This has to be one of the longest periods that I have been unable to post an entry. I did expect this campaign to keep me busy but not this busy less than halfway through. I guess it is because I don't have a media rep, a PR specialist, researchers, barkers, secretary, finance expert...heck I even have to drive myself to public markets and free clinics and University symposia. I guess this is my way of testing my deep faith in my fellow Filipinos that they will know what to do on election day. They will realize that we are going nowhere and all these promises being made by all these traditional politicians will only keep our country down.

Right now, I am totally focused on my mission to convince everyone to join me in a national effort that will quickly change our national character. Once and for all, we will have to abandon our national aspiration to become known as a "model beggar" nation. Just think, 52.7% of the 2005 budget went to debt service while a little more than 1% went towards healthcare (in contrast to 21% to healthcare in the US and 8.7% to debt service in 2002). We are a nation that prefers to smell good before the international banking community instead of providing vaccinations and schoolrooms and food to our country's youth. Our priorities are all screwed-up.

I propose that we undertake an audit of all our debts including all those sovereign guarantees, odious loans like the nuclear plant that never produced any energy that we paid $2.6 billion for because of complicity between corrupt government officials and unscrupulous law firms, banks and corporate businesses. We repeal the Automatic Appropriations Act that binds us to pay all our loans no matter the consequences and then cap our debt service payments to 25%. When we go through this pathway, it will have to be understood by all that we won't be able to secure any more loans (although this did not happen with Argentina) which might be a good idea because it will lessen our dependence on perpetually taking out new loans to pay for previous loans. We will be forced to go on a national belt-tightening program that will ask for sacrifices from all sectors of society. We will ask our overseas sisters and brothers to double their remittances for a period of 5 years. For those of us remaining in the country, we collectively stop smoking, drastically reduce airconditioning, walk short distances, take cold showers, import less food.....all in the hope of uniting us towards an enormous goal that will benefit the common good.

This action will do two things: (1) free-up about PhP250 billion a year that we can plow back into education , health and infrastructure. We will be able to immediately double, even triple teacher's salaries and will increase the likelihood of recruiting the best minds to teach the next generation. We will be able to provide safe drinking water and nutritious food to millions of poor people. We will be able to build farm roads, bridges, schoolrooms, rural clinics. We will learn to become self-sufficient. (2) it will also enable a negotiating panel that we will form to discuss matters with the IMF and World Bank (25% of our loans), various other lending institutions to negotiate from a position of strength, essentially a take it or leave it situation.

One very important lesson I learned from my years in the US is that we Filipinos are equal to Americans. Sounds simplistic but I think this national insecurity we harbor is at the root of our inability to get a good deal from the international community. The American people will understand why we were forced to embark upon this perilous course if they see the terrible situation we find ourselves in, that this is basically a matter of survival.

The prize I've been honored with today is usually given to intellectuals, not to politicians. I am obviously what can be called
an intellectual, but at the same time, fate has determined that I
find myself -- literally overnight -- in what is called the world of
high politics.

With your permission, I would like to take advantage of my unusual
experience and try to cast a critical eye of an intellectual on the
phenomenon of power as I have been able to observe it so far from
the inside, and especially on the nature of the temptation that
power represents.

Why is it that people long for political power, and why, when they
have achieved it, are they so reluctant to give it up?

In the first place, people are driven into politics by ideas about a
better way to organize society, by faith in certain values or
ideals, be they impeccable or dubious, and the irresistible desire
to fight for those ideas and turn them into reality.

In the second place, they are probably motivated by the natural
longing every human being has for self-affirmation. Is it possible
to imagine a more attractive way to affirm your own existence and
its importance than that offered by political power? In essence, it
gives you a tremendous opportunity to leave your mark, in the
broadest sense, on your surroundings, to shape the world around you
in your own image, to enjoy the respect that every political office
almost automatically bestows upon the one who holds it.

In the third place, many people long for political power and are so
reluctant to part with it because of the wide range of perks that
are a necessary part of political life -- even under the most
democratic of conditions.

These three categories are always, I have observed, intertwined in
complicated ways, and at times it is almost impossible to determine
which of them predominates. The second and third categories, for
instance, are usually subsumed under the first category. I have
never met a politician who could admit to the world, or even to
himself, that he was running for office only because he wanted to
affirm his own importance, or because he wanted to enjoy the perks
that come with political power. On the contrary, we all repeat over
and over that we care not about power as such but about certain
general values. We say it is only our sense of responsibility to the
community that compels us to take upon ourselves the burden of
public office. At times, only God Himself knows whether that is
true, or simply a more palatable way of justifying to the world and
ourselves our longing for power, and our need to affirm, through our
power and its reach, that we exist in a truly valid and respectable
way.

The situation is made more complicated because the need for self-
affirmation is not essentially reprehensible. It is intrinsically
human, and I can hardly imagine a human being who does not long for
recognition, affirmation, and a visible manifestation of his own
being.

I am one of those people who consider their term in political office
as an expression of responsibility and duty toward the whole
community, and even as a sort of sacrifice. But, observing other
politicians whom I know very well and who make the same claim, I
feel compelled again and again to examine my own motives and ask
whether I am not beginning to deceive myself. Might I not be more
concerned with satisfying an unacknowledged longing for self-
affirmation -- a desire to prove that I mean something and that
therefore I exist -- than I am with pure public service? In short, I
am beginning to have suspicions about myself. More precisely, my
experience so far with politics and politicians compels me to have
these suspicions. In fact, every new prize I receive compels me to
be a degree more suspicious.

The third category of reasons for desiring political power --
longing for the advantages power brings, or simply getting used to
those advantages -- deserves special attention. It is interesting to
observe how diabolical the temptations of power are, precisely in
this sphere. This is best observed among those of us who have never
held power of any kind before. Bravely, we used to condemn the
powerful for enjoying advantages that deepened the gulf between them
and the rest. Now we ourselves are in power.

We are beginning, inadvertently but dangerously, to resemble in some
ways our contemptible precursors. It bothers us, it upsets us, but
we are discovering that we simply can't, or don't know how to, put a
stop to it.

I will give you several examples.

It would make no sense whatever for a government minister to miss an
important cabinet discussion of a law that will influence the
country for decades to come simply because he has a toothache and
has to wait all afternoon at the dentist's until his turn comes. So -
- in the interests of his country -- he arranges to be treated by a
special dentist, someone he doesn't have to wait for.

It would certainly not make sense for a politician to miss an
important state meeting with a foreign colleague simply because he
has been held up by the vagaries of public transport. So -- he has a
government car and a chauffeur.

It would certainly not make sense for a president or a prime
minister to miss such a meeting simply because his car is caught in
a traffic jam, so he has the special right to pass cars that are
ahead of him or to go through red lights, and in his case the
traffic police tolerate it.

It would certainly make no sense for a politician to waste valuable
time sweating over a stove and cooking an official meal for a
counterpart from abroad. So he has a personal cook and waiters to do
it for him.

It would certainly make no sense for the president's cook to go from
butcher shop to butcher shop like a normal homemaker in a
postsocialist country in search of meat good enough to offer without
shame to an important guest. So special deliveries of supplies are
arranged for prominent people and their cooks.

It would certainly make no sense if a president or a premier had to
look up numbers in the telephone book himself and then keep trying
again and again until he reached the person or until the line became
free. Quite logically, then, this is done by an assistant.

To sum up: I go to a special doctor, I don't have to drive a car,
and my driver need not lose his temper going through Prague at a
snail's pace. I needn't cook or shop for myself, and I needn't even
dial my own telephone when I want to talk to someone.

In other words, I find myself in the world of privileges,
exceptions, perks; in the world of VIPs who gradually lose track of
how much butter or a streetcar ticket costs, how to make a cup of
coffee, how to drive a car, and how to place a telephone call. I
find myself on the very threshold of the world of the communist fat
cats whom I have criticized all my life.

And worst of all, everything has its own unassailable logic. It
would be laughable and contemptible for me to miss a meeting that
served the interests of my country because I had spent my
presidential time in a dentist's waiting room, or lining up for
meat, or nervously battling the decrepit Prague telephone system, or
engaging in the hopeless task of finding a taxi in Prague when I am
obviously not from the West and therefore not in possession of
dollars.

But where do logic and objective necessity stop and excuses begin?
Where does the interest of the country stop and the love of
privileges begin? Do we know, and are we at all capable of
recognizing, the moment when we cease to be concerned with the
interests of the country for whose sake we tolerate these
priviliges, and start to be concerned with the advantages
themselves, which we excuse by appealing to the interests of the
country?

Regardless of how pure his intentions may originally have been, it
takes a high degree of self-awareness and critical distance for
someone in power -- however well-meaning at the start -- to
recognize that moment. I myself wage a constant and rather
unsuccessful struggle with the advantages I enjoy, and I would not
dare say that I can always identify that moment clearly. You get
used to things, and gradually, without being aware of it, you may
lose your sense of judgement.

Again, being in power makes me permanently suspicious of myself.
What is more, I suddenly have a greater understanding of those who
are starting to lose their battle with the temptations of power. In
attempting to persuade themselves that they are still merely serving
their country, they increasingly persuade themselves of nothing more
than their own excellence, and begin to take their privileges for
granted.

There is something treacherous, delusive, and ambiguous in the
temptation of power. On the one hand, political power gives you the
wonderful opportunity to confirm, day in and day out, that you
really exist, that you have your own undeniable identity, that with
every word and deed you a leaving a highly visible mark on the world
around you. Yet within that same political power and in everything
that logically belongs to it lies a terrible danger: that, while
pretending to confirm our existence and our identity, political
power will in fact rob us of them.

Someone who forgets how to drive a car, do the shopping, make
himself coffee, and place a telephone call is not the same person
who had known how to do those things all his life. A person who had
never before had to look into the lens of a television camera and
now has to submit his every movement to its watchful eye is not the
same person he once was.

He becomes a captive of his position, his perks, his office. What
apparently confirms his identity and thus his existence in fact
subtly takes that identity and existence away from him. He is no
longer in control of himself, because he is controlled by something
else: by his position and its exigencies, its consequences, its
aspects, and its privileges.

There is something deadening about this temptation. Under the mantle
of existential self-affirmation, existence is confiscated,
alienated, deadened. A person is transformed into a stone bust of
himself. The bust may accentuate his undying importance and fame,
but at the same time it is no more than a piece of dead stone.

Kierkegaard wrote Sickness unto Death. Allow me to paraphrase your
excellent countryman and coin the phrase "power unto death."

What may we conclude from this?

Certainly not that it is improper to devote oneself to politics
because politics is, in principle, immoral.

What follows is something else. Politics is an area of human
endeavor that places greater stress on moral sensitivity, on the
ability to reflect critically on oneself, on genuine responsibility,
on taste and tact, on the capacity to empathize with others, on a
sense of moderation, on humility. It is a job for modest people, for
people who cannot be deceived.

Those who claim that politics is a dirty business are lying to us.
Politics is work of a kind that requires especially pure people,
because it is especially easy to become morally tainted.

So easy, in fact, that a less vigilant spirit may not notice
happening it at all.

Politics, therefore, ought to be carried on by people who are
vigilant, sensitive to the ambiguous promise of self-affirmation
that comes with it.

I have no idea whether I am such a person. I only know that I ought
to be, because I have accepted this office

After a grueling day of campaigning, energized by the overwhelmingly warm reception accorded to us I spoke before a group of doctors that evening and told them in Tagalog: politics is brutal, I should have become a physician!

So many issues to grapple with and so many ideals to live by but seeing the way most of our countrymen live while out on a sortie forces you to temper certain life-long-held convictions out of respect for the idea that we are all simply trying to make the best of our personal situations.

Curiously, this article on the Patron Saint of Politicians dropped in: St. Thomas More is recognized in our time as one of the great defenders of human dignity and the rights of human conscience. We are all familiar with the famous lines from "A Man for All Seasons" regarding the role of conscience: In his refusal to sign the oath, More says "what matters to me is not whether it's true or not but that I believe it to be true, or rather, not that I believe it to be true, but that I believe it."

St. Thomas More is also rightly regarded as the model Catholic government official when he says earlier in the play, "when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties … they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

And how simply, yet profoundly, he set the standard for all those of the Christian faith who serve in government when he said at the end, "Tell the King, I die the King's loyal servant, but God's first."

Perhaps we might do well to regard Thomas More as a sure guide for politicians, reminding them of his approach to government service. As "A Man for all Seasons" recounts More as saying of his work as chancellor of England, "I wish no man harm, I speak no man harm, I do no man harm and if this be not good enough then … "

We might also regard St. Thomas More as a patron of husbands and fathers. We may recall the way in which More is depicted at the end of his trial in "A Man for All Seasons." He declares to the court which has just condemned him that "It was not for the oath but because I would not consent to the marriage."

Everything we know about St. Thomas More tells us that he cared deeply for his family and that one of the reasons why he sought so desperately to avoid a confrontation with the king was to protect his family. Yet, finally, More was to sacrifice both his life and his family's security for a principle that gave an eternal meaning and an eternal unity to his family; that is, the sacramental nature of marriage.

Unquestionably, in agreeing to the dissolution of the king's marriage there was also an implicit acceding to the possible dissolution of any marriage. This was a point that could not have been lost on the chancellor of England and a lawyer of the brilliance of Thomas More. Thus, one of history's great statesman and men of conscience went to his death for a principled defense of the sacramental unity of marriage.

Having said this we should remember the observation of Clarence Miller, one of several editors of the "Complete Works of St. Thomas More." He enumerates what scholars give as the various "grounds for More's martyrdom: the integrity of the self as witnessed by an oath, the irreducible freedom of the individual conscience in the face of an authoritarian state, papal supremacy as a sign of the supra-national unity of Western Christendom, past and present."

Then Miller writes, "All of these are true as far as they go. But in the last analysis More did not die for any principle, or idea, or tradition, or even doctrine, but for a person, for Christ. As Bolt himself made More say in the play: "Well … finally … it isn't a matter of reason; finally it's a matter of love."

And so, I think it is entirely appropriate to remember St. Thomas More as we explore the richness of the encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" and its call to build a culture of life and a civilization of love. (from a Zenit article by Anderson)

For the second time, I feature Horacio de la Costa, SJ who delivered this eulogy 50 years ago in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

"Only God, who knows the innermost hearts of men, can say with complete truth what a man is worth. That is why we pray for his infinite mercy over all our dead. Yet, judging human wise, I do not think there are many for whom we can make this prayer as confidently as we can for Ramon Magsaysay.

"We have Christ’s own warrant that what we do for the poor, the weak, the homeless, the oppressed, he shall regard as done to himself. Surely, then, a man who made the welfare of these very people the paramount business of his life, who used the great powers entrusted to him to protect the poor, to defend the weak, to shelter the homeless, to right the wrongs of the oppressed, has little to fear from God’s justice, and from his mercy everything to hope.

"We must take up without delay the tasks which he left unfinished. There are so many obstacles still to be surmounted between ourselves and that free, prosperous, and self-reliant nation to which our fallen leader taught us to aspire.

"We must bring to our own labors for the common good that same sense of urgency which he brought to his; that consuming zeal which gave him almost no respite from his public duties, which so often got him up in the middle of the night to answer a cry for help, to save a life, to see that right was done.

"And there is something else that we must learn from him if we are to build as sturdily as he did: his massive integrity. In the grave crisis in our affairs which first brought Ramon Magsaysay to public notice, it was this quality above all that attracted our people to him, this that decided them to put in his hands the supreme executive power. Cutting across the tangled intricacies of party politics they chose, very simply, a man whom they could trust.

"All our hopes for the future depend, beyond question, on our ability to maintain a government that deserves the confidence of the people and the world. Our plans to improve our economy, to redress the inequality of our social structure, and to contribute our modest share to the peace and happiness of mankind, are premised on public office in our land being held by men who will keep faith with God and with their fellow men.

"We shall make true progress only if every citizen from the highest to the lowest can look upon their government as truly theirs; not the instrument of a party or the private preserve of the powerful. We must seek first, the kingdom of God and his justice; then, and only then, shall all things else be added unto us.

"The sword of death, so pitiless, has yet this virtue in it, that what it destroys it preserves. It hews away from a man what in him was gross, was fallible, was mortal; but by the same stroke it fixes forever, both in itself and in the regard of men, that part of him which is immortal, and being spirit, is most himself.

"Even so has it dealt with our beloved leader, that we may see him as he was essentially, and seeing find the courage to be in our small measure what he was in so large a measure: a man who loved the people, who kept faith with them, who gave all he had to their service, without stint, without compromise, without regret, and unto death."

The one reality that truly surprises me in my many meetings with many people is the depth of hopelessness that pervades the entire Philippine body politic. Rich and poor, old and tragically, the young have been infected. Many people appear to have given up to the point where they don't care about the future any longer. My friends in the US will be amazed to see me, next to many of my countrymen as some wild-eyed idealist, a too hopeful loon.

When did the slide begin? Was our nation programmed to descend to these hopeless depths? Were we destined to become the most corrupt nation in Asia? I think the descent began when we took for granted the basic respect for human life which begat rampant corruption among our politicians who soon did not care about the weak and the poor and triggered the cascade which trivialized the rule of law.

We need to hear more lonely voices from out of the vast wilderness, we need to quit cursing our sad lot. We need to take our country back.