People Power Advice #5: Systems
Frank A. Hilario
June 13, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth power. The series is really my way of saying, 'Good luck! For People Power, you need more than good luck.'
People Power Advice #1: Charismatic Leader
People Power Advice #2: Martyr
People Power Advice #3: Challenger
People Power Advice #4: Love
People Power Advice #5: Systems
People Power Advice #6: Enlightenment
People Power Advice #7: Theory & Practice
THE #1 ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE is not any President who may be labeled #1 Corrupt, as indeed many Presidents have been. It's the System. People Power and, by the same token, Political Abuse lies in being greedy and being Lord and Master of a System as the System allows. So far, this has been little understood.
Thinking systems is like thinking of the Roman Catholic Church. Remember Jose Rizal wrote an inflammatory novel Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not); because he emphasized the disease in his preface, and the book as a whole is anti-Catholic, the title has been translated (incorrectly) as Social Cancer. Rizal was angry at the world while he was writing this book of fictionalized history; before this, the Madrid patriots who agreed to write chapters of the novel 'to cover all phases of Philippine life' had come up with nothing, nada, zilch, so in anger he decided to write the book alone (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, Mandaluyong City: National Book Store, pages 77-78). The Noli excoriates the friars, the Filipinos, and more so the faith precepts of the Catholic Church and blames these as the source of the social evil in the islands at least in the 1880s. With the Noli, Rizal in effect equated the excesses of the churchmen with the essence of the Roman Catholic Church, equating religious practice with religious theory. He wrote to his friend Blumentritt on 20 January 1890:
What is happening in the Philippines is horrible. They abuse the name of religion for a few pesos. They hawk religion to enrich their treasuries. Religion to seduce the innocent young woman! Religion to get rid of an enemy! Religion to perturb the peace of marriage and the family, if not to dishonor the wife! Why should I not combat this religion with all my strength when it is the primary cause of all our sufferings and tears?
Starting as superb satire and ending as sullen censure, by his telling of the story in the Noli, the author equated the practitioners with the philosophy, the doers with the dogmas, the teachers with the teaching. In the Noli, Jose Rizal hated the sins and the sinners.
Thinking systems is like thinking of Cancer. When a patient is diagnosed with cancer, he is invariably offered either surgery or chemotherapy as an option to treatment. We equate the tumor with the disease. Now, in surgery, to excise the cancerous cells is to remove the signs of the disease, not to remove the disease, not to remove the cause of the disease. In chemo, to destroy the cancerous cells is to destroy the abnormal growth, not to remove the cause of that abnormal growth.
Thinking systems is like thinking of Bureaucracy. The bureaucrat, whether a much-disliked Clerk or a well-loved President, is too powerful. It's because of the system. Any President is too powerful. Any Clerk is too powerful. And too powerful is too much. If you remove the President because he is abusing his power, you merely remove the President, not the source of abuse of power.
Thinking systems is like thinking beyond the Executive, like thinking beyond Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, GMA. GMA is not The System. I'll tell you The System. They label her corrupt and want her to step down immediately. Do they realize that a parliamentary system of government gives them exactly that kind of power over whoever is abhorrent to the ministers who are supposed to represent the interests of the people?
People Power Advice #1: Charismatic Leader
People Power Advice #2: Martyr
People Power Advice #3: Challenger
People Power Advice #4: Love
People Power Advice #5: Systems
People Power Advice #6: Enlightenment
People Power Advice #7: Theory & Practice
THE #1 ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE is not any President who may be labeled #1 Corrupt, as indeed many Presidents have been. It's the System. People Power and, by the same token, Political Abuse lies in being greedy and being Lord and Master of a System as the System allows. So far, this has been little understood.
Thinking systems is like thinking of the Roman Catholic Church. Remember Jose Rizal wrote an inflammatory novel Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not); because he emphasized the disease in his preface, and the book as a whole is anti-Catholic, the title has been translated (incorrectly) as Social Cancer. Rizal was angry at the world while he was writing this book of fictionalized history; before this, the Madrid patriots who agreed to write chapters of the novel 'to cover all phases of Philippine life' had come up with nothing, nada, zilch, so in anger he decided to write the book alone (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, Mandaluyong City: National Book Store, pages 77-78). The Noli excoriates the friars, the Filipinos, and more so the faith precepts of the Catholic Church and blames these as the source of the social evil in the islands at least in the 1880s. With the Noli, Rizal in effect equated the excesses of the churchmen with the essence of the Roman Catholic Church, equating religious practice with religious theory. He wrote to his friend Blumentritt on 20 January 1890:
What is happening in the Philippines is horrible. They abuse the name of religion for a few pesos. They hawk religion to enrich their treasuries. Religion to seduce the innocent young woman! Religion to get rid of an enemy! Religion to perturb the peace of marriage and the family, if not to dishonor the wife! Why should I not combat this religion with all my strength when it is the primary cause of all our sufferings and tears?
Starting as superb satire and ending as sullen censure, by his telling of the story in the Noli, the author equated the practitioners with the philosophy, the doers with the dogmas, the teachers with the teaching. In the Noli, Jose Rizal hated the sins and the sinners.
Thinking systems is like thinking of Cancer. When a patient is diagnosed with cancer, he is invariably offered either surgery or chemotherapy as an option to treatment. We equate the tumor with the disease. Now, in surgery, to excise the cancerous cells is to remove the signs of the disease, not to remove the disease, not to remove the cause of the disease. In chemo, to destroy the cancerous cells is to destroy the abnormal growth, not to remove the cause of that abnormal growth.
Thinking systems is like thinking of Bureaucracy. The bureaucrat, whether a much-disliked Clerk or a well-loved President, is too powerful. It's because of the system. Any President is too powerful. Any Clerk is too powerful. And too powerful is too much. If you remove the President because he is abusing his power, you merely remove the President, not the source of abuse of power.
Thinking systems is like thinking beyond the Executive, like thinking beyond Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, GMA. GMA is not The System. I'll tell you The System. They label her corrupt and want her to step down immediately. Do they realize that a parliamentary system of government gives them exactly that kind of power over whoever is abhorrent to the ministers who are supposed to represent the interests of the people?
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