5

Distinction between democratic governance and 'participatory democracy'

Citizenry as Sovereign Body Politic; and Government's role and accountability as servant, facilitator and leader in a working democracy

People,s collective self-empowerment through 'building-blocks' synergies

Human development and social harmony

Governing to serve the legitimate social, economic, political and cultural rights of the people

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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People’s Direct and Collective

Self-Empowerment for Real Democracy

By Ed Aurelio C. Reyes

Prof. Reyes is one of the foremost champions in the Philippines of the serious study and conscious application of the synergism principle on various fields of human concern.  He taught synergism-oriented subjects of Applied Cosmic Anthropology, the doctoral program of Asian Social Institute (ASI) in Manila.

This is excerpted from Part One of the book, The People’s Self-Empowerment (PSE) Challenge, which has been published only in a pilot edition in 1996 with foreword essays by Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, the UNDP’s Cesar Liporada, and SanibLakas Foundation co-founder Joydee C. Robledo.  It was circulated in a very limited number of copies.

THE PEOPLE'S SELF-EMPOWERMENT (PSE) is a process, it cannot be any less than a profound and all-encompassing historical process that touches the lives of the vast populace.  It touches the lives of you and me and of all our loved ones and acquaintances, and even our enemies --- for better or for worse. The author firmly believes that the process redounds to the benefit of most of our countrymen and that therefore it is a process that deserves the full support of all who seek to serve the people.

"People (or People's) Empowerment" is a contemporary term in the Philippines, and the phrase has been a favorite of various personalities including the development-oriented and community-centered non-government organizations and also prominently including President Fidel Ramos. Even the enactment of the Local Government Code is said to advance the empowerment of the people, specifically at the grassroots.

To varying degrees, all these users of the term invoke the legacy of the historical development that culminated at EDSA in February 1986 and the process of democratization that all claim to advocate or undertake. But there are differences, even serious ones, in the meanings attached by various persons and entities that use this term or its vital variations (like using the possessive "people's" instead of the descriptive "people").

This term (along with its variations and qualifications) now challenges the various sections of the population, the various social classes, the various government and non-government organizations and institutions, and, ultimately, the individual patriots of this country, to define their respective positions relative to this concept and its implications, and relative to whatever processes of empowerment (of the people) are now underway.

It is therefore important to study and discuss the matter in conceptual and practical terms, in order to view objectively the multifaceted and multipronged processes that are ongoing or should be undertaken, and, with open eyes, position ourselves where we should be relative to this process. And to judge the respective responses of entities and persons other than ourselves to this challenge, we must study carefully the articulation of their own concept of this empowerment and also study carefully their practical performance.

The following carries the present level of development of the author's own thoughts and positions on the matter. But individuals and groups can find it useful as an outline for study and discussion by responding with agreement or disagreement to every point and establishing the wholistic logic of one's own points. It can also be used as a "unifying framework for service" by advocates and activists for various causes of the people, especially those who did not have a general framework when they started pursuing in earnest their respective particular lines of work but have since felt the need to develop such a broader perspective.

I.  EMPOWERMENT vs. POWERLESSNESS

A. The people's problems are rooted in exploitation and oppression, as perpetuated and aggravated by their powerlessness, the absence of democracy (the citizens' self-empowerment) and sovereignty (the nation's self-empowerment). This powerlessness includes the absence or lack of the consciousness and of the material instruments needed by, and contributory to, empowerment.
While it may be convenient to simply explain all the problems of the people in terms of an enumeration of "basic problems" or of "people's enemies" or enemy classes, the people's plight and their difficulty in emancipating themselves from their plight may also be discussed in-depth as manifestations of their individual and collective powerlessness

Actually, the people's powerlessness is a mere dormancy of their inherent collective power. The empowerment process awakens and unleashes this power. The power is within; it is not to be granted from the outside. The people's empowerment, like freedom, cannot be endowed; it has to be self-asserted and self-guaranteed.

B. Only the real empowerment of the people can be called a genuine democratization process, and this is attained by their initiative and assertion. The people's empowerment therefore includes but is not limited to the acquisition of government posts, or even of the entire state apparatus, for their leaders and advocates.

Neither is it limited to the formal institutionalization of systems guaranteeing democracy in politics, economy, etc. Their empowerment must develop and guarantee their capacity for mandating officials, holding each functionary accountable to the public, and reserving to use on each official or functionary their power of recall. The people's empowerment must likewise develop and guarantee their capacity for initiative and direct actions on matters of public consequence. This must give due focus on the self-empowerment of sectors that are now marginalized.

C. The people are the makers of history, and even an organization with ten million members can only hope to influence but not to create history for 65 million people. Because the people's empowerment is a historical process, it can only be the people's self-empowerment process. In turn, only this can make possible a genuine social transformation that would emancipate and uplift the people from their present conditions of exploitation and oppression.

II. ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORKS

There are at least three frameworks within which groups and individuals can relate to the people and the question of political power:

1) "Proxy Empowerment" framework wherein an organized entity seeks to acquire and exercise power in the name of the people and for the "objective" or "fundamental" benefit of the people, earnestness assumed;

2) "Dole-out and Token Empowerment" framework wherein an entity already in possession of power claims to empower the people out of its own magnanimity, but sets limits to such empowerment so as not to put in jeopardy its own decisive hold on power; and

3) "Direct self-empowerment of, for and by the People" both as individual human persons or citizens attaining the full development of their respective individual human faculties and potentialities, and as groups of such individually-uplifted people synergizing their capabilities (pagsa-saniblakas ng kanilang mga kakayahan) for collective self-determination.

In this framework, various entities and individuals can serve, or partake in embodying, the people's self-empowerment process (institutions/NGOs can serve this process one way or the other; each PO, together with other POs, can partake in embodying this self-empowerment.)

It is up to each individual and to each group to choose the framework within which to pursue its efforts. Indicators of success or significance of the efforts would include the approval and validation of these efforts by a growing percentage of the citizenry, and of course the actual impact of these efforts on the people.

The first framework is premised on building the strength, absolute unity and "purity" (also called ideological or political "correctness") of the entity of the entity that seeks to acquire and exercise power in the name of the people. Thus it naturally tends to encourage or even require monolithic structures and practices which have the inherent tendency to stifle the initiative and creativity of many of the people involved and, in many cases, have actually resulted in the disempowerment of these people. It also abets a simplistic aversion to working, even just dealing, with agencies and officials of the government. It tends to simplistically polarize or dichotomize the Civil Society the (NGO/PO community) from the government or to make them oppose what the latter does or supports.

In viewing this framework, we assume earnestness of the declared intent to to speak for and serve the "objective" or "fundamental" interests of the people. And it is observable in history that such framework disempowers the people further instead of empowering them, and those who protest this are generally branded as "enemies of the people," and are punished or "reeducated" accordingly.

The second framework is hazardous, just like the first, because it creates illusions and feeds on them until such time that the people who initially pin their hopes on it pendulum-swing to the other extreme. The "people empowerment" component of the Ramos administration's "vision for Philippines 2000" supposedly guarantees the long-marginalized sectors of society direct access to, and direct presence in, decision-making bodies of government. But this has apparently fallen very short of guaranteeing that such representation would not be mere window-dressing. This scheme will surely backfire decisively on government unless the representatives of such marginalized sectors are actually heeded in decision-making processes and are not marginalized in those decision-making bodies.

The third framework builds a well-founded confidence in the people's capability not to lose sight of the need for fundamental change and actually builds the people's direct capability through human synergy to effect such fundamental change.
By raising the people's standards as to what as to what changes may be considered essential and beyond the cosmetic and the palliative, this framework does not harbor or foment a fear of reforms. After all, many reforms and immediate gains can really be used as stepping stones in the march to achieving fundamental changes in society.

Among the three alternative frameworks enumerated above, I subscribe to the third one, and I would even go to the extent of asserting that it is the only framework that can result in the people actually being empowered, because it is direct, it is well-rounded, and it is rooted in the empowerment of the average individuals and in their synergy, their saniblakas.

The third framework can actually encompass, and continually check for earnestness and effectiveness, whatever processes are being undertaken in the first two frameworks. It enables the people to "call the bluffs," claims of people empowerment, of the first two frameworks, and turn these to their advantage.

__________

Added quote to remember:

“If progress is to be shared and enjoyed by all, then it must be the achievement of all, the result of concerted effort of a responsible citizenry to make progress a way of life for the nation; not the result of some singular heroic effort of some exceptional individual who does not exist except in myth. – Nito Doria

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