Promoting democracy, sharing RP experience

Promoting democracy, sharing RP experience

This is the second of two articles by former president of the
Phillipines Corazon C. Aquino, based on a presentation at the
colloquium and inauguration of The Habibie Center in Jakarta on
May 22.

JAKARTA: Confidence-building with the Armed Forces of the
Philippines was an arduous task. For 14 years, soldiers had been
used with impunity by the dictator to enforce martial law,
raising a wall of suspicion between civilians and the military.

Civilians saw the soldiers as the enemies of freedom, and the
military looked at us, the civilians as coddlers of communist
rebels, if not communists ourselves. They looked with distrust at
my coalition government with its assortment of human rights
advocates, landers who defended the human rights of martial law
victims, and liberal politicians.

And in me, they saw only the widow of the regime's foremost
victim, Ninoy Aquino, who was murdered by his armed guards.

I once asked a Colonel if it were true that the military
believed I could never forgive them. He confirmed it but said it
was understandable, since he knew that the widows of the military
felt the same way towards the insurgents.

I told him, that modesty aside, I was no ordinary widow. For I
was widowed of a man but remained wedded to his cause -- to unite
the nation and bring it peace.

I resolved to tear down the wall of suspicion between us and
set about in small and big ways, to build the trust that was
necessary to bring our society forward. I decided to start with
my fellow women.

I brought the wives of Cabinet officials and the wives of
military officers together in tasks which showed each side's
comparative advantage -- discipline and system on one side,
flexibility and networking on the other.

Theirs was the vital task of providing goods and services to
our less fortunate brethren in times of natural calamities. Those
friendships created then have lasted to this very day.

Next, I worked on the youth. I saw to it that the cadets who
were undergoing intensive schooling at the elite Philippine
Military Academy were introduced to university students in Metro
Manila to exchange experiences and challenges.

At first, there were deplorable results, but as they got to
know each other better, they began to like each other ...

I made the military, police and civilian authorities work
together as full partners in the Peace and Order Councils on the
national, provincial, city and municipal levels. I put disaster
relief operations under the military, because it had the reach,
the manpower and the best capability to cope with emergencies at
a moment's notice.

I ordered the deployment of armed forces engineering brigades
to open up for development those areas that were forbidden
territory due to the presence of insurgents. By giving the
military a positive role in development, we were changing the
attitude that the country was theirs for the taking, to the
attitude that they were an integral part of the country they were
serving.

I gave the military to understand that I would trust them to
improve the armed services as they saw fit. But they had to trust
me also in the deep and sometimes unexpected selection I would
make of their top commanders. Although I sprung some surprises on
them, they kept their part of the bargain, and allowed my
informed intuition to triumph over their informed preferences.

On hindsight, I realize that the military had much to deal
with during the early part of my presidency. Besides their
suspicion of my political orientation and the eclectic
composition of my cabinet, they hardly knew how to react to the
fact that their new Commander-in-Chief was a woman and the widow
of the best-known victim of martial rule.

But I, too, was confused, and I made some pretty serious
errors of judgment vis-a-vis the armed forces. It was perhaps a
conscious act of the disruptive elements in the military
leadership to confuse me.

For example, on the recommendation of the Board of Generals, I
promoted officers on the eve of their defection to the military
rebellion, and overlooked officers who would rush to the defense
of our republic in its hour of gravest peril.

The interventionist forces in the military capitalized on the
confusion of the soldiers and tried to entice them to support
their multiple coup attempts against my government.

To them, intervention had become a habit that they would break
only after repeated debacles at the hands of their peers who
obeyed the constitutional mandate to uphold civilian supremacy
and the repudiation of the civilian population.

Finally we triumphed. Both the military and my government
overcame our suspicions and mistrust. Near the end of my term, I
could confidently order the armed forces and the police to ensure
the freest and fairest elections my country had ever known.

Never before had they been given an order by the political
authority to remain neutral during an election. And I am proud to
report that they rose gallantly to the occasion.

I knew when I assumed office that poverty alleviation would
have to be the primary concern of my administration. But the
government was bankrupt, saddled with a huge foreign debt that
seemed unpayable. And my financial advisers had impressed upon me
that we had no choice -- we had to honor that debt.

We had to correct the inequities and distortions created by
the monopolies and cronyism of the past regime, and lift the
unnecessary controls on the productive sectors of the economy.

We stopped political interference in the credit decisions of
the government financial institutions, so that they could play
their proper roles in the reconstruction of the country.

We had to control inflation, impose market competition
discipline across the economy, and throw safety nets under those
who would be most severely affected by these austerities.

We drew up the Community Employment Development Program to
create employment on a massive scale ... But as we threw cash
down to a cash-starved economy, we found that not all the money
was going down to the supposed beneficiaries. Some of it was
sticking to the hands of officials farther down the line.

Clearly whatever assistance government could extend would not
go far without a reliable system that would make it go where it
was supposed to. Thus developed my relationship with non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) ... The military was especially
wary of them. They were regarded as seed-beds of insurrection ...

But the drafters of our 1987 Constitution saw the value of
NGOs ... as a partner of government.

The NGOs would behave no differently during my administration,
jealously guarding their independence and keeping a skeptical
distance from government and the military. They held government
accountable for every human rights violation, every failure to
deliver public services. They defied any attempt at
categorization and control.

On being asked what things strengthen democracy, I replied
economic progress naturally. But of course this depends on
external factors ... But there is a way to strengthen democracy
that is within any country's reach: people's empowerment.

Empowering the people means enlarging their contact with
government beyond elections to its daily workings -- so that the
vast resources of one support the initiatives of the other, and
the policies of government are refined by the insights of the
people. I tried to do this by giving representation to the NGOs
in the government's economic development councils -- in the
regional, provincial and municipal levels.

I also introduced the KABISIG or Partnership movement between
government NGOs and the government, which provided the funds.

I also directed the governors to submit plans for other
KABISIG projects to the Presidential Management Staff so that we
could enlarge the activities of the NGOs in partnership with both
national and local governments.

We therefore put projects in the hands of those directly
affected and thus developed in them a proprietary sense over
these projects. That was pump-priming as it should be -- a little
money going a long way and releasing a greater fund of energy,
creativity and endeavor.

In the end, we built two things: sustainable programs and
projects, and the people's capability to run them and their own
lives. The second -- which empowered them more than they ever
imagined was the more enduring and valuable result.

Today, thousands of NGOs are operating in the Philippines. I,
too, have joined the ranks of NGO workers through the Benigno S.
Aquino Jr. Foundation founded in 1983, three months after the
assassination of my husband.

After I left the presidency in 1992, I continued my work in
people empowerment through cooperatives education and
development, and the promotion of a culture of peace, tolerance
and human rights via the Institute of People Power and
Development of the Aquino Foundation.

Hopefully, before the end of this year, I shall inaugurate the
Aquino Center in my home province of Tarlac in Central Luzon.

Like The Habibie Center, the Aquino Center will help develop
Philippine society along democratic lines. We plan to hold
conferences and seminars for Philippine cooperatives, NGOs and
other organizations dedicated to further strengthening our
democracy.