Transactional politics rules Philippine realpolitik (Where are the likes of Rizal, Recto, Salonga, Diokno?) ALTES Knowledge-Sharing, Dec. 11, 2014 New York City Excerpts from “Public intellectuals in default?” by Cielito F. Habito, columnist, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dec. 9th, 2014 ● Public intellectual – “What exactly is a public intellectual? We all know what an intellectual is, but it is when the intellectual writes and speaks to a larger audience beyond professional colleagues in her/his own formal discipline when she/he becomes a ‘public intellectual.’ ● Filipino public intellectuals - “Ralph Waldo Emerson demands more; to him, a public intellectual’s most important activity is action—bringing to mind examples like street parliamentarian Lorenzo Tañada and environmental crusader Antonio Oposa Jr… But to indict Filipino intellectuals in general, as if his characterization applied to all, would be too sweeping as there are and there have always been true public intellectuals in our midst.” ● Rizal, Recto, Tanada, Diokno – “One only needs to walk through our history to recognize the important contributions of acknowledged public intellectuals, from the first great Filipino public intellectual (FPI), Dr. Jose Rizal, on through Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, Jose Diokno, Renato Constantino, and many others.” ● Helena Benitez – “Helena Benitez, still very much around at 100, bridged the transition to a wider-ranging advocacy agenda for present-day FPIs, in departure from the almost exclusive nationalist focus of her peers and predecessors.” ● Influence of public intellectuals today – “Beyond politics, public intellectuals of today also espouse views on the economy, business, environment, culture and arts, health, gender, science and technology, and disaster management, among other concerns.” “One might expect, then, that today’s public intellectuals should have much greater influence than before on political, economic, environmental and social outcomes in the country. Yet by most indications, they don’t.” ● Intellectual elite and political & economic elite – “But what Anderson saw to be the decline of the traditional public intellectual is neither due to declining numbers nor declining prominence of public intellectuals. Rather, I see it as the result of the distinct and seemingly widened divide between the country’s intellectual elite on the one hand and the thinly separated political and economic elite—who together wield actual power in Philippine society—on the other. ● Bygone era of statesmen – “Time was when the country’s political elite drew from the intellectual elite; in the bygone era, senators were highly regarded statesmen exemplified by Tañada, Diokno, Benitez and Jovito Salonga.” ● Philippine realpolitik – “Our present political elite, however, draw mainly from the economic elite, and vice versa. They derive and perpetuate power either from business, whether legitimate or otherwise, or from what I’d call populist (and lucrative) occupations such as show business and sports. Under Philippine realpolitik, the public intellectuals’ influence on our national political, social and economic outcomes has been overpowered by transactional politics, reinforced by the electorate’s choices that are driven by prevalent poverty and wide income gaps.”
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:42:51 +0000