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Manny Valdehuesa .

PEOPLE in power still haven’t learned that effective reforms originate from below, in the grassroots community, spiraling upwards and outwards from the base. To impose or decree it from the top, like trickle-down economics, doesn’t work. For the real seat of power lies with the people and their community.

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It is the people that provides general acceptability and legitimacy. As the Constitution states, all power and authority emanate from them. Accordingly, proposed reforms, like a shift to federalism, must be anchored on the people’s participation and involvement. The Pinatubo approach, not Pinatulo. Grown from below, not trickled-down from above. That is the way to install a durable state structure and to ensure good governance.

But this approach is possible only if the people are truly empowered and motivated. They must be able establish order and harmony themselves, to comply with and enforce the Rule of Law, and to create their own prosperity.

In other words, the urge to build the nation and the enthusiasm for carrying it forward should originate from the grassroots, from the community. Only then can an idea or proposal gain horizontal and vertical acceptability. When an idea or way of life is animated by the peoples of the barangays, it moves the nation, lifting up the citizenry, and liberating the laggards from apathy.

Take federalism. If it is to operate effectively, it needs to be rooted in a sense of selfeliance, of self-governance, even of independence built upon solidarity in the hearts and minds of people at the grassroots. Unless the masses have these attributes, or are supportive of them, the stability, strength, and progress of the nation cannot be assured.

The federal system requires a more advanced practice of democracy. Placing Filipinos under a federal system would be like enrolling them in graduate school while they’re still in grade school. Even the leaders and voters in our society have yet to mature politically and learn the ways of democracy.

Let us promote local autonomy or self-governance first, which is what the Local Government Code (R.A. 7160) is all about. Let federalism be the final step to autonomy. To introduce it before learning autonomy is like putting the cart before the horse.

Finally, it must be noted that we are all part of the grassroots and we must be conscious of being so. This fact should not be obfuscated by the wrong concept among oligarchs that good governance emanates from them. Too long has their presumptuous and patronizing attitude turned a lot of Filipinos into dependents, pedants, and hypocrites.

Far too many such oligarchs and dynasts crowd our political landscape. They gain and maintain political power by reason of social standing, wealth, and meritless popularity. They carry on as if they’re above the grassroots, that they are superior to the masses, that as the elites, they are a breed apart.

Pretentious and pedantic, such oligarchs and dynastic politicians will say, “The masses are out there in the barrio, while I’m here in the city, in an office, in a campus, or in our church.” Yet all these places are in some barangay or other, meaning, a barrio; but they’re not conscious of it.

Every Filipino should be made aware that everyone of us is in fact a barrio boy or barrio girl. That’s where everyone lives, works, grows up, and ultimately is buried. Everyone has his address in a barrio or barangay, whether urban or rural.

Anyone who denies his origin or existence as being rooted in a barangay harbors an illusion, betraying a detachment from the reality of his geographic circumstance. Every Filipino is a citizen of his or her barangay before he is a citizen of the nation. Barangay is where he votes. To deny this is to betray a hangover of the “colonial mentality”—when to be identified as a barrio dweller was to be looked down upon.

Remember how Filipinos, especially the poor, were referred to as “indios” or country bumpkins, people in awe of government? That was when Filipinos were vassals and lowly followers of the Spanish Regime. Let’s do away with such colonial mentality already.

Let’s eschew the fawning attitude which encouraged presumptuous leaders to be patronizing toward the masses; it has done so much damage to our selfespect and self-image. Let us rise to our full stature as sovereign citizens of our land.

Let us also exorcise society of the seemingly well-meaning leaders who boost their ego with pompous rhetoric about being patriotic. Such grandstanding leaders merely betray a basic insecurity if not a lack of character and maturity. Let reforms start with us and our community!

 

(Manny Valdehuesa Jr. is a former Unesco regional director for Asia-Pacific; secretary-general, Southeast Asia Publishers Association; director, Development Academy of Philippines; member, Philippine Mission to the UN; vice chair, Local Government Academy; awardee, PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist. He is chairman/convenor of the Gising Barangay Movement Inc. valdehuesa@gmail.com)

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