Building a Movement for Change

Last week more than a hundred and twenty people gathered in a former ancestral home turned museum in Manila and enthusiastically discussed the initiation of a “people’s movement for Change”. A significant number were social and political activists in their youth who continue to be concerned, committed and involved in one way or another, big or small. There were a few media personalities who are in the front line of the Oust GMA campaign.

BY CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
Streetwise / Business World
Posted by Bulatlat

In the past year, more so in recent months, numerous “movements” have been sprouting, calling our attention to their views on the ills of Philippine society, their causes and proposed solutions. Most have raised the issues of corruption and malgovernance and prescribed the antidote of electing good leaders to public office. Some, including Supreme Court Chief Justice Puno, have called for a “moral force” to battle the forces of evil that have undermined the country’s political institutions and are tearing apart the social fabric.

The cynics may say this phenomenon only proves that election season is truly upon us. Local politicians’ streamers have been greeting their constituencies “Happy Valentine’s Day!” and graduating students “Congratulations!”; the more ambitious with an eye to national office spend huge sums on television infomercials on this or that cause.

It stands to reason that those seeking elective positions need to create a mass base (or the illusion of one) as part of drumbeating their candidacy, hoping to ratchet up their ranking in popularity surveys. The enterprising who seek to turn a profit on the electoral carnival want to have the grassroots base (or the illusion of one) that they can parlay to the candidates as a reliable base of support and an essential component of a formidable campaign machinery.

For our part, we see these movements as an expression of the people’s general awareness, if not political consciousness, that they have to participate in an extra-electoral or meta-electoral way to make sure these elections don’t turn out like all other previous elections. It indicates, more importantly, that people by and large realize that extraordinary action is needed to address the extraordinary situation or shall we say – deep rut – which we have become mired in.

Last week more than a hundred and twenty people gathered in a former ancestral home turned museum in Manila and enthusiastically discussed the initiation of a “people’s movement for Change”. A significant number were social and political activists in their youth who continue to be concerned, committed and involved in one way or another, big or small. There were a few media personalities who are in the front line of the Oust GMA campaign.

A sizeable number are middle class but there were those who would classify themselves as among the “poor, deprived and oppressed”. Many are active in their churches as bishops, pastors, religious and lay people; in education as teachers, professors and NGO workers in informal education, research and organizing; and in art, communications, law, health, science and technology.

Young people in their twenties were present though not yet in droves; there was a considerable number of thirty-somethings.

Their concept of a “people’s movement for Change” (note the capital C) is founded on the view that the Filipino people yearn for genuine change. For one, they demand that the Arroyo regime be made accountable for its crimes against the people even after Mrs. Arroyo is removed from her illegal occupation of Malacañang.

But more than a change of leadership, the new group called for “a decisive break from the poverty-ridden, unjust and corrupt social system that grew worse even after EDSA I and EDSA II”. For this purpose an 11-point “People’s Agenda” was deliberated upon and adopted by the assembly covering economic, political and socio-cultural changes that the group considers vital.