Alexei & Ninoy, Yulia & Cory

It’s fascinating how Alexei’s story is so very much like Ninoy’s. Pareho silang nakulong (on trumped-up charges) for standing up to a tyrant, parehong nag-hunger strike sa kulungan, parehong nakalipad na sa ibang bansa — Navalny to a hospital in Germany to recover from poisoning by Russian security, Ninoy to Texas for heart bypass after suffering 7 years 7 months in jail — pero bumalik pa rin sa lupang tinubuan, lupa na ipinaglaban nilang mapalaya, bahala na kung makulong muli o mapatay. At napatay nga: si Ninoy binaril noong umuwi from exile in 1983, si Alexei tila linason uli kailan lang, habang nakakulong.

Even more fascinating is the unfolding story of the widow Yulia Navalnaya. She has promised to carry on Alexei’s fight to free Russia from Putin’s one-man rule, much like Ninoy’s widow Cory Aquino took on Marcos and led the fight to free the nation from martial law. But Yulia’s circumstances are different. She has been threatened with arrest if she returns to Russia.

Cory left Boston Tuesday and was back in Manila by Wednesday, just three days after Ninoy’s murder at the airport. There was no attempt to stop her, I guess because Marcos and Ver were prepared to deny culpability, complete with a silenced scapegoat. Pumayag pa nga na imbestigahan ng Agrava Board ang patayan, at nang idiin nito in November 1984 na the killings were a military conspiracy that went all the way up to Ver (his loyal Armed Forces Chief of Staff), Marcos got the Sandiganbayan to acquit them all anyway in December 1985, which led Cory to run for President in snap elections, at which Marcos cheated, so Cory called for civil disobedience, which culminated in EDSA and the dictator’s escape from Malacañang.

Yes, the Marcoses are back anyway, but that’s another story, and uniquely Filipino I daresay. Altho I imagine that the grief is the same, maybe even worse, with Russian authorities insisting that Navalny died from “natural causes” and refusing to release the body unless his mother agrees to a secret burial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/22/navalny-body-secret-burial-yulia/

38 years after EDSA #marcostake2

Read Manolo Quezon‘s “Edsa in the post-restoration era” and find out, or be reminded, kung bakit nga ba nakabalik at nabigyan pa ng “second chance” sa politics and public service ang mga Marcos. It’s all about vindication, absolution, and restoration, preferably under a changed charter. But yes, the Charter Change debate has become predictably unpromising, even as that House of Reps P.I. TV ad dares blame EDSA for the nation’s woes. 

… The story of the battle over the Marcos money deposited in Switzerland runs parallel to that of the battle waged by the Marcoses to achieve political restoration and thus, political and social vindication: ideally, legal vindication or at least, an end to their prosecution, would logically follow. To my mind, this was, and remains, the sum total of the ambitions of the First Family.

What seems a cause of surprise and even friction within the President’s extended family is the moderation of this ambition: by this I mean, the political and social vindication that a Restoration by election provided; legal experts will have to figure out if an end to decades of legal cases will be another concrete manifestation of electoral absolution. An explicit revision of the national narrative is not yet included, beyond these implied achievements.

Even after trying to reduce things to a mere family feud hasn’t led to the abolition of Ninoy Aquino Day, the scrapping of the Edsa anniversary, the destruction of monuments, or the repealing of the law granting restitution to the victims of the dictatorship.

Now, the Edsa anniversary will become a time for the coming together of groups opposed to amending the Constitution, which tells us a thing or two about the democratic space that exists, the durability of factions and movements thought as entirely down and out, and the rickety, but surprisingly enduring, survivability of the political system no one seems to respect, admire, or even particularly, love, but which seems preferable to any effort by any subset of the political system, to change it. As I mentioned in this space last time, the whole Charter change debate has become predictable in its arguments and their inability to inspire, one way or another, an actual resolution of the problem everyone seems to sense, but no one has the confidence to risk trying to actually resolve: the inability of our political system to update itself or at the very least, modify.

Since it’s already much-abused, the often-cited quote of Karl Marx is useful here: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.” He was responding to another restoration, in his time: that of the dynasty of Napoleon, when the French Emperor’s nephew, Louis Napoleon, was elected president of France only to make himself emperor when thwarted in his ambition to extend himself in office. Napoleon III’s reign ended in defeat and exile—but after 22 years in power, and having made the country in many ways, modern, rich, and with a larger empire. I’ve argued before, that the Marcos Restoration became, in many ways, a banality, being preceded, as it was, by two others—the Macapagal Restoration in 2001 and the Aquino Restoration of 2010. A similar thing has just taken place in Indonesia, where the former son-in-law of Suharto, a general for decades under a cloud of human rights suspicion, achieved a landslide by being transformed into a cuddly old grandfather with the backing of a popular predecessor.

 

Cha-cha crazy?

Feb 8, Constitution Day, the President declared unequivocally that he is in favor of the Lower House’s push to alter the charter’s economic provisions. As expected, the honourable Reps have since gotten even more aggressive, nagging the Upper House to pass RBH6 ASAP. It’s as though they’re sure that in separate voting, the Senate would oblige, say yes to inserting UNLESS OTHERWISE PROVIDED BY LAW in three provisions. It’s as though they’re still sure that it can all happen very fast, including a plebiscite (raise your hands?), maybe even preempt the 2025 midterm elections, pasensiya na kung totoo ang nababalitang balak ni VP Sara na tumakbong senador. 

It’s all so convoluted, layer upon layer of issues and agendas, and so many unfamiliar faces, in presscon after presscon, telling us why they’re right and the Senate is wrong to slow down the chacha process, whether through People’s (Politicians’) Initiative or Constituent Assembly. My kneejerk reaction everytime is, sino kayo? Why should I take your word for anything? I’d rather hear from people I know of,  like Rep Joey Salceda, who has been for chacha since GMA times (if memory serves). I’ve always wondered why, really. I’d love to know kung anong sagot niya sa mga anti-chacha na nagsasabing ang problema ay hindi ang econ provisions na nagawan na ng paraang luwagan; ang problema ay high power rates, poor infrastructure, bureaucratic red tape, policies that change midstream, atbp. 

Feb 15, Senate Prez Migs Zubiri in that interview with Karen Davila, said na sa ibang bansa, ang economic restrictions ay legislated, hindi nakasaad sa konstitusyon, so dapat daw siguro, gayahin natin para pumasok ang mas maraming foreign investments, or something like that. Ganoon? I’m sure that’s debatable. 

I gather from the Senate hearings na merong mga senador na pro-chacha. Si Sen. Imee Marcos mismo has nothing daw against chacha, but questions the timing and, kailangan pa ba?  Are there 17 who might say yes to the Senate prez? When are we going to hear from the Senators themselves?

Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from must-read essay,Machiavelli’s The Prince by Business World columnist Amelia HC Ylagan. Reminds not to believe everything we’re told by politicians, let’s not be deceived by appearances, self-serving press releases, warring dynasties atbp. Read also “Marcos Jr. explains in what sense he’s Machiavellian” by Inquirer‘s John Eric Mendoza.

Machiavelli’s The Prince

By Amelia H. C. Ylagan

… To celebrate the book’s 500th anniversary, the Boston University College of Arts & Sciences history department discussed why Machiavelli’s masterwork continues to resonate. “Some say he wanted to empower tyrants; others say he listed their crimes the better to expose them. Readers across the ages have found support for all kinds of causes: monarchists, defenders of republics, cynics, idealists, religious zealots, religious skeptics. Whatever its intent, one thing is clear. The book follows its declared purpose fearlessly and without hesitation: to show rulers how to survive in the world as it is and not as it should be” (bu.edu, Feb. 6, 2013).

Machiavelli himself was a “survivor.” He from whose name comes the pejorative “Machiavellian” qualifier, quite cunningly maneuvered himself in critical government posts (foreign service) through the changes among the powers-that-be in the turmoil of the 16th century flux of the Renaissance. He has been given the honorific title of “father of political science” by some admiring political analysts.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince just after he was forced to leave Florence as a political exile. Dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the book is Machiavelli’s advice to the current ruler of Florence on how to stay in power. It was also his effort, though unsuccessful, to gain an advisory post in the Medici government. Yet The Prince was not even read by the person to whom it was dedicated, Lorenzo de Medici (insights.som.yale.edu).

“The advice espoused in The Prince led his name to become shorthand for cunning, manipulation, and self-serving behavior— one of the few eponymous adjectives to strongly convey an abstract idea. His open appeal to guile and his subversion of Christian norms were regarded as so abhorrent that, in 1559, the work would be listed in the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books” (natgeo.com, Oct. 23, 2020).

But Machiavelli’s ideas on how to acquire power and glory as a leader had a profound impact on political leaders throughout the modern west, helped by the new technology of the printing press.

Leaders as diverse as Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Louis XIV, Napoleon I, Otto von Bismarck, and John F. Kennedy read, contemplated, and debated Machiavelli’s ideas. “The most one can say about The Prince in this regard is that Kissinger and Nixon preferred it as their bedtime reading” (penguinrandomhouse.com). Napoleon I of France wrote extensive comments to The Prince. After his defeat at Waterloo, these comments were found in the emperor’s coach and taken by the Prussian military. According to their biographies, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini wrote a discourse on The Prince and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin read The Prince and annotated his own copy.

Does Machiavelli, therefore, share some blame for the violence and brutality that has wracked the globe since he first wrote? No. “People don’t need The Prince to be inspired to commit every atrocity it names and more,” the forum at BU for the book’s 500th year anniversary concluded. “The impact of the book has instead been to force countless readers over the past 500 years to confront, in the starkest terms possible, the most important questions about politics and morality.”

And time must be looping, as in an automatic replay video, livestreaming strong-man rules in countries big and small, young and old.

“In order to get a secure hold on new territories,” the book advises, “one need merely eliminate the surviving members of the family of their previous rulers.”

It is terrifying how “the end justifies the means” is the backdrop of the to-the-death fight between Russia and Ukraine for territory. Ukraine claims that Russian casualties since February 2022 were 386,230, staggeringly high, but broadly corresponding with estimates from the US military and intelligence officials that Russia has suffered 315,000 dead and injured troops in the full-scale invasion. If accurate, this means Russian casualties are equivalent to almost 90% of the total personnel it had when the conflict began in February 2022. A New York Times report in August cited US officials who estimated the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000, with another 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. “Ukraine’s goal is not liberation of the territory. Ukraine’s goal is the elimination of the military threat from Russia, and the liberation of territory would be only a sequence of the main goal,” Ukrainian officials said (Newsweek, Feb. 1, 2024).

“Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself,” Machiavelli says in The Prince.

More than the liberation of territory for the sake of the people, the goal of the leader is to keep his power. The great leader, Machiavelli says, must be able “to conquer by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people.”

And in our own little country, we live in fear at not knowing the truth, not knowing where we are being led to.

Machiavelli says princes are obligated to lie in certain circumstances. He also states that “while it is unnecessary for the prince to have positive qualities, such as honesty, trustworthiness, sympathy, compassion, or be religious, it is essential for the prince to be viewed so by the public” (ipl.org).

And we, the “vulgar” masses, must bow to the fathers and sons/daughters of warring political dynasties like in Machiavelli’s time.

“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar,” Machiavelli taunts us all. [emphasis mine]

*

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines. ahcylagan@yahoo.com

EDSA-pwera kuno?

It was certainly a shocker of sorts, that they dared invoke and blame EDSA and the 1987 Constitution for the nation’s ills. Randy may be right, that the Marcoses are not behind it, and it’s really a subversive move by certain unnamed funders to sabotage the charter change initiative, how nice, rich? and snaky, of them. And then again, what if it’s not addressed to us but to the social media masses who have long been tuned in to Marcosian propaganda canards characterizing EDSA as a communist affair? What if they believe it pala? I guess we will know soon enough. #chachacharot

The ‘Edsa-pwera’ ad
By Randy David

As yesterday’s Inquirer editorial (“When a Cha-cha ad backfires”) aptly put it, the paid ad that inundated primetime television early this week was “a poorly thought stunt that backfired if the intention was to gather public support for Charter change (Cha-cha).” That is if the intent was to mobilize broad support for constitutional change.

But, what if the real intent behind the ad was, in fact, to incite the broadest antipathy toward Charter change? Then, we may well say that the ad achieved its purpose. For indeed, the reaction to the advertisement was instant, passionate, and manifestly hostile to the whole idea of amending the 1987 Constitution at this time. Is it farfetched to imagine that this is exactly the public response that, for whatever reason, those who seek to preserve the current Constitution at any cost sought to generate?

On the contrary, what I find hard to believe is that a TV ad as sleek and as technically well-crafted as this could be so careless in its messaging. Perhaps, it wasn’t careless at all. By playing with the scornful word “Edsa-pwera,” a derivative of “etsa-puwera” (which means “excluded” in our language), the ad put the 1986 Edsa event at the front and center of its storyboard. The effect was to belittle not only the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, a cherished moment of national redemption but also the untold injuries inflicted on the nation by the dictatorship that came before it. Why would any serious proponent of Charter change want to do that? Bongbong Marcos himself knew better than to demean Edsa in his carefully planned route to the presidency.

In so framing their message, the makers and sponsors of the advertisement effectively triggered a debate on the whys and wherefores of Edsa, rather than on the current realities that a valid push for Charter change seeks to address. It is a debate that those who were at Edsa would definitely not shirk.

Rather than promote them, as the ad claims, Edsa ended the monopolies that the Marcos dictatorship created, entrusted to his favored cronies, and fattened with behest loans. Edsa welcomed foreign investors even as it terminated the United States’ hold on the country’s largest military bases, which had served as the linchpin of American control of our political and economic life. The 1987 Constitution contains some of the most progressive provisions one can find in any country that is aspiring to modernity. It explicitly bans political dynasties, a provision that, however, could only be activated by legislative action. The Constitution itself cannot be faulted for Congress’ failure to enact a law corresponding to this constitutional declaration.

I doubt that President Marcos or his first cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez would wish to premise a productive discussion on Charter change on the supposed failures of Edsa. They are back in power; the last thing they need is to open old wounds and awaken dormant animosities. That advertisement does them a disservice; I don’t believe they’re behind it. [bold mine]

Indeed, Mr. Marcos has managed to endear himself even to Edsa veterans by differentiating and distancing himself from the policies and impulsive governance style of his autocratic predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. Why would he risk antagonizing them by blaming the post-Marcos Constitution for the country’s supposed stagnation?

Many of Edsa’s champions are hardly dogmatic in their views about the most suitable form of government for the country, whether this be presidential or parliamentary, unicameral or bicameral. I understand that the members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Charter were themselves divided on many questions.

What is objectionable is when politicians propose to open the Constitution to amendments primarily for their own private agenda. The basic charter of any country should be no one’s personal tool. It must be treated as a collective covenant — the product of the positive law-making power that resides ultimately in the people of a given state.

It’s important to bear this in mind because one of the oft-cited items in the Cha-cha agenda is the proposed shift to a full parliamentary system, where the occupant of the most powerful position in government is chosen by members of parliament rather than by popular vote. This system enables individuals who may not win the popular vote at the national level to bid for the office of the prime minister. Whatever the justification for the shift may be, it should never be to merely accommodate the ambitions of anyone who is not electable nationally. By the same token, opposition to a parliamentary shift must not be motivated by a mere wish to ensure that a “strong” presumptive candidate is not denied the presidency in 2028.

The parliamentary system has its advantages (e.g., it closes the gap between legislation and execution) and disadvantages (not the least of which is the relative ease with which parliament can be dissolved and, with it, the government of the day.) The choice of the best form of government is not an exact science. In any given system, what spells the biggest difference in outcomes is the political maturity of citizens who choose their nation’s leaders.