[Second Opinion] The delusion of quick fixes

by Gideon Lasco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

By 1980, it is predicted that Manila may have expanded so much that it may include Infanta, Quezon province. This will be a city, therefore, two sides of which are harbors. One on the Pacific Ocean and one on Manila Bay or the China Sea side.” We will never be able to tell if Ferdinand Marcos, who delivered those words in his 1976 State of the Nation Address, was genuinely convinced that his New Society would usher in a transformation of Asimovian proportions.

Regardless, he is not alone in imagining — or claiming — that dramatic changes take place in our country in a short period of time. “Three [MRTs] will be completed in 2004, one in 2005, and another one in 2006,” declared Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her own Sona in 2001. “Before I step down, all the land covered by CARP will have been distributed,” Noynoy Aquino pledged on the same occasion in 2012. Two years later, he would trumpet the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike, assuring that bidding would take place very soon amid hearty applause.

Perhaps one can fault our former presidents for making empty promises. But one can also ask why such promises were seen as plausible at that time. And why the same plausibility is accorded the current president’s pronouncements: Kill me if I don’t resolve crimes in 6 months. “Just give me a little extension of maybe another six months,” he would say later, only to eventually concede that the promise was a ‘miscalculation’ and that his term is not enough.

The political expediency of quick fixes taps into people’s impatience in a broken system that they feel has not worked for them. They also draw from our people’s penchant for blind faith — i.e., an uncritical acceptance of what our politicians say. We ask presidential candidates what they plan to do for our country, without interrogating how exactly they plan to do it.

The problem with most quick fixes, however, is that they break the continuity that’s necessary for most programs to succeed. In DOT, for instance, the changing of slogans — from “Wow Philippines” to “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” to “Experience Philippines” — is undertaken by every new administration, as if it would miraculously allow us to finally beat the tourist arrivals of Thailand and Malaysia (both of whom, by the way, have maintained their respective slogans for the past decade).

Another is they lead to desperate and drastic measures that are ultimately detrimental to our nation. Instead of building a comprehensive approach to our drug problem, the government embarks on a ‘war on drugs’ without addressing why people use drugs in the first place. Death, whether in the form of suspected drug users getting shot or criminals getting executed, is valorized, despite the overwhelming historical and scientific evidence that it is not just inhumane, but ineffective.

And then there’s martial law, which is being touted today as a magical solution for Mindanao’s problems — even though, as my colleague Oscar Franklin Tan pointed out, it does not actually add to the already awesome powers of the presidency. Completely untethered from any sense of history, some even wish for martial law to be declared over the entire country, thinking  that it would return us into an imagined utopia. Alas, many of our leaders tolerate these untruths, betraying a complicity that is just as expedient for them as the myths they enable.

“Federalism,” too, is trumpeted as a panacea for our republic’s maladies, as if it would overhaul our broken political system and rid us of the pernicious culture of patronage. While federalism is a legitimate long-term aspiration for the country, the way it is presented by today’s political actors, as yet another silver bullet, misses the mark, even as it once again hits people’s longing for change.

Quick fixes can take the form not just of programs or platforms, but individuals, as when they too are touted, and uncritically accepted, as the answer to our problems. And here is where the gravest danger lies. Over 40 years after a Philippine president presented himself as our nation’s savior, the last thing we need is another fake messiah.

Originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer: http://opinion.inquirer.net/105701/delusion-quick-fixes

[Second Opinion] What Ginebra taught me about fanaticism

by Gideon Lasco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

When we were in grade school, my classmates and I were largely divided between Ginebra and Alaska, the rival PBA teams of the 1990s.

I was a big Ginebra fan. On Sundays when my family would visit our grandparents in San Pablo, Laguna, I would watch games with my Lolo Basilio, who rooted for the same team. The next day, I would excitedly discuss the game’s results with my classmates—and if Ginebra won, we would gloat at our pro-Alaska classmates. Although the ensuing argument would sometimes escalate to verbal and physical scuffles, it generated mostly laughter as we tried to outinsult each other’s favorite players and coaches—our favorite target being Tim Cone (who, ironically, is now Ginebra’s coach).

It was the height of Robert Jaworski’s coaching career, and the Ginebra lineup was led by the likes of Marlou Aquino and EJ Feihl (the “Twin Towers”), Noli Locsin (“The Tank”) and Bal David (“The Flash”). Providing comic relief was Dodot Jaworski, and The Big J himself (he was a playing coach, after all). When the outcome was certain, they would bring in Dodot, and his moves—whether good or bad—were gleefully received.

One of the high points of my Grade 5 days was being brought by my dad to Araneta Coliseum to watch a PBA game. In that memorable game where Ginebra won, I joined the crowd in cheering for Gordon’s Gin (as the team was then known) with the unbridled excitement of a 10-year-old.

The referees were a big part of the narrative; there were times when we felt they were being unfair. But they would also make decisions that were favorable to Ginebra’s “never say die” tactics, to which we were happy to turn a blind eye. No matter the outcome, no matter what Jaworski and his boys did, we stuck with them. Win or lose, Ginebra pa rin!

My devotion to Ginebra faded with the disappearance of that legendary team: Jaworski eventually ran for the Senate (where he didn’t have as much impact); Vince Hizon was pirated by the MBA, that fleeting rival to the PBA; the others eventually retired. But the idea of a “Barangay Ginebra” lives on, and Gary Granada’s anthem continues to resonate with many Filipinos:

Kahit hindi relihiyoso
Naaalala ko ang mga santo
O San Miguel, Santa Lucia
Sana manalo ang Ginebra!

***

My memories of being a Ginebra fan resurface today as I try to make sense of the fanatic nature of our political engagement. Much as we rallied behind the charisma of one Robert Jaworski, no matter what, many people today are rallying behind political figures with as much passion and zeal.

Much as we insulted other teams with glee in the past, there is also the tendency today for political rivals and their partisans to resort to vilification and name-calling. At some point the attacks turn foul.

To some extent, a certain amount of fanaticism is to be expected: It is a well-documented phenomenon in psychology and the social sciences. Belonging to a team provides a sense of identity—one that empowers people to behave in ways they wouldn’t as individuals. When their team wins, they bask in “reflected glory,” but loyalty is not always tied to victory. Significantly, sports fans are known to exhibit a lot of cognitive bias—the tendency to rationalize defeats by blaming it on others, not on their own teams’ mistakes, while taking full credit for any form of triumph.

The same goes for politics: Just as it is natural for us to idolize sports stars, it is also natural for us to idealize politicians as heroes or saviors, to defend their every move, and to turn a blind eye to their faults.

Even so, I hope a sense of sportsmanship would prevail in our politics, which, like sports, can only work if we all respect the rules of the game. Indeed, just as a true basketball fan’s loyalty should be to basketball itself, and not to any player or team, a Filipino’s loyalty should be foremost to the country and our rules of law, not to its political players.

But who, you may ask, will blow the whistle, call the fouls, and implement the rules? Aside from well-behaved teams and fans, our political system badly needs one other thing: unbiased referees.

This essay was originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 18, 2017: http://opinion.inquirer.net/104086/ginebra-taught-fanaticism

[Second Opinion] The politics of compromise

by Gideon Lasco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

It was a foregone conclusion that the rubber-stamp Congress would pass the death penalty bill despite its many flaws. Even so, it was still interesting to look at how individual members voted.
Of course, few expected the political dynasts and the trapos to go against Pantaleon Alvarez’s marching orders; you have to be an Arroyo or a Marcos to pull off a dissenting vote and maintain good ties with the Speaker and the President. But for the supposed mavericks in the House, there was an expectation that they would at least put up a brave resistance.

It was disappointing then that Geraldine Roman—“the first transgender woman in Congress”—voted for the death penalty bill. The expectation, after all, did not just come from the idea that her open-mindedness in gender issues would translate to open-mindedness in other matters, but also from her previous opposition to the death penalty: Just last year she was quoted as saying that “people who make mistakes in society” deserve a second chance.

Roman explained her vote by saying that her own convictions notwithstanding, 85 percent of her constituents wanted the death penalty, and that as their “representative,” she was duty-bound to follow them. “I am part of the world of politics, and politics is compromise,” she told law students in Ateneo. “As much as I would want to follow my conscience to vote against the death penalty, I have the interests of the constituents, of my constituents in Bataan, in mind.”

What did she mean when she said that “politics is compromise”?

Roman herself provided a clue in her talk: “What about my other advocacies? Should I have held on to a sinking ship and ran along with me and my constituents and my advocacies? Try and understand my situation.”

Perhaps her justification is merely a sophisticated way of admitting that she jumped ship as an act of political self-preservation. But at the same time, I also see that her attitude is shared by many of our country’s leaders, which is why we must try to focus on where this attitude is coming from—and leave her alone for the time being.

Let’s start off with a thought experiment. Say you’re a passionate supporter of a certain cause, like the construction of dedicated walkways and bike lanes in our major cities. Having no other channel to raise your ideas, you post about them on Facebook. To your pleasant surprise, it goes viral! Then, amazingly, a government official invites you to Malacañang so you can present your ideas to the president himself!

“Very good! I will sign an executive order right away,” the president says, much to your elation. Finally, your vision of walkable and bikeable cities is within reach! But he adds a caveat: “Of course, I expect you to stop criticizing the drug war.”

Now you happen to be a critic of the extrajudicial killings—but you also feel that you’re in a unique opportunity to advance your cause. What would you do? The battle here, as is often the case, is not between good and evil, but between two forms of good. For legislators and even Cabinet officials, the choice is between focusing on their initiatives at the cost of leaving the presidency alone in other matters—or criticizing the president at the expense of losing the positions with which they can pursue their initiatives. Faced with the same dilemma, what would you choose?

Most of our leaders today are choosing compromise.

To some extent, this form of pragmatism makes sense in a system where the president is all too powerful: If he were a smoker, he may never order a nationwide smoking ban, but maybe we can get him to sign a law imposing a “sin tax” on tobacco. If he hates shabu with a vengeance, he may never adopt a harm reduction approach to drugs, but maybe he can embrace the same approach to reproductive health: That should, the thinking goes, be good enough for now.

But if helping to legitimize an unjust measure—or indeed, an unjust regime—either by open support or convenient silence, is the price for your initiatives to be supported, is it worth paying? I hope our leaders realize that there’s a very thin line between complicity and compromise.

Originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 23, 2017: http://opinion.inquirer.net/102670/the-politics-of-compromise