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Values, Governance & Institutions
By Jesus P. Estanislao
Chairman & President, Institute for Solidarity in Asia

Pres. Alex Yap
Officers & Members, Rotary Club of Manila
Honored Guests, Ladies & Gentlemen
 

Introduction

  • Thank you, Jorge Salazar for your kind introduction.
  • Thank you for the wide leeway you have given me in the choice of topic to speak about. I have been told I can speak about any topic that is remotely connected with governance. Broad as the topic of governance is, that means almost anything.
  • This being the Rotary Club of Manila, we can try an experiment: instead of focusing on the hottest issues of the moment, we can step back and look at our society with some dispassion and much less heat. So many people, including a few of our Bishops and retired Generals, have been in the fray discussing or creating the latest headline story. But too few have taken a governance perspective of the few critical issues that have been weighing us down for so long.

An Overview

  • As we look at the situation of our country today---when poll ratings are down and levels of apprehension are high ---we should think beyond the obvious and the usual.
  • We have been focusing too much on where money is flowing and how much of it comes our way. Some in our midst find extreme discomfort in that power is not in their hands: they obviously want it shifted quickly into theirs. In part, this is what the headlines about jueteng and a junta are about. They are mainly about money and power. These two have been the prisms through which we have been looking at almost everything in our country, for several decades now.
  • We have also been stressing sure-fire one-shot formulas for solving the fundamental ills of our country. Some in our midst would see a golden age in the Philippines if we can bring down population growth drastically. Others insist on a federal, parliamentary form of government. Still others claim that there can be no progress unless the entire structure of Philippine society is forced down by means that enable them to foist on all of us, willing or unwilling, their ideology, of right or left. As these different messiahs preach, most of us are busy pursuing our pet projects and separately promoting our respective, narrow agendas. Even as our core beliefs that should unite us as a people are challenged, few have had the courage to articulate them clearly, much less to defend them.
  • Such an overview, which presents a panorama where our operative ideals are mainly about money and power, and where our integrative core beliefs are mostly forgotten and replaced with narrower pursuits of pet projects and narrow agendas, should surprise no one that there is very little integrity in our midst. Despite heroic exertions and grand resolutions against corruption---of all types, in both the private and public sector---we have not succeeded in raising standards of integrity in our country. In this regard, perceptions hurt as seriously as the facts.

Governance in our Current Context

  • Such a panorama should not only make us weep. It should also awaken us. It shows that our operative ideals have to be lifted up beyond an obsessive focus on mere money and fleeting power. It challenges us to hang on to our core beliefs that can unite us, and around which we can rally as a people. Do we even remember what these are? It calls for standards of integrity and professionalism to be raised all throughout our land, in every segment of life, in every sector of our society.
  • It is this panorama that we have to change. Unless we do, we can keep on changing structures, but we still won't progress because our operative values have not. We can keep on changing governments, but we still won't move forward because our governance has not. We can keep on changing our leadership personalities, but we still would remain in a rut because our institutions have not been strengthened.
  • The homework we have to do in our country goes beyond merely changing structures, forms of government, and leadership personalities. I am afraid we have to go much beyond: into the realm of values that we make operative. Can these go beyond mere money and power? We should also refresh our core beliefs and recommit ourselves to them. Can we ensure that these be over-arching such that they can unite us as a people? We should also start working on standards of integrity that should be raised and applied first to ourselves as individuals, then into our respective families, corporations and institutions, and finally into our social, political, and other governance units.?
  • This homework would receive only a yawn from most. It won't attract headlines. It would even be derided as too idealistic, too improbable, and even impossible. These reactions are par for the course. They only underscore this essential fact: that what we need to do for our country today needs to be strategic, long-term, and radical. It has to go into the very guts of our society that has yet to radically transform itself. The status quo won't hold. It is unsustainable. Deep and fundamental changes are imperative. They better be the changes---these changes that address the deep-rooted ills that have given us long-term malaise, rather than changes that ideologues of right or left are intent on foisting on us to the long-term detriment of our country.

A Few Questions and Suggestions

  • No one should pretend that he or she knows all the answers. But we all can begin looking for the substantive, actionable answers to the challenge we have. We should start asking ourselves some uncomfortable questions.
  • We should in fact be asking why, after the many successful projects that civic organizations such as the Rotary Club of Manila have been undertaking over the years, we continue, as a nation, to hover close to the precipice, and always in danger of falling into a much deeper mess.
  • Is it because we have focused too much on band-aid solutions, on social projects that appear obvious in addressing the many social needs in our midst, but nonetheless do not go deep enough into the root causes at the bottom of those needs? How many wells have we built? And waiting sheds? What about basketball courts? You well know the great variety of very good projects that you have been undertaking over the years!
  • But they seem not to have made much difference in breaking the vicious cycle of inter-related social and economic difficulties that keep many of our poor people trapped in poverty. Have we considered that our problems are so deep as to be systemic? And that they cannot be solved unless we get to the roots and train our sharp axe on them?
  • What are those roots? Our experts---at least those who are open enough to go beyond prejudices and presumptions ---tell us that they lie in our culture, in the feudal values we still live by, in the lack of sense of country that our national community needs so badly to inculcate. Doesn't this make us think of the imperative of responsible citizenship even as we aspire for good governance in our country?
  • Is it a problem then of a "disconnect" between our operative ideas and values, still pervaded by a largely feudal culture, and the much more modern ideas and values of an open and free society? This is the basic governance question we have to face. If so, can we make a dent on such a deep-seated "disconnect" between life as we live it and democracy as we are so often made to idealize it? Is this why despite the variety and richness of so many projects that we have been pursuing, the fundamental problems we have in our nation have stubbornly remained the same?
  • And there is something in the pursuit of those projects that takes them farther away from being able to touch our core problem? Have we not gone off largely on our own steam. The Rotary has its projects. The Jaycees have theirs. The doctors have their own pet initiatives; and the accountants too. In fact, our society is profuse with brilliant ideas, well-meant proposals, and idealistically-pursued initiatives. But they are as disconnected as our geography. They are as many as our islands. Absent their mutual support and reinforcement with each other, the great majority are too small and too puny to make a radical and sustained difference in addressing our deep-seated problems.
  • Coordination has not yet become a virtue in our nation. An integrated approach, which banks upon a systematic and sustained push, involving many others in teamwork with each other has not been our strong suit. We still move largely according to our preferences, by our own lights, and with our counsel and individual smartness. As individuals, we can be very good, excellent even. But as team players, we can be mediocre or downright disappointing. Since we have little practical discipline for pulling together---except in very rare occasions----we end up with a society and economy that are mired in a seemingly endless mess even though as individuals we can excel.
  • How might these reflections help us chart a course forward as you consider the possibility of radically altering the paradigms, not only for the Rotary Club of Manila, but also for helping to position the nation in the many years and few decades ahead? Many more brilliant minds---such as those in your midst---can raise even more pointed questions. They can do even better: they can come up with the strategic, long-term, systemic solutions. I leave the raising of questions and coming up with the needed solutions in the good hands of this Rotary Club. The one thing I can commend to you: please do not ever forget the good governance and responsible citizenship imperative for the solutions you propose and act upon.

Manila, May 2005