The Contemporary Philippines and the Road to the Future

All through our history, the significant turning points that enabled us to promote national
atonement and progress have been accomplished by the collaborative actions of the Filipino
citizens – often in the face of our leaders' worst efforts. Possibly, some of you recall: Our
country was afflicted decades ago by the cancer of tyrannical governments typified by martial
rule.

However, during military rule, our fate became entirely reliant on the will and desires of a
dictator who put himself first. At the end of the day, it was the Filipino people who banded
together to open our country from totalitarianism's burdens. We banded together in a peaceful
revolt, dubbed the People Power Revolution, and did succeed in deposing the dictator. The
Filipino people elevated my mother to power and provided her with the confidence and political
capital necessary to finally sow the seeds of recovery and restore democracy to the Philippines,
following decades of corruption and ignorance.

Based on one Philippine story of creation (details may vary) emphasizes this central element: a
piece of bamboo emerging from the primordial earth and being divided apart by the beak of
a great feathered friend. A man and a woman emerge from the bamboo, the primogenitors of the
Filipinos. However, the history of the Philippines as a nation is daunting. Ferdinand Magellan
and other Spanish travelers discovered several new places during their expedition into the East.
Spanish colonizers eventually united a vast geographical panorama of hundreds of peninsulas
into a single colony by royal decree, thereby renaming large groups of ethnic communities with
various levels of familiarity Las Islas Filipinas. In the mid-1500s, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos took
control of the territories while envisioning the first boundaries of the future Philippine country.
The empire's borders shifted under Spanish rule as Spain colonized, neglected, lost, and
reclaimed several places in the region. Las Islas Filipinas have included regions in what is
now Borneo and Cambodia if other territories were maintained or certain wars were won.
When Spaniards were lost control of Manila during the Seven Years' War, the area efficaciously
became part of the British Empire. Despite the matter of moving borderlines, the modern
cartographic portrait of the Philippine archipelago as cohesively intact is attributed to Jesuit
priests who postulated, scribbled, and engraved the country's first detailed map in 1734.

Freedom fighters such as Gabriela and Diego Silang battled for a free Ilocano nation in the
northern Philippines during the late 18th century. Other revolutionaries arose, and by the late
19th century, officials such as Andrés Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto were exerting pressure on
the Spanish government on a variety of fronts. With the publication of Noli Me Tángere
(Touch Me Not, 1887) and El Filibusterismo, national hero José Rizal drew the ire of the
colonial government (The Filibustering, 1891). Rizal was mentored in the Philippines and parts
of Europe. He was born into relatively wealthy multi-races ancestors. Noli Me Tángere and El
Filibusterismo, which were first publicized in Germany and Belgium, respectively, drew an
international recognition to the colonial government's and Catholic Church's mistreatment of
the Filipino people. Rizal kept writing and advocating for reforms throughout his life, including
the acknowledgment of Filipinos as free individuals with the Spanish. Rizal was arrested and
prosecuted for several crimes, as well as instigating rebellion, in 1896. On December 30, he was
executed by firing squad. Instead of putting an end to the revolt, Rizal's execution elevated him
to the status of a hero, and his works were distributed extensively and were read by leaders
trying to fight for the independent Philippines.
Today, Rizal's fame has been elevated to that of a national hero, with multiple awards, historic
sites, parks, organizations, films, poetry, and journals devoted solely to his memory. The Internet
is awash with Rizal's writings. His works, which were once regarded as subversive
advertisements by some, are now freely accessible. On social media, admirers portray Rizal as
their hero, sharing facts about his life and accomplishments as well as his quotes. The
narratives of Rizal transcend the handwritten records from 125 years ago. He is recognized as a
Filipino who wrote for his people, a hometown hero who’s fond to use stories to uncover the
truth about colonial life.
According to scholars, Rizal's execution sparked a greater struggle against the Spanish
administration. The Philippine Revolution, led by heroes such as Bonifacio, began in 1896 and
comprised numerous engagements on multiple fronts against Spanish soldiers. Spain became
entangled in the Spanish-American War in 1898 when it fought to subdue uprisings in the
Philippines. After losing multiple lands and naval engagements to the United States, Spain
agreed to cede the Philippines and other territories to the US in exchange for $20 million, as
stipulated in the 1898 Treaty of Paris. The American Anti-Imperialist League opposed the
treaty's annexation of the Philippines during the treaty's negotiations. The league, which was
composed of social, political, and economic giants of the era produced a series of publications
condemning the US government's colonial policy.
Today's world appears to be populist (Moffit, 2016). The only remaining question here is
whether the populist era will develop into a populist epoch (Mounk, 2018). Following a quarter-
century of internationalization brought about by the Cold War's conclusion, displaced workers
around the world mobilized passionately to fight an economic order that appeared to favor
businesses and politicians. Contrary to several economic studies, only 19% of Americans polled
in July 2016 did believe that trade provides more jobs. A previous survey of public opinion in 44
nations discovered that only 26% of respondents believed trade actually reduces prices. Between
1999 and 2011, Chinese imports lost 2.4 million American jobs, resulting in the closure of
furniture manufacturing companies in North Carolina, glass manufacturing operations in Ohio,
and auto parts and steel manufacturing plants throughout the Midwest (Goodman 2016). As the
nations around the world applied a combined 2,100 import restrictions to stave off a comparable
loss of jobs, international commerce began to stall and actually declined in the second half of
2016 for the very first time since World War II throughout an era of economic development
(Appelbaum 2016).
Evidently, several scholars and pundits have noticed that populism has done significant damage
to liberal democracy's integrity because it is "a totalitarian ghost that shadows democracy"
(Panizza, 2005, p. 30), anti-democratic (Müller, 2017), "a symptom of constitutional democracy's
malaise" (Pinelli, 2011, p. 15), a democratic disorder, pathology of democracy, and paranoid
brand of politics (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
To understand this perplexing occurrence, Indian author Pankaj Mishra recently observed:
"Demagogues continue to emerge, both in and beyond the Western world when the promise of
affluence merges with vast inequities in income, power, education, and prestige" (Mishra 2016:
46-54). To bolster those assertions, the Philippine economy grew at a consistent 6% annual rate
during the six preceding years of Duterte's 2016 presidential candidacy, while the poverty rate
remained persistently unchanged. Only 40 wealthy Filipino families controlled 76% of this
growth, while a startling 26 million poor fought to survive on a dollar a day as development
projects hastened by this expansion evicted many from slum cabins and survival farms (Agence
France-Presse 2013; Sicat 2016; Yap 2016).
Michael J. Lee, a rhetoric expert, defines populism as a movement that, above all, characterizes
the national community through "shared qualities" and a common "enemy," much as how the
Nazis banned certain people based on "race." Similar to how American prairie populists of the
1880s and 1890s vilified bankers, their contemporary counterparts see themselves as "systemic
revolutionaries combating contemporary perversions on behalf of historical beliefs." Finally, Lee
contends that populist movements are motivated by a desire for "apocalyptic confrontation...as a
vehicle for revolutionary transformation" via "a legendary war" (Lee 2006: 357-64).
The study of Filipino strongmen from the past and present reveals two previously unnoticed
dimensions of these ill-defined implications of global populism: the involvement of transgressive
abuse in portraying domestic force and an ancillary need for diplomatic success in order to
demonstrate global influence. By seeing how adeptly they balance these essential poles of power,
we might guess the political fates of populist strongmen in various parts of the world (McCoy,
2017).

The Philippines has grown as one of the most progressive countries in the Asia-Pacific region in
recent years, breaking stereotypes with some outstanding economic fundamentals. It is the
world's 34th largest economy and Asia's 13th largest, with significant room for expansion. It is
classified as a "newly industrialized" country, meaning that its economy is evolving away from
agriculture and toward services and manufacturing. In recent years, the country's economy has
become one of the fastest expanding in Asia. GDP climbed by 6.9 percent in 2016an 6.7 to 6.2
percent in 2017 and 2018. By comparison, the OECD reports that Emerging Asia's GDP
increased by 6.5 percent in 2017 and 6.6 percent in 2018. Between 2016 and 2018, per capita
income climbed by 17% (EY REPORTING, 2019).

Humanitarian stakeholders are growing increasingly worried about the consequences of existing
or arising global problems, such as climate change, food and financial crises, destitution, urban
development, scarcity of water, energy independence, diffusion, and growing populations, on the
workloads and operational processes with which humanitarian agencies must contend. While
forecasting the progression of these challenges – fueled by a variety of political, industrial,
constitutional, cultural, ecologic, and technical factors – is a difficult task at effectively, it is
evident that their personal and aggregated impacts are already influencing, and will continue to
influence.

Since time immemorial, Filipinos have been dubbed as resilient individuals in the face of
adversity. These adversities, such as global challenges are nothing new to Filipinos wherein
people often tend to glorify resiliency instead of demanding for accountability. Instead of
requiring those in position to be accountable for their lapses, we direct the spotlight on our
fellow Filipinos enduring the suffering and watch them rise from their feet, and forget to focus
on the fact that this suffering could have been prevented or at least mitigated in the first place.
For example, demanding support from the government from the recent Typhoon Odette is
important since it is their responsibility to provide help for their citizens, rather than watching
our fellow Filipinos try to fend for themselves.

references:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/05/philippines-president-benigno-simeon-aquino-forum-
east-asia/ -Aquino, Benigno Simeon. “The future of the Philippines | World Economic Forum.” 2014.
The World Economic Forum.

https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-philippines-an-overview-of-the-
colonial-era/ - Herrera, Danna. The Philippines: An Overview of the Colonial Era. Volume
20:1 (Spring 2015): Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Science Curricula

https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/download/6638/6457/
-McCoy, Alfred William. "Philippine populism: Local violence and global context in the rise of
a Filipino strongman." Surveillance & Society 15, no. 3/4 (2017): 514-522.

https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap100_q.pdf
-Guinigundo, Diwa C. "The globalisation experience and its challenges for the Philippine
economy." BIS Paper 100q (2018).

https://www.ey.com/en_gl/assurance/how-the-philippines-is-planning-for-a-brighter-future.
-Singh, Arpinder. 2019. “How the Philippines is planning for a brighter future.” EY.