CBCP and Revolution

PHILIPPINE SOCIETY AND RELIGION: The Catholic Bishops ..Are we slow dancing towards a revolution? (updated)

Well, the news months ago said that the Catholic hierarchy, i.e.Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), voted not to demand the resignation of the "devout Catholic" Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo - never mind her hypocrisy. No surprise. A few days ago, the CBCP released its updated guidance or pastoral letter. Now suggesting further pursuit for the truth regarding the Y2004 elections, the CBCP obviously still does not want any direct involvement as in the past (EDSAs).

I think and believe that any new EDSA blessed with CBCP support does not guarantee any radical change, as has happened in the past EDSA1/EDSA 2. We should now realize that a simple change in the personnel in government has not and will not work for the long-term betterment of the impoverished majority. The predominantly conservative bishops (I guesstimate that no more than 10 of about 86 bishops in the homeland may be considered progressive, i.e. really care and act for the common good) to keep the kolehiyala Gloria rather than encourage oppositionists of all colors to go into a free-for-all among themselves: the Fidel Ramos-military, former Marcos cronies, Estrada followers, born-again Brother Eddie devotees, etc. Had the CBCP last year called for Gloria to step down, the girl could have been down and out, as before her, through a repeat of an EDSA or other ways, given that Catholic Filipinos, here and abroad, are mostly a herd of sheeps.
[see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/when-our-religion-becomes-evil-our.html]

Even in the face of a decades-old and worsening national predicament in the homeland, we should remember that the CBCP and majority of Catholic followers do not want any radical change in our society. They seem to believe or be mislead that prayers will lead to miracles. The Spanish friars of yesteryears have been replaced not by a native hierarchy and clergymen of the heroic GomBurZa variety, but by native versions of the Spanish friars and American missionaries, most of whom were reactionaries, content with their comfortable lives under the status quo while perpetually teaching the believing faithful to practice escapist piety, to forget their dire predicament and suffering, and to look forward to a heavenly afterlife. I believe and think that this is one big reason why our homeland is in a very deep hole and getting deeper.

Historically, the Christian Church (Catholic or Protestant), where it is or has been the majority, becomes a defender of the status quo. The revolutionary Christ who was crucified by the Romans for being a "de-stabilizer" has been sold out by his so-called modern disciples. Actually, this devolution into a reactionary and conservative stance is characteristically true of all religions that started as a minority movement, revolutionary cult or sect. Our mainly native Catholics, most especially the so-called educated and the socioeconomic elite -- have either ignored or not learned from the ascendancy of their Church-anointed "religious/pious and prayerful" Cory Aquino, who grossly failed (we do not have to recount the results of her governance here). And of course today, the highly-educated, westernized and similarly publicly-religious but failed GMArroyo.

We, the so-called educated, should know and do more. Specifically, we the so-called educated should acknowledge these realities and work with the impoverished majority instead of continually ostracizing, belittling and blaming them. We are the so-called educated and are therefore expected to have a better understanding and thus more empathy. We should act to re-educate ourselves and the majority about our nationalist history, about our learned Philippine-American history, long distorted by American colonialism and continued by our present leaders in business, government and our educational system.

What are the present alternatives? When many of the major and well-known oppositionists to Arroyo are similarly incorrigible and unconscionable opportunists. When a number of them deserve instead to be put against the wall and shot, or put at least behind bars and the keys thrown into the China Sea.

Different faces, same kind of people who have and would not hesitate to use their "gold, goons and guns" to have their way. They are probably church-going Catholics too; these practitioners of "split-level" Christianity. They label all who practice democratic dissent, including those who are Filipino nationalists and/or practicing authentic Christianity, as either "communists" or "terrorists" to rationalize their state-sponsored terrorism committed against dissenters. They do not get bothered, so calloused in heart and mind, by their thievery of government coffers, their corruption and cooptation with foreigners in business which in effect does violence to the young, the old and the sick, to the ordinary worker and their family: by depriving the majority of the native citizenry of food, medicine, and other essential human needs and services, such as proper education, health care, etc..

The present and past regimes by their cooptation with the World Trade Organization (WTO) that lead to the death of our native agriculture and industry, consequent loss of millions of jobs and the facilitated pillage, allowed by our mendicant government, of our national patrimony by foreign transnational and their local business partners. Now, we have had, for so long, economic deterioration, political deterioration, societal deterioration which are ingredients for a revolution.
[see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/06/multilateral-punishment-wto-and.html].

Is a bloody revolution and/or upheaval imminent in our homeland then? I venture to say NO although I am convinced that it is the only way for necessary radical changes, given the almost 60 years of pleadings by the impoverished people for peaceful changes (reforms) and promises by the political leaderships that never materialized.

Any revolution now against the Arroyo regime or any governing substitute is untimely and irresponsible. A timely and responsible revolution has to have a good probability of success. Timely in the sense that a significant number, if not majority, of the native citizenry are primed for it; in the sense that a significant number, if not the majority, of native citizenry understands the reasons for it. Responsible in the sense that the human cost, i.e. lives to be lost or injured, will be selectively minimized and bring to fruition true and fundamental changes in the economic and political systems and social institutions; all for the "common good" of the native, Malay Filipinos in the homeland. It must be remembered that a bloody revolution is not a picnic; and a revolution by an irresponsible leadership with ignorant followers can lead to a simplified class conflict and random violence.

Right now, I think and believe that a revolutionary situation is not completely present for a successful revolution, a nationalist revolution. A successful revolution in the sense that it will be nationalistic and united, that will remove from power the greedy and unconscionable among the ruling elite and their foreign partners. A successful nationalist revolution that will pursue the dismantling of the present political-economic system that allows the plunder of the national patrimony by foreigners and native partners. A successful nationalist revolution that will prioritize agriculture and industries to produce and satisfy first the essential needs of the majority and stop nonessential imports. A successful nationalist revolution that will mold a decolonized Filipino who preserves and nurtures the good in our own culture and multi-heritage and do away or roll back much of our inherited and excessive consumerism/materialism.

A successful nationalist revolution to be led and supported by truly nationalistic Filipinos who sincerely identify with our revolutionary heroes who fought the foreigners (Spaniards, Americans and Japanese); and nationalistic Filipinos who continue to struggle towards those ends in the recent past and today. A successful nationalist revolution that will form a truly professionalized Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) subservient to the sovereignty of the people; and not to a foreign power, i.e. America, Japan or other, or a government that does not serve the common good of the unarmed, native citizenry/majority.
[see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-is-filipino-nationalism-mrs.html],
[http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/impediments-to-filipino-nationalism-to.html]

To ensure such a successful nationalist revolution, first and foremost, mass education is sine qua non; mass education for a heigthened nationalist consciousness is imperative. Education to have the majority understand "what is going on". Education that makes the majority see the forest (the disease: present socioeconomic-political system) and not get lost in the trees (symptoms: all these current events/issues about military and civilian corruption, cheating, etc). Education to explain the neocolonial economic system that we inherited and adopted from the American interventionists/occupiers ("friends") which only kept in cage the majority of Filipinos to perpetual perdition. Education to instill knowledge and understanding that will propel them to demand radical and fundamental changes. Education that will ensure, produce and identify truly nationalistic leaderships and similarly nationalistic followers courageous and dedicated enough to fight for a more humane and dignified future for their children, grandchildren, and their unborn. It is only then that a successful nationalist revolution can be realized.
[see http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/filipinos-in-cage-in-pursuit-to.html]

This educational process for fostering Filipino nationalism among the majority may take 10 years or a generation at best and will not be an easy task since the International Monetary Fund/World Bank/Asian Development Bank (IMF/WB/ADB) and WTO have imposed pressures on our national educational system to discourage study of our nationalist history. Thus the need for informal education via "teach-ins", conferences, etc. which was common during the premartial law/Marcos Dictatorship years(internet access is still limited to the middle and upperclass, per statistics, no more than an estimated 1-3 million Filipinos have access; and based on my surfing Pinoy sites, it seems safe to assume most are the young understandably playing games or engaging in teenage/young adult chat).
[see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/01/education-deterioration-of-public.html]

With nationalism instilled among the majority who are then ready to sacrifice and struggle, the IMF/WB and other foreign financial institutions that built, in cooperation with our Americanized native technocrats, the millstone of odious foreign debts on our present and future generations have to go; and replaced with arrangements with other nations. The IMF/WB-imposed directions on our public educational system have to be dismantled. The decades-old promises of land reform, including the demolishing of agricultural land converted to golf courses, have to be firmly implemented together with agricultural education for the peasantry. The encouragement and protection of native agriculture and industry must be resurrected but with nationalist outlook and guarded against pure native and/or foreign greed.

Of course, we should not forget who the US does and will support, since America has always thrown its weight around whenever political upheaval seems to blow up in our homeland. America's planners prepare and coolly act to place their bets on the surely, Americanized minds among native politicians, technocrats and military officers. In short, to identify and support Filipino leaders whose Americanized minds will continue to protect American economic and military interests in our homeland, instead of our own.

An instance of support for Americanized minds: during one of the almost successful attempted coups against Cory Aquino by the RAM officers -mostly PMA Class 1971(attempted takeover to install the AFP as the new political/ruling elite), USAF jets flew over the rebel RAM soldiers. The RAM officers and their followers got the message and quit; that's how cowardly, unresolved and weak we Filipinos are (unresolved because of our shallow understanding or absence of nationalism); therefore always allowing a foreign power, our former colonial master and now neocolonial master, to call the shots.

We should remember that America is vehemently against nationalism, i.e. Filipino nationalists, anyone who threatens its "national" interests, ever-enlarging beyond its borders, i.e. business or economic interests (or for that matter, any country's nationalists; as any serious and critical study of past and current world history will demonstrate, i.e. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia,etc.). America is not necessarily against communists, who it has learned to do great business despite its official proclamations for human rights, etc., as with the mainland "Communist" Chinese or Vietnamese. America's priority IS business, not human rights; we should be reminded.

Let us also realize that nowadays America itself is now effectively and efficiently controlled by its transnational corporations, with its citizenry made content and quiet with conspicuous consumption, kept ignorant, distracted and misinformed of its unsavory historical relationships with underdeveloped countries such as ours, Iran, Iraq, Cuba in Latin America, etc. foreign affairs (which cumulatively lead to hatred for America --thus to the ignorant American citizens' surprise); and America has conveniently forgotten its revolutionary origins.

"There is no higher RELIGION than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.'' - Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965, German Born Medical Missionary, Theologian, Musician, and Philosopher

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed people, the heart of the heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions, it is the opium of the people.” – Karl Marx

"Those who profess to favor freedom
and yet deprecate agitation
are men who want crops without plowing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and
lightning.They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one
or it may be a physical one
or it may be both moral and physical
but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without ademand
It never did, and never will." - Frederick Douglass (former slave)
- in Fr. Pedro V. Salgado, O.P. (The Philippine Economy: History and Analysis, 1985)

“The first priority for any underdeveloped country, before it can begin the economic and social development most appropriate to the needs of its people, is the seizure of power by the masses and the total destruction of the control and influence of the foreign power and local exploiting elite. Without this, nothing is possible.” – Felix Green, British Author, 1970

"If the people are not completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own." - George Washington, shortly after the end of the American Revolution

"The chief business of America is business" - President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

"The glory of the United States is business" - Wendell L. Willkie, 1936

“They do not easily rise whose abilities are repressed by poverty at home.” - Decimus Juvenalis, 120 AD (CE)

“Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent” – Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

“Nations whose NATIONALISM is destroyed are subject to ruin.” - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-, Libyan Political and Military Leader

"Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" --Apolinario Mabini La Revolucion Filipina (1898)