Moralidad Ni Mawe (edited)

SA KANTO NI MAWE: MORAL RECOVERY PROGRAM1 Herman L. Licayan

Coming from the perspective of philosophy where the spirit of intellectual honesty essentially overwhelms its discourses, I personally feel it is always not easy to talk to politicians. I already have that preconceived notion that politicians are less honest thinkers. And I think, in so far as they act in behalf of their public offices, they really are. For a priest like me, it is more than just a challenge, and a responsibility indeed, to talk about morality to them. Whether or not I was able to convey my message to them, that I was making sense to them that I really do not know. I believe that in at least, having able to ‘disturb’ in some way their moral sensibilities, I have already achieved my purpose. The following reflection already contains some modifications from my classroom discussions. The “Moral Recovery and Value Formation Program (MRVFP)” initiated by the local government sounds to me very intriguing phrase and that it contains big words. I have to confess of my cynicism, ‘moral recovery’ and ‘value formation’ are truly big words to me. The trouble is, this afternoon; I will be speaking about them. The word “recovery” seems to me the most telling since it obviously admits that we are morally debased. Given the decadent morality that our society and politics have, these “big words” are to me useless and are but a mere political propaganda if not just a mere group of words with empty meanings. These words, “Moral Recovery and Value Formation Program” truly require a great deal of spiritual effort, sincerity of mind, and humility of heart to make such a phrase as referring to something, that is, a sublime effort to bring about authentic social integrity and a more morally credible governance. As such, it is a great challenge. This is the problem we face. And to anybody who is willing to take any form of challenges in this life no matter how insurmountable they may be, regardless of the results, the act itself is in fact very much commendable. Thank you for being a part of this endeavor, and for being one with us. I had never been in any one of your offices and therefore I cannot deal directly the actions that are taking place therein everyday. All I can deal with are words which articulate moral concepts which in a way serve as the guiding ethical principles to be applied in whatever course of action taking in your offices as public servants. It is important to note that we are basically dealing here with words and their meanings whether we like it or not. Let us not too presumptuous that we are dealing with morality per se for I do not think we are; all the more we can deal with it directly. What is actually at stake here is the word “morality” and “recovery”, and what we mean by them. Morality is what we do, what I do as a teacher, and what you do as public servants. What we are dealing right now are words about the morality of our actions. And words only make sense in as far as they are stipulations of a certain state of affairs. Ako gyud ning klaruhon aron di mahulog sa usapang hangin ning atong programa, kung atong ikinanto ba… kana bang istoryang dunay tinood, words with content. To put it more diplomatically, kun di man gani mapugngang di mamakak, at least, kanang mas daghan ang tinuod kay sa bakak. However, we must be very clear about this, in principle, even if 1

This is a modified paper is delivered in July 17, 2008 to the Agusan del Sur local governments officials [Mayors, Vice-mayors, Sanguniang Panlalawigan (SP)] with their wives and husbands during their Moral Recovery and Values Formation Seminar at Plaza Resort, Bulihon, Carmen, Agusan del Norte.

we are telling the people 99% truth that would not justify in any case the 1% bakak that we have made. Now, this is not entirely simplistic. Such a tough moral principle must be taken as persuasion to consider our moral actions with sincerity. Thus, in so far as we are in the moral recovery program, an utmost sincerity and clarity of thoughts is strongly desired. Because they are big words to me, it is crucial to define clearly how I do personally take these words or more precisely how do these words mean to me and to you. I hope we have the same understanding of these words. Vague linguistic expressions open the floodgate of politicians fooling people around by their sophistries; lawyers circumventing the laws by their cleverness, and preachers mesmerizing their converts with their highfaluting sermons. In cleaning up the moral mess, we got to have clear understanding of our terms. Now, given that we do already have valid understanding of the terms in their general sense, the best way to clarify these concepts is to distinguish it from other similar concepts.

Clarification of terms Morality is what you do in your offices. All we have to do probably in this talk is just to clarify significant concepts so we will know clearly which way to go. Human act Morality deals with human act. By human act, we don’t necessarily mean act of man. All actions performed by man are acts of man but not all actions indicate his humanity. Certainly, man is capable of doing action proper to irrational brutes, and even worse sometimes, such actions would not make him human. They may not be necessarily bad or evil act, but they are essentially actions that do not flow from the process of reason. Most of them are those unreflected and accidental ones, such as taking off our slippers when we are in the bathrooms, or misplacing the door keys somewhere, or accidentally step on the toes of your friend, etc. On the other hand, actions which express one’s humanity are those which are performed with deliberations, that is, conscious and willed actions such as, would you run again for this coming election, getting into a political party, or contracting marriage commitment, etc. These are acts which in normal circumstances product of a well thought of deliberations, hence, human. These are actions that define the morality of our being human. Take note: it is the consciousness that makes our actions liable to moral investigations, being good or evil is simply a product of such investigation, not a condition which they can be investigated. In actuality, though human acts are more seldom than acts of men, they are however crucial actions that practically direct us where to go in life. This clarification has to be made as we are looking forward in dealing with the problems of morality and politics. Let us just suspend this topic for the time being. Moral recovery

When was say “moral recovery” we don’t mean moralizing people. By “moralizing people” we mean a hard-shell attitude of pointing out mistakes or moral imperfections of others. Such act is condemning. The uncompromising attitude of prescribing people what course of action to take with the corresponding actions to be shunned is a perfection caricature of self-righteousness which is proscribed by Jesus in the gospels as the common lot of pharisaic tendency. Moralizing people presupposes a self-proclaimed authority to possess the right of judging others under the pretext of putting society in order. Of course, this is sometimes necessary but if one is not careful, the tendency to impose one’s standard on others is always an open possibility. This will imply then that those immoral people are simply those who do not obediently follow the prescribed precepts. In using the term “moral recovery” therefore, we must be guarded by the fact that we are treading at the precipice of both self-righteousness and hypocrisy. From the Bible’s point of view, self-righteousness is simply understood as that tendency to impose one’s personal standards on others. Hypocrisy goes one step ahead of selfrighteousness by refusing to apply to himself the standards he or she is imposing on others. Such is for instance when we demand honesty from our subordinates while keep on lying to people every single time as part and parcel of our political craft. In this situation, one’s political career may be strengthened but it is always one’s credibility that suffers. The authenticity of our moral recovery program, therefore, lies on our careful awareness in avoiding these pitfalls. Religious ethics Since it is safe to assume that all of us are Christians, with due respect to the Muslims and Indigenous, it cannot be denied that our religious faith has a great influence to our moral sensibilities. As such is very much obvious in us today. It is very much evident because almost all of us here, if not practically all, are at the same time members of the Alliance of the Twin Hearts of Jesus and Mary or any Catholic Charismatic groups. And since, participants of its activities are mostly Catholics, then, there is not much of a problem at all. Thus, it is not truly surprising to associate the MRVFP with the charismatic activities. But on other hand, it is not also wise to be less sensitive to the moral sentiments of the minority. It is of prime importance to remember that this is basically a government program, and though our Catholic faith is undoubtedly extending its great help, the identity of the program as a government initiative must be preserved notwithstanding the fact that we principally draw our funds from the government. Thus, it has to be made clear from the outset that even if given all of us are Catholics, this program will not in any case contravene the principle of total separation between the church and the state (Such topic will be duly dealt with later). To distinguish this program from Catholic evangelization is not just for the sake of preserving the principles held by the constitution, nor to delimit the influence of our Catholic faith thereby crippling her mission towards our society, but this is in order to give room for other denominations of different faith who as human as they are have the same moral sensitivities with us. When this program becomes so much identified with Catholic charismatic group, though indeed commendable because of course it is in our favor, it is nevertheless my fear that it will appear repulsive to the minority non-Catholic and Muslims. Such should not be the case and I do not think we have the right to do that simply because we are the majority. Because we are the majority, we should have the

greater responsibility to be more sensitive to other forms of moral expressions. If this is a government program, then Catholics can only spearhead its activity but by no means have the right to monopolize its initiatives and worse impose in its plans. The other extreme must also be avoided, that is, in order to give way for the others; Catholics will wait for them to do the task first. Let us warn ourselves, that just like the Catholics, other religious denominations, or some minority groups, also have the same tendencies to impose their idiosyncrasies with the rest of the populace. Both of these extremes violate the very principle of universality of which we are to discuss later. It is not however clear which way for Catholics to go, at least for the time being it is just enough to be aware of both extremes. Another thing to be clarified here is the relationship between religious expression and moral conduct. It is normally accepted that religion and morality must go together. That is, a religious person is expected to be a moral person, and that a moral person in some way or another possesses religious faith in order to back up his moral conviction. And so, in our context, a man or a woman of integrity is often tied up with any religious institution which guarantees his or her religious belief. Hence, the actions that he/she performs are always looked at to as in consonance with the religious teachings he/she has in his/her church. It is not uncommon that candidates who have some kind of a religious image also have a good moral standing in the community and therefore most likely to win at the outcome of the election, fraudulence besides. Notwithstanding of the abuses of some, this is not necessarily bad. In so far as the harmonious relationship between religious faith and moral action are concern, there is certainly no much problem about that. In such a case, there is no need to distinguish one’s religiosity from his/her moral aptitude because in the first place, I don’t think they can be distinguished. The real problem that we face however is the fact that this is not always the case. In fairness with the politicians, our Christian faith as a whole is split in practice. That means, people believe in one thing and practice another thing. It is often complained particularly to public servants, priests and politicians alike, but more to politicians who can perform earnestly profound religious acts in the church yet conduct their affairs in government offices in corruption, fraudulence, and dishonesty. Rumors have it that some of their corrupted fund from the government coppers is donated to the church just to make up a bit in their moral misgivings. The churchmen too, who turned out to be beneficiaries enjoy themselves in maintaining good relationships with the politicians in spite of being aware of their morally questionable reputations. Churchmen then do not deserve to be called accomplice since it is entirely irreconcilable to their religious ministry yet they are. Theologians call it split Christianity. And both of them are split. Now, I just want to be very clear about what we are trying to drive at here. There is a very enticing terrible mistake that one can have: To ask who are these politicians and churchmen whom we are referring to is convalescence nonsense. Such a question plunges our discussion into the pitfall of moralization we have been trying to avoid from the start. It leads us into throwing accusations on others while driving us away from the real issue at stake. Sa laktud nga pagkasulti, mahimong personalan. Dili na mao. Let us not loss sight of the fact that we are talking here about the relationship between religion and morality. And that the point which we want to drive at is that religious faith must not be confused with moral integrity for a simple reason that sometimes there are religious men who are immoral and moral person who are not apparently religious. Thus,

being religious does not guarantee good morality. Likewise, people who are not perceived to be religious are not necessarily immoral and can possibly be more moral than the religious ones. This is very important distinction so as people will not be mislead to believe that religious candidates necessarily ensure sincere public service. That is to say that the religious affiliation of the person should not blind us from seeing critically the moral character to the one of whom we entrust our pledge in performing a credible social function. While it is always commendable to seek for a harmonious expression of religious faith to that of moral action that we perform; it is however wise not to confuse them altogether. We may even add in the case of the Bible. Of course, we Christians take it as the standard of moral action. But aside from the fact that there are some of us here who are not Christians and therefore do not hold the Bible as their religious and moral standard; there are also undeniable moral problem in the Sacred Scriptures itself. The early Old testament presents this problem which absolutely necessitates scholarly readings in order not to fall into the erroneous interpretations which are often the lot of the fundamentalist. Insistence of the authority of the Bible as the standard of our moral action should always be upheld, but it should be understood in a very scholarly cautious and reasonable manner with the minimum of intellectual prejudice and the maximum of Christian charity. There is no question once again that religious belief reinforces moral values, and vice versa. We don’t think there is much of a debate if we propose that even the pettiest moral good that we upheld has a deep religious content. For this reason, we don’t exert much effort in trying to distinguish the program from religious activity. In this case, there is a convergence between religious and civil concerns in questions of morality. But in practice while this is true most of the times, unfortunately, this is not however true all of the time. We must reckon ourselves to the fact that there are instances where political and social values stand squarely in conflict with the religious beliefs of certain religion. Reversely, some religious expressions are incompatible to that of which the state wanted to promote. Take, for instance, the celebrated case of the Department of Education (DepEd) vs. Jehovah Witness in Cebu where Jehovah’s Witness members refuse to allow their children to join Flag ceremonies in public schools since it is a form of idolatry for them. The DepEd argues that as citizens, regardless of religious faith, everybody is bound to pay respect to the national symbol and that it has nothing to do with religious adoration. The Supreme Court in fact ruled in favor of religious freedom. Whether or not the Jehovah Witness or the SC is justifiable in its ruling is out of the question here. Even teachings of the Catholic Church have many problematic stands against some of the values being promoted by government programs like issues on populations, ecology, reproductive health, etc. To point out such issues is just enough to say that we must caution ourselves from confusing religious and secular values, not because we want to put one set of values over another.

Morality and Politics Ngitngit pas alkitran Morality and politics are always a burning issue in our society ever since. And people who cannot bear to face head on the critical eye of moral principles towards political actions that are performed are often resolved in dissociating politics and morality. In so far as our Caraga region is concern, there is that belief that morality has no place in politics, or should not, and that in order to survive in the political arena, one has to set aside his/her moral convictions. Even if we know it is not what politics ought to be, the fact is, it is. This is not exactly what we like, but this is real. What is right may not be necessarily true and what is evil may, of course, is not necessarily false. Even the most principled person trashes his/her moral conviction on the day one of his political life. Inspired by Machiavellianism, one can do whatever he wants so long as he achieves his purpose: The end justifies the means. In politics, this view believes, craft and shrewdness are essential, not moral beliefs. It may be commendable to act according to moral beliefs but when conflicts come, one must be ready to let go moral principles. Thus, one has to make a choice whether to set aside moral beliefs and engage himself into the quagmire of political game or uphold his principle and give up willingly one’s political career (for the sake of the Kingdom, if your are religious). The truth is: you cannot take them together. Morality and political are just unmixable like tubig at langis. Now, this is the real situation of our politics and there is nothing we can do about it. Open your eyes; there have already been hundreds of attempts made by people of good faith to change this system. Their good intention has brought no good at all, it has resulted to the sufferings of their personal lives; their families have been affected while the system remains. And so if you are not willing to give up moral conviction, don’t get into politics. And if you really want to make a difference, and stubbornly uphold your morality, then go ahead, commit suicide. You will never win the contest anyway. And even if some honest candidates do win, still they get corrupted in the long run. This is what Jun Lozada says that the worst form of corruption is the corruption of the best. When the best men become corrupt, then there are no way better men can do better. We must admit this view is real and therefore compelling, yet it also projects a very gloomy picture of reality backed up by the shadow of despair. Our society will be heading towards hopeless and our future as a people is doomed. Kaugmaong ngitngit pas alkitran. This is a social perspective that does not offer anything but confined itself in the given, tied up in what is there, and nothing else can possibly be done but to do things what that have been commonly done. Let us call this view as Hanaw’ng Panlantaw (HP). Of course, this is realistic, but a reality that does not leave room for poetry and imagination is in fact an illusion. And if we really want to get real, and abjectly succumb to this view, then we should not be here in the first place. A glimmer of hope Thanks for your presence. I would rather say that the very fact that you are here today tells me that there is a grimmer of hope. This belief will only make sense if we assume that you are coming here in good faith. First and foremost, the MRVFP and socio-political despair cannot co-exist side by side. It must be made clear to each and everyone of us that your sheer presence here is a tacit indication that you don’t subscribe

to that view and therefore you believe in hope that change is possible. You may be expecting a message from me. Little do you know that you already have delivered your message first. Your presence here brings me a message that it is possible to talk about morality in our midst, particularly to politicians like you. In other words, without giving me a word, without moving your lips, and without any sound that flows forth from your mouth, your have already delivered me a message that we can possibly make a difference and share our dreams. MRCVFR is an act of defiance against HP. And even if in some way or another, we dwell in the realm of HP hence a part of it, today obviously your are counted among the advocates of this program, and no more part of the reason why this program exist. The thing that saddens us is not that this belief does not pave the way to moral recovery; it even pulls us away from what this program wants to achieve. Our insistence here which does not accept compromise is that we are all dealing here with rational people. This insistence can also be taken as an appeal to be reasonable for if one refuses to apply the standard of reason, there will be nothing we can do about it but to hope that he or she has his/her own reason to do so. Take note: no one escapes rational scrutiny even for those who consciously refuse to be so. At this juncture, the best way to deal with HP is to examine critically the logical terrain of such belief in order to expose its own problems in the process of its own reasoning. Baliktad nga nirasonan We said previously that man’s actions which are beyond the jurisdiction of moral scrutiny are those which happen to be done unconsciously or without deliberation. A well planned action can never be exempted from moral investigation. Political actions are in most cases, one of the most well thought of act that we do. It cannot therefore escape the measurements of moral principles. Actions that are done by craft cannot be without intention. You don’t manipulate, concoct, control, and circumvent accidentally. Shrewd people can never be naïve. Political crafts are always conceptualized by the clever. As they say, walang tuso’ng taga. The sneaky is always one step ahead of the simple. The innocent cannot outsmart the learned. The subtleties of insidious moves are often executed by the intelligent. Deliberation is always the business of the wise. Politicians are neither pretentious nor evil men; they simply outsmarted the precipitous multitude. And since they are one step ahead of the populace, their actions as such, in so far as they are conscious and therefore human, are highly moral act. Hence their actions must always fall under the scrutiny of moral evaluations. Any attempt to dissociate political act from the clutches of moral principle is a recognition in fact that such an action cannot stand by the light of day. This is an institutionalization of Adam’s concealment of his guilt after the fall, e.i., going to hiding. Political actions are moral actions. You cannot dissociate politics from morality without being intellectually dishonest. In fact, if we are to be sincere, the dissociation of politics from morality is motivated by a tacit acceptance that political actions are doomed to fail under the uncompromising canon of moral test. To say therefore that morality has nothing to do with politics is only an expression of fear sometimes camouflaged by power and influence but certainly not of reason and of courage. In this life, according to Kant, regardless from what point view whether religious or morality, or politics, all of us must bend our knees before the authority of reason and the principle of right. Actions cannot be justified without any set of standard. And even if we are fallen by making

mistakes from time to time, still it is not reasonable to throw away the idea of rightness in order to go on doing exact what we are doing unmindful of morality’s critical sight. But if we insist on moral standard, what exactly is the standard of morality in the first place? Or is there really such thing as moral standard? These are perennial questions that trouble the moralist from time immemorial. And because, it has to be admitted, moral philosophy has not truly found a definitive answer yet, if there are any, the lure of relativism is almost irresistible. In our case, we don’t pretend to find what philosophy has failed through the ages. But because the issue is indispensable, even if there might be no answers to these questions at all; even if every attempt made is doomed to failure; even if we will suffer the same fate with the philosophers of the past, still we will not shy away from dealing the problem head on. Secondly, we will not also want to pretend that this is another new way of dealing the problem. There is nothing novel of what I am going to say. In fact, everything that I will be saying in the next pages had been already said by Emmanuel Kant, the Father of rationalism, more than two hundred years ago. Because I find Kant’s thought as the only feasible moral theory so far, I would like to share his thoughts with you. Now, please don’t forget that we are not exactly interested with Emmanuel Kant; we must take at a look at his idea because we are now facing the same problem that he faced hundreds of years ago—the problem of the ground of morality. Categorical Imperative Basta ug asa malipay What is good for me is good for me; what is good for the other is good for the other; and what is bad for me may be good for the other; what is bad for the other might be good for me—relativism isn’t it? How many of us subscribe to this view? People say that is how our world works today. This is in fact how people practice morality: basta kung saan ka masaya susuportaan kita, basta ang mahalaga ay masaya. Well, they are wrong if they think this view is just practiced today. We know well in philosophy that this is as old as philosophy itself but probably only gaining more momentum in these recent centuries because of postmodernism. If our ultimate pursuit in life is happiness, then what else do we want? With hedonistic touch, we often ask, Bahala’g asa ko makakita’g kalipay basta lipay, unsa pa ba’y gipangita? There is really no question about morality is nothing but a pursuit in happiness. Even Aristotle agrees with the hedonist to a certain extent, the trouble always lies on what we do mean by happiness for certainly hedonism can never accommodate Aristotle’s έυδαιμονία. Here, we are going around the circle. Hence, relativism simply abandons the quest for the ground of morality and replaces it with the pursuit of happiness often in materialistic understanding. Relativism is a morality of despair. To prove that relativism is wrong I think is a useless enterprise; it is more beneficial to just deal with the man’s undeniable tendency to follow the pathways of hope rather than despair; and to me, Kant lead us the way. We must be reminded however that this is not a study of Kant’s moral philosophy. We are simply taking Kant’s thoughts in order to deal with our preoccupation of recovering the nobility of moral values that had been trashed out in our political system. Naa gyuy sukdanan

Mayor Fred Lim used to put this reminder in all over the street walls of the City of Manila: The law applies to everyone, or else to no one. The existence of the law depends in its rigors. They may sound uncompromisingly steeled, but it is just what was said by the Romans, duro lex sed lex. As such, this is not attractive to our modern sentiment. When the seminarians of St. John Mary Vianney in Cagayan de Oro were formulating their rules of life, one seminarian precipitously reacted to their formator: Why often use the phrase, “The seminarians should…” or “You must…” it is too imposing. The priest replied with wisdom and a mixture of impatience: Ug unsa man diay gusto nimong atong gamiton… “perhaps” ug “maybe”? For those who may not like the idea of the force of law, I wonder if they realized how ridiculous our community ordinances and decrees would become if their predilections are followed. For instance, municipal ordinance will appear like this: Throw your peanut shells in the garbage can, or else you may be fined by 100 Pesos; or a COMELEC liquor ban will run as follows: Please try your best not to take liquor the day before and during election; or Senate rules will be formulated in this fashion: The witnesses in the senate investigation may appear to the senate of the Republic of the Philippines if ever they receive summon and perhaps answer the questions if they are willing. Certainly these sound very gentle and diplomatic but they provoke more laughter than order. The only way to avoid the pitfalls of relativism is to find some grounds. The law cannot be the ground of morality of course, but the idea which does not accept exemption sounds very tough. For Kant, either morality is respected or there is no morality at all; halfway measures will not measure anything and therefore good as nothing. The breach of such moral principle does not in any way necessarily invalidate the principle itself. Ordinarily, if not everybody uses the pedestrian lane, the police apprehends those malefactors, not remove the lane. That is the essence of moral standard, to objectify a bearing from which we can possibly measure human actions. We naturally expect negative reactions to such unbending principles but, take note, we are trying to look for grounds here, not exceptions. And so Kant offers his moral criteria. Universability In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Now, let us not be too quick to think that this is highly idealist theory for we always think that there cannot be an unbending universal norm of morality. Well, that is not exactly how Kant is interpreted by contemporary philosophers. On the contrary, Jurgen Habermas and Hans Georg Gadamer saw tremendous realism in Kant’s thought. Understanding presupposes universality and that’s why people talk; they communicate, they establish dialogue so that universality in reality means acceptability and consensus among the people involved. Understanding is always possible through a dialogue; and unilateral solution is trashed out. Ayaw buhata sa uban ang dili nimo gustong buhaton nila kanimo, says the Gospel. Anything that you hold as good for yourself must also be good for the others, anything evil that befalls on others cannot be good to you. Thus, universality means that moral act in order to be good must be universal, that is, it can be done by all and still morally good. In fact, on the level of rationality, losing candidates are not complaining

because they lost, losing is universable, the legitimacy of such complain is based on the alleged fraudulence. Again the gospel says, whatever be the measure you use to measure others will be measured back to you. The gospels condemn the hypocrites because they refuse to apply to themselves the standards they use to impose on others. In principle, there must be the same standard for all. The repercussions of this principle are overwhelmingly immense. Of course, we don’t mean to conduct one by one survey in order to ascertain which way we should go. This means that moral standard is accessible to all, and that the best way to come up with a certain course of action, especially in crucial situations, should be through a rational discourse. To say therefore that Former Governor Angel Amante lost mayoralty contest in Butuan City because she is a Muslim may have some bearing in reality but obviously it is not universable for a Catholic candidate will never win an election against a Muslim opponent in Lanao City. Habermas insists that morality is not decided by one person of authority, nor by the predilections of the majority; moral act is done through a communicative process which allows the concerned parties to be part of the process in decision making. But there is a lot of rethinking we have to do here. What become important are no longer necessarily the results but the process. Thus, from being result oriented, we become process oriented. Result oriented action seeks for strategies in order to bring ourselves to an end; process oriented action seeks for a means to establish communication with the hope to arrive at a certain consensus. Result oriented action aims for solution; process oriented action seeks for understanding. Gadamer calls it, fusion of horizon. Openness, sincerity, and reasonableness are crucial. The most important prerequisite here is allowing one’s reasonable position to be criticized by the other; and openly lay criticisms in turn over the positions of opposite parties. In this case, talking to opposition is equally important to having discussion with the administration. In a democratic society, opposition is harnessed not suppressed. It is said, love your enemies, they tell you your faults. Let us apply this principle to real problems that we face; the communist rebels for instance. Under Palparan’s mind set, being a Machiavellian of course, militarization is the only solution. So far, this seems to be a failure. But dialogue has also equally failed for the last fifty years. There seem to be no other options left. Is it not because we are trying to employ irreconcilable method? What in fact we are doing is to employ militarization with the intermission to do a dialogue. After we set on the table for peace dialogue, taking a breath a bit, we then go back to the battle fields for the continuing rounds of militarization. Truce becomes simply to take a break from war, and to fill the gap we do dialogue without believing the philosophy behind communicative process. Little did we know that in principle, militarization does not believe in talks, and talks are irreconcilable with militarization. If Palparan is correct, why engage in a dialogue? From rational point of view, it is preferable to engage in peace talks forever rather kill each other in the combat. Sec. Norbert Gonzales rightly insists that arm struggle is no longer applicable to evoke social change in the twentieth century. He was perfectly correct then. The only problem was that he only had in mind the communist rebels, not the government and all the more not the United States. In US invasion to Iraq, he was one of the advisers of the president to support the US. This is what Noam Chomsky calls distorted morality. If one truly believes in a dialogue, the first step he/she has to do is to dismiss military options as soon as possible or else it undermines the talk. But in

principle, I would say Sec. Gonzales was still correct. There is a Tagalog saying, ang madadaan sa paupo, wag gagawin sa patayo. But such principle should not only be addressed to the communist rebels but to the government as well if we really are sincere in addressing the problem. We must abandon the idea that Communist rebels are the problem and the government is the solution to the problem. The truth is both sides are part of the problem and part of the solution. Both parties are aware of that. Until we continue talking about government’s victory over the rebel in their military campaigns, or the rebel’s against military, there will always be bloodshed. It is a gross mistake to think that in order to stop rebellion, we must kill the rebels for we are all potential rebels and high-rank rebels are all potential civic leaders. The only way to deal (not necessarily solve) the problem that is in consonance with the principle of universality is dialogue. Dialogue may not give us outright solutions, but if we can bring together both parties on the table, even if solution is not achieved, the hope of achieving it is always there. And if we learn to move our orientation to process rather than solution, then there is always a room for understanding. Understanding implies consensus, and by the term, consensus means acceptability to the conditions of parties involved. When we put stress on the process, we don’t mean that it will not bring any result at all or that we don’t long for a result. What we do mean is that we must come to terms with tentative results, and the most concrete initial result that happens in every talk is that, at least, bloodshed is prevented to happen. Nonetheless, if definitive solution is achieved, by a lucky break, then it is an ultimate bonus, but that cannot be a condition sine qua non for having dialogues. Categorical From utilitarian and pragmatic perspective, morality is based on its use or on its consequence. Action can have only moral value if it renders practical results. That is, what really matters is for things to be made used by men, at all cost. Thus, instead of talking about true or false, right or wrong, moral or immoral, we rather discuss whether or not such an action works, or produces results. In his Pragmatism (1907) William James asks, Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete difference will its being true make in any one’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth cash-value in experiential terms? The impact of James and the pragmatists’ thoughts was so great that it become a dominant North American philosophy, if not THE American philosophy. So much so that Americans are easily associated the attitude of practicality. Because of its practical label it has an overwhelming influence in all walks of life especially in the grassroots level. And without us being aware of it, its influence is gaining more and more momentum even among us Filipinos. And so, when things seem to be no longer working, and thus, not render any practical results, we hear people say: cut it off! Or forget about that! In relationships for instance we often hear people say, “well if you marriage doesn’t work anymore, break it up and move on with your life, martyrdom is a thing in the past…” Even Jesus in the Gospel has a pragmatic touch in his instruction to his apostles: if you are not accepted in one place, go to the next. Obviously this kind of trend measures the

morality of the act from the point view of its ends or results… morality is that which renders results. And for many of us in good faith uncritically buy to this philosophy. We don’t hold that pragmatism is wrong. Nevertheless, we got to be critical about it. Like all moral theory, it has a lot of negative repercussion of which we ought to be aware of. Under pragmatic criteria, parents who do everything for their children, teach them moral values, send them to highly expensive universities, give them spiritual guidance, show them love and affection could still be immoral if their children turn out to be delinquent. It is not seldom that for all the children misdeeds, society tends to blame the parents. All of you, public servants, who are pouring so much your time and energy helping the poor to alleviate their situation will never get any moral credit at all if the poor remains as they are. Your honest governance will be the source of disappointment if corruption is not reduced. Police officers are having no moral integrity if crimes are not eradicated. This MRVFP is just a complete waste of government funds if the level of public perception towards government officials remains as low as ever. And all sermons delivered in the pulpit are just a waste of breathe if people continue to commit their sins. Hence, we say: the ends cannot define the morality of the act; results cannot be the measure of our moral standard. Pragmatism can only make sense to certain extend but that cannot be the ground of morality because, even for its advocates, it is not meant to be. If pragmatism is not the theory that we are looking for, then let us move on in our search. Ang maayong binuhatan, maayo! This expression is obviously tautological. We heard this from our katigulangan, and this is exactly what Kant exactly says. Don’t make mistake of underestimating the profundity of our ancestors wisdom expressed herein. Take note: the goodness lies on the binuhatan, not on the sangputanan. This doesn’t mean that si lolo ug si lola have no concern about the sangpunatan. Of course they do, but what are they trying to say is that the binuhatan has its own moral gravity independent to that of the end. When you know you had been doing your best, spend so hard time in study in order to pass the exam the next day yet you still fail, you have not made a mistake contrary to what the pragmatist might say. The belief that fraudulence and deception are necessary components in winning election stands in a crisis in the cases of Capt. Trellianes and Fr. Panlilio, and Grace Gabaca. In the same manner, if you are trying to be honest in your governance yet the government as a whole remains corrupt, your effort was not morally useless. And if we push the situation to the extreme, given our government is beyond redemption from corruption, at least, still one moral option is left, don’t be apart of it. If evil is inevitable, at least, don’t participate. The common counsel of despair says: if you can’t beat them join them. So we hear people in the government today, so what can we do, it’s just how government works?2 This is undoubtedly true. But I don’t think, people are not aware of such shrewd justification reinforced by foolish method of reasoning. The act of justifying evil is evil twice. I don’t think God made us to be savior of the world… but if you can’t save the world, at least, save yourself, don’t sink yourself together with the whole ship. The ancient philosophers said, virtue is its own reward. Kant follows this thought: Doing good for goodness’ sake. And so why we ought to do good? Because it is good to do good. Obviously a tautology that good is categorical good. That means 2

Please see my article Mao man Gyud Na!

what is good for one is good for the other; and if it is evil for the other, it cannot be good for you. Because running honestly during election does not favor the possibility of winning, would it then be justifiable to engage into fraudulence in order to win for what else does a candidate seek but to win? Since we are already done with pragmatism, let us ask another way of questioning in line with Kant’s thought. Given an honest candidate, with moral integrity lost the election, was his being honest a mistake? I don’t think a reasonable person would answer to this question affirmatively. He loses his candidacy not self-respect. He does not loss himself, people lost him. His goodness can’t become evil simply because he did not win. One must continue doing good. A politician of “high standing” told me head on in one of my talks, but how can you do good if you lose? I was reduced to silence for a moment because I realized my mistake of looking so highly of him for his question reveals to me that he was actually of “low standing”. Actually, I don’t understand what he exactly meant for his question appeared to me as that there is no way one can do good if he/she lose the public office. This is dreadful. I suspect he wanted to tell me COMELEC official victorious declaration justifies all fraudulence that was happening during the whole electoral process. Absurd reasoning, isn’t it? Just like any other traditional politicians, he thinks that winning is everything that matters thereby justifying all the means in order to get to the ends. He admittedly said, mao gyud Padir. I was not able to say a word for a while and was taken aback because I was thinking all the while that I was dealing with leaders, people who make moral decisions in behalf of the Agusanon, including myself, and realizing his way of moral reasoning made me feel that our future as citizens is doomed. When I heard from him without hesitation mao gyud na Padir, I said to myself, patay! Because I strongly believe otherwise, that is, good acts do not require public office. Truly I appreciated his honesty but at the same time it gave me an idea that this Moral Recovery and Value Formation Program has still a very long way to go. Sense of ought Finally, Kant insists that goodness is not just an option, it is a duty. Knowledge of the good is always accompanied by inclination to do it. As in medieval metaphysics: good is desirable. Reversely speaking, again for anybody with right reason, evil naturally bridges repugnance. This is precisely why Kant called his moral theory, imperative. Doing good is a must. But he was very quick to clarify that this imperative is by no means imposed from the outside. It compels the moral person from within for any external factor would eventually constitute such the act to have no moral merit. Autonomy of the will is crucial in moral action. A good act even if it renders good results but without freedom, or even if freedom is just partially curtailed, do not constitute a moral act. Furthermore, Kant says that the expression “I will” implies “I can”. A man of moral integrity does not simply stands neutral before the good. Deep down in him, there seem to be an inner force embedded in his nature that catapults him to do it. Failure to do the good, constitute the victory of evil. For evil to triumph it is enough that good men will do nothing, the popular dictum goes. There is no question that Kant always links his moral imperative to his belief in God and therefore the groundings of morality have always spiritual dimensions. For Kant, moral law is holy. It must be inviolable. Moral law is held with reverence and that no one must abominate. Value formation hinges on the lofty ideal of moral principles.

When leaders are without possession of these ideals, I don’t think they can resist the pitfalls of the morality of the base, such as, winning is all that matters. Gyges Before I end my exhortation let me share with you the parable of Gyges from The Republic of Plato. This story in fact was common to the inhabitants of the ancient city of Athens during the heyday of philosophy in Greece. Gyges is a name of a person who happened to be one of the many shepherds of a king. He was a simple person with simple ambition in life yet had a very strong sense of morality. Being a highly moral person he was contend with what he already had and that to be able to render his service to the king with all sincerity and earn something enough to raise his little family. One day when he was tending the flock the weather seems to be bad, the storm came, the clouds were thick which darken the place, and an earthquake shook the field creating a crack on the ground that some of the sheep fell into it. And so Gyges looked after them down in almost zero visibility. He did his best to save but some were already covered under and that situation was getting more dangerous so that he cannot afford to risk himself too much. Gyges was compelled to let go some of his sheep. At any rate, mysteriously he saw an image of a man somewhat naked with a ring in his finger. Since he does not have time, he simply took the ring and went up back for safety. The next day, Gyges went to the inventory meeting of the king’s shepherd. Seated at the last seat, Gyges happened to be wearing the ring. At certain point Gyges noticed his fellow shepherds looking for him when he was just practically in their company. At first he did not understand what was going on but he realized later on that whenever he turned the vessel of the ring inside himself he becomes invisible. Gyges did it again and again, and it did work. When he realized that he had the powers to become invisible, the first thing that he did was to make his way up to the court of the king, murdered him, seduced the queen, and usurped the throne. Plato closes this parable with a question: If you are guaranteed to be able to do anything without anybody knowing it, would you do it? Given the powers that are in you right now, and that in spite of being public persons you still have plenty of rooms for doing actions which the public will never know, would you do it? Or would you succumb to the same pitfalls of Gyges? Conclusion For a man in the street, the previous discussion may sound too academic in spite of the fact that we truly do not mean it to be. But cautious of simplifying Kantian moral philosophy too much, it can be taken as an appeal to conscience. The whole discussion in fact reinforces the voice of conscience inscribed by God in each and everyone’s heart so that by our freedom, we sometimes defy it. Yet, such defiance will not reward us with self-respect in fact bring us away from the nobility of the profound happiness of which we can only ignore but not relinquish. The joy which conscience can give us is irreplaceable. And if morality is a pursuit for man’s well-being, then what else can it be offered to us if not from the obedience of our conscience. We are always reticent in all form of happiness of which bad faith brings. On the contrary, the deepest human satisfaction that a person can have it that which come out from an informed conscience. An informed conscience is that which being submitted into full exposure vis-à-vis with

other consciences. Conscience is crucial if we want to be truly human. I do not know how to figure out human beings trashing their conscience in doing moral actions and continue to think of themselves as humans. If one ignores his conscience, he/she must redefine his idea what is it to be truly human. Politicians who continue lying and deceiving their own people to whom they pledge their service have therefore a very hard time setting things straight if they do still believe in morality.