SunStar Carvajal
Published on: May 26, 2026, 9:57 am
By all accounts, the gravely ill Philippine society is on life support. The two institutions responsible for its social stability are failing to deliver on their respective core functions of strengthening its socio-economic and ethico-moral foundations. Government, choking on the corruption of a ruling elite and the red tape of an inefficient bureaucracy, is grossly failing to deliver basic services equally to all sectors. It dispenses an unequal justice system -- quick and harsh on the lowly but slow and mild on the highly placed. High local and national officials lack accountability and do just about anything they fancy. By legal or illegal means, they unscrupulously capture the larger share of the benefits of the local economy, leaving the rest of the population to fight for a smaller slice.
Failure of Religious Institutions
For its part, the religion of 80 percent of Filipinos is failing to provide society with a strong moral foundation. With apologies to the exceptions, Catholic Church leaders are not standing up to the injustice committed against the majority. They generally allow Christianity to degenerate into a religion of repetitive prayers and elaborate ritual devotions. Avowedly concerned mainly with the salvation of souls, they condemn government's neglect of the average Filipino's need for safe homes, living-wage-paying jobs, free healthcare, and education with pious exhortations to prayer or even with a dose of holy anger but seldom with concrete actions for justice.
Ailing in Body and Soul
Philippine society is thus ailing in both body and soul. All kinds of diagnoses keep coming in from various quarters. Yet beyond articulate diagnostic criticisms and angry denunciations of the excesses of the ruling elite and the inefficiency of the bureaucracy, various denouncers are failing to unite for a common content and method of a solution to society's ills. Ironically, the Communist Party-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) of the Philippines alone has both the content and method of a solution. Armed revolution, however, is a method of change that Filipinos reject, as shown by the NPA's failure to make any progress after 50 years.
But rejecting Communism will not cure Philippine society of its illnesses. Something else must be done. Something peaceful, legal, and genuinely developmental. We have to go beyond critical social analysis and angry denunciations of political dynasties. The Philippines needs a new socio-economic system, which oligarchs who benefit from the current system will never allow to happen. Hence, they have to be constitutionally but ever so peacefully dislodged from their positions of what amounts to absolute power over our lives.
A Call for a People-Power Party
To do this, the educated middle class has to help the marginalized sector organize a genuine political party to promote equal opportunity in a peaceful way. Oligarchs will never shift economic and political institutions from elitist to participative. Only a people-power party can, starting on the local government unit level. They must not bite more than they could chew.
Idealistic? Yes. Isn't that what makes us superior to beasts that lack imagination or idealism? Bold? That too because in moments of crisis, fortune favors the bold.
