No love lost

From my personal archives. September 28, 2006

A few days ago, I watched The Lost City in a mall.

The movie received lukewarm reviews, but I decided to see it after finding out from the internet that it is set in 1958-59 Cuba, where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew President Batista. I figured the film may not be a superb artwork but watching it is at least not a boring way to learn history.

I expected the scenes to look as if they happened in a place and time I could not relate to. But City might as well be set in modern-day Philippines. Like Cuba in 1950s, our country’s democracy today is in peril, though our situation is not as bloody.

Any Filipino could understand the uncertainty felt by the protagonist, a Havana nightclub owner named Fico Fellove. Some of our fellowmen even share Fico’s tragic experiences—he lost to the revolution the woman he loves, his two militant brothers, and his flourishing career.

One of Fico’s brothers served the army of the de facto government, believing that the bloodshed would pave the way for a true democracy. But his leaders, Castro and Guevara, were staunch adherents of Marxism, a complete opposite of democracy.

Aside from that, democracy could only be achieved by ways of democracy, not by spewing bullets to the guts of the enemy.

I have nothing against military leadership or communism. Those systems work for other countries. What I am wary of is the repression that usually goes with them. I do not want to live in a country where I would be told to think in a certain way and be shot if I speak the opposite.

The problem with democracy is not its weaknesses, but the leaders who take advantage of those weaknesses. The problem is not democracy’s tendency for instability and revolution, as Plato so dreaded. The problem is the people like Fulgencio Batista and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Why GMA? It’s because she’s a Marcos-in-the-making. Last month, our class watched Batas Militar, a documentary about the Martial Law regime in the Philippines. I was struck with the uncanny similarity of the tactics Marcos used in clinging to power and the actions of GMA today: rigging of election results, covert manipulation to change the constitution, unjustifiable offensive to communist insurgents, among others.

I wonder why so many people who belong to the generation before mine do not seem to recognize the signs. Perhaps they see, but they do not care anymore. They may have become too tired of the seemingly never-ending political crisis in the country, as Filipinos seem to be just putting in power one corrupt leader after another.

Some people insist that we have no one to blame but ourselves for our misery since, as Abraham Lincoln said, democracy is “of the people, for the people and by the people.” They say we get only what we deserve and real change is possible only if we tend to our own backyards first. I agree. But this is no excuse to let our leaders off the hook.

For me, there’s only one simple process how we can protect democracy: (1) We’ll elect our leader. (2) If he screws the nation, we’ll ask him to resign. (3) If he does not make the “ultimate sacrifice,” we’ll oust him through a non-violent people power and we’ll accept his constitutional successor or elect another one. (4) If the successor also screws the nation, we’ll again ask him to resign. We’ll keep on repeating the cycle until, to paraphrase a line from another movie, the people will no longer be afraid of the government and the government will be afraid of the people.

“The Lost City” was not partial to anyone or any ideology. It showed the capriciousness of the Batista dictatorship as much as the unforgiving ways of the Castro government.

Fico had a crucial decision to make. He could stay and lose his life. Or leave and lose his country. We Filipinos are in better circumstances. There’s only one thing we need not lose—hope.