"Neither Patriotic nor Radical"

"Neither Patriotic nor Radical"

(Or: "Notes all after Duterte preaches defending independence and change
an a still reactionary order")

"Neither Patriotic nor Radical".

These are the words this person and others concerned in regards to the Duterte administration this day of independece. For as he and his camarilla would still claim to their state affairs as patriotic-driven and radical in its action in "bringing changes", it seems that reality is actually more like contrary to the words being stated in this note- all thanks to their very selves who are submissive towards theirs and their overlord's interests.

With words like "President Rodrigo Duterte hopes for true independence for the country "within our lifetimes," he said in his 2019 Independence Day message on Wednesday, June 12.", would say that there's a lot of time to struggle just to upheld the country and its independence especially in facing greater challenges particularly those brought by the order he sworn to protect.

Initially, Duterte is right that for over a hundred and twenty-one years that the Filipinos of the past bound their lives and fortunes to fight and proclaim their independence. But as reality continues to be at the hands of an oppressive order, be it by an unjust decree, an unfair decision, or an extrajudicial act all in the name of interest,  then that fight for independence continues to remain still- this time by the poor and of the oppressed, whose lives would say had enough of their contentment over injustices, of getting discontent over unfairness and injustices, and with their struggles would say that "the tree of liberty blossomed on these lands because it was nourished by the sweat and blood of our patriots, heroes, and martyrs."

For sure his apologists would disagree on to this, instead clinging to their idol's "optimistic statement" that all Filipinos should "help uplift the country" regardless of its soiled acts and connivances with entrenched interests and its foreign backers, that keeps Filipinos from ever getting uplifted as what the president saidth in his statement.

***

As far as this person observes, that despite the celebration of independence, of expressing statements of change, reform, and stability, that reality goes something like this: that the so-called "republic of the Philippines" is a charade, that the government is full of delusion, that the constitution is being diluted by self-proclaimed orderists, that there is only a vassal of the imperialists. 

How come? For a concerned who expressed this thoughts, the country has been enduring this reality for decades, especially that amidst the so-called atmosphere of development, this doesn't benefit the majority who supposed to enjoy its fruits. That from the infrastucture being done to the rice being sold, each taxpayer has to pay the debt that brought that structure, or the farmer who forced to sell their palay cheap to the middlemen if not their farm to the developer who wishes to transform those into houses for the well-offs in the city. 

Sorry for the words but with this truth, being cruel and unrelenting, makes one make peace with mentally before thinking ahead. It is true that in being vassal every policy, law, to those of project, infrastructure, is driven by the order whose desire is to keep interests firm, while at the same time making the people subjected to the rules and at the same time having a feel of being satisfied no matter how small it is given to them. 

This is less to do with coup plotter idealists or the self-proclaimed analysts in Social media, but in their intellectual exercises they drift off into idealism as the situation agrows worse: for apologists ranging from a disgruntled activist Nilo Tayag or the frustrated anarch Sass Sasot trying to insist that the leader Duterte is patriotic if not radical, but is he? As far as this writer knows that he tried to but end otherwise being an apologist of the order, so are the apologists who once claiming to be for change by any means only to be settled down by their legalism and its perchance for reform. But the fact that they justify their dear leader's  actions and statements would say that they bring the country to the dogs, that they exchange the country for some pieces of silver while claiming that this for the country's good. After all, they aren't not like Brockdorff-Rantzau who did refused to sign the treaty of Versailles after Germany's defeat in WWI, yet he is the same man who died embittered in his lips as he said: "Everything for me has been shattered-I already died in Versailles." Thinking that he failed his duty for the country.

Sadly to say, the ones this person stated in this note aren't like the one admitting. Like their predecessors claiming to be patriots would claim that everything is under control as their idol performs good works if not justifying the need for an extrajudicial act as a form of imposing justice. It is no longer surprising for a concerned tho, for the atrocity laidth by the order, be it drug related killings, of targeting activists for arrest/disappearance, and increasing numbers of collateral damages, along with increasing debt and taxes, outweighs the infrastructure projects being built or currently set upon, the 'strong economy' being praised, or the soup kitchen being promoted, anything the administration afforded to brag in making a backward country appear to be "on a right track" if not a reactionary appearing to be a a "revolutionary" in the eyes of an ever concerned people.

***

If to paraphrase Adam Müller's 'Die Elemente der Staatskunst', this person is ought to say that the state and by extension the community, hath to be not a mere factory, farm, insurance agency or a commercial company. It is not even like a device or a tool meant to out things in order as one would wish, but rather it is the inner union of all physical and moral needs, of all physical and spiritual wealth, of the inner and outer life of a folk community, all in a great, energetic, eternally active and living whole.

It may sound illusory if not fictional, but man's quest for an ideal community hath been since time immemorial, that in every interaction be it right or wrong lies the totality of human affairs if not a union of many successive generations. But reality failed to realise as such and turned the state into a tool of consolidation than a spearheader of change. Duterte did sneered people through the ears by telling his administration as socialistic, that his rule as just if not enlightened, but given the bloodshed and the interest prevailing, is his change be considered a vulgar form of Marcos's 'constitutional authoritarianism'? Vulgar in a sense that it is divorced from the law by making the law less lawful if not amoral?

In fairness for the late dictator that he himself recognise the state as consolidatory while trying to appear itself a spearheader of change in order to address issues like poverty. Like Müller as well as Fichte, he sees the state as a factor to unite physical, moral, and spiritual wealth to revive the lost consciousness and drivel to achieve progress and stability. From his book 'Notes in the New Society', he, assuming to be progressive, speaks on why the rebellion of the poor may take various forms, if not a search for an ideology which makes that rebellion be the basis of the new society:

"Moral realism requires this ideological basis: the consciousness of the poor permates them with a profound sense of being oppressed, and not simply because the rich oppresses then brazenly but it is poverty itself that oppresses them.

To be poor is to be without, and, therefore, to be an outsider in the vibrant and meaningful political, economic, and social life of modern human community. Above all, being poor is being invisible; violence makes them visible."

But despite the order's means to let's just say "achieve development", dissident agitation for social change has comparatively more success given the structure's half-hearted action for social amelioriation. After all, it was the same Marcos who opted to leave his predecessor's decontrol untouched thinking it is inseparable to free enterprise. So was the floating rate in Peso, the junking of the Magna Carta of Social Justice and Economic Freedom, and the membership in the "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade"'(GATT).

And Duterte opted to emulate it: continuing VAT with an additional enabling law like TRAIN, the policy of borrowing from neighbouring countries and multinational moneylending institutions, obeisance to existing economic agreements, and others that made Duterte's change more like a continuity with new terms and paraphrased statements. Apologists may disagree or critically accept this note out of sheer defence of their idol for Marcos and Duterte tried their "best" to save the republic, maintain order, and bring some "reforms" whose goal is to upheld cohesion amidst popular criticism. But to cite George Magnus:

"Policy makers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests, and other ills afflicting the world would do well to study the works of a long-dead economist: Karl Marx. The sooner they recognise we're facing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of capitalism, the better equipped they will be to manage a way out of it..."

From there, one would say that those from the order did afford to study Marx, of recognising his work particularly those of "class struggle" and the likes, then refuting him out of sheer defense of "democracy" amidst the threat of "communist subversion" if not insisting th need for economic liberalisation and the impossibility of having self-reliance amidst prevailing globalisation and neoliberalism. At some cases they would imitate Marx, et al. in their so-called "struggle against the oligarchs" only to be concluded with their distorted version of corporatism and its cooperation with the elites in the society they've once called "rotten." It is not surprising in seeing them reading either to refute or to make concessions with the working masses "just to avert a revolutionary tension", not just the usual conservative "need for industrial and social peace".

Anyway, Duterte and his fanatics will still cling to their view that their brand of authoritarianism as democratic if not revolutionary. But the revolution can only be made with revolutionaries and not structuralists. Theirs, be cold and calculating, are rather like melancholic ghosts wandering around Malacañang trying to reclaim the past in a guise of creating a future. Someone by temperament and through experience mistrustful of others, whom they see only motivated in their turn when induced by base interests; skeptical about their views despite parroting it, poor Duterte for as he becoming a negation of what people desired of- and so is his camarilla.