Philippine Democracy Online

Documentor: Joharel Escobia, MA During the first part of his administration, President Ferdinand Marcos tried to change the oligarchic structure by taking away the assets of some prominent families. But this move was pretentious. This is because Marcos simply transferred the sequestered wealth to himself through crony capitalism. Marcos used his friends as dummies to hide what he plundered. This devastated the Philippine economy and had put democracy on a tailspin. The Philippines, in the process, became Asia's wastebasket for democracy. When Cory Aquino, the widow of Ninoy Aquino, assumed power in the Palace, she gave an order to draft what is now the 1987 constitution to correct the abuses of the Marcos regime. President Cory tried to bring in a new order, but it was no more than a restoration of the old one where only the top benefits from any progress. Cory, in short, reinforced what we call an elite type of democracy in which ilustrado politicians perpetuated themselves ...

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc Ateneo de Davao University The headline reads, “Over 300 dead in bloodiest day of Syria conflict”. The message is clear, without any form of intervention, there will be more killings and thousands more in Syria. The United Nations has remained ineffectual in securing the safety of civilian lives. The empire of America is busy with its domestic elections, and more than anything else, the issue that the US electorate is more concerned with is “jobs, jobs, jobs”. In theory, any sitting US President can choose to begin, or end any war. But the body count will continue, for the United Nations is effectively debilitated with the reluctance of Russia and China to cooperate. Syria simply is a hopeless case. Add to this problem a man named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his constant vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world and Israel’s threat of a pre-emptive strike on Iran, then you certainly have a recipe for a new world order – the end of the world.

Dr. Romulo G.Bautista, Ph.D. Social Ethics Society   Prologue Philosophy teachers from various schools in Mindanao have organized themselves into a Social Ethics Society, in order to help solve and/or bring the moral aspect of socio-political-economic problems for solution to political leaders of Mindanao. The Social Ethics Society laments the fact that the elite leadership of democracy in Mindanao has not done enough to improve the socio-economic fortune of the poor in the rural and in the urban areas. In terms of real income, the poor are even poorer today than they were in previous years.

Dr. Romulo G. Bautista, Ph.D. Social Ethics Society                                        Social Ethics Society for Social Protest and Social Justice If you witness a crime against humanity or nature, should you be compelled to take action or simply redirect your attention and pretend nothing is happening? If you do such thing, would you not become an accessory to the crime through your own inaction? Would you not lose your soul a little bit and over time become disempowered and disenfranchised?

Dr. Romulo G. Bautista                                       Quasi-Religious/Quasi-Secular Ethics maybe described as a hybrid of religious and of secular ethics, a middle ground between the religious and the secular ethics. In other words, a “quasi” ethics is in part secular, in part religious. As such, its middle ground is not exactly the center or equidistant to both extremes; rather the middle ground maybe leaning more toward religion (right-of-center) or leaning more toward autonomy (left-of-center). If it leans more toward religion, then it either leans more toward a religious ethics or more toward an anti-religious ethics. It must be stressed, though, that both the religious ethics and the anti-religious ethics recognized and acknowledge the existence of God, but they have opposing beliefs about the essence of God. For instance, the religious ethics might say “God exists and He is a gre...

Dr. Romulo G. Bautista                                        What is “moral” is always “ethical”, but what is “ethical” is not necessarily “moral”. “Moral” and “ethical” are similar in that both have to do with the difference between right and wrong. But they are also dissimilar in that “ethical” tends to refer to a system, theory, or code of judging rightness or wrongness; whereas “moral” tends to refer to more concrete choices and issues that arouse strong feelings. We might say that “ethical” refers to right and wrong”, while “moral” refers to good and evil. Thus, for example, the behavior of a professor who plagiarizes a writing of another professor without acknowledging the latter as the original author is unethical because it violates the code of ethics against plagiarism. 

By Jamil Matalam Ateneo de Davao University                                      After asking students to read Plato’s “The Apology of Socrates” Allan Bloom asks his students what are their verdict; do they acquit or convict Socrates? The question is important because in the Dialogue Socrates was talking to his judges and was not talking about philosophical concepts; Socrates wanted to be judged upon. The great philosopher provided us the method to judge him, i.e. by the method of “truth”. The impeachment of Chief Justice Corona gives us a good opportunity to revisit this most enigmatic Dialogue by Plato.