Politics trapped

A PRIEST-FRIEND told me the other day that since the beginning of this year, there have been already about 20 politically motivated killings in his province of origin. Even mayors and barangay captains have not been spared.

This development has obviously made his province-mates, especially the clergy, concerned about their place. They are wondering what they can do to stop this ugly turn of events.

At one point, the local clergy organized a rally that was supposed to be purely against violence. It was supposed to be non-partisan. But as it turned out, one of the speakers, who obviously escaped proper screening, made a partisan tirade. Now, even the priests have death threats.

We do not know how this situation will develop. It certainly is hoped that nothing that is feared would take place. But the whole predicament simply shows the lamentable state of politics our country is in.

Together with election violence, there is such widespread incidence of poor governance and screaming corruption that we can rightly be called a banana republic with a serious case of meltdown in our political system.

This is a challenge to the people. The kind of politics we have depends on how we make it to be. So far, we can say that our politics is trapped in some kind of time warp. It looks stuck in ice age. It’s not given room for its full play.

And this is mainly because our politics has so far been pursued and developed quite independently of God’s laws. It seems to be considered as a “world only for men, God excluded.” At best, God is only given some lip service.

So, a politics without God will sooner or later become inhuman, deteriorating into a dog-eat-dog exercise. No charity, no justice, no regard for common good. Just ambition and greed and their usual companions. Just sly maneuverings and not open and candid dealings.

Instead of a politics centering on issues and qualifications, we seem to have a politics of blind patronage. A great majority of the people are still in the dark ages as to their rights and duties with regard to politics.

There’s widespread apathy among the citizenry, if not sheer incompetence in dealing with political issues. The educational component is still lagging far behind what can be considered as ideal. Even the basic “Politics for dummies” has not reached far enough.

Political discussions have been more emotional than rational, crudely shallow, short-ranged and narrow-visioned. They are very vulnerable to clever manipulations of the rich, powerful and strong.

Many people do not know how to form opinions and make their opinions heard by our leaders. There’s no adequate structure to improve the situation. The current media culture is unreliable.

Even the educated ones could hardly rise above shameful self-interest. So they end up merely carping and complaining, to the point of obsession, without giving practicable alternatives and options. Their pretensions clearly show after their third word.

Aggravating the predicament are the undue interventions of churchmen who go beyond their role of spiritual shepherds and moral leaders and have strayed into partisan politics. Every time they talk about partisan politics in the name of God, my blood and that of many others curdle. God forgive them!

Political parties have not graduated from the purely pragmatic level, with pronounced knee-jerk reactions and stopgap ways. They are notoriously one-track minded, traditionally rigid and hardly flexible to effectively meet the fast-changing demands and needs of our society.

Thus, there’s a strong trend to form political dynasties, because there’s hardly any other well developed selection process for candidates with good qualifications. Political power is often held hostage by a family. Politics becomes a family business.

We need to bring back our politics to the realm of God. These are some of the relevant Church teachings on politics:

“There is no better way to establish political life on a truly human basis than by fostering an inward sense of justice and kindliness, and of service to the common good, and by strengthening basic convictions as to the true nature of the political community and the aim, right exercise, and sphere of action of public authority.” (Gaudium et spes, 73)

“All Christians must be aware of their own specific vocation within the political community…They are to demonstrate concretely how authority can be compatible with freedom, personal initiative with solidarity of the whole social organism, and the advantages of unity with fruitful diversity…” (GS 75)