Sovereignty Resides with the Oligarchs, not with the People: Why?
So much has been said about people power, yet, the day-to-day life of the Filipinos speaks otherwise! The truth is, the people are so powerless and their lack of power is the root cause of their poverty. For having no power to rectify social wrongs, social injustice looms in so many ways and continues without let-up that imprisons the marginalized sectors inside the vicious cycle of poverty. This is the reason why our country is so rich and yet the people are so poor in a highly-skewed societal order. It is so paradoxical that no less than the highest law of the land, the 1987 Constitution declares in Art. 1, Sec. 1, that “In a Democratic and Republican States, sovereignty resides with the people and all governmental powers emanate from them.” Such declaration is a blatant lie because the truth is, those who control are the few rich and powerful oligarchs in cahoots with powers-that-be.
Yes, the people are the ones choosing who will govern them as they exercise their right of suffrage. But we know for a fact that in our country those candidates who are supported by the oligarchs will certainly win as the power of money rules in Philippine Elections. I need not elaborate this truism as such is Res Ipsa Loquitor (The thing speaks for itself). Indeed, economic power begets political power! And when an oligarchical family is in control, no one can oust them from power, not even the highest law of the land that emphatically and categorically prohibits political dynasty. Political dynasties have indeed impoverished our country as the Filipino people are continuously fooled no end by the profit-driven mainstream media. It is even so puzzling that to give voice to the voiceless, to empower the disempowered marginalized sectors to draw them into the mainstream of development processes, no less than, the 1987 Constitution has instituted the party-list system as a remedy. But never has the marginalized sectors have representation in Congress but has been taken advantaged by the political dynasties to broaden their representation. So outrageous!! PURO SABWATAN NG NASA KAPANGYARIHAN ANG NANGYAYARI SA ATING BAYAN! Is it true that some 35,000 Filipinos were victims of Extra Judicial Killings (EJKs) on the war on drugs, including a 3-yr. old boy? Life is holy and must be the concern of all Filipinos in a civilized and Christian country. Let us be compassionate as those killed are human beings with dignity and must undergo reformation not termination. What matters are our inner values but high veneration to the profit-motive has already captured everyone’s mindset, just focusing on material values.
We need to know the truth as the truth shall set us free even on the question of public fund expenditures but still the Filipinos are so buried in the fallacies, drama and trivialities of life. So many Filipinos are hungry and living in extreme poverty whose children can hardly go to school and many are dying without medicine yet funds by the hundreds of millions are now the subject of inquiries. These precious pubic funds must be spent for the welfare of the poor Filipinos based on the constitutional pronouncement of transparency and accountability; that “a public office is a public trust and government officials must exercise their functions to the highest degree of service, commitment and dedication.” But it is so frustrating to note that many Congressmen and Senators seem not to care as they are focused on the forthcoming Mid-term Elections.
Well, they are again so concern with that “big circus” called Philippine Elections that will see candidates opening-up the floodgates of their fund reservoir to finance campaign shows that would include movie stars and assembling their political machineries for massive propaganda and vote-buying. No problem, such outpouring of funds are easily recovered once they are back in power. We must now discard that illusions that such exercise of suffrage will make a difference in effecting the much-needed social transformation.
With all the narration of these painful social realities, it has become so urgent for the Filipino people to now focus on the root cause of poverty, on why a few oligarchs have much too much and the many who are poor have much too little? On why there is no such thing as rule of law in our country? Always you hear our political leaders tell you that in this country, no one is above the law, all must bow down to the majesty of the law because we follow the rule of law and not of men. But they never even correct the past horrible robbery of billions of dollars, or the thousands of those murdered in the war on drugs or on the alleged malversation of billions of public funds! They will only apply the rule of law if it benefits them otherwise it has always been the rule of money, of power and of the oligarchs. Don’t you know that if only the rule of law has been followed, we will not loss our ecological security as cutting of trees is prohibited in slopy areas with more than 50% gradient or in altitude of more than 1,000 meters above sea level or in cutting the finest of trees? That hydraulic and open pit mining is prohibited by existing laws or the use of heavy equipment like bulldozers and buck-hoes? Don’t you know that massive land-grabbing of ancestral domains of the Indigenous Peoples are prohibited in the Indigenous Peoples’ Right Acts Law yet hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hectares of the ancestral domain of the Indigenous Peoples have been land-grabbed by the oligarchs and foreign corporations?
How powerless are our people? Such is very glaring in the life of the Filipino farmers who are tilling the land not their own, and if they do, are held bondage to the mode of production that they do not control. Even if they are able to increase their productivity, they have yet to reckon with oppressive marketing system that rendered their farming non-viable. Thus, everyone is profiting from farming – the fertilizer and chemical dealers, the middlemen, the financiers and usurers, the compradors and what have you – but never those who are doing the back-breaking job of farming, exposed to the excruciating heat of the sun and the lashing of the rains. Where are the indigenous seeds that they once have? Why are they now under the mercy of the fertilizer dealers, enticed to use high yielding varieties, tied-up to usage of farming chemicals? Pity the poor farmers who are paying P3,000 for a bag of Ammonium Sulfate or Urea that is just bought abroad by the oligarch’s business corporations at P200 per bag because everything that is sold in this country passes at least five marketing layers. Poverty is worsening in the rural areas, the reason why three of four young farmers have left farming, going instead to the urban centers to work as janitors, waiters, drivers or what have you.
That kind of powerlessness is seen in the life of the Filipino consumers who must dance to the shameless tune of unbridled materialism and consumerism at their own expense. Why is this so? Look at our malls. We have become a dumping ground of finished products from all over the world, not to mention the fact that our country is a cheap source of raw materials through extractive and exploitative economic paradigm, at the expense of our environment.
The most horrible manifestation not only of the people’s powerlessness but of grave social injustice is on the existence of so-called Electric Cooperatives (ECs) that are giving light to their member-consumer-owners (MCOs) but have put them in the dark with regards to the issue of ownership. The more than 13 million MCOs have been paying capital member contribution in the form of loan amortization and reinvestment in their monthly billings which when consolidated will reach a gargantuan amount of more than a trillion pesos in the last 60 years. Are these contributions recognized as their capital shares? No! Isn’t that a great social injustice? Please know that one of the DNA of a cooperativism is that of being MEMBERS-OWNED yet has not been followed by the oligarchs. These oligarchs in control of Electric Cooperatives have put to mockery the essence of cooperativism and no less than the Supreme Court in 2003 through Justice Mariano del Castillo penned a landmark decision that these Electric Cooperatives are cooperatives only in name. Until now, such social injustice has not been rectified at the expense of some 13 million MCOs (or some 65 million Filipinos in a family of five) who should be receiving monthly patronage refund, free hospitalization and scholarship for their children as what is being done in other countries. This social wrong is a concrete manifestation how powerful these few oligarchs are. When a former Chairman of the Cooperative Development Authority tried to rectify such social wrong for these ECs to recognize the capital shares of the MCOs based on his firm belief that like water and air, electricity is a means to life and must be beyond the commerce of men. By just doing his function as Chairman of an office that is the sole registering agency of all types of cooperatives, he was crucified no end by these oligarchs with three attempts to his life as they cannot moderate their greed.
It is disheartening to note that during these days of political exercises, you always hear the words people power from those who by their acts are rendering the people powerless. Beware of these leaders and be conscious to where you put power. You put power in the hands of these leaders who are in cahoots with the oligarchs, then you are putting sovereignty not with the people but with a few powerful cartels, monopolies and conglomerates who already have much too much – wealth and power! We must therefore PUT POWER WHERE IT RIGHTFULLY BELONGS, THAT IS, WITH THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE – All for God’s greater glory!
