kapitan

She used to fondly greet me “Congressman”.  Before, it’s the usual “Sir”.  But it’s now “Kapitan”. 

 I can’t remember when the shift from “Sir” to “Congressman” really started.  Actually, it took time getting used to being called “Sir” and calling everyone either “Sir” or “Madam” in my now more than a year-old job.  You see, in the NGO where I served longest, these were reserved for the ordinary staff, i.e., messengers, clerks and the likes.  We treated our bosses as peers and called them by their nicknames.

Moreover, I didn’t have a hunch behind the shift.

We actually hardly knew each other.  All I gathered is that she was a teacher in one of the schools of Bacolor District before her appointment as an Education Program Specialist.  I told her I was a former a development (NGO) worker; before that, a student leader-activist.  She was the first in our work place I shared this information. 

She might have come across on other things on me.  She could have gleaned that from my Facebook account after we became friends; or, from my blogs whose links I shared in my FB posts.  I can’t recall writing or sharing anything though that could have prompted her to call me “Congressman”. 

That was not the case with “Kapitan”.  In one of our conversations, she jokingly inquired how my campaign was at the onset of the current election period. That’s when I told her that if ever I’ll join politics, the highest post that I’ll aspire is that of Barangay Chair.  Since then, she’s calling me “Kapitan”.

May be, she thought I was joking for my lowly choice.  But it was a well-thought out idea.  I actually toyed with the idea after the sudden death of my parents in 2013.  The prospect of making my self-imposed temporary retirement—from development work to take care of my then octogenarian parents—into a permanent one appeared the sanest and most natural option.  

Because of my rapidly advancing age, my wife and two daughters deemed it’s wise to permanently retire.  They believed that landing a job commensurate to my experience is slim.  More importantly, they doubted my ability to endure work-related stress in a new work milieu just to earn some dough for my upkeeps.  I earlier hinted that I don’t want to go back to my development work career and, if ever, I would rather land a more laid back job in the public sector.  But they, especially my wife, thought I was too rigid, straight and inflexible to tolerate incompetence and the stereotypical unsavory attributes associated to people in the bureaucracy.

Getting into politics, was, in a way, a fall back.  And it was not the first time that I entertained the idea.  I actually briefly gave it a serious thought during the second nationwide local elections following the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship and the passage of our present constitution.  A mayoral aspirant from Bacolor, who was earlier elected councilor, contacted me one early evening while I was at home for the weekend sometime in 1992.  He was with his chosen aspirants for the municipal council from other villages and was hoping to include me in the slate he’s forming.

He told me that some old folks he consulted in our barrio singled me out when he broached out the idea that someone from our village should be in his official slate.    My knee-jerk reaction was to out rightly reject the idea but diplomacy prevailed over me and politely assured them that I’ll give it a serious thought.  I told him and his group that running in an election never crossed my mind. 

In our ensuing discussion, though, I was able to share my insights on the challenges and difficulties local chief executives and local legislators have to hurdle in the light of the then newly enacted Local Government Code (R.A. 7160).  I emphasized that old-school, traditional politics will become passé in local governance if the new statute will be seriously implemented.  I must have impressed the other councilor-aspirants that a couple suggested that I might as well be the vice mayoral bet since they had none at that particular juncture. 

The mayoral aspirant then asked what it would take to convince me to run.

The only thing that came to mind then was:  Php32, 000.

Yes! Just thirty-two thousand pesos.  That’s because there were a little over 32,000 registered voters in Bacolor.  And the law says that you can only spend one peso per voter; three if you’re gunning for a national elective post.

I naively believed that that’s all that I needed to wage a decent campaign and get elected.  With that amount, I could “hire” three of my best community organizer-friends that will help in explaining my political platform and general program of action in the course of building my constituency during the 45-day campaign period.

Despite his declaration that he’s the official chosen candidate of then presidential hopeful Fidel V. Ramos and a friend of one of Ramos’ children, allegedly a son, I surmised he only had a lean campaign kitty to bankroll his and his party mates' campaign.  But, I think, that’s not the sole reason why he never bothered to return and include me in his slate.

I might have slighted him when I unintentionally exposed his bluff; that he’s a friend of Ramos’ son.   I told the group that I was a close acquaintance of one of the five daughters of FVR when we were both students in UP Los Banos.  She frequented our dormitory and was my Calma Bulls mate’s girlfriend.  She never mentioned she had a male sibling.  Back then, Ramos’ alleged lovechild with a famous socialite had not caught fire in the gossip mills and media circles.  Even if the rumors were indeed true, his son would be too young to be his friend. 

That incident, fleeting as it may seem, made me to take a closer and deeper look at local politics and governance, viewed it in a different light and realized its potential to expand further the democratic reforms made possible by recent political upheaval.  

As a not-so-young student activist, I subscribed to the dictum—was it Mao’s?—that political power is at gun’s barrel end.  But the debacle leading to EDSA 1, the resultant bourgeois democracy, the broadened democratic space and, more importantly, my rural development and democratization experience led to a different perspective.  The more recent similar developments abroad, like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, etc., further strengthened this shift in belief and perspective.  I’d realized from all of these that local social infrastructures and institutions can become effective vehicles for meaningful reforms.  These reforms though are not as thorough-going that would immediately lead to the socialist future I earlier envisioned. 

I was genuinely convinced that if these social infrastructures and institutions are truly empowered they will be effective deterrents to socio-political and economic blocs out to impose their selfish vested interests and monopolize control over governmental machineries. 

Moreover, this old man believes that these are essential and fundamental building blocks of a truly egalitarian society.  And elections are pivotal in the evolution of these building blocks.  They are, in fact, most decisive in putting up truly responsive barangay governments. 

So, instead of treating elections as juvenile disorders as left-wing communists did, they should not be left to traditional politicians and the vested interests of big business.  True, elections will not bring about revolutionary change.  But the accumulated small victories gained along the way will surely weaken the status quo and will usher in meaningful changes in the socio-economic and political set-up. 

The elections that this old man refers to, of course, are not the coming presidential and local elections.  No individual, however principled and true to the genuine democratic aspirations of the people, could survive the onslaught and influence of the big business, with their monstrous vested interests, and the bourgeois-compradors.  These individuals need a well-entrenched grassroots reform constituency to prop them up.

The elections that this old man refers to are the barangay elections.  The weakest link of traditional politicians in the current bourgeois politics that they dominated is at the grassroots.  Establishing a significant foothold in the country’s electoral and political life is most feasible at this level.  But gaining this foothold is easier said than done.

Creating this can be likened to hitting a bigger, taller and stronger boxer in the middle by a smaller opponent.  These blows in the middle body will, in the long run, soften the former and make him stoop.  The smaller boxer can then deliver fatal blows to the head to knock him down, eventually, out.

More than an admission of the futility of engaging the electoral exercises now in progress, this old man thinks it is in grassroots elections where we should expend our greater energies and the little resources we have.  For it is in village-level polls where we can build and strengthen the constituencies of genuine democratic change and deprive bourgeois democracy its mass base.  It is at this level where we can outflank bourgeois democracy of its props, on the one hand, and on the other hand, organize, consolidate and reinforce democratic change elements that will spearhead and pursue wide-ranging egalitarian socio-economic and political changes.

This old man, though, does not claim that the elections that practically hogged everybody’s attention today are without use.  A true democrat as president can actually hasten the realization of whatever expectations we pegged on village-level political structures and institutions by putting in place favorable policies and a nurturing political landscape.  But a president cannot remain a true democrat if he’s without well-entrenched grassroots supports. 

Just like our native delicacy bibingka, rice cake, that’s cooked by the application of heat above and below the cooking vessel, genuine grassroots democracy can be effected by applying pressures all around.  And these village-level building blocks can be used to shoot holes in bourgeois democracy to transform it into a formidable juggernaut that will uphold and advance the true interests and aspirations of the common tao. (30)