By Alejandro Lichauco
The Daily Tribune
10/23/2008

The hunger problem is now at the center stage of the national problem following survey reports that the hunger situation has sharply aggravated.

Truth is that the hunger situation is much worse than the statistics cited by Roces. Way back in 1986, immediately after Edsa, a survey commissioned by the office of then Speaker Mitra found that more than 40 percent of Filipino households are living in hunger conditions. And in 2003, a government agency found that 80 percent of Filipino households are hungry.

The situation is made-to-order for the opposition but sadly there isn’t a single one of them who has come out with even as much of a hint as to what should be done. The deafening failure of the nation’s political parties and politicians to even suggest that Congress should now meet in emergency session just to discuss and focus on the hunger situation and the repercussions of the global meltdown on the Philippines is proof conclusive that the nation can’t rely on civilian authorities to respond to the humanitarian disaster that is going on right before our very eyes and nose.

Question is, if the country can’t rely on the civilian and political authorities, on whom can it rely to solve or at least attempt to solve the hunger problem?

The answer is, the military revolutionaries. Only the military revolutionaries, a faction of which goes appropriately enough by the name of the Bagong Katipunan. A few years ago, this group issued a Manifesto titled The Last Revolution: Toward a New Philippine Order. In that document, the revolutionary group traced the root of the hunger to globalization and a failed electoral system. Their proposed solution: Suspend elections, reorganize the electoral machinery and put an end to globalization.

“Globalization must be stopped,” the revolutionary manifesto declared and, it continued, “it cannot be stopped by a regime that had been reduced to a mere lap dog by multinational financial institutions.” The military revolutionaries described globalization as a “masked evil.”

Raising the issue of hunger — and mind you that was several years ago when politicians didn’t even mention the word — the Manifesto starkly stated that “Our people are literally dying of hunger in the countryside.”’ It continued: “Our society is slowly being engulfed by the fires of poverty, war and corruption.”

The military revolutionaries, mind you, issued that statement years before the global meltdown and years before this very government finally acknowledged that hunger — and even starvation — now stalks the countryside.

What is this piece trying to say? This piece is trying to say that the only organized faction in Philippine society that has displayed the foresight and concern over the problem of hunger are the military revolutionaries. Their Manifesto on the “Last Revolution” and call for a “New Philippine Order” alone are indications enough that they are the elements in our society qualified to take political leadership of the nation in these times.

The behavior pattern of the nation’s political leaders tell us only one thing: That it is utterly futile to look to politicians and the political system to address the humanitarian disaster that has the nation in grip and which threatens to tighten that grip even more in the immediate years ahead.

As one re-reads the Manifesto of the military revolutionaries today, one can only be overwhelmingly impressed by the patriotic concern and foresight that the group displayed and this writer will hazard to say that as the hunger pangs become more acute and as the people become increasingly aware, as they are bound to, that the nation now stands in urgent need of class of leaders that offer the prospect of leading the nation out of its hunger, the realization will dawn that the only political solution to the hunger crisis is a revolutionary military government composed of the best and the brightest in the Armed Forces.

The Third World abounds with examples of how military governments led by the patriotic likes of Nasser, Park Chung-hee, Suharto and Khadaffy took political hold of starving nations and delivered their peoples from poverty and hunger.

So, let’s all look to that. We need the new Bonifacios and they can be found only, it seems, in the idealistic and still uncorrupted elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

On the problem of Philippine politics:

On the Organizational problem:

On the problem of Geography:

I believe that as an archipelagic country we would have difficulty in mapping out an acceptable federal state territorial subdivision. The problem lies with the small island provinces which are too small as a state. If you attach it with other islands to compose a state it then again defeats the purpose of a federal state which is to provide accessible public service. Topography will also restrict trade and economic activity within the defined federal regions. Likewise there is a tendency for a strong federal state to secede and declare their independence because geography provides natural defined territorial borders such as SULBAT (Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi). This problem occurred in the disintegration of the former state of Yugoslavia which resulted in Balkanization.

On the problem of Economics:

There is a problem with the equitable distribution of natural resources and wealth in our country. A lot of defined federal states are at a disadvantage over economic growth and development compared to the few developed and wealthy states. They cannot compete economically with the rich states which would result to economic imbalance that will pull down the poorer states further down the line. The problem with that is you cannot always bail out an ailing State from economic deficit or else you defeat the purpose of federalism. In the recent senate resolution of Sen. Pimentel he suggested a budget of 100 billion pesos for the 11 federal states in order to jumpstart their economic growth but the question begins with, where will you get the budget? Next is, will the federal states have the right economic managers to push for the right economic reforms? Lastly, how sure are we that it will not be part of the spoils of the new state leadership and just drain out through corruption? Case in point again is the ARMM. Thus federalism would be an expensive experiment.

On the problem of Culture:

The first problem with regard to culture is our ethnocentric nature. We take care of our ethnic affiliation first above others. The problem is that there is no major ethnic group that could make up a single state thus a federal state will be composed of several ethnic affiliations wherein a dominant province or ethnology with in the state would emerge while the others would be treated as minorities. The dominant ethnic affiliation would alienate the minority. Case in point again was ARMM wherein when the Tausugs ruled ARMM all the projects for development was allocated to Sulu. Maguidanao and Lanao were forgotten. The ARMM is composed of three major ethnic tribes Tausug, Maranaw, and Maguindanaoan. The other ethnic group such as Yakan and Samal became a minority and has no say in the ARMM structure.

The second problem of culture is the culture of corruption. I believe that the new federal states will inherit the culture of corruption from the old local government set up. As the saying goes “you can not teach old dogs new tricks.” If corruption prevails, no amount of good planning and scientific design for a successful federal state model would succeed.

Recommendation:

I would like to recommend that we study first our position before supporting a drastic shift into a federal form of government. Let us not romanticize the notion of independent progressive federal states that the developed countries have. We should first ask ourselves who are these people that is pushing for federalism and parliamentary form of government. What’s in it for them? We should guard ourselves from these vultures who want to carve out our country and divide it among themselves. It already happened during the commonwealth period wherein the motivation of the elite Philippine Assembly to call for independence was not born out of patriotism but because of the prospect of spoils and the potential of running the country for themselves. Thus when the Americans left a new set of masters took over.

Before Federalism I think it would be best if we could reform first our government under the existing system. We can strengthen the Local Government Code, curb out corruption, reform the COMELEC and computerize the elections, improve our economic and fiscal standing, resolve our peace and order situation, educate our people, and strengthen our institutions. Only then we can entertain the concept of transforming to a Parliamentary-Federal form of government. I believe the problem does not lie on the system but with the people who run it…

” I cannot understand the reason why the judiciary allowed Senator Trillanes to file his candidacy and authorized him to take his oath of office but they do not want him to serve his mandate. Sa ganitong sistema panalo si GLORIA, talo ang BAYAN. May hustisiya pa ba sa bayan nating ito?” -B