrades in the New People’s Army (NPA) roam the Philippines’ jungles terrorising farmers and killing Filipino soldiers.
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Now we are seeing a new third ocho-ocho camp doing the same song-and-dance. A faction of the Dutertard bloc is now calling for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to declare a “revolutionary government”.
Suffice to say, it seems the biggest noisiest blocs of Filipino “activists” are all advocating quck-and-dirty instantly-gratifying approaches to instigating change. That says something about the character of the Philippines’ cliques of politically-passionate “influencers”. Even taken together, they collectively fail to provide a true vision that encompasses a true strategic long-term horizon. Like much else in Philippine society, Filipino activism suffers from the infamous pwede na yan mentality. Just like the jeepneys which originally came into being as a short-term fix to a serious problem, these “solutions” advocated by the Philippines’ top cliques of “activists” are turning what are supposed to be temporary political fixes into permanently-recurring solutions.
Even more interesting is how this third one — those calling for Duterte to form a “revolutionary government” — is evidently the most ludicrous advocacy among the three. Whilst the Yellowtards’ “people power” circus and the “dictatorship of the proletariat” being fought for by the commies are “revolutions” being fought against the incumbent, that of the Dutertards’ “#RevGov” faction are actually calling on the incumbent to declare his own government a “revolutionary” one. To regard this as an oxymoron is being kind. It flat out just does not make any sense.
The minute Duterte makes such a declaration is the minute his “vice president” Leni Robredo gains a legitimate claim to the Philippine presidency. This is because a “revolutionary government” is one that necessarily lies outside the frame of the 1987 Yellowtard Constitution that currently lends Duterte’s government its legitimacy. And under that Yellowtard Constitution, Robredo becomes president when the incumbent president opts to leave his office to go “revolutionary”.
(Note that the idea in the above paragraph is premised on the hypothetical scenario that Robredo actually is the Philippines’ legitimate VP.)
It’s like half of a Mexican standoff. The #RevGov Dutertards have their fingers on the #RevGov trigger while the Yellowtards have their fingers on the Leni trigger. The commies for their part are more likely to shoot both blocs in the back given the chance and do away with the Yellowtard Constitution altogether.
Those of us watching this quaint standoff armed with bags of popcorn can only laugh. Underneath these circuses lies a more fearsome common denominator — the vast foundation of Filipino cultural dysfunction that is likely to render any solution advocated by these three clownish movements inutile. Just about every political ideological edifice stood up on this quicksand-like socio-cultural foundation sinks and is eventually swallowed up in a society that, to begin with, is averse to self-improvement.
Indeed, a key feature of this muck of cultural dysfunction that these movements hope to build upon is an entire people’s inability to collectively envision goals and run toward them over a long-term timeframe. That was just a long-winded way of saying Filipinos lack enough sense of nationalism to make any “revolution” work for them, much less the half-witted ones being proposed by these three blocs of “activists”.
The foundation of nationalism must first be established before political solutions can even be considered. Without this binding sense of nationalism amongst Filipinos (one that goes beyond “solidarity” in winning international beauty pageants and basketball games), Philippine politics will continue to sustain the schizophrenic character it currently exhibits. My colleague Paul Farol’s recent quip encapsulates all this…
The people are insane, changing the form of government is like changing mental asylums.
Indeed, that is the truth about themselves Filipinos will ultimately need to confront. Progress requires time and consistency of vision. Only patience, perseverance, and quiet achievement — not shrill adolescent emotionalism — will deliver for the Filipino in the long run.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Cory Aquino 1986 Constitution had changed the established government of the late Pres. Marcos, Sr. From thereon, we all became “insane”. Politicians stole from the National Treasury, at will, and were not punished. Politicians became drug dealers and drug lords. Massacres were rampant and not solved. There was a “Laglag Bala” extortion scheme of Aquino and Abaya at the International Airport. And so on and so forth.
So, Leni Robredo, the Phony Vice President, who won her Vice President’s position thru the HOCUS PCOS and SMARTMAGIC of the corrupt former COMELEC Chairman Andres Bautista, is just waiting her turn to become President. If the Revolutionary Government is declared by Pres. Duterte.
During the time, Cory Aquino grabbed and declared her EDSA government. I had not seen any Vice President of the late Pres. Marcos Sr., took power.
So what is the “big deal” on this issue. A government can be changed, including those in position; if they no longer serves us well. A government is a tool. If your tool, is no longer working well. Then, change the tool. It is as simple, as that…
Or it is like marriage. If the husband , or the wife , no longer love each other. Then, file for divorce !
If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it but if it is, then how will you gonna fix it without getting another damages in the future?
This will be a huge question to our country right now. And yes, we’ve seen a lot of huge damages in our country before Duterte become a president in our country last year like corruption in the government, lack of discipline among the Filipinos, Filipinos becoming more lazy & dumb, the rise of the oligarch & crony capitalism, worsening crimes in the streets & every barangays, political adventurism in the Catholic church of our country, and the deep divisions among the Filipinos on both rich and poor classes, ethnics, cultures, races & languages.
Now this is the right time to make change in our country, but this kind of change that will led by President Duterte should be a REAL one & it will not repeat its another mistake in the future. To do that we must study & learn on the history of our country & we could find what’s the reason why our country is lagging behind to our Asian neighbors, we need a tougher laws that could punish those criminals both civil & administrative cases and give justices to the victims of their crimes and they will never rule to our country forever. Legalize death penalty and give a capital punishment to the murderers, terrorists, corrupt officials, drug lords, rapists & torture happy frat & sorority leaders. To those people who have petty crimes like jaywalking, beating the traffic lights, smoking in the non-smoking area, illegal gambling, etc., give them a penalty through community services for 1st offense. If they commit a 2nd offense, pay him a hefty penalty that is higher than his monthly salary and if he committed a 3rd offence or more, give him caning or years of imprisonment or both. And finally give a better education & information to the Filipino people, give them time to search on wikipedia on the internet & watch Discovery Channel & Nat Geo on TV and less on posting messages on Twitter & Facebook and less on watching Telenovelas & Eat Bulaga. These will surely have a REAL & GENUINE change in our country, from the present to the future, and this kind of change had made a huge success in some of the countries like Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia & Taiwan in Asia, Rwanda in Africa and Uruguay in South America for the past few years, and they did that through trials & errors. We could do that if we could sacrifice & love of our country!
You don’t need more laws. The country has plenty of laws. You need a legal system. And you need a judiciary who understands what the Law is, how it works, and how it should be implemented.
Fundamentally, the Law is just another foreign technology that Filipinos imported (or perhaps was imposed upon them) and have never really understood.
You also need people who know how to think. In the absence of the legal system, Filipinos rely on the media and the Church to “investigate” and render judgement on many cases and dictate what position to take on many issues.
The legal system, in short, has to compete for relevance in the Philippines which is bizarre considering it is the only process that yields outcomes that can actually result in real punitive action.
People who don’t know how to think will never wrap their heads around why the above situation is so wrong.
>> People who don’t know how to think will never wrap their heads around why the above situation is so wrong.
Right enough. However I’ve noticed Filipinos are perfectly capable of thinking, but they deliberately avoid it. By pretending to be more stupid, ignorant, or thoughtless than they actually are, everything becomes somebody else’s fault. You are responsible for nothing. If all else fails, it’s all “the will of God”. Hard to tell how much of this behaviour is driven by the Church and how much by social factors.
As regards the Law, a critical point that most people miss is that truly successful laws (that is, statute) do not drive behavior: they merely codifies common consensus. The few who refuse to conform are then subject to punishment of some sort, but the general social consensus is what drives compliance, not the existence of the written statute. The statute is merely a reaffirmation of what everyone already thinks. There is absolutely no point in outlawing “corruption” because (a) most people don’t even comprehend what it is and (b) if described, most people think it’s normal and acceptable.
Unfortunately, Filipinos seem to view the Law as some sort of hocus-pocus in the same vein as religion – hence the proliferation of rubber-stamping of documents that contain no information and “notarization” of things that don’t need notarizing. It’s all just ritual. Example: in the Philippines, a lawyer is someone who sprinkles magic dust on a contract and makes it “real”. Everywhere else, a contract is a promise between two people that they enforce as a matter of honor, and the Lawyer’s job is merely to make sure they’ve promised something that’s logically consistent and fair.
@marius, that’s actually a good take on the nature of law and the nature of Filipinos to do around why they seem incapable of taking the law to heart. It puts better perspective around law enforcement and clarifies the relevance of education and upbringing — and, therefore, culture — in any strategy needed to change the ethical frame that Filipinos apply to regard the law.
Revgov or not, I’m pretty sure the President didn’t waste his energy trying to develop good relations and getting good deals from other countries just to let it all get wasted by highly placed trapos in govt.
Most Failipinos are people who don’t know who they are, what they can be or even want to be. They are afraid, but they don’t know of what. They are angry, but they don’t know at whom. They are rejected and they don’t know why. All they want is to be somebody. And these are dangerous powder kegs.