Tuloy ang Laban!

Our long journey of a two-dozen vehicle convoy from Davao City to the heartland of Mindanao was marked, in a trip already filled with the experiences of a frenzied people-powered, grassroots-driven campaign, with the heartwarming tableau of a hundred or so women and farmers who had excitedly gathered along the highway in San Jose, Quezon, Bukidnon to hand to Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas cans of their ‘piso-piso para sa pagbabago’ donations. They said they had come in solidarity with everything this campaign for meaningful change has represented since Cory Aquino passed on and yet again galvanized a country’s hopes.

It was a magical moment, one of hundreds every day now, where people begin to reclaim a sense of what is possible, and embrace hope for renewal.  In Payatas, the metropolis’ landfill dotted with ramshackle homes of scavengers, ordinary folk who make a living sifting through the refuse of the city put a few hard-earned coins into yellow ‘piso para sa pagbabago’ cans with one request: that Noynoy and his team simply do good by the people and work only for the country’s good.  “Gawin nyo lang ang nararapat para naman kaming mga mahihirap ay makaahon sa aming kalagayan,” they intoned. 

A taxi driver, heard over radio, asks where he could donate 20 pesos, with the stirring entreaty of making sure leaders like Noynoy remain true to public service, “na maging matino lamang kayo at ayusin ang laganap na katiwalian.”  They talk of putting a stake on this election, “tataya kami at sa ganun ay may maasahan din kaming kaayusan.”

How do hard-nosed political observers respond to acts and renewed expressions of citizen engagement?  How do so-called veteran politicians who dominate the public landscape and have grown accustomed to reducing political power to games of tactics and transactions make of this phenomenon of an angry yet empowered people?    

For the most part people have come to associate politics with the cynicism of self-seeking politicians who commodify suffrage, and of a frustrated people who think that the transactional nature of politics offer little possibility of honest service.  When corruption relentlessly gnaws at the body politic and scores of Filipinos choose leave the country every day, even young people disengage or feel left out of a political process.  “Why bother? Wala ring mangyayari,” many mutter in antipathy.

The answer to such a question should be found in these increasing vignettes of people and communities who, by believing again in something larger than their immediate circumstances, ask in turn: “Why not?”  Why not care for the shaping a process where people choose their leaders wisely, and ensure that decisions made in their name are sound, fair and truly serve the public good? Why, indeed, can we not care for the shaping of a process where leaders are held to account for their actions, and institutions are built and strengthened with transparency?  Why can we ever not care about the country and its future?

The road ahead, leading up to 2010, will be marked with junctures where a people must -- like the taxi driver, Payatas scavenger, or the Bukidnon farmer and their hardy, hopeful spirit – stake their claim.  There is, still and all, a stark choice in a less than ideal world: between what is right and just, and what is wrong and unjust.  Between what to the ordinary Filipino is honest and fair, and what is clearly not.  Between what is hopeful and possible because we can imagine alternative futures, and what is debilitating because we settle for less. 

The forces of greed and fraud will by no means concede space readily.  But for this critical crossroads in the country’s history, we are offered yet again a chance for redress and renewal – and the capacity to wage a noble fight.  We cannot miss out on this.  Tuloy ang laban.

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