Notes from the End of Life as We Know It 5: Afternoon Interlude

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

As I sit on the ground under the tree that is extending itself in every direction to meet the explosion of sunlight, my son runs in the field with a kite dancing, fluttering, taking height, crashing, being wildly dragged, and dancing, dancing, dancing behind him. The day is structured for joy. The wind is set to match the rapid rush of feet barely touching ground. The abundance of space holds up the joy of vibrant life asserting itself in stillness. The light that comes as an unending smile reigns upon us all. The architecture of the day makes me well from inside. Yet, while dwelling in all of this, I am sitting on the brown grass. I am on a dry carpet of dead things. The grass is so dead that it feels like it would kill the cow that would devour it.

This moment in the joy of the day feels like eternity. Joy is precisely like that—a still day swelling with sunshine. One does not feel the day in the shade as moving—especially as something moving toward something else or to sometime better. It does not serve a better time nor is it intending a future or past. The joy of this moment is that there is nothing else than this moment—nothing further. There is nothing past this moment, there is only this event of the dancing kite, the flying child, and the man in the shade given to himself as the blessed one to whom the day is given. I do so love the pleasure of this day despite the fact that I am nested on the remains of dead things.

Sitting on the grass, watching a boy find joy in the wind his running generates, I being grateful in the shade—how can one not beam back at the sun? And still I am very aware that the ground beneath me which a few months ago was so saturated with water is today beginning to turn into dust, and soon it will be cracking. It is cool where I am. When the wind blows it is refreshing. Still the grass has stopped growing and further north in this country, crops and livestock--more truly plants and animals--are drying up unto death. Here in the shade I cannot see this but I know and cannot help but know. Despite this I am happy and content and my heart cannot help but murmur joy, joy, joy!


At the end of the world as we know it, joy is tempered by the oncoming changes—changes that will touch the boy with the kite more than the middle aged man happy in his day. How dare I be happy? This bright day could signal the hard times to come—just as the beautiful sunsets we have witnessed in the last years bring to vision the pollutants we have scattered to the sky. At the end of the world as we know it, how do we face the joy of today when it is tainted with the potential of future catastrophe? But is this not the reality of life, however we know it? Isn't every day's joy tainted already with the ultimate catastrophe of death and perhaps the even more catastrophic reality of suffering? Mostly, we embrace our joy and value it by averting our eyes and forgetting about what is to come. Most of us live each moment piling stimulation upon stimulation to simulate joy and effect forgetfulness. But not all of us open to joy in this way. There are those among us who can see the joy of joy because they can see past suffering and death into a greater life. The joy of a day can be honestly embraced because it signals what existence connotes beyond the contingency of this particular joy.

I sit on the dead grass, I let the sun seep into my psyche, I soak up my son’s joy and all is well in the world whatever the next moment brings because what it all boils down to, what it all ends up being, however all things in time end, there is this joy that promises that all time begins and ends in this joy. Sitting here, the day that embraces me bursts with that certainty. There is this moment’s joy and every moment will find its perfection in it. Every other pain, every other sorrow, every other horror in time is but a passing moment in the unmoved and unmoving day that we will all awaken to.

And so this day at the edge of the end of life as we know it signals both the difficulties to come and the joy to come. The difficulties will have to be faced and endured and surpassed to a better day. The joy to come will be embraced and it will fill all the dark difficulties we will endure with the light of this day, with its peals of joy, with its shade and comfort—and it will be the final moment. It will be the last moment and it will not be an ending but an enduring. The fullness that is this joy will gather every moment to its fullness.

Thus, although I know that this time will end—that I will have to rise from the shade, I will reluctantly call the boy in, that we will gather our things, the sun will set, and perhaps the drought will worsen—I revel in it knowing that it is a hint of the final moment when the troubles will finally be lifted.

Notes from the End of Life as We Know It 4: It’s the End of the World as We Know It and We Ought to Feel Fine

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

When the world ends, we can begin to speak about hope. The world as we know it is ending…at least I think it is. Perhaps I should say at least I fear it is and I also hope it is.

I like the world as we know it. I have a comfortable position in it. I earn enough so that I have health insurance, I can send my children to school, I can buy enough good food to keep me healthy, I can maintain a nice house, I have a car that works well, my children have what they want and a lot of what they need, I have leisure time, and I can buy stuff that I like. I can live this way because I belong to the class that benefits from civilization as we know it. Thus, I am worried about the end of the world as we know it. I just actually got where I am. I am an upwardly mobile professor in a school that pays people like me well enough. I can purchase luxuries that make my life comfortable and make me feel pampered. And so, thinking that this world will end and that we will have to give up most of the luxuries that I have just began to be able to afford makes me feel sad. But more than that, thinking about what is to come and how we will have to face it also scares me. How will we deal with the scarcity of food when global warming hits hardest, petroleum runs out, water becomes difficult to come by and topsoil is depleted? What adjustments will we make when we can’t rely on mass production? How will life be when we can’t buy new toys and gadgets and we can’t rely on the constant novelty of consumer products to make us feel that existence is interesting and leading somewhere?

Certainly, compared to many people of my class and capacities, I don’t spend that much. What I earn is a mere pittance compared to what I could earn if I worked in a corporation. However, I began my adult life as a teacher with teacher’s aspirations and with most teachers’ modest dreams. So now that I earn as much as an associate professor who is occasionally able to engage multilateral organizations for modest projects with decent fees, I feel on the top of the world. I don’t have a really nice car. The one I love is already 20 years old. My bikes have always been second hand and never exactly fit my frame because I can’t really spend too much on them. My family’s computers are always the cheapest, most decent things that work and never cost more than Php 24,000. These gadgets are also always paid for in monthly installments. My books are mostly second hand or bought with grants. I have two pairs of formal pants that are at least 10 years old, my work shirts don’t usually cost more than Php 500, and my family doesn’t usually go on expensive vacations, and we rarely eat out in expensive restaurants. A Php 500 a plate place is really swanky for us and we haven’t left the country together at all. In fact, only one of us goes abroad for vacations. So, although I benefit from this world that we know, I don’t really need that much from it and we are even trying to lessen our impact on it.



In the last year, my family, with the leadership of my wife, has reduced our consumption of beef because it takes so much water, so much land, so much grain, so much fuel to raise cows. On top of that cows’ burps and farts significantly contribute to global warming. (Look it up!) We use organic shampoo and soaps because these are gentler on our water and the making of the products we buy support local communities. We compost in our home to cut down on solid waste and we grow vegetables in our tiny yard just because it seems like the right thing to do. We do these things because we like to cut down on our impact on the world. We really don’t want the earth or others to pay for the lives we live. So as much as we can, we try to support our local community, to put our savings into a small farming enterprise to help in food production, increase employment (for two people sad to say), and try to find betters ways of raising livestock. But it’s a real struggle because the world as we know it does not support lifestyles that consciously aim to serve nature and our neighbors or at least to mitigate our effects on it.

Although we have decided to live with a somewhat lighter carbon, water, and whatever you call the footprint that is left on your neighbor’s back because of your high cost lifestyle, I find myself still walking heavily on the earth. I use up perhaps enough electricity to power three households in Daang Tubo (and that despite living in an airconless home). I spend on entertainment a year as much as a family of five would for food in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. We spend enough on food a year to house four urban poor families in Payatas. How do we earn this money? Thankfully without having to exploit anyone directly: my wife lawyers for the Supreme Court and I teach and do poverty research. But in the end, despite our desire to serve others with out work, live without exploiting those we serve, and not to destroy nature we are moved by our world to do so. How? My salary is probably sustained by people who may have earned their profits through the contractualization of labor, through the under pricing of produce of small farmers, or the overpricing of farm inputs. The affordable food on my table is probably produced in farms where pigs and chickens are bred in cruel conditions and seasonal workers are paid non-livable wages. If I wish to engage in leisure activities, it is easiest to spend time in a mall buying items that will end up as clutter in our home and to waste it on unfulfilling activities. It’s cheaper to eat junk than fresh and healthy food. It’s cheaper and easier to watch insightless films than to watch well-thought out, well produced theatre.

Our societies are structured in such a way that mass produced junk is made more accessible and more desirable than things that are healthy and perhaps more suited to human flourishing. Not only that, the way our societies are structured, we are taught to desire what is more destructive and more violent to the earth and fellow human beings than things that have less impact and are more creative. For instance, I could be easily drawn to obsessing over a computer game that will give me a headache and perhaps make me ill-tempered than to do some other thing more suited to me and can, on the whole, give me a greater sense of well-being: in my case working on my garden, reading a book, or writing. Eating junk that I don’t need to eat because I don’t really need to eat but can is easier than just being content with the nutrition I am able to ingest fruitfully. Making huge amounts of profit without having produced anything of lasting value is easier than long term investments in activities that will produce better food, sustainable development, or opportunities for human creativity. The world as we know it exists to amuse us, to feed into our need for accumulation, to stimulate our consumption, and to keep us busy with empty activities that leave us bored and restless. At the same time, it makes it difficult to live in a just way, to consume in moderation, and to tread lightly on the earth.



You might say, well then, isn’t that all about choices? Stop blaming society for the choices that we make. Just choose otherwise. However, more often than not, the choices for a better life are taken away from us. A destructive game of mass consumption and accumulation has been set up as the paradigm of modern economies and civilizations such that the default mode for living in the more “civilized” areas of our world means buying into mass farming, encouraging polluting processes of manufacturing, and being involved in enterprises that tend to exploit the exploitable. It’s not so easy to choose otherwise unless you choose to live in the margins of our civilization. Many people are doing that—most not out of choice. But that isn’t the answer because the world as we know it, the civilization that dominates our planet, has caused global warming, the scarcity of food, pollution, the destruction of nature, and it is just not sustainable for most of us, or even a significant minority of us, to live this way. But then, the world as we know it is ending. History is presenting us today or will be presenting us with a chance to rethink and rebuild our civilizations according to other values, other ways of being.

And so, scary as it seems, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’m sad and scared but it should be fine. After all, just as I am beginning to cash in on a life of hard work and saving, I realize that even with my modest dreams I am destroying my world and causing the hardship of others who are with me now and to come. And this is because the world as we know it, life as we live it, is structured in such a way that we are violent to our world, to each other and to our selves. And so it has to end—just when I got to the top of it. However, I can say that despite the cataclysmic shocks that will signal the need to transition to a better life, I am glad for it.

"Showtime!": Not Just Entertainment

by Geoffrey Guevara

The fairly new noontime program, "Showtime!" is rating high in the viewership polls. It's a simple show--group performances are evaluated by a panel of judges. The group with the highest score wins and advances to the weekly finals, then to the monthly, until the grand finals. It's not very different from old school TV contests such as those in Eat…Bulaga!, the defunct MTB and Chowtime Na! There's nothing new in its mechanics either—the style of judges rating (or berating) contestants is stolen from American Idol and America's Got Talent.

I initially had doubts about this program’s success. With the many ABS-CBN programs that have come and gone, I thought that this would be just another program that was bound to die as soon as it learned to breathe. However, tuning in to the show, I can't help but be glued to the screen because of the promise of more surprises from the production numbers and the candor of the hosts’ and judges’ comments. But more than its production values, there is something in the show which engages the audiences both in the live studio and in the homes. Simply put, the show is entertaining.

When the show was just starting (and probably when it still wasn’t clear what it was about) Vice Ganda, one of the judges, was able to articulate what the show is about. He said, "This is not a talent show! We want to be entertained." And so began the entertainment. It came from the contestants’ acts, the diverse reactions of the judges, and the energies of its audience and hosts. And although the contestants are serious about their performances—they perform in the spirit of fun. The show is not stressful even to the contestants. That is the appeal of the show.

"Showtime!" came at the time when we were all dead tired from the successive disasters of floods, typhoons, capsizing ships, and, currently, confusion of our political situation. People just wanted to be entertained—they wanted not to have to worry about anything anymore, to just be hedonistically happy, to be free. "Showtime!" provided that entertainment. No contestant needed to be saved through text votes (the viewers though can get rid of heartless judges). The audience is not kept at the edge of their seats worrying if their favorite is going to win or not. Nothing is at stake—not even the contestants’ dignity. "Showtime!"promises nothing but raw entertainment.

Despite its clear entertainment value, we have to ask what is new about the entertainment this show is offering? Wowowee! and Eat… Bulaga! offer the same kind of entertainment. However, there is one difference –Showtime!’s entertainment isn’t tied to its prize money. Sure, it has a 50K prize for the daily winner but the hosts don’t harp on this fact as if it were the end all and be all of the show. Money is not used to make the participants act like fools on stage divulging every bit of drama in their lives. Neither is it used to make them exaggerate their own infirmities and bad traits. Their jingle hits it right on the mark: "'Di namin nais yaman sa mundo para sumaya... basta't kasama kapamilya..." What the contestants seek is their two minutes of fame, two minutes of realizing their dream to perform on stage, on national TV. Even contestants themselves validate this, "Gusto lang namin magperform. Mapakita ang kaya namin. Kahit hindi kami manalo." And that's enough for them. Hence, no dramatics and theatrics are involved. Just entertainment. Just fun stuff.

These days, it seems that the measure of success and happiness for the mainstream and elite culture is the accumulation of wealth and power. Greatness in politics and success in governance is measured by the number of projects and benefits thrown to the masses and the growth in GNP/GDP. The “fulfilled” man is measured by the number of degrees, honors and amount of cash he has at hand. Though these are also important, if we're going to take it from the success this new show, it seems that the ordinary Filipino has other ambitions. The basic value of communal fun ("sama-samang saya") and having an avenue to showcase local raw talent is enough.

"Showtime!" gives hope to the underrated, unnoticed and unnamed talents out there. Hope comes not in the money they will win by displaying their talents on TV. The act of being seen and being heard is their signal fire--they refuse to remain nobodies. That is their motivation.

The success of "Showtime!" is its ability to reconnect and rearticulate this basic Filipino desire. The success of the Filipino is that it was given an avenue to be part of the mainstream forum again.

Requiem for Red Poinsettias

by Michael Aurelio

The green leaves of our poinsettias are back.


The curious plant’s more predisposed color reluctantly began returning one leaf at a time shortly after Christmas Day. I had then thought in passing that that was less than what my mother had bargained for: she had purchased, with some degree of perceptible excitement, ten pots of the most promising (and thus more expensive) red poinsettias from an overpriced wayside garden shop in Tagaytay early last December.

However, what has been for me a little miracle every Christmas season—what with the magic that, without fail and always on schedule, leaves of an otherwise indiscernible plant turn rich red to announce and remind us the coming of what would be the greater miracle—has recently been an indicator of the brevity of our attention and a sign of the transience of happiness.

The red poinsettia’s phenomenal trans-coloration, which I had long ago decided to never Google why so as to guard the few things of which I am still in awe, formally commenced its reversal early this January on the way to its inevitable dis- or re-coloration. I think this time I know why.

Our poinsettias had accurately noticed that the praises we initially would throw on them became fewer and fewer by the end of December. Showing their sulky side and proving that plants have feelings too, they were also quick to point out that the gardener, who had faithfully and tediously propped them up before the night family and friends came in their new dresses to celebrate over wine and hams and cheeses the birth of the Christ, has as of late forgotten an alarming number of times to attend to their required daily allowance of water, sun and sky.

The poinsettias’ anxiety only became worse when they surmised (after patiently waiting for a reasonable amount of time, of course) that their tall mummified friend, which was brought down the basement after being unceremoniously undressed from its gown of sparkling lights and glistening gems and hastily chopped into three equally short pieces, was not coming back anytime soon.

After finding themselves dismissed out of the house (that was the last straw, all concurred), they continue to be snubbed by the stoical bonsai every morning and have been left with no choice but to entertain no longer guests bringing good cheer but the frequent complaints of the blades of grass which are too sensitive for their own good. The red poinsettias began to suspect the end was near: they were lined up against a wall a few days ago to join a rust-crusted trash bin and a worn-out wooden bench that only reminded them of the fate they shared with their once leafy brothers.

Afraid of attracting too much attention or be regarded as out of fashion or last year’s news, more and more green sprouts urgently push their way out of our poinsettias’ branches everyday. Meanwhile, the leaves which have turned dark magenta—once so red, so proud and so merry—in the same regularity disappear when no one would be looking and without even waving goodbye.

Notes from the End of Life as We Know It 3: The Cube

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

I have a confession to make. Our department, an institution that we would like to think of as a center of teaching on social justice and environmental ethics, an institution working to place itself at the cutting edge of philosophizing on the environment and the roots of the environmental crisis, is in love with our cube.

What is our cube? It is a neatly constructed, metal and plastic coffee maker. Its lines are very neat and precise so it is like the iPod of coffee machines. What does it do? It makes coffee that is meant to wow even the most moderately trained, civilized, white or pseudo-white palates. I must say, it does make wonderful coffee. It is the kind of coffee that makes one want to rush to the office because it delivers a well-being inducing aroma and a full bouquet for your taste buds. The cube offers a complex and complete experience to your every sense involved with taste and wakefulness. This is why we love our cube.

This quality of coffee is produced by a very special process. Properly ground coffee is packed in pods made of pretty plastic and foil. It's like a little bullet of joy. We load the bullet into a chamber, close the chamber and almost instantly flows the light brown, bubbly liquid and the warm aroma of a cozy day. The cube allows us to access the joy of coffee with such a simple process: all you do is load a bullet and liquid comfort emerges. What does it cost? The cube and its coffee pods were a gift, but if we paid for our cube coffee, it would cost 50 pesos a hit. More than that, our coffee leaves a trail of spent pods that are not reusable or biodegradable if they are at all recyclable. When I brought up this fact over coffee, we joked that we could get the pods and make them into Christmas ornaments.


So here we are, professed lovers of the environment, believers in the need to reduce, recycle and reuse, shamelessly producing non-biodegradable waste only for coffee that could be made in a less costly way. But, some will say that it is the most wonderful coffee that we could have on a daily basis! Why deny ourselves this simple joy? Isn't it worth the cost? After all the higher things in life have a greater cost. These costs are just things we have to live with. Besides, how much of this wasted pods do we produce in a day? Ten or so? And we can't even afford to buy the pods ourselves so we only have it now and then when our pod patron donates them to us. But the point is this—the pod is a product of a lifestyle and mentality which is convinced that the best things in life are worth the cost on our environment and our fellow humans. Even if it's the only wasteful thing we do, it betrays a kind of mentality we have, i.e. we are willing to produce waste for our comfort and perhaps to be blind to the possible effects of the technology we use if its gift is pleasurable enough.

If one thinks about it deeply enough, the cube’s coffee may cost much. Aside from the waste it produces, the cube also calls its users to sustain a moderately high level of income. In order to use and sustain the operations of the cube, we have to earn enough to spend fifty pesos a day for coffee. Plus, we have to be the kind of people who occasionally go to Singapore to get the pods. That's actually why we just wait for the donations of our pod patron to be able to use the machine. Most of us have chosen vocations that do not support such an income. But what vocations do support such an income? Does one need to use casualized labor, suppress the incomes of others for one’s bonuses, or avoid taxes to earn this income? We also have to wonder if the coffee that goes into this pod is acquired justly. To produce it, are farmers exploited? And we have to ask how much carbon is emitted for the coffee to be planted and then brought to the processing plants and then to Singapore and then to us.

Coffee is a simple but intense pleasure—and the cube makes it simpler to acquire and more intensely pleasurable for us. But how simple is that pleasure, really? Don’t we know by now that something as simple as coffee drinking can have repercussions on our environment and the well-being of the vulnerable people in the world? It is a simple machinery of joy but symbols much of why we have come to the end of life as we know it.

For coffee lovers, not all coffee is coffee. They have a deep scorn for instant coffee, and demand freshly picked and freshly ground coffee. In order to obtain “real coffee,” their suppliers will scour the world, grow the coffee in various areas to get the best results, and perhaps pay the growers prices lower than the coffee will be worth. To get great coffee, we produce much carbon transporting, if not in growing, it. To enjoy this coffee, you have to have a lifestyle that supports it—moderately high incomes to buy the coffee and the paraphernalia, the food and utensils that enhance the coffee drinking pleasure. What do we do to the world and what do we do to our neighbors just to perk up our day? There are ways to enjoy the pleasures of coffee in a manner that is less costly but coffee lovers would like to have this kind of coffee and are willing to pay the cost for it. Why is this so?

I think it has much to do with our tendency to benchmark our level of civilization with the West. I think the fact that this coffee tastes so good to us is because we have been educated by Western palates to believe that this is the best coffee. Palates are educated after all. They are not just genetically determined but are educated to understand and believe what is flavorful and what is good. Barako coffee that is boiled in a pot could have been the height of coffee drinking pleasure if we were educated to taste that. If we conquered the world too we could have set the kettle boiled barako to be the world standard of gourmet coffee. But we didn't and it isn't. Those who did conquer the world set a costly standard of coffee to be the best. We the conquered bought into their standards and have become complicit in the coming of the end of life as we know it.

Again we see how patterning our lives after the highly civilized world is contributing to the end of the world as we know it. So we have to think about how to turn this habit of benchmarking around.

The so-called developing world functions well at a third of the cost of the so-called developed world. UCLA professor of geography, Jared Diamond, notes this:

The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. 


Or put another way:

The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.

Most of us prepare coffee without producing so much carbon and solid waste. Traditionally, the food we prepare comes without too much packaging and processing. Most of our produce comes fresh from local markets that source from local producers. We might not prepare the most sophisticated kinds of foods with the most cosmopolitan of ingredients but the food that we make has less of an impact on our world. Our impact on the world is still considerable mind you. We pour raw sewage into our waterways, we pollute our air with our fuel inefficient and excessive carbon producing vehicles, and we dump most of our solid waste in contaminating landfills. Plus our factories run without any form of environmental standards to regulate their pollution and we waste water as if it was abundant. However, in spite of this, we are still among those who are considerably less carbon polluting and resource consuming than the developed world.

The reason why we impact less on our world than the first-to-have-developed world is because our lifestyles in comparison are so simple. We don't have that much disposable income, we are not that technologically sophisticated, and we don't have easy access to resources, like electricity, that make it is easy for us to live resource hungry lifestyles. Since it isn't easy for us to waste, we don't do it as much. If we look at our traditional communities that are even less developed or civilized and sophisticated, they are living with even less impact on the world. However, they too are beginning to desire to live the civilized life like we do.

We truly need to rethink our lifestyles because if everyone wanted to live like Americans do, there is not enough world for it. There’s not even enough world to sustain European lifestyles which are considerably more considerate of the earth than the American way of being. And now that the world is warming, and we are faced with the catastrophic choices our resource hungry brothers have made, we have to rethink our pursuit of their life. We have to rethink our ways of making coffee, of transporting ourselves, and of earning a living because their ways have brought us to this. Maybe our ways can take us to our future. It is perhaps time to wake up and smell the barako brewing.

Timely Reflections in an Unexpected Context

by Pamela Joy Mariano

I am writing this in the pre-departure waiting area of NAIA Terminal 2, as I wait for my noon flight to Cagayan de Oro. In the seat directly behind me is a Muslim woman and her companion—their religious affiliations betrayed by the veil that she wears—and she is having an animated conversation in Bisaya with the women across from her, whom I assume are not Muslim. My guess, which is confirmed by the snatches of conversation I overhear, is that she is Maranao. After all, Cagayan de Oro's airport is about 30-40 minutes away from Iligan, Lanao del Norte, and the hills and lakes of Lanao are the homeland of the Maranao tribe, different from the Maguindanao who come from the plains of Cotabato.


It struck me at that moment—these women exemplify the plurality and diversity in Mindanao, and of the Philippines in general, the diversity of views, of religious affiliations, of tribal and regional affiliations and of language communities. A monolithic notion of “Filipino” and “Filipino identity” is impossible to formulate, and yet, that is what both the media and the government seem to project—that Filipino is a category easily defined and circumscribed.

Not unexpectedly, the women behind me are talking about politics in Mindanao, especially in ARMM. As I sat down a few minutes ago, I caught the tail-end of an exchange about the massacre, that I roughly translate here:

“It has nothing to do with religion, and all to do with politics.”

I don't listen to the rest of their conversation—it's impolite to eavesdrop—but I can't help catching snatches of their conversation, just words and phrases at random and out of context: private armies; automated elections; voting; names of presidential candidates.

It made me think of what the events in the small town of Ampatuan have to say to us, what it tells people who live their lives hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, but still exist within the same state. The inhumane killing of 57 people in Ampatuan tells us in the most glaring terms the tenuous nature of Philippine democracy. Despite the supposed democratic nature of our government as enshrined in our constitution, and in groundbreaking laws such as the LGU Act and the IPRA, the principles that these laws are rooted in are often not manifest in reality. The politics of impunity are still prevalent, cases of electoral violence still abound. We forget that the exercise of force and violence *are not exercises of power in politics*. Because of this, many of us feel helplesness and powerlessness.

But our felt helpessness in the face of the Ampatuan Massacre does not have to lead to powerlessness. Power is not a function of how much money you have, nor the size of your private army, nor the number of “influential” people you know. The nature of democracy, in an oversimplified sense, is that power originates in and from the people as a whole. This past week can be a way for us to remember what our democracy is realy supposed to be about—acknowledging that we are the ones who govern ourselves, that our voices are the the ones that should be heard. Part of this requires us to recognize that our country, our state, is one composed of a plurality of groups and affiliations, and how it is necessary for us to giving everyone proper representation and recognition. It is in our voices and thoughts and acts that power resides.

If there is anything positive that we can gain from the heinous massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao, it is the reminder of who we are as a political community, as the democratic state called the Philippines. Our collective revulsion at the heinous acts are reminders of our commitment to respecting and honoring the dignity of every human being; our unorchestrated and yet collective outrage at the massacre is a reminder of our unity in the midst of plurality, that unity need not be confused with conformity nor uniformity; our collective efforts to spread the word and make sure that other Filipinos are well-informed about these events in Maguindanao is a reminder of our commitment to personal participation in holding our public servants accountable to us. All of these are principles that our democracy is based on.

When I first heard the news of what is now called the Ampatuan Massacre, I posted as a status update on my Facebook the following question: “How can I continue to read a [philosophy] book about cosmopolitanism in the face of such heinous acts?” Here too the women seated behind me in the airport again have something to teach me. These women were complete strangers prior to their striking up a conversation with each other while waiting for the airplane to leave. Their new acquaintance, conversation, and even friendship began simply on the basis of a common context—the predeparture area of the airport, the same flight, and a common destination—Cagayan de Oro. The commonality of their context does not erase the fact of their difference, but makes it possible for them to share themselves in each other. It makes it all the more important, then, for us to study—and not just intellectually, but in praxis—things like cosmopolitanism. The possibility of friendship and conversation, recognizing difference, initiating dialogue, and promoting peace happens also on all levels, including the level of theory.

Statement on Proclamation 1959 from Individual Members of the Philosophy Department of the Ateneo

We share in the nation's collective disgust and outrage as the massacre in Ampatuan, Maguindanao was brought to light. We grieve together with the victims' families, and stand with the ordinary citizens of Maguindanao who have been treated as vassals and slaves by warlords who forget that they live in a democratic state. We, too, share in the nation's collective dismay at the growing evidence of a continuing politics of impunity in Maguindanao.

However, we question the necessity and legality of the government's declaration of Martial Law and subsequent military rule in Maguindanao. The Constitution's provisions allow for the state of Martial Law to be declared only when there is an actual rebellion or invasion that endangers the safety of the public. While we acknowledge that government functions in the province of Maguindanao have been weakened, we question whether this constitutes one of these limit cases.

In the absence of strong evidence for an actual rebellion in Maguindanao, we fear the declaration may set a dangerous precedent that could open the door to unrestricted power and abuse. That the Ampatuan massacre happened at all reveals the weakness of the state and the disregard that our own leaders and peacekeepers have for the rule of law. The continuation of Martial Law in Maguindanao based on shaky grounds does not strengthen the state; it cripples the state further. Instead of countering the politics of impunity with showing that our democratic systems can and do work for the good of the people, the government has chosen to fight impunity with impunity, violence with violence.

The Constitution provides safeguards to prevent the arbitrary use of emergency powers. Our institutions tasked with the constitutional safeguards against the potential tyranny of Martial Law are being challenged by our circumstances to fulfill their tasks as true servants of our Constitution.

We demand that Congress fulfill its responsibility to review the proclamation and revoke it if necessary. Already late, the Congress should do its constitutional duty and convene itself. We hope that in such a time as this, this Congress can act with good judgment on the matter. But if they cannot act as disinterested representatives of the people who have their constituents' welfare in mind, then they should remember that they are up for re-election and, judging from the surveys, the people are less tolerant of those who have blatantly subverted our systems for their own gain. In May, the people will speak and their almost decade long governance of impunity and continuous machinations of power will come to an end.

We ask the Supreme Court to act swiftly and justly in the resolution of any proceeding that will most certainly be filed with regard to this issue. The high court has a chance to prove its critics wrong, and show once again that a GMA appointed court can decide independently on matters of vital national importance.

Most of all, we ask the military to realize its duty as protectors of the people and defenders of the constitution. May they courageously stand by their professionalism and not allow themselves to be used by people who have questionable agenda.

We realize that many people might agree with the President's extraordinary declaration of martial law to resolve the problem in Maguindanao. But we have to remember that we would not have come to this situation if we had institutions that functioned to safeguard the people's welfare. So we should not exacerbate the problem by overriding our constitutional and legal processes.

We ask, then, that the lawlessness of the Ampatuan Massacre be countered by the lawfulness of our institutions, so that our faith in Constitutional processes and democratic systems can be restored. Lawless acts of evil can only be contained by lawful institutions that work.



Signed,

Individual Members of the Department of Philosophy, Ateneo de Manila
University

Antonette Angeles
Michael Aurelio
Remmon Barbaza
Oscar Bulaong, Jr.
Mark Joseph Calano
Sircio Chan
Manuel Dy, Jr.
Geoffrey Guevara
Jacqueline Jacinto
Michael Ner Mariano
Pamela Joy Mariano
Jovino Miroy
Rowena Azada-Palacios
Agustin Martin Rodriguez
Jomel Santos
Andrew Soh
Eileen Tupaz
John Carlo P. Uy