Kim’s Dream Orlan Ravanera
Let Our People Bleed No More
As I am visiting my son Elli Kim working in New York as Chief Executive Officer of a Medical Corporation, I have the privilege of touching base with the Filipino community. We were so aghast to read in the newspaper recently of the news that, “Philippine Army engages an intense encounter with the New People’s Army in Misamis Occidental prompting evacuation and road closures.” Such has bothered us Filipinos as there is no greater painful news than of a bloody encounter between Filipinos. In our conversation, we could only surmise that there exisst negative peace in our country especially in Mindanao where the ingredients of conflict are present which can erupt anytime as shown by the news,
It is the contention of some Filipinos here that negative peace comes and presents itself in many ways. Where power and greed driven-structures exist and tolerated with private armies as the vanguards; where there are despotic leaders who belong to that category of those “whom the gods would like to destroy, they make mad first;” where poverty roars its ugly head stripping the communities of their human dignity; where the constituents have become beholden to the whims and caprices of politicians through their patronage politics; where social injustice is worst manifested in the life of some five million Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao whose ancestral domains are continuously being taken from them and if they resist, their leaders are being killed; where people are further socially excluded and marginalized, consigned in the margins of development processes; where the sacred act of choosing those who will govern has been violated through “money politics” and cheatings.
All of these are symptoms of societal flaws that have already caused so much bleedings to our people. When these conditions exist, let us all beware! Physical violence will burst out anytime for even a flimsy of reason as exemplified by the “Maguindanao Massacre,” when some 50 journalists were killed, a logical conclusion emanating from power-driven structures that have spawned utmost fear, dire poverty and great disparities. These are by themselves subtle and silent forms of violence, the epitome of negative peace.
Negative peace must now be converted into positive or genuine peace by addressing head-on the roots of violence in a country where a few have much too much and the may who are poor have much too little. In a highly skewed societal order, those living in luxury, well- guarded in their mansions, will never be secured at all. Sen. Robert Kennedy, as shared by one Filipino resident in New York, once said, “If we cannot work to liberate the many who are poor, then, it is impossible to save the few who are rich.” Such contention has become even more alarming where the rich have become richer at the expense of the poor. Our very own socio-economic realities thriving on cartels, monopolies and “block capitalism” through corporate globalization, which have brought forth gross inequities, are by themselves RES IPSA LOQUITOR (the thing speaks for itself) which needs no further elaboration. This has made democratization of wealth and power more imperative than ever in a highly skewed societal order. To correct social flaws, to liberate the poor and the oppressed from the quagmire of poverty and to fight for social justice, there are those who are resorting to armed struggle known also as violent extremism.
If I remember right, the armed struggle by the New People’s Army (NPA) began in the seventies with tens of thousands having already sacrificed their lives after five decades of armed struggle. For what? For social transformation? To democratize wealth and power? But let notice be served to one and all that for those who have dreamt, struggled and even died for it, social change has been so illusive all these years, despite 14 years of Martial Law and two people-powered revolutions. The systems and structures breeding poverty, inequity and social injustices are still as formidable as ever. The Filipino people are still in deep slumber socially, economically, politically and even ecologically. In El Salvador, they have no martial law, no people-powered revolutions but they have the late Archbishop Oscar Romero who promoted social justice through a peaceful revolution called the amazing Gospel of the three Ps, namely, Prayer, Presence and Prophecy that did awaken the poor and oppressed people. in El Salvador. The late Archbishop also did sacrifice his life, who was brutally murdered by the oppressors while celebrating mass. For his fearless advocacy for social transformation that had liberated the poor and the oppressed, he was canonized by Pope Francis as a Saint in 2018. Indeed, the late Arch. Oscar Romero deserved to be a Saint, after he was red-tagged as a Communist based on his very truthful statement: “When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint; when I asked why they are poor, they called me a communist:” For those who are easily doing “red-tagging,” let the life of the late Archbishop be a lesson as he was not a communist but a SAINT.
How do we then effect social transformation to establish a more just and humane society so that intense encounters, conflict and wars can be the things of the past, to be erased from a civilized society? First, it has become imperative for the Filipino people to be aware of the prevailing socio-economic-political-ecological realities besetting our country. Why must poverty prevail in a country that has been described as very rich ecologically. Don’t you know that our country has been oozing with ecological wealth, the richest on earth. When an environmentalist from California visited Mr. Kitanglad Range three decades ago, he was so surprised to see monkey-eating eagles flying above while Tarsiers were jumping from one branch to another. He found out that in the 5,000-hectare Mt. Kitangled and Kalatungan Ranges, the number of flora and fauna is far greater in number compared to those found in one billion hectare-continent of North America.
Those are the ecological wealth found above the ground. Beneath the ground, Mindanao is even richer with some 72 kinds of minerals, i.e. top quality gold, silver, bronze, copper and what have you, which are just illegally mined by illegal miners from China in cohort with some politicians But the wealth of our country does not end at the shorelines. The Philippine Archipelago has been described by the President of the UN-FAO, Dr. Kent Carpenter as “the center of the center of marine life on earth.” But WHO CONTROLS? WHO PROFITS? WHO BENEFITS? While our country was so rich endemically in terms of ecological resources, we have lost the bounty of nature in just “a wink of an eye.” Indeed, we have lost “Eden,” the reason why many of our ecological people especially the farmers, fisherfolk and the Indigenous Peoples are now living in extreme poverty.
To erase negative peace, it has become imperative to regain back our ecological integrity and security. Stop illegal mining, stop illegal logging, stop industrial pollution, stop transforming our choicest of lands into massive plantations using heavily toxic chemicals to satisfy the consumerist lifestyle of the people in highly advanced countries while we cannot even provide basic staples, i.e., rice and milk to our hungry people. Thus, after healing the blighted land back to life to provide the basic needs of the Filipinos, let us debunk the growth-at-cost development paradigm being perpetuated through corporate globalization. Indeed, corporate globalization has harmed the global environment, sacrificing Mother Earth to the altar of greed and profit that has put Mother Earth in the precipice of its 6th extinction. Through corporate globalization, there is so much social injustices and gross inequities as the wealth of the one percent global corporations is greater than the combined assets of the 7.2 billion world population. As described by a well-known environmentalist Dr. Vandanna Shiva, “Corporate globalization is in effect the death of democracy. It gives rise to corporate control and economic dictatorship. When economic dictatorship is grafted onto representative electoral democracy, a toxic growth of religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremism is the result. Thus, corporate globalization leads not just to the death of democracy, but to the democracy of death, to which exclusion, hate, and fear become the political means to mobilize votes and power.”
Advancing a socially-inclusive and ecologically sustainable kind of development is now the urgent call of the times. This means correcting social flaws to effect social transformation that will erase the multiple “faces” of social injustice in our country. Such has been categorically provided for in Art. 2 of the 1987 Constitution, “to promote social justice in all phases of national development.” Thus, when the Filipino people have awakened to these painful realities, then social transformation can be had through the exercise of the collective power of the people. This is the true essence of a Democratic and Republican State that our country must abide as categorically pronounced in the highest law of the land: “In a Republican and Democratic State, sovereignty lies with the people and all governmental powers emanate from them”. ONLY THEN CAN WE ERASE NEGATIVE PEACE AND CAN CATEGORICALLY DECLARE; LET OUR PEOPLE BLEED NOT MORE!
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