Philippine Democracy Online

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc       According to Herbert Marcuse, one of the accomplishments of modern society “is the non-terroristic, democratic decline of freedom – the efficient, smooth, reasonable un-freedom which seems to have its roots in technical progress itself.” By implication, Jeffry Ocay writes that it is worthwhile to examine closely how modern politics and its technology as an apparatus of power, to use the words of Mario Bunge, has been employed to “to control, transform or create things or processes, natural or social,” in order to achieve “some practical end deemed to be valuable.”

by Christopher Ryan Maboloc         Hungry and dying, without water or medical provisions, and pushed from territorial waters, the fate of thousands of Rohingyas fleeing Burma who are stranded in decrepit wooden boats, once again emphasizes that the claim that sovereignty above all else define for any country the meaning of justice. This discussion all brings us back to Hegel and Hobbes and what the meaning of an “imagined community” as coined by Benedict Anderson is all about. For Anderson, a nation is a politically constructed concept. It points to a perceived commonality and belief that people share in terms of their identities which determine for them the very terms of their association – social, political and economic. Self-realization, in this respect, depends on a set of values that citizens in an associative relation share with each other. National solidarity, which dictates how people frame national and foreign policies, is grounded on those things...

By Fr. Urbano Pardillo Jr. Dean of Studies St. Francis Xavier College Seminary The issue of the Bangsamoro Basic Law has been the topic of various fora and debates in many social groups and institutions including the Catholic Church in the Philippines. This is the reason why the catholic leaders especially the Bishops issued a Pastoral statement to guide its members regarding its position on the issue.   My task this afternoon is to present the religious and catholic perspective on the issues pertaining the BBL coupled with some reflections as a Christian philosopher.

by Atty. Jamil Matalam What I offer here is only a perspective or frame concerning the political issues involving and surrounding the Bangsa Moro. It is no political position, although it is my position that only democratic or political solutions are really possible. I point out here the urgency of peace to deter the outbreak of a possible catastrophic violence or war.

By Cristian Ramirez University of Mindanao FOUCAULT AND CORRUPTION The Greek philosopher Thales is remembered for his cosmology, in which water forms the basic material principle of an orderly universe. Over the course of time, it was Anaximenes who said that the essential element for the universe is air. Many other pre-Socratics declare the inconsistencies of these thinkers and created their own. Until such time that Empedocles proclaims that the universe is made up of four fundamental elements namely, the earth, air, fire and water.  Thus far the discovery of atoms by Democritus and Leucippus led to the new conception of the origin of universe. Now we rely heavily on what is said by the famous thinkers about the world. When Newton said that in every action, there is always an equal but opposite reaction, we tend to wait for a reaction as a consequence to the action we’ve done prior. When Pascal said that love has its own reasons in which reason itself does not understa...

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.