The history of Filipino proto-libertarianism, which I call the «First Epoch of Filipino Liberty» (1812 – 1903) has never before been studied before. The difficulty lies in that the records of the time are almost entirely in either Spanish and Latin, languages which the average Filipino today has no familiarity with, save a few, whose political leanings are definitely NOT libertarian and so, do not comprehend what they are seeing. We also have to contend with the fact that our understanding of historical events has been crippled for generations due to official revision and sanitation for the pursuit of political and nationalist goals.

Compounded with this is the generation gap between libertarians. In the «Second Epoch» (19 December 2007 – present), a new generation of Filipinos have discovered libertarianism from American sources, particularly the presidential candidacy of Texas Rp. Dr. Ron Paul, rather than re-discovering our domestic pedigree.

Most of the younger generation seem little interested in musty papers and ancient events of little significance in their daily lives. For those of us who have seen the horrors of martial rule and experienced the glories of liberty on 25 February 1986, how can we convey that shared experience, that zeitgeist, to a generation that have been raised in an atmosphere of freedom, one hard won by the blood and prayers of brothers-in-arms? We probably cannot, just we cannot comprehend the horrors our parents witnessed during the Greater East-Asia War and glory of liberation. As it is, when I read about the events of the past, I wonder how much I am not seeing.

The 21 January 1899 is date that the Filipino libertarian community regards as a day of triumph during the «First Epoch of Filipino Liberty» (1812 – 1903). It is the day that our proto-libertarian brethren succeeded against all odds, even their own countrymen to restore the Philippine Islands to the rule of law. 21 January 1899 is date of adoption of the Constitution of First Philippine Republic. The first such State in Asia.

To the rest of our fellow citizens, mention of it draws blank stares and not even the government affords it respect as a recognized holiday. How did this state of affairs come into being?

Eighty-seven years before, on 19 March 1812, classical liberals in Spain adopted the Constitución de Cádiz bringing the ideas of (European) liberty to the Spanish Empire. Like the American Revolutionary Congress, the Cádiz Congress was an assembly of rebels resisting foreign tyranny and occupation. It is the fourth charter from the Age of Enlightenment, the first three being the US, France, and Poland.

«La promulgación de la Constitución de 1812» by Salvador Viniegra y Lasso de la Vega, 1912.

The 1812 Spanish charter is the grandfather of almost a third of the planet’s laws and a model for other liberal constitutions in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Florida (then under Spanish rule), and Asia (Philippines, Guam, Palau, Marianas are still one country, provinces of New Spain). It remains in force until 1814 when absolutist factions, viewing the new Provincial autonomies as a threat to their traditional positions of power, take control of the government. In their defense, a charter partly based on the laws of their former occupiers, the French, did give them cause for concern.

The blowback of political turmoil began and from then on, it was a seesaw between liberals, socialists, and autocrats as each faction fight for dominance and in turn takes control of the government imposing it’s own favored philosophies upon the Spanish empire.

Absolutism reined from 1814 until 1820 when the 1812 Spanish charter was restored. It was once again repealed in 1823 when absolutism once again came to power. This factional politics, both civil and religious, insular and peninsular intertwined, spread out across the globe, resulting in confusion, frustration, and brushfires of revolution and counter-revolution.

Spain produced yet more constitutions, the Estatuto Real de 1834 political compromise which lasts until the 1812 Spanish charter is, for the final time restored in 1836 and repealed the next year.

This seesawing between political extremes is the reason why Filipinos today do not view constitutionalism, much less strict constitutionalism, as a viable political philosophy. In contrast to the conclusions Americans came to understand about the nature of government from the North American Revolution of 1776, Filipinos learned many wrong lessons about the nature and role of government from our revolution against Spain.

Today, most Filipinos, to say nothing of direct Charter Change advocates, see nothing wrong in changing or seeking to change the charter to suit their political whims and legalize their actions. «If the fundamental law of the will not permit something, then change it and proceed.»

This relativistic attitude was reinforced by the years of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan Era where then-dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos would first promulgate laws in order to protect any action he would take from redress. This was in contrast to the modus operandi of other dictators of the 60’s – 80’s whose actions could be clearly seen as arbitrary and heavy-handed.

This domestic species of fascism, known to Filipino political theorists as «Constitutional Authoritarianism» was brilliant way to cloak dictatorial fiat in the guise of law and protected such acts from public opinion by using our cultural deference to authority against us. It took two decades for the public consciousness to recognize that this authority was illegitimate and that revolutionary change was needed.

As can be expected, the Provinces of New Spain, desiring stability and thoroughly sick of a new change of laws every few years, declare independence. The new Latin American republics and their constitutions are the daughters of Cádiz, many of them taking to heart the lessons and errors of Spain and borrowing what worked from republics of France and the United States. This experimental laboratory of liberty would later be of great importance to Filipino constitutionalists.

«Integración de América Latina» by Jorge González y Camarena, 1965.

In 1868, liberals once again had control of Spain after the revolution against Queen Isabelle II (La Gloriosa) and a year later a new liberal charter was written, the Constitución de la Monarquía española de 1869. Carlos María de la Torre y Nava Cerrada was appointed governor-general to the Philippines and abolishes censorship and extends to Filipinos the rights of free speech and assembly contained in the new Spanish constitution.

Carlos María de la Torre y Nava Cerrada, 91st Governor-General of the Philippines (1869–1871)

Filipino historians consider De la Torre the most beloved of the Spanish Governor-generals ever assigned in the Philippines. He was our version of Dr. Ron Paul and his integrity, both in office and in personal life, inspired future generations of Filipino liberals (and socialists) including José Rizal.

De la Torre was often accompanied by a certain liberal writer and poetess, María Gil y Montes de Sanchiz. De Sanchiz. The wife of a Spanish artillery officer, she often stood in official function in place of De la Torre’s wife who was invalid at the time. There have been accusations that she may have been the Governor-general’s mistress, but due to the political climate at knives with each other, it is possible that such accusations were nothing more than the usual political mudslinging. She was, after all scandalous to the social manners of the day and entirely alienated the women of Manila, liberal and absolutist alike due to her popularity with the men.

De la Torre most famous compatriot was a Spanish-Filipino civil libertarian and Doctor of Philosophy, Fr. José Apolonio Burgos y García (who, along with Fr. Mariano Gómez y Guard and Fr. Jacinto Zamora y del Rosario, would later be immortalized in the pantheon of Filipino hero-martyrs as Gomburza).

De la Torre reigned until 1871 when the political pendulum of Spain once more swung back towards absolutism and he was fired from his post. His successor Rafael de Izquierdo y Gutiérrez and his faction worked to undo all the liberal reforms of the last administration, taking away the political freedoms from the Filipinos, without understanding that liberty cannot just be taste-tested. Once a man has liberty, he cannot not have it. The blowback was the Cavite Mutiny which happened ten months later; it’s suppression provided the Izquierdo administration with the excuse to round up the rest of De la Torre’s remaining compatriots along with other unfortunates falsely accused.

Ten years later, José Rizal decided to pick up where de la Torre left off. After an additional decade of studying Spanish liberty (and unfortunately European socialism), Rizal organized the Liga Filipina in order to promote peaceful reform. It was crushed and the liberals and socialists split into two diametrically opposed organizations, the famous Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃á Anak ng̃ Bayan (which advocated violent revolution and became the prototype for modern Filipino socialist insurgency) headed by Andrés Bonifacio y Castro and the smaller Cuerpo de Compromisarios (Corps of the Dedicated) headed by Adriano Numeriano y Resurreción.

The Cuerpo de Compromisarios is little known today. Unlike her more famous sister organization, the Cuerpo was composed of men understood that most Filipinos at the time were still politically immature to demand more than peaceful reform. Their objective was to faithfully continue the aims of the Liga Filipina and was, on the eve of war, the last bastion of proto-libertarianism in the country. A very prominent member of the Cuerpo was revolutionary luminary Apolinario Mabini y Maranan.

Members of the Cuerpo were regarded by their revolutionary comrades as either misguided at best and unpatriotic at worst for holding to the idea to peaceful reform in a time of blood-lust. Membership soon dwindled away in the face of pakikisama (per-pressure). Even Mabini himself, seemed enamored of pursuing war and later ended up in high position in the government of Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy.

It isn’t by chance that most of the former Cuerpo end up as administrators in Aguinaldo’s government. Resentment of Bonifacio’s actions from the La Liga split did play a large factor and the ideological differences of both sides would never make them friends. Many accusations levied by Bonficio’s supporters, including Aguinaldo’s «betrayal» by setting up a rival government (Magdalo) all the way up to the execution of Bonifacio for treason are a result of the presence of the Cuerpo and their grievances towards the Katipunan’s policy of name-dropping during recruitment which lead to the imprisonment and execution of many innocent men. However, due to the near invisibility of the Cuerpo, both then and in today’s history books, Aguinaldo gets all the blame.

This trend of antagonism continues today between Filipino libertarians and Filipino socialists as both philosophies have matured in mirror opposition to each other. Despite our generation’s near ignorance of history, there is, perhaps a vestigial racial memory of this enmity which both factions instinctively recognize the ancient grudge.

These liberals, though no longer an official organization, take their time and wait for an opportunity to save the country from the mess that is the War for Independence. Their only weapon is personal influence which they use to spread a desire for the return to liberal values. This quiet talk, from a position of weakness, takes time to percolate and bear fruit.

On 23 June 1898, the remnants of the Cuerpo (now known in the school history books as the Constitutionalists) quietly nudged Aguinaldo to abolish the military dictatorship and plan for civilian rule. By this time, they are the quiet influence in the administration of the government. Just as they earlier recognized the dangers of Bonifacio’s leanings towards indiscriminate killing, they too acknowledged that now it was the Filipino military (particularly the ‘showbiz personalities’ AKA national heroes) of Aguinaldo’s faction that had become the greatest threat to Filipino liberty, much more than the armies of Spain and the United States combined.

Felipe Gonzáles Calderón y Roca, architect of the Malolos Constitución Política de República Filipinas

While the Malolos charter does have certain illiberal elements derived from its Civil Law pedigree and it’s grand-uncle, the French Constitution of 1791, it certainly is a new interpretation of the works and ideas of John Locke and Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, etc. and should be recognized as a hallmark of liberty.

Calderón was a pragmatic young lawyer who understood what the modern Filipino libertarians, the «Second Epoch of Filipino Liberty», wryly refer to as «Liberty with Filipino characteristics».

The charter is very dry reading, void of unnecessary flourishes and appeals to rhetoric. Practical workability rather than to strict adherence of ideology was a hallmark to his legal methodology. Rather than imposing some abstract ideal, Calderón not only took into account what Filipinos wanted in a government, but what they would accept, and how they understood things. For example, despite Calderón being a Freemason, he refused to place Masonic ideals into the new charter and in the debates for adoption, even championed the society’s chief enemy, the Catholic Church simply because most Filipinos were Catholic and were quite comfortable with the venerable institution while on the other hand, most Filipinos viewed Freemasonry as a suspicious fringe group.

Calderón also had the leisure of studying how the children of the 1812 Constitution, the South and Central American republics had grown up and comported themselves. This allowed him to cherry pick the best features from these charters, particularly those which would apply best to the particular idiosyncrasies of the Philippine situation.

From Florida and the American allies, the notion that democracy and republicanism are two different competing forms of government. And so, like the Constitution of the United States, the word democracy is not found anywhere in this republican document.

In the South and Central American republics, Calderón saw many presidencies becoming military dictatorships in all but name since there was so much power attached to that office. This mirrored conditions in 1898 and unless Calderón worked quickly to end it, Filipinos may forever live under the shadow of a possible military junta. The solution was the idea of a Chief executive constrained from acting unilaterally by another constitutional agency, the collegial Consejo de Gobierno, in which lies the actual executive power. This wasn’t just a executive cabinet that we know today, as each Secretary had the equivalent rank of Vice-President and actual duties unlike our present system. This concept was taken from from several Latin American countries as well as the the Swiss Bundesrat.

Of note, the Swiss structure of confederacy was of particular interest in the Central Visayas where the República Cantonal de Negros and the Republica Federal Filipina Canton de Isla de Negros Oriental used it as the model of autocephalous government. It is also one of the models used by the United States to frame their federal government.

The Consejo de Gobierno existed as a check on expanded government because it strictly listed seven constitutional portfolios (Foreign relations, Interior, Finance, War & Marine, Public Instruction, Communications & Public Works, and Agriculture, Industry, & Commerce) with no provision for further expansion of the bureaucracy which is common today. This safeguard is easily explained since due to the structure of veto over the Office of the President, no President would wish to have more bosses over him.

As a final prevention against possible military rule and supremacy, the President has no power to call for martial rule even in emergencies. In Calderón’s estimation, marital rule didn’t work as planned in the Roman Republic so there would be no reason for it work here.

The Marcos Dictatorship of 1972 – 1986 proved Calderón’s choice right. Temporary sundering of liberty by use of the military can very easily become a permanent thing. This is a threat Americans now face.

An oft mentioned peculiarity of the Malolos charter is that the enumeration of rights takes over a quarter of the document. For those whose only interaction with constitutionalism stems from familiarity with the American model, they will find it odd that a huge part of the charter concerns the rights of the citizenry to an almost micromanaging detail. It is also very unfortunate that this fact is sometimes seen by Filipinos as proof that the Malolos charter held little liberal value other than an enumeration of grievances.

This ignorance resulting from nationalistic history rewriting is nothing new. Most Filipinos today have grown up knowing nothing about the 1869 Constitution of La Gloriosa which De la Torre brought with him. That charter featured an extensive enumeration of rights to be protected by State and was universally appreciated by Filipinos only thirty years before; it’s guaranteed freedoms still in living memory in 1899. So why wouldn’t Calderón reproduce it for the charter of the new nation? In 1899, ordinary Filipinos wanted a gigantic list of rights to be guaranteed by the government because of their experience with watching their political freedoms being restored and abolished due to the anarchy in Spain.

The origins of this dismissive attitude towards the Malolos constitution lie in Vol. I of the 31 January 1900 «Report of the Philippine Commission to the President». Here, William McKinley was looking for a way to justify to the American people the necessity to occupy another sovereign nation. Amazingly, the Commission concluded that the usurpation of our sovereignty was humanitarian action and that the occupation was a moral imperative.

«[T]he peoples of the Philippine Islands […] do not, in the opinion of the Commission, generally desire independence. Hundreds of witnesses testified [that] an independent sovereign Philippine state was at the present time neither possible nor desirable. […] They need the tutelage and protection of the United States.»

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 82-83. 1900.

«The masses of the Filipino peoples, including practically all who are educated or who possess property, have no desire for an independent and sovereign Philippine state.»

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 93. 1900.

In order to silence detractors of the war back home, of whom the famous author Mark Twain counted himself as, the Commission assured them that Filipinos didn’t mind being ruled by Americans:

«Abstract speculators may commiserate the Philippines for being under the sovereignty of another power—for not being absolutely independent and self-governing—but if this is an evil the Filipinos have not resented it, […] In their consciousness it is not political privileges and franchises, but personal and civil rights and liberties, which occupy the foreground. Of course this is far from saying that the Filipinos are not keenly alive to the importance of home rule, or do not desire large participation in the government of the archipelago.

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 86-87. 1900.

Of their examination of the Malolos charter, it was found to be deficient in terms of workability, at least to the American estimation.

«Scarcely does that constitution in a dozen lines establish a republic with three coordinate branches of government than it hurries into the field of the rights of the Filipinos, which covers more than one-fourth of the entire document.»

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 85-86. 1900.

This [is a] complex system, which violates so many of the vital principles laid down by Hamilton and Madison in the Federalist, […] It will take time and require visible demonstration to convince the inexperienced Filipinos of the superiority of the American method of a strong executive who shall be completely independent of the legislature.

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 92-93. 1900.

Similarly, our aims for independence were dismissed as tantrums and of no real concern.

«This certainly is no scheme of independence. It is a statement of grievances, a demand of reforms, and, by implication, a bill of rights.»

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 84. 1900.

«The programme of that insurrectionary movement […] was a brief statement and nothing more.».

- Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, vol. 1, p 93. 1900.

With such opinions being had by the victors of the Philippine-American War who were also the architects of the Filipino education system, it is not surprising that such «facts» have been consumed and regurgitated by generation after generation of schoolchildren. Filipino libertarians have an uphill battle showcasing our proto-libertarian past when the well of academics has been poisoned against our forerunners.

«Please read the Malolos Constitution, Most of it is about the rights of the accuse and Jus Loci and nothing else, nothing moe [sic]»

- Disparaging quote from a self-proclaimed voluntaryist with nationalist leanings, 23 July 2011.

The dissolution of the First Republic also meant the end of the «First Epoch». The new colonial administration became a showcase for progressivism and socialist democratic ideas and had little use for political theories outside those sanctioned by the US colonial government. Many of the ills Americans complain of today such as prohibition of recreational pharmaceuticals and the income tax was born in the laboratory of the Philippine Islands before being applied to the American mainland.

For those of us who subscribe to libertarianism today, 21 January 1899 is a measure of success that we seek to one day surpass as we discover our proto-libertarian roots; the answers to many of today’s social ills stemming from supression of questions from the 19th century.

Appendix A: Shared constitutional timeline of Spain and the Philippines

References and other further reading

• Calderón, F. (1907). Mis memorias sobre la revolución filipina: segunda etapa, 1898 á 1901. Manila: Imp. de el Renacimiento.
• De Viana, A. (n.d.). Saga of the Philippine Reform Movement. Manila: National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
• Gedacht, J. (2006). Strange Career of American Colonial Schools Industrial Education and the Philippines, The.
• Guevara, S. (1997). Laws Of The First Philippine Republic, The (Reprint Ed.). Manila: National Historical Institute.
• Harper’s Weekly. (1899). Harper’s Pictorial History of the War with Spain. New York: Harper & Brothers Pub.
• Majul, C. (1999). Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Philippine Revolution, The. Manila: Univ of Philippines Pr.
• Malcolm, G. (1926). Constitutional Law of the Philippine Islands. Manila: The Lawyers co-operative Pub. Co.
• Malcolm, G. (1951). First Malayan Republic: The Story of the Philippines. Boston: Christopher Pub. House.
• Palafox, Q. (n.d.). Cádiz Constitution of 1812 and the Reform Movement, The.
• Payne, S. (1973). A History of Spain and Portugal, v. 2. Wisconsin: Univ of Wisconsin Pr.
• Reyes, R. (2008). Love, Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the Philippine Propaganda Movement, 1882-1892. Washington: Univ of Washington Pr.

No.

While many popular Christmas traditions in the United States and British Commonwealth today may have originated from the early Germanic winter solstice celebrations for the Yule-god Thor, they had already lost much of their religious significance beginning in 754 AD when Catholicism was established in the Germanies by St. Boniface.

Scandinavia still has remnants of the un-Disney-fied festivities in the form of the Juloffer and julbokk. However, even this activity is done for ethnic reasons rather than worship of Thor.

What pagan revivalists say happened to their customs.

English is, at its roots, a Germanic language, so the terminology of these ancient rites (e.g. Yule, Yule-log, Santa Claus, etc.) have more or less survived intact, adding to the season’s grumbling.

At the least, you just have a change in meaning (e.g. gay: happy/ homosexual,  liberal: libertarian/ socialist, etc.), at most, case of genericized trademarks (e.g. aspirin, Laundromat, heroin, kerosene, linoleum, Colgate, etc.) rather than any nefarious conspiracy to shiv pagans in the ribs.

Personally I think American cultural amalgamation and commerce bear more responsibility for having commercialized and globalized these cultural traditions. After all, take a look at what Dutch immigrant customs in New York coupled with Northern Agression War propaganda did to St. Nicholas of Myrna…

I wonder how Hallmark will commemorate this charitable event?

FAIL!!!

 Identity theft. Not just a modern crime.

For those who don’t know, I live in the Philippines, a tropical country in South-east Asia which is hot and jungle-y. Burning a big ass log for the heck of it does not float our boat even for Christmas fun.

Pass on the Yule-log... It’s hot enough here already.

Our basic culture is Romano-Iberian in origin and if the American colonial occupation (1899-1946) did not occur, these Germanic-origin popular traditions (Christmas trees, Advent crowns, Santa Claus) might never have gotten so prevalent. In Spain, such things are not native there.

For example, in Spain, Christmas trees are sometimes seen by older Spaniards to be modern additions to traditional Christmas festivities.

In the modern observance of Catholic high holy days, there are two types of customs and traditions in effect:

• formal ritual ceremonies, which are official practices established by religious authorities to commemorate historical events, and
• popular customs and traditions, which are unofficial practices observed by the community which may or may not be lingering holdovers from pre-Christian days. (More on this later,)

Formal ritual ceremonies are characterized by having a force of law; they cannot be disregarded by the faithful without incurring some penalty nor can they be arbitrarily modified without all sorts of bureaucratic processes.

100% Catholic, but not exactly conducive to eggnog consumption.

Example include:

• the «liturgia horarum,» the official set of daily prayers prescribed by the Catholic Church to be recited by the clergy, religious orders, and laity.
• the arrangement of the liturgical year commemorating events in Jesus’ life.

If Christmas was an American presidential election, this part would be the electoral vote, the only vote that matters according to Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000).

Popular customs and traditions are characterized by having arisen out of local ethnic practices having no official authorship. It is these practices which pagan revivalists claim IP rights on.

For most people, such festivities are nothing more than harmless fun, with little to no religious significance for the general populace, unless… you’re actively looking for one…

Their observance or non-observance have no bearing upon the teachings of salvation the Catholic Church, though Church authorities may step in to modify or suppress them if deemed harmful to the faithful or threaten to overshadow the formal ceremonies.

Examples include:

• [PHL] the parol, an ornamental star-like Christmas lantern from the Philippines, traditionally made from bamboo and Japanese rice paper and illuminated from within by candles of coconut oil lamps to represent the Star of Bethlehem.
• [GBR] the British tradition of adding silver charms and coins to Christmas pudding.
• [ES-CT] the Catalan tió de Nadal, which apparently is a log that shits candy. [!]
• [SRB] the Serbian бадњак (badnjak), an oak sapling which is consecrated by a Serbian Orthodox priest before it is ceremonially placed on a fire built in the churchyard.

Continuing the American presidential election analogy, this part would be the popular vote, something fun for the sweaty proles to get all hepped up about so they can feel like they’ve actually made a difference, but not really.

While these activates are not formally established, their usage retains the character of an “unwritten law,” and not participating in them sometimes makes you look like a jackass in front of your neighbors.

Bite me! Letter of the law, right?!

Things to consider:

• Not every Christmas tradition originating from Germanic culture have pagan origins (e.g. Christmas trees, Advent crowns, etc.) so I think some pagan revivalist claims are just overreaching.
• Some Christmas traditions, you can take them back, now… please?
• Some Protestant sects believe that Catholics = pagans and use the terms interchangeably when admonishing other Protestants… to the amusement of pagan revivalists who want nothing to do with the Catholic religion.

(To be continued)

The demarcation lines were drawn between my Catholic friends (traditionalists and conciliarists) and my non-Catholic friends (wiccans, atheists, polytheists, agnostics, and the religiously indifferent). Almost everyone involved is a libertarian of one kind or another, so you’d think that we’d at least have that much in common, right?

But then, factor in the cultural East-West divide; rational Asians having to deal with those inscrutable Occidentals and their bewildering exoticness and all hell just broke lose.

Yeah, I get around… Anyway, before the whole thread wound up degenerating into a grudge match with the peripheral spectators begging, “Can’t we all just get along,” I pulled the plug past a certain post, with a promise to address all the UNRELATED issues brought up.

Apologetics. Sometimes his god CAN beat up your god.

As promised, I am going to address each topic in a series of separate posts so we don’t wind up jumping all over the place come discussion time. Personally, I hate blogging. I have no talent for it and suspect that this whole blogging thing is a digital version of “Dear Diary…”

The same goes for teaching. Not everyone is suited to instructing others. Those attempting to teach others must possess patience and insight to nurture the student and also have the wit, firmness, and authority needed to impress the lessons. If one is lacking in either intelligence, wisdom, or charisma, that person is close, but just not a teacher. If lacks on all counts, that person has absolutely no aptitude for teaching.

Do I qualify on all accounts? Who knows. I’m not going to guarantee that everyone will like the answers I’m going to give, nor am I am not self-deluded to think that any of you will come around to my way of thinking. Just don’t expect this to be instant since I’m currently in a Christmas turkey-induced fugue state right now.

Know your limitations. If you don’t have the talent to do a good job, don’t waste your time muddling through it. Use the classified ads and hire someone with talent to do the job for you. Haven’t you ever heard of organization or delegation?

As policy, I don’t concern myself about political correctness or “feelings.” Those who know me will testify to this. I find such concepts to be lame and emo respectively. The kind of concepts that used to get beaten up for their lunch money at philosophy primary. I freely say what I believe in (which most people consider to be outmoded or unfashionable like 80′s thrash metal or shaving with a straight razor) and do my best to act consistently in those beliefs. You are free to take to heart or ignore what I say.

If you truly are curious about my point of view, and not just firing off salvos for the fun of being annoying, then I happily answer all questions to the best of my knowledge and experience.

From my experience, it is easier to overthrow governments (I’ve personally done that twice) than it is to change people’s beliefs.

Even if I don’t change anyone’s perspectives, I hope that people at least get it clear that I think and act and speak based upon my own experience and reason; I am neither a sleepwalker nor do I operate under whatever assumption you may already have about my system of beliefs. You want to know something? Just ask. Don’t assume.

So, stick around. Complete answers (the only explanation that counts) takes time to get across, so don’t you dare pull TL;DR on me.

I will be dealing with the following topics (in the no particular order). Further topics may follow if I don’t get bored first.

1. Is the Roman Catholic religion just a syncretism of stolen pagan traditions?
2. Is the Roman Catholic religion against liberty and free-markets?
3. How can people with different moral viewpoints all claim be libertarians?

In a Rechtsstaat, the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority. In a Rechtsstaat the citizens share legally based civil liberties and they can use the courts. A country cannot be a liberal democracy without first being a Rechtsstaat.

The organic development of laws

Constitutionalism: holds that government can and should be legally limited in its powers, and that its authority depends on enforcing those limitations. Sometimes equated with the “rule of law.”

FACT: The Philippines does not have a traditional or even favourable sentiment towards the traditional concept of constitutionalism.

Our first constitution in 1899, which I believe the best and most representing of our national aspirations was struck down along with the Malolos Republic; the next two (1935, 1942) were imposed upon us by foreign powers seeking extraterritorial hegemony; our next home-grown charter (1973) was co-opted to justify the actions of a single tyrant, and our current one (1986) was written primarily to do away with the last one.

With so many replacements of our fundamental charter, the Filipino citizenry have picked up the wrong idea about the “rule of law,” seeing from their experience that, law is an arbitrary thing, imposed upon the country by the self-serving political class and designed to serve the agenda of the hour and curry the favours of the mob.

We are then currently left with a document steeped in the intrinsic errors of 19th century Jacobin socialism and Progressive Era (c. 1890-1920) populism, while faith and custom, the true originators of law are ignored, primarily because the roots of many of these traditions extend beyond the national boundaries; a mortal sin to the nationalists.

The rule according to a higher law: means that no written law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain unwritten, universal principles of fairness, morality, and justice.

Thus, the rule according to a higher law may serve as a practical legal criterion to qualify the instances of political or economical decision-making, when a government, even though acting in conformity with clearly defined and properly enacted legal rules, still produces results which many observers find unfair or unjust.

“Higher law” can be interpreted in this context as the divine or natural law or basic legal values, established in the international law, – the choice depending on the viewpoint. But this is definitely a Law above the law. And it is in this capacity that it possesses the equal legal value for both the common and civil law jurisdictions, as opposed to natural law which is largely associated with common law.

“To recognize the necessary connection between the rule of law as an ideal and well-constructed constitutional government does not and should not be taken to imply that all states can or should maintain the same constitutional structures in practice”.

Sellers, M. & Tomaszewski, T. (2010) The Rule of Law in Comparative Perspectives. New York: Springer Publishing. ISBN: 978-9048137480.

Winter solstice: 21 December.
Christmas: 25  December.

FACT 2. Catholic Christmastide season  ≠ Pagan Germanic/ Norse Yule.

Yule: 14 November – 13 December.
Christmastide:  25 December – 6 January.

So, no. The Catholic Church did not just cover up some pagan celebration in order to get the townies to play along.

Some people point out that depending on what calendar was used, Christmas and the winter solstice may have coincided.

Sure, law of averages, right?

Calendars weren’t a universal or even a precise thing back then. While Romans officially counted years from the founding of the city, they also counted consulships, lunar cycles, a “market week” of eight days, and dated thing backwards from specific days in a month. Heck, you even had leap-months.

This particular calendar was so convoluted that holidays were holidays only when the augers and priests said so. Hence the Julian reforms.

Other kingdoms marked time by the reign of monarchs. Every village and every cult had their own way of reckoning time from seasonal changes to remembrances of local events. So saying that two specific calendars had coincided celebrations is less noteworthy upon second glance.

But then, the Eastern Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Churches who still use the old Julian calendar celebrate Christmas either on 7 January or 19 January, again far from the solstice-Yule time period.

Why would anyone harp on a rather trivial matter such as this each and every year?

Put plainly, it is religious discrimination against Catholics. Perpetrators include:

• non-mainstream Protestant sects (Jehovah’s Witnesses, fundamentalist Baptists, 7th Day Adventist) who claim “There’s no ‘Christmas’ mentioned in the Bible!”;
• Modern religious movements influenced by the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of Europe (pagan revivalists) trying to claim minority status and survivor street cred; and
• militant atheists who can’t abide the presence of crèches while attending Christmas parties and receiving their fair share of the holiday loot.

Funny how nobody mentions that Lutherans, Evangelicals, Anglicans, and the Orthodox Churches have similar celebrations, but get zero flak for it.

1. Is it because the Catholic Church is just a bigger target whose broad back attracts stabby folk?
2. Is it because devout Catholics refuse to play nice and inadvertently annoy some people by making them feel guilty of their life choices?

There is a method to this madness.

The idea is to attempt to undermine the Catholic system by avoiding hot button topics which have a lot of trained apologists defending the faith and drawing the less informed towards overlooked topics which few faithful bother to notice.

The premise is this:

If the Catholic Church can’t be trusted to keep something as simple as an appointment book, then they can’t be trusted to walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, much less have any credibility to speak on hot-button topics like contraception, homosexuality, poverty, etc.

From little acorns to big oak trees… 4GW tactics at its most basic.

Fact 3. When these jokers nonchalantly remind us to turn the other cheek, they really mean “Bend over, here it comes again!“

Sorry, buddy. Homey don’t play dat!”

Many natural law philosophers wonder about how these rights came to exist. As a Catholic, I believe that God is the author of these rights. Only he may take them away. No human agency may do so.

The right to bear arms is a logical conclusion if you accept the right to life.

This means that you own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person or group of persons, owns your life. Nor do you own the life of others.

You have the right to protect your own LIFE, LIBERTY, and justly acquired PROPERTY from the forceful aggression of others, and you may ask others to help defend you.

— Ken Schooland, The Philosophy of Liberty

Firearm ownership is what makes this possible and therefore should not be limited to government officials.

I believe that civilian firearm ownership is necessary for two purposes:

• One, to provide a deterrent to foreign invasion, and
• Two, to give citizens the force parity necessary to resist the State, the police, and the Armed Forces on the day when these agencies no longer serves the people and turns against us like it did on 21 September, 1972 and again on 23 November 2009.

This force parity shall include automatic rifles and other heavy weaponry.

Due to the near poverty of our police and soldiers, illegal arms sales will continue. So why not let private citizens take them off the streets? An automatic rifle we buy on the black market is one more weapon that cannot be used by criminals, rebels, goons, death squads, politicians, and other psychopaths. You know… people who don’t bother with gun laws…

By studying other events in history, I conclude that that martial law and government sanctioned human rights abuses would not have lasted two decades if Filipinos simply remembered to cherish their freedoms more than offered peace and safety and chose to resist the government by force of arms.

Despite the restoration of our freedoms, we, the Filipino people have been forced to sit through coups, criminal trespass, and just last year, a massacre of civilians and another illegal declaration of martial law. All the while our government has steadily eroded our right to self-defense. What more proof do we need that the 250 Families that control the Republic of the Philippines care nothing about us ordinary folk, save that we die quietly so as not to disturb their political games?

No more.

I advocate two courses of action:

• a constitutional amendment recognizing our right to self defense as an extension of our natural right to life; and
• continued purchasing of black market armaments.

The best unambiguous wording for the constitutional amendment should be taken from the 1899 Proposed Constitution for the Republic of Negros:

Article I., Section 5.: The right of the citizen to keep arms in defense of his home and the right to bear arms by an organized militia created for the protection of the state must not be infringed.

I believe that while firearms should be registered privately for insurance purposes, all forms of government licensing and registration should end as these are the tools for future firearm confiscation. Well… not too future since Biazon and the PNP plan to do this.

Filipinos already have a healthy distaste of monopolies in business so why should we accept a state monopoly on firearms?

Economics As Science: A Catholic Defense of the Free Market

by Thomas E. Woods Jr.

http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/economics-as-science-a-catholic-defense-of-the-free-market.html

Put forth a robust defense of the free market as the most morally and materially satisfying economic system and you invite all manner of invective and accusation. What are you, some kind of dissenter?

Not so fast. Although the documents of modern Catholic social teaching normally begin with Rerum Novarum (1891), students should instead start with Pope Leo XIII’s Quod Apostolici Muneris(1878), an encyclical entirely devoted to socialism, in order to understand that socialism and the free market are not being described as equally objectionable. For while socialism is per se condemned, the market is criticized only for alleged abuses.

Nor could the Church condemn the market in and of itself, since it rests on the inoffensive principle of peaceful, non-coerced exchanges between rightful property owners. Breathless claims to the contrary notwithstanding, that is all the free market amounts to. With Leo XIII having described the rights of property as "inviolate" in one encyclical and "sacred and inviolable" in another — phrases the Left has spent the past century trying to explain away, I might add — the Church would have to acknowledge the essential justice of a market economy at some level, even if she might for whatever reason still have complaints to register here and there.

The authority of the bishops in the Church, including the supreme pontiff himself, involves matters pertaining to faith and morals. Important as that authority is, it is mere superstition to think it confers upon them an expertise in secular disciplines. It is one thing to enumerate general principles or worthy goals, but it is quite another to propose the specific policies that are most likely to achieve those goals, or even to avoid policies that may wind up frustrating them. These latter skills necessarily involve a working knowledge of the mechanics of the discipline in question.

Several years ago, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, New Jersey, made something like this point himself with reference to economics:

For example, our preferential option for the poor is a fundamental aspect of this teaching. But, there are legitimate disagreements about the best way or ways truly to help the poor in our society. No Catholic can legitimately say, "I do not care about the poor." If he or she did so this person would not be objectively in communion with Christ and His Church. But, both those who propose welfare increases and those who propose tax cuts to stimulate the economy may in all sincerity believe that their way is the best method really to help the poor. This is a matter of prudential judgment made by those entrusted with the care of the common good. It is a matter of conscience in the proper sense.

In other words, there is far more room for legitimate debate on these questions than some people seem prepared to concede.

Another claim is that Catholic free-marketeers have defined the sphere of faith and morals too narrowly, and that the popes’ statements about the economy are a legitimate subset of those areas of life over which they have been given divine authority to instruct the faithful. The popes, this argument goes, have every right to speak out on economic matters since such things are not utterly distinct or removed from moral concerns.

This argument, too, misfires. No one denies that economic activity carries a moral dimension. The pope is obviously well within his rights to condemn theft or fraud, or to instruct the faithful on the need to be generous with their wealth. He may likewise condemn government policies that involve oppression and injustice, such as burdensome taxation or inflation of the money supply. Thus, no one is saying that action in the economic sphere (or, for that matter, the medical or any other sphere) is exempt from moral evaluation.

The point is that the cause-and-effect relationships that constitute the theoretical edifice of economics are not a matter of faith and morals. They do not fall within the range of subjects on which a Catholic prelate is endowed with special insight or authority. Catholic laity cannot head up petition drives against them. They are simply facts of life. Facts cannot be protested, defied, or lectured to; they can only be learned and acted upon. There is no use in shaking our fists at the fact that price controls lead to shortages. All we can do is understand the phenomenon, and be sure to bear it and other economic truths in mind if we want to make statements about the economy that are rational and useful.

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The real issue at stake, which is obscured by these straw-man objections, is this. Suppose an ecclesiastical document should recommend a particular economic policy as being morally necessary, because its drafters believe it will make the poor better off. Suppose further that they consider it so obvious that this policy will improve the lot of the poor that they do not consider the possibility that it could have any other effect, that there could be any good economic reason for opposing it, or even simply that a trade-off exists between the good outcome they hope for by the policy and unfortunate, unintended side effects of that policy. And now suppose that the policy will in fact not only not improve the position of the poor, but may also make it even worse. What are economically astute members of the faithful to do? Are they forbidden to observe that no one can make reality otherwise than it is, or make A cause B if in the nature of things A inhibits B?

Various episcopal conferences have issued letters on the economy whose recommendations are, to my mind, almost uniformly unwise. That observation is not intended to insult the bishops; like anyone else, they are liable to give poor economic advice in the absence of formal training or at least substantial reading in the subject, neither of which their schedules typically allow.

And here is the problem. It is not as if such policies are introduced with the proviso that, yes, they will make us all poorer, but justice demands that we implement them anyway. They are assumed to be good for workers and the poor from a material standpoint. But what if they are not? What if they make the poor worse off than they would otherwise have been? There is no a priori reason simply to assume they will not, and there are plenty of good reasons that they will. This hole in Catholic social teaching is rarely acknowledged, much less addressed. There is nothing sinister or disobedient about simply pointing it out. Those who would shut down such discussion play into the worst Protestant caricatures of the Catholic Church.

A proposal that arises in many Catholic circles is for a "living wage," which would allow a worker sufficient income to allow his family to live in reasonable comfort. Just the other day I came across an article in a traditionalist Catholic newspaper offhandedly calling for this very thing. Not even for a moment did the author suppose that the matter could be more complicated than this, that there might be any negative consequences, or that an entire field of study exists whose purpose is to understand the various interrelationships that constitute the nexus of human exchange. Wages aren’t high enough? Why, we’ll just pass a law and force them up.

Vainly barking commands at the economy cannot make reality otherwise than it is. We may as well harangue the law of gravity for dashing our hopes of soaring through the air. All people of good will would be delighted if suddenly, for the first time in world history, everyone earned a wage we considered comfortable. But if the human will alone could make everyone prosperous, then what Bangladesh lacks is not capital and secure property rights but enough protests and vigils. In what other field do Catholics feel justified in making solemn pronouncements without knowing the first thing about the subject at hand?

I lack the space here to explain just how destructive and ill-considered living wage proposals are. (I did, however, write a chapter on the subject for Philip Booth’s collection, Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs; the whole book is available for free download here.) What I can explain is why a market economy tends to make real wages rise — and show that the process has nothing to do with, and succeeds very much in spite of, the countless interventions into the economy that are supported out of a combination of ignorance and envy.

In a free-market economy, businesses invest most of their profits in capital goods designed to make labor more productive. My own father was a forklift operator in a food warehouse for 15 years. The forklift made it possible to move and stack far more pallets than a worker could have done in the past, and to reach heights that would have been impossible with his bare hands. Likewise, a steam shovel can do the work of many men with regular shovels. The combined result of all this is that the economy can now produce far more than before. That is how wealth is created: We can produce more with the same (or a lesser) amount of labor. And no, that doesn’t mean we will run out of jobs; unless we are in the Garden of Eden, there are always unsatisfied wants and thus more to do. It means labor can now be released to produce other things for which the requisite labor had not previously been available.{mospagebreak}

Thanks to this capital investment, firms can now produce in much greater quantities than before, and at lower cost. Under competitive pressures, firms pass on these cost cuts to consumers in the form of lower prices, better quality merchandise, or a combination of both. (We don’t see these price cuts so clearly in our economy, thanks to a Federal Reserve System whose inflationary policy makes nearly all nominal prices and wages rise over time. But the process we are describing is at work when wages rise faster than prices.)

Our standard of living increases, therefore, not because government takes from the rich and gives to others; the number of rich people is relatively low compared to what people think, and moreover the rich eventually catch on and stop working or hide their income if they know the envious are going to keep taking it from them. And it isn’t because labor unions "struggle" with employers to win concessions. Our standard of living increases because business firms can invest in machinery that makes it possible for more and more goods to be produced with fewer and fewer hands, thereby increasing the overall amount of material goods available and rendering them less and less expensive.

This wonderful process can be seen at work in our everyday lives. Americans need to work fewer hours to earn the purchasing power necessary to buy the goods they need than they had to in the past. In 1950, for example, Americans had to work six minutes to earn the money that would buy them a loaf of bread; by 1999 that was down to just three and a half minutes. To be able to buy a dozen oranges in 1950 took 21 minutes of labor. It was only nine minutes by 1999. Paying for 100 kilowatts of electricity required two hours of labor in 1950, but only 14 minutes in 1999. Someone in 1900 would have had to work nine hours, as compared with four hours in 1950 and three hours in 1999, to earn the money to buy a pair of jeans. For a three-pound chicken, it was 160 minutes in 1900, 71 in 1950, and 24 in 1999. I could go on.

Anything that interferes with capital accumulation — in other words, just about everything you hear advocated on TV and, sad to say, in your diocesan paper — retards this salutary process and thus keeps the average person’s standard of living from rising.

This analysis also helps us to understand the fallacy in the argument I sometimes hear in Catholic (and other) circles that labor deserves special privileges at the expense of capital because of how indispensable it is to production. This claim dubiously extrapolates from an isolated remark in Rerum Novarum to the effect that it is only by the exertion of human labor that states grow rich. (Leo XIII spoke better than these critics when he said that labor and capital were naturally complementary, and that each needed the other.) But how much could laborers produce with their bare hands alone, absent the machinery that their employers’ investment of saved funds made possible?

The facile reply that capital equipment also requires labor for its production, and that this demonstrates the primacy of labor yet again, is answered simply: Brawn alone will never produce a Pentium processor or even a steam shovel. Only when informed by the knowledge of inventors and supplied with the capital saved by capitalists can the average laborer produce even the tiniest fraction of what he now produces. If anything, it is capital that deserves special consideration: Perhaps laborers should hand over a portion of their paychecks to their employers to compensate them for the abstention from consumption that made the investment in their capital equipment possible.

I say that in jest, of course. Wages should be determined according to the market, not on the basis of silly propositions and counter-propositions regarding the relative worth of labor and capital.

We sometimes hear about the "preferential option for the poor," a phrase that originated with liberation theology but that has more or less been adopted by mainstream Catholic thinkers. It means we should formulate economic policy, and design our institutional framework, with a special eye to improving the well-being of the poor in particular.

Now consider: No one protested against poverty in the year 1300. That is because everyone took for granted that poverty and squalor were facts of life that no amount of protest could efface from the story of human existence. That over the past two centuries we have seen protests against what poverty that remains is itself an indication of what an extraordinary engine of production and prosperity the market is. For the first time, it suddenly seemed possible that grinding poverty could actually be conquered, that enough wealth could be created to make at least the worst human misery a thing of the past. Thus, the market is the "preferential option for the poor."

The extension of the market economy to more and more areas of the world has made possible the greatest population explosion of all time — good news, one would think — and has reduced the incidence of extreme poverty more than any other mechanism in history. The market economy helps the poor in yet another way: by catering to a mass market rather than focusing mainly on luxuries for the few, the market makes the average person’s well-being into its primary goal. The poor also happen to suffer the least deprivation and enjoy the greatest material comforts (again, material comforts aren’t everything, but they are something) in countries whose economies come closest to a free market.

Supporters of the market are invariably accused of materialism, focusing on material goods at the expense of higher things, when they make such points. The correct reply to this strange objection, it seems to me, is twofold.

First, it is because the economy is more productive and can yield more goods with less effort that people can enjoy more leisure time with their families and spend more time cultivating piety and pursuing what we might call the higher things. That is an unimpeachable and non-materialistic reason to favor free, unhampered capital accumulation. The spread of market economies has made possible a dramatically lower infant mortality rate; only a fool would accuse people of "materialism" for cheering developments like this. One traditional Catholic newspaper, though, carried an article several years ago by an opponent of the market economy who actually discounted the market’s extraordinary reduction in infant mortality rates on the grounds that parents who grieved too much for a dead child were too attached to this world. I doubt I need to compose a reply to that.

Moreover, the corpus of Catholic social teaching, from papal encyclicals to the statements of bishops’ conferences, takes for granted that various kinds of interventions or central planning will make people materially better off. Msgr. John A. Ryan, for example, the American priest who perhaps more than any other attempted to reckon with the question of labor and wages, argued that men are "more susceptible to religious influence [and] can know and serve God better when they are contented and comfortable than when they are impoverished and miserable." As he said again and again, his belief that the material well-being of workers would be increased by government intervention into the labor market motivated his efforts on their behalf. So if the economists are "materialistic," then so is Catholic social teaching itself — and I rather doubt our accusers wish to back into that corner.

All kinds of aggression against private property have been proposed on the grounds that, after all, the Church does not teach that the right to property is "absolute." But whether property rights are absolute or not (and a minority tradition extending from Henry of Ghent through Pope John XXII and then to Leo XIII suggests that they are), it does not follow that it is the state rather than the individual conscience that must do the curtailing.

St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, argued that even a sin like prostitution could be tolerated if suppressing it would lead to still greater evils. But if prostitution can be tolerated, then certainly a positive good like private property can, if curtailing the rights to property would likewise lead to greater evils. Entire books have been written detailing those evils, plenty of which I describe in The Church and the Market.

All in all, state power to aggress against property owners inevitably encourages man’s most predatory instincts, giving him an incentive to devote less time to satisfying the needs of his fellow men and more time to using the state’s machinery of coercion to loot them for his own selfish benefit. Since the release of such instincts will seriously undermine the common good, I see no reason that someone could not cite St. Thomas’s principle and thereby be perfectly at liberty to oppose expansions of state power over the economy on these grounds.

Pope John Paul II was fond of the maxim that people should be treated as ends in themselves, rather than as mere means to ends. Only the market respects this principle, since transactions are allowed to occur only when both parties give their consent. No one may employ the state’s machinery of violence against another to make the latter bow to his will, hand over his money, or otherwise act against his normal inclination.

According to John Paul II, "The moral causes of prosperity . . . reside in a constellation of virtues: industriousness, competence, order, honesty, initiative, frugality, thrift, spirit of service, keeping one’s word, daring — in short, love for work well done. No system or social structure can resolve, as if by magic, the problem of poverty outside of these virtues." These are precisely the virtues that the market economy fosters.

These ideas are not foreign to Catholic tradition: The Late Scholastics of the 16th and 17th centuries favored an economy very largely free of government controls, and John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus(1991) reflected an increasing appreciation for the moral and material benefits of non-coerced economic exchange. The less heed we pay to slogans and propaganda, and the more we study the question on its merits, the more attractive does the market become.

The principle of subsidiarity: holds that a central authority (such as government) should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.  This assumes that matters ought to be first handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority and that only when those initiatives exceed the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently, should the central authority attempt to undertake them.

Features:

• Subsidiarity refers to the way in which a larger organization or community must help or support a smaller organization or community.
• Subsidiarity is based upon the autonomy and dignity of the human individual, and holds that all other forms of society, from the family to the state and the international order, should be in the service of the human person.

• Subsidiarity assumes that these human persons are by their nature social beings, and emphasizes the importance of small and intermediate-sized communities or institutions, like the family, the church, and voluntary associations, as mediating structures which empower individual action and link the individual to society as a whole.

[…] no function should be assigned to a higher or more remote institution (the bureaucracy of a distant central government, for example) that can be effectively carried out by a smaller and more immediate social unit (families, churches, and the like).

Woods, T. E. (2005). The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. Maryland: Lexington Books.

Etymology:

The word subsidiarity means “to help” or “to support.” It is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching.

Subsidiarity. (2008, March 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

The Civil Code of the Philippines (1950) has its roots in other earlier legal systems such as Roman law, especially the Corpus Juris Civilis (592) of Emperor Justinian, and the Spanish Código Civil (1885), a modification of the Code Napoléon (1804) first imposed upon Spain during the Guerra de la Independencia Española (1808-1814).

The geography of the Eastern Roman Empire, France, and Spain are all continuous land territories with a more or less homogenous population which can be easily consolidated under a centralized government. This collectivist mindset is ingrained by default in the Filipino consciousness, a position inherited from our shared history with Spain.

Added to these difficulties stemming from the physical environment are the true historical foundations of the Filipino nation-state: the intrinsic anti-Catholic errors of 19th century Jacobin socialism and Progressive Era (c. 1890-1920) populism. As it is today, our current political system is entirely a debate between competing forms of socialism.

These philosophical origins remain obscure today due to an almost universal unwillingness of most Filipinos to critically reflect upon the past. They do however, recognize the ruinous effects of these philosophies upon the social sphere: patronage politics and a culture of dependency (on those in political authority) where personal responsibility, spot decision-making, and individual incentive are routinely thwarted.

Let us first examine some key concepts:

What is a unitary state?

It is a system of government wherein all governmental power is vested in a central government and whose branches of government are governed constitutionally as one single unit.

Unitary state. (2008, March 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:26, March 9, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state

What is a federation ?

A federation is a union comprising a number of originally self-governing states united by a central government.

Federation. (2008, October 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:17, October 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation

Federalism. (2008, October 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:18, October 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism

How does a unitary state differ from a federation?

In a unitary state, sovereignty resides in the central government and authority flows from the central government down to the sub national levels.

In a federation, sovereignty originates from politically equal, independent and sovereign nations who then delegate specific responsibilities and a portion of their authority to a new administrative government.

Are there any other alternate forms of federal systems?

Yes. A confederation is a government in which politically equal, independent and sovereign nations create a central government by constitutional compact but do not give it power to regulate the conduct of individuals. In a confederation, the central government makes regulations for the compact, but it exists and operates only at the direction of the constituent governments.

Confederation. (2008, October 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:18, October 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation

Conclusion: While a confederation would be the inverse opposite of the unitary state, and which would fulfill the espoused intentions of the proposal planners, its form would severely curtail the political ambitions of our public servants and thus is unlikely to be put up for serious consideration under the status quo.

The Philippine territory is not a single contiguous land mass and the population is ethno-linguistically diverse, with 160-173 distinct indigenous and non-indigenous multilingual ethnic groups . These factors make communications and travel difficult, time-consuming and costly.

Elected officials and political theorists alike have periodically tendered suggestions on how to permanently eradicate these social symptoms. But without a frank recognition of their origins, any proposed solution is doomed to fail. The current panacea is to decentralize the political power of the national government and transform the Philippine Republic from a unitary state into a federacy.

Various proposals have been tendered, including:

• Five nation-state proposal by David Martinez.

Martinez, David C. (2002). A country of our own: Partitioning the Philippines. Washington: DayKeeper Press. ISBN-13: 978-1893710122.

• Original 10 State [Regionalism] proposal by Dr. José V. Abueva, PhD.
• 11 State [10 plus Manila] proposal by Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.

Press Release. (2008, April 23). Pimentel files resolution on Federal System. Senate of the Philippines. http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2008/0423_pimentel1.asp

ABS-CBN News Online. (2008, April 24). Eleven senators endorse federal system of govt. Author. http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=116036

Pimentel, A. et al. Senate Joint Resolution 10. Retrieved from http://www.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/71586390!.pdf

Will any of these various proposals result in a federal form of government?

No. Implementation of Senate Joint Resolution 10 will not result in a federal form of government. The end result will not be a federal state, but in what is known as a “devolved unitary state”. It will be “federal” in name only, just as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is “democratic” in name only.

Before I go into specific details, let us consider:

What is a devolved state?

It is an increasingly common form of unitary state wherein the central government statutorily allows sub-national levels of governments extensive powers. Known in the United Kingdom as home rule.

However, the central government reserves the right to withdraw those powers at will, the sub-national levels having no actual right to any of powers granted. The powers of sub national levels in a devolved unitary state are held entirely at the pleasure of the central government.

Devolution. (2008, October 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:29, October 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution

How does a devolved unitary state differ from federalism?

1.  
   • Scotland has a wide degree of autonomous law-making power, however, there is no right for Scotland to challenge the constitutionality of UK national legislation, and laws of Scotland can be overridden, and the powers of the Scottish parliament revoked or reduced, by an act of the national parliament or a decision of the Prime Minister.
   • In the case of Northern Ireland, the devolved powers of the region have been suspended by a simple government decision on several occasions. From 1973 to 2007, Northern Ireland was directly ruled by the United Kingdom’s central government in London.

It differs in that the sub national levels of a devolved unitary state do not have any constitutional rights to challenge national legislation or preserve their powers. (e.g. Constitutional review)

In the devolved state model, while the central government may choose to delegate some of its authority and functions to the sub national levels (which may have their own governments and allowed to have their own laws, and typically practice a large degree of autonomous decision making), the state remains de facto, if not de jure, a unitary state.

Depending on the exact legal status of the devolved powers, the laws of the sub national governments may be overridden, or their law-making powers curtailed by either a statute from the national legislature or by a simple decision of the head of government.

The United Kingdom is a good example of this:

Thus, the UK is still a unitary state, despite superficially appearing somewhat like a federal state in practice.

Just because the central government, if it chooses to do so, delegates authority to sub national levels, this does not change the fact that the central government shall always retain the principal right to recall such delegated power.

What is the indicative marker that a unitary devolved state, rather than a federal state will be the ultimate result from Senate Joint Resolution 10 : “A resolution to convene the Congress into a constituent assembly for the purpose of revising the Constitution to establish a federal system of government”?

The fact that all directives in this proposal for government reorganization is emanating from the top-down. None of the current sub national governments are recognized as constituents nor are they being consulted as to their desires in the matter. Their only choice is to either take it or leave it.

In short, the central government will continue to dictate to the rest of the country what they should or should not do. The sub national constituents exist at the pleasure of the central government. We already have that now so why are working towards more of the same?

Let us examine the following:

1. Article 1, Revision 2-3: “The Federal Republic shall be composed of the following 11 States:”
   1. What is the rationale behind having precisely eleven “states” ?
   2. Is it in the best interest of the provincial governments to have an additional layer of bureaucracy and administration between them and the national government?
   3. We currently have 81 provinces grouped into 17 regions. Is there any advantage to having 11 “states” as opposed to 17 or 81?
   4. If we go by ethno-linguistic groups, then according to SIL International, Filipinos are actually 160-175 distinct indigenous and non-indigenous ethno-linguistic groups each with their own culture and language. Why not grant the territory of each group statehood?
   5. The notion that large legislatures are unwieldy and unable to work for the benefit of the nation is untrue. 
      • People’s National Congress (PRC): 3,000 delegates
      • Parliament (UK): 1,378 members
      • Parliament of India: 802 members
      • National Diet (JPN): 722 members
      • Cortes Generales (ESP): 609 members
   6. As to the composition of these proposed “states” , what is the rationale behind say having the Ifugaos and the Ivatan sharing the same arbitrary political state? Tagalogs and Bicolanos? There are Chavacanos and Ivatan colonies in Mindanao. Wouldn’t that muddy up the waters?
2. Article 1, Revision 4: On secession.
   1. If in the event that the inhabitants of a “state” decide to secede, what is the rationale behind having a second ratification if not to frustrate the popular will? In a federal system, the constituent units are sovereign and its up to nobody but them if they decide to enter or leave the political compact.
   2. Why are there no provisions for admission of new “states” into the federal government?
3. Article 6, Revision 2: Composition of the Senate.
   1. What is the rationale behind having precisely75 senators, six from each proposed “state”?
   2. What is wrong with having two senators per province, or five senators per region, or one senator per ethno-linguistic group? How did you arrive at this magic number 75?
   3. What are the duties of the Senators towards their respective “states”?
   4. Do the “states” have the power to recall or sack their Senators?
   5. Who is responsible for the salaries of these Senators and their staff? The “states” or the national government?
   6. It would be realized almost immediately by everyone that secession from the proposed states would be to the benefit of partisan politics, not for nationalist grounds, but just to pack more seats into the Senate to gain a larger share of the pork. All it takes is one province to set a precedent.
4. Article 6, Revision 2: Composition of the House of Representatives.
   1. What is the rationale behind having an upper limit of precisely 350 representatives?
   2. We currently have a population of 90 million. Is it even remotely logical to expect a single representative to be responsibly attentive to the needs of approximately 257,143 constituents when currently a representative cannot handle 360,000?
   3. If a Representative is freed of the responsibility of an additional 102,857 constituents, will this guarantee true representation of the other 257,143 constituents in Congress?
5. Article 6, Revision 11: Exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Congress.
   1. In a true federal system, it is the constituent states which delegate powers to the central government. Why is the central government staking its claim beforehand and expecting the “states” to simply comply? Don’t you trust the “states” to come to an amicable settlement as to the division of duties?
6. Article 10-11: State governments:
   1. Why are the state legislatures ordered to be unicameral? Particularly if the framework being used is this 11 state scheme. Would not a bicameral legislature with the upper house giving representation to the various provinces be a better choice as they have their own priorities?
   2. The same goes about the manner of election, salaries, apportionment, jurisdiction, etc. Why not let the people of the “state” determine how such representatives are selected. If this plan is to encourage diversity, then it fails as it certainly looks like more of the usual micromanagement from the central government.

What are the author’s reasons for proposing a federacy?

1.  
   • speed up the development of the entire nation (by allocating power which at present is concentrated in the central government to the regions that will be converted to federal states)
   • help dissipate the causes of the insurgency throughout the land, particularly, the centuries-old Moro rebellions.

Reading Senate Joint Resolution 10 entitled, “A resolution to convene the Congress into a constituent assembly for the purpose of revising the Constitution to establish a federal system of government” claims the federalization of the Republic would:

Pimentel, Aquilino, Jr. (27 April 2002). Why Adopt the Federal System of Government? A Primer on the Federal System presented to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines at its annual convention. Tacloban City.

If this is the true end of these proposals, then they can easily be achieved simply by fully implementing the Local Autonomy Act of 1991. There is then no need to amend or scrap the existing Constitution of 1987.

1.  
   1. Senate Joint Resolution 10 will do nothing to end the jihad. Islâm cannot abide that formerly Muslims lands (which once reached to Manila) are in the control of non-Muslims. While there may be peaceful Muslims, there is no such thing as a peaceful Islâm as it is a warrior religion.
   2. Senate Joint Resolution 10 will do nothing to end Communist insurgency. If these bandits could ignore the fall of global communism, do you imagine that they will pay attention to another legislative act?

As to the claim that Senate Joint Resolution 10 will speed up the development of the entire nation, we see a paradox: this proposal offers to decentralize power by application of command economy allocation.

Charter Change. (2008, February 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:59, March 9, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Change

Rightly or wrongly, I feel that this proposal is less about federalism, and more about politicians angling for more power. I make no accusations. I name no names. All I say is that whatever future benefits are offered by this scheme, I see too many possibilities for oppression to our persons, to our rights and to our liberties. Given the choice, I would rather stick with the devil I know, the 1987 Constitution even with its numerous socialist defects, than risk what little freedoms with adventurous experimentation.

The paradox: In order to have true federalism, we would have to defunct the unitary Philippine Republic and hope that the now independent nations will wish to reconstitute it.

Conclusion: While it is common sense that over-centralization of political power is a constant and looming threat to our natural rights and individual liberties, this proposed solution should be rejected out of hand by right thinking citizens.

The reasons to do so are as follows:

1. Federalism cannot be imposed from above. Top-down attempts to impose federalism upon a unitary nation state will only result in a devolved unitary state. True federalism must be built bottom-up. It implies the fragmentation of the unitary state down to individual level which the current government will never sanction.
2. This proposal is really a deceptively marketed plan for extended devolution of the current system and is federal in name only . There is nothing inherently wrong with home rule, but why label it something it is not rather than let it stand on its own merits?
3. If the public is already being falsely informed by the name alone, how can we place any faith in the proposal without wondering what other things are being quietly snuck past the public eye? Such as:
   1. Article 7, Revision 4a: Manner of Election of the Vice President.
      1. Instead of the VP receiving votes on his own, he is now piggy-backed on the votes of the President. It is a free appointment where an unpopular politician receives the second highest office in the land simply because he gets tied to the winner.
      2. How does this amendment:
         • speed up the development of the entire nation (by allocating power which at present is concentrated in the central government to the regions that will be converted to federal states)
         • help dissipate the causes of the insurgency throughout the land, particularly, the centuries-old Moro rebellions.

Consider the following quote:

“It’s stupid to require everybody to have read the proposed changes before signing.”

-José V. Abueva, premier advocate of (false) federalism, on the 25 October 2006 Supreme court ruling rejecting the Sigaw ng̃ Bayan People’s Initiative.

Bordadora, Norman. (2006, October 31). Staunch charter change advocate loses cool over SC ruling. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=29815

1. What would any of us do if someone, a bank manager, a car dealer, a police officer, tells us to just shut up and sign whatever? Whether you actually do sign or not, would you honestly think that what just happened, happened for your benefit… or theirs?
2. Whatever costs each plan may entail, there will be no resulting fundamental changes to the nature of the state. The state will still continue to be unitary so why not save our money for something else worthwhile?
3. There are just no safeguards to prevent abuses of the new system.

Where is the equivalent of the Article IV, Section 1 of US Constitution: the “Full Faith and Credit Clause”

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

•  
  • Without such a specific amendment, what is to stop the central government from overriding any state law it feels is detrimental?

Is there any constitutional obligation by the central government guaranteeing each state a republican form of government? If not, should we assume that the states are free to vote themselves into:

1. a Communist dictatorship?
2. an Islamic caliphate?
3. a monarchy?
4. a state of anarchy?

If not, what then is the government response when it does happen?

1.  
   1. How the public allay their suspicions that this and other plans for either federalism or charter change are not simply for the benefits of the authors?
   2. Would the authors of this plan agree that in exchange for this proposal passing and the wholehearted support of the public, that they and their families to the sixth degree of kinship by either blood or marriage to resign their government posts now and be forever barred from holding any kind of public office or receiving public money?

This proposal will actually dissolve one of the few existing safeguards limiting the political ambitions of our elected officials, while the declared objectives (i.e. federalism, decentralization) becomes incidental.

1. Article 8, Revision 10-11: Abolishing the Judicial and Bar Council
   1.  
      
   2. With the Judicial and Bar Council scrapped, the President will be given the power to nominate appointments to the Judiciary making the new judges politically beholden. How can they judge against him? This is a direct revert to the Martial Law system that Filipinos fought to overturn since 1973.The Judicial and Bar Council was the creation of Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion who said:

“The Judicial and Bar Council is no doubt an innovation. But, it is an innovation made in response to the public clamor in favor of eliminating politics from the appointment of judges.”

“At present, there will be about 2,200 positions of judges, excluding those of the Supreme Court, to be filled. We feel that neither the President alone nor the Commission on Appointments would have the time and the means necessary to study the background of everyone of the candidates for appointment to the various courts in the Philippines, especially considering that we have accepted this morning the amendment to the effect that no person shall be qualified unless he has proven a high sense of morality and probity.”

(Record, Vol. 2, p. 487)

Final note:

The causes of poverty and rebellion in this country are not due to lack of government legislation or lack of government control. These social evils are a result of too much government intervention, too many laws, and too many governors. In short, the continual violation of the principle of subsidiarity, of which, we as Catholics are expected to adhere to.

In our present system, as well as what is offered by this proposal, even if all future laws to be made were done solely for the interest of the people and not just for the ambition of the legislators, sooner or later, all of us would inevitably become lawbreakers as it becomes more and more impossible to comply with the increasing rate of regulations and increasing size of government.

Ezra Taft Benson, US Secretary of Agriculture for Eisenhower administration said this:

“My attitude toward government is succinctly expressed by the following provision taken from the Alabama (State) Constitution:

“That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.” (Art. 1, Sec. 35)

REFERENCES:

1. Laurel, José P. (1926). Local Government in the Philippine Islands, Manila: La Pilarica Press.
2. Abueva, José V. ed. (2002). Towards a Federal republic of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government by 2010: A Draft Constitution. Kalayaan College, Marikina City.
3. Abueva, José V. (2000). Transforming Our Unitary System to a Federal System: A Pragmatic, Developmental Approach.
4. Brillantes, Alex B. (2002). Decentralization and Devolution in the Philippines: Experiences and Lessons Learned After a Decade presented at the International Conference on the “New Developments in Asia: Appraising a Decade of Experience, Problems and Prospects” at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. 7-9 April.
5. Pimentel, Aquilino, Jr. (2001). FEDERALIZING THE REPUBLIC: the ultimate basis for a just and lasting peace in central and southern Mindanao. Delivered at the Kusog Mindanao sponsored forum on federalization, New World Renaissance Hotel, Makati City, 30 November. http://www.nenepimentel.org/speeches/. Viewed on 22 June 2002.
6. Pimentel, Aquilino, Jr. (2002). Why Adopt the Federal System of Government? A primer presented to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines at its annual convention, Tacloban City, Philippines, 27 April. http://www.nenepimentel.org/speeches/. Viewed on 22 June 2002
7. Watts, Ronald L. (2002). The Relevance Today of the Federal Idea. http://www.federalism2002.ch/
8. World Federalist Association. Federal Systems in the Twentieth Century. http://www.wfa.org/about/compare.html. Viewed on 22 January 2002.