January 7, 2026
BAGUIO – “Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom,” argued Alexis de Tocqueville in his magisterial overview of democratic politics almost two centuries ago. The greatest tragedy of our democracy is its genesis: it was bestowed upon us by a retreating colonizer (the United States) rather than directly earned by our collective struggle. This is precisely why there is a yawning gap between what Jose Rizal’s great generation had in mind for an independent Philippines, on one hand, and the progressively corrosive form of oligarchic politics that has colonized our nation, on the other.
This tragedy, however, has also saved us from the brutal vicissitudes of revolutionary nationalism, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of souls in neighboring Asia. Violent revolutions from Latin America to the Middle East and Russia have overwhelmingly followed a ”reverse fairy tale” script, in which post-upheaval regimes turned out even worse than the ancien régime they replaced in the halcyon moment of political hope. As social activist Robert Francis “Bobby” Garcia explains in his wrenching political memoir, “To Suffer Thy Comrades: How the Revolution Decimated Its Own,” had postwar “revolutionary” forces succeeded in our country, the Philippines would likely have ended up more like the Khmer Rouge than Communist Vietnam.
Thus, even most radically progressive figures in the country, most notably former Secretary Ronald Llamas and former Sen. Antonio Trillanes, have been warning against shortcut ”solutions” to our current predicament. The ”revolution” option opens up a Pandora’s box, which would only strengthen the hands of the armed and the extremist. This, however, doesn’t mean that we should lean on supine reformism.
In principle, we should contemplate mass civil disobedience should the powers that be insulate ”big fish” involved in massive corruption.
As philosophers, such as John Rawls, have argued, there is a moral case for radically confronting enduring and widespread injustice should normal constitutional procedures fail to live up to their mandate. In fact, there is even a basis for uncivil disobedience—driven by the principle of ”protective harm,” with clear consideration of elements of necessity, proportionality, and effectiveness—if this were the only way to address the worst forms of corruption and institutionalized abuse of power. As Frantz Fanon warned in ”The Wretched of the Earth,” violence can be, at once, addictively cathartic but also sow the seeds of long-term tyranny.
Given the sheer scale of corruption and injustice in our country, what we need is a “radically reformist” agenda—a golden mean between wanton revolutionary violence and feckless reformism—in defense of our constitutional democracy with our shared national interest in mind. Lest we forget, the Philippines is in the middle of an ongoing new Cold War, with foreign powers ready to exploit any political vacuum in frontline nations such as ours.
The ultimate goal is not only holding erring officials accountable, but also transforming the fundamental character of our deeply unjust and unequal society. The only way to establish a just and democratic Philippines, however, is through a ”strong democratic state,” which is autonomous from oligarchic capture and capable of providing security and basic goods for the masses.
Amateurs often think that progress is the product of ”strongman” politics. What actual history shows us, however, is that the overwhelming majority of authoritarian regimes have ended up in impoverished tyranny. For every Lee Kuan Yew, one can name a thousand Mugabes and Ghadaffis. Today’s most prosperous nations—most dramatically in the case of Scandinavia but also in post-Napoleonic France and post-independence America—are products of sustained and organized social struggle combined with optimal developmental policies in the early phases of democratization.
Interestingly, postwar Japan, as well as nearby Taiwan and South Korea—where protests are routine, thanks to ultra-organized civil society groups and labor unions—experienced their most transformative phase of economic boom under democratic politics. Though authoritarian leaders oversaw the initial phase of industrialization, the Samsungs and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company of this world emerged under conditions of democracy, which enabled hyper-innovation.
Our priority for now, therefore, should be the creation of a progressive social movement as well as a competitive party of national leaders that would not only lead us out of our current political morass but also serve as a vehicle for structural reforms come 2028 and beyond.
richard.heydarian@inquirer.net