Roque Hofilena

Tomorrow June 12, the Filipino people commemorates the 115th Anniversary of our Independence Day. As history tells us, the fledgling Philippine Republic declared its hard earned freedom from the Spanish colonial regime after more than 350 years of colonial rule on June 12, 1898. With all the controversies among the Filipino leaders, Emilio Aguinaldo emerged as the overall leader of the newly free Filipino nation, one of the first such Republics in Asia. All things considered, and including the 115 years after that fateful June 12, 1898 revolt our country does have substantial reasons to commemorate June 12, 1898.

While the present administration, according to past tradition, has yet to announce as we go to print this year’s Independence Day theme, it is nevertheless relevant to ask our people to pause awhile from their day-to-day concerns and join in prayer and hope that the hard won efforts of June 12, 1898 will continue to strengthen our citizenry in their endeavors to build a better life for themselves and their country.

In our May 21 column, we posed the question on the "Matuwid na Daan" guiding principle of the present administration in its pledges for the welfare of the Filipino people in its 6-year term. This column added the phrase, "and beyond the next 3 years" to emphasize that the needed socio-economic and political reforms realistically requires time and the utmost efforts for the government and all other sectors to bring about the historic changes which imply that these changes must be not only superficial but internal, not only procedural but structural, not only partial but societal, and finally must be deeply rooted in the total culture and should involve all citizens to participate in the socio-economic and political reforms to be sustainable in the long term future.

We reiterated this topic because in our view, the coming years for the Filipino people crucially hangs on how the present administration is able to effectively and transformationally lead the people to the "promised land" of good governance, anti corruption, poverty alleviation and inclusive economic growth. These pledges are undoubtedly life changing and historic. The demanding challenges include cultural changes of honesty and dedication in government offices, especially with politicians from the highest levels down to the barangays, the social responsibility of business leaders big and small, the relentless anti graft campaign in all sectors involving the entire citizenry including parents, teachers and religious leaders giving the consistent message of individual and societal morality. Lastly, the very difficult nationwide poverty alleviation efforts through inclusive economic growth. In a column of this writer about ten years ago, he coined the definition of the term "development as economic growth plus equitable sharing or distribution." Unless this equation is achieved, and substantial structural and societal economic improvements reach all Filipinos, especially the low income groups, the economic benefits will not be inclusive and the country will continue to be mired in the old historic problem of the rich getting richer and the masses of Filipino poor remaining in their miserable poverty. This is the context seen by many people with the 2010 Aquino campaign of "Kung walang korap, walang mahirap". Corruption in this column includes the insatiable greed of many political and business leaders from the barangays up to the national levels.

By today, the May 13 Philippine midterm election will have been held and partial voting results started to be announced on the national and local contests. In the national level, the focus of course is on the Senatorial positions where some 33 candidates competed for 12 positions in the Senate. The two main political groups were the Aquino Administration coalition of 12 candidates from 6 different parties and the UNA coalition identified with the Vice President Binay group. These coalitions of national political groups have happened in past Philippine elections, but for this election the final results remain to be known until the official proclamation of the winning candidates. One interesting historical aspect of these national level coalitions is not only their having been done in past elections, but also their similarity with parliamentary elections in other countries, especially originating mostly in European countries. These parliaments for many times had to work out coalitions among the political parties with winning candidates in order to form a majority in the parliament so that this majority could officially manage the government. This system is, however, different from the coalitions organized by the two main political groups during this Philippine election. The similarities or variations of the results of the May elections with parliamentary governments in other countries will be interesting to see in the coming years.

As our Christmas 2012 message, we are reprinting the following inspirational article from internet (Google), which this column has shared in several past Christmas celebrations. This essay was adaptedfrom a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in "The Real Jesus and Other Sermons" (1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled "Arise Sir Knight!").

"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.