Expectations September 5, 2006
I'M GLAD many Filipinos have sat up and taken notice of Arvind Kejriwal, the Indian tax collector who has gotten the Indian government to give a full accounting of many of its projects. He has done this by getting the people to invoke the Right of Information Act passed by government in 2002 to compel such an accounting. Over the weekend, several people sent me text messages quoting a thought by Kejriwal on this subject: "Right to information is about truth coming out in public domain. It is about transparency. It is about ethical governance."
It's not hard to see why so many Filipinos would latch on to those words. Right to information, truth coming out in the public domain, transparency, ethical governance -- those are things we have not got. Or those are things we no longer have. Indeed, the entire Ramon Magsaysay Awards this year are a humongous irony and take on the aspect of a satirical barb on the host country. Those awards are given to people who have advanced the cause of democracy in various ways in Asia. The last person it can be given to is the self-proclaimed leader -- a monumental contradiction in terms in any democracy -- of the host country.
Can we replicate Kejriwal's feat here? Well, we can always try but we have a steeper mountain to climb, courtesy of our own stupidity -- we ourselves have built that mountain by our unwillingness to protest iniquity when it was still a molehill. Today, look at the obstacles that lie in our path in demanding right to information, truth coming out in the public domain, transparency and ethical governance: We have a Joc-Joc Bolante being aided and abetted by government in hiding the truth from the public. (And Raul Gonzalez complains about Bishop Antonio Tobias giving aid and sanctuary to rebels, warning him no one is above the law!) We have public officials contemptuously scorning Senate summonses. Hell, we even have Virgilio Garcillano contemplating running for public office. The only good thing that can be said about it is that if he does become a congressman he'll be in perfect company with Joe de V, Edcel Lagman, the two Prosperos, et al. Birds of the same feather suck together.
But all these notwithstanding, Kejriwal's project still has a lesson to impart to us. It is that -- no small reminder given that we pride ourselves quite ironically with inventing People Power -- that the real power in any country is the people. Tyranny is only as good as the people are willing to be slaves. Good governance is only as good as the people demand to be governed well.
Specifically, Kejriwal's project highlights the incalculable power of public expectation. Expectation is what makes things happen because it carries with it an implicit demand that those things happen. That's easy to see in everyday life. You go out onto the streets expecting vehicles to keep to their lanes, which is how it is in the developed countries, and you will have vehicles keeping to their lanes. In Hawaii in particular, people expect vehicles not to blow their horns other than in dire emergencies, so that what you have are streets free of noise pollution. You blow your horn there for no good reason and everybody stares at you and reduce you to the status of a worm.
On the other hand, you expect every other vehicle to refuse to fall in line but instead seize the opposite lane to try to get ahead of the others, and that is exactly what will happen. It will become the norm. Which is how things are in our streets. There is no law out there other than the law of the jungle.
Public expectation makes things happen because it is backed up by public indignation. By itself that is already a sanction: You reduce the person who does not conform to that expectation to the status of a worm. But more than that, you bring to bear more practical sanctions: You compel the law to exact its toll on lawbreakers. Law itself is only as good as it has the backing of public expectation and indignation to enforce it. No public expectation, no law. No indignation, no enforcement.
What is true of that simple case is true of complex cases as well. You expect, or learn to expect, that presidents will lie, cheat and steal, and presidents will lie, cheat and steal. You expect, or learn to expect, that candidates who steal the elections will prevent officials from appearing before the Senate or the courts, will bribe Congress to kill any effort to bring the theft to light, will hide the co-conspirators in the cheating in the US and elsewhere, and candidates will cheat. You expect, or learn to expect, that you have no civil rights under a democracy, not even the right to life, never mind liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and you will end up a collateral damage in Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan's line of fire. Which is exactly what we have today.
On the other hand, you expect, or learn to expect, along with Kejriwal's favorite people, that you have every right to see that the hard-earned money taken from you in taxes is used to make your life easier and not to make Pidal richer, and you will compel government to give you an accounting of it. You expect, or learn to expect, that you have a right to talk and assemble freely without Palparan coming in to help you pursue happiness in the next life, and you will stop a government that exists at your sufferance from murdering you. You expect, or learn to expect, that you deserve democracy and not dictatorship, and you will get democracy and not dictatorship.
Government is only as righteous or wicked as the people expect, and therefore demand, it to be so. You expect to be treated as a human being, you will be treated as a human being. You expect to be treated as cattle, you will be slaughtered.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=18989
It's not hard to see why so many Filipinos would latch on to those words. Right to information, truth coming out in the public domain, transparency, ethical governance -- those are things we have not got. Or those are things we no longer have. Indeed, the entire Ramon Magsaysay Awards this year are a humongous irony and take on the aspect of a satirical barb on the host country. Those awards are given to people who have advanced the cause of democracy in various ways in Asia. The last person it can be given to is the self-proclaimed leader -- a monumental contradiction in terms in any democracy -- of the host country.
Can we replicate Kejriwal's feat here? Well, we can always try but we have a steeper mountain to climb, courtesy of our own stupidity -- we ourselves have built that mountain by our unwillingness to protest iniquity when it was still a molehill. Today, look at the obstacles that lie in our path in demanding right to information, truth coming out in the public domain, transparency and ethical governance: We have a Joc-Joc Bolante being aided and abetted by government in hiding the truth from the public. (And Raul Gonzalez complains about Bishop Antonio Tobias giving aid and sanctuary to rebels, warning him no one is above the law!) We have public officials contemptuously scorning Senate summonses. Hell, we even have Virgilio Garcillano contemplating running for public office. The only good thing that can be said about it is that if he does become a congressman he'll be in perfect company with Joe de V, Edcel Lagman, the two Prosperos, et al. Birds of the same feather suck together.
But all these notwithstanding, Kejriwal's project still has a lesson to impart to us. It is that -- no small reminder given that we pride ourselves quite ironically with inventing People Power -- that the real power in any country is the people. Tyranny is only as good as the people are willing to be slaves. Good governance is only as good as the people demand to be governed well.
Specifically, Kejriwal's project highlights the incalculable power of public expectation. Expectation is what makes things happen because it carries with it an implicit demand that those things happen. That's easy to see in everyday life. You go out onto the streets expecting vehicles to keep to their lanes, which is how it is in the developed countries, and you will have vehicles keeping to their lanes. In Hawaii in particular, people expect vehicles not to blow their horns other than in dire emergencies, so that what you have are streets free of noise pollution. You blow your horn there for no good reason and everybody stares at you and reduce you to the status of a worm.
On the other hand, you expect every other vehicle to refuse to fall in line but instead seize the opposite lane to try to get ahead of the others, and that is exactly what will happen. It will become the norm. Which is how things are in our streets. There is no law out there other than the law of the jungle.
Public expectation makes things happen because it is backed up by public indignation. By itself that is already a sanction: You reduce the person who does not conform to that expectation to the status of a worm. But more than that, you bring to bear more practical sanctions: You compel the law to exact its toll on lawbreakers. Law itself is only as good as it has the backing of public expectation and indignation to enforce it. No public expectation, no law. No indignation, no enforcement.
What is true of that simple case is true of complex cases as well. You expect, or learn to expect, that presidents will lie, cheat and steal, and presidents will lie, cheat and steal. You expect, or learn to expect, that candidates who steal the elections will prevent officials from appearing before the Senate or the courts, will bribe Congress to kill any effort to bring the theft to light, will hide the co-conspirators in the cheating in the US and elsewhere, and candidates will cheat. You expect, or learn to expect, that you have no civil rights under a democracy, not even the right to life, never mind liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and you will end up a collateral damage in Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan's line of fire. Which is exactly what we have today.
On the other hand, you expect, or learn to expect, along with Kejriwal's favorite people, that you have every right to see that the hard-earned money taken from you in taxes is used to make your life easier and not to make Pidal richer, and you will compel government to give you an accounting of it. You expect, or learn to expect, that you have a right to talk and assemble freely without Palparan coming in to help you pursue happiness in the next life, and you will stop a government that exists at your sufferance from murdering you. You expect, or learn to expect, that you deserve democracy and not dictatorship, and you will get democracy and not dictatorship.
Government is only as righteous or wicked as the people expect, and therefore demand, it to be so. You expect to be treated as a human being, you will be treated as a human being. You expect to be treated as cattle, you will be slaughtered.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=18989
posted by dqfan06 @ 1:45 PM
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