The Philippines and Southeast Asia

Steve Rood’s first entry explores some ideas concerning the Philippines in the context of Southeast Asia’s history. This is something very little discussed in the mainstream media, though some columnists like John Nery have started exploring themes, such as the connection between the independence movements of Indonesia and the Philippines.

Some articles exploring the subject. I have been debating whether to arrange thematically, or chronologically, and decided best to organize by date written, as ideas evolve over time.

This was an article written on the eve of the 2004 elections, by way of an exploration of what elections mean, and what elections can tell us about the generations that participated in them.

In this article, I explored the impact of the interruption in the succession of one generation from the other, that took place during martial law. This had an impact on the normal course of generations taking over from the previous ones.

Something that might be useful is this chart, which was made with the help of blogger The Marocharim Experiment. It shows the different historical/political generations.

In this article, I relate a discussion with a French historian, on how the Filipino conception of community (and nationhood) is one based on blood and not territory. This makes us akin to the Germans instead of, say, the French. And may help explain why Filipinos overseas are considered an integral part of the national community.

This article is rapidly becoming dated (a reminder of the dangers of futurology). Written a decade ago, it’s more revealing, perhaps, of general despondency at the time.

For Arab News, I wrote an Independence Day article on the approach taken by different generations to independence, and the meaning of the shifting dates on which it was/is commemorated.

For PCIJ, on the aftermath of the elections held in 2007. I proposed that after the tumultuous 90s and turn of the 21st Century, there seemed a national consensus to forego any wild experimentation and focus on institutional avenues for change and governance.

The challenges, however, posed by the institutional approach –where the formal rules can be widely divergent from how the rules are applied– is something I mulled over in this entry.

In this entry I started exploring a comparative approach further, to understand our views on institutions, and ourselves.

I went on to ask if our traditional attitudes and approach to government was changing, and if so, what was taking its place?

The many thought-provoking articles one encounters helps enrich and challenge one’s thinking and lends fresh ideas and new perspectives to one’s views.

In these two entries, I offered up reflections on the Confucian and Hindu civilizations that have had an impact on us, whether directly, or which offer up interesting examples of democratic development for us to study.

I wrote the following for an AIM publication on Philippine competitiveness. The question of competitive (dis)advantage helps tie together many threads: of institutions (or the lack of them) vis-a-vis our culture, of generational challenges (and shrinking away from them).

What the formal rules suggest –and the desire to decree a transformation of society by changing or revising those rules, is something I explored here:

In Singapore, I put forward this essay, as a contribution to the Asian Thought Leaders Conference I attended. The challenge confronting many Southeast Asian countries, I suggested, is a generational one: having achieved independence, and established modern states, Southeast Asian leaders now had to face the question of the continuing relevance of the nation-state to their own peoples.

This is a whole series of articles and entries on the question of Mindanao, with all the challenges and contradictions to the overall notion of the national project it represents.

In this article, I explored the question of whether national traumas affected generational, and thus national, behavior and attitudes.

Participating in the Asia Pacific New Leaders Dialogue in Jakarta led to interesting insights into problems and challenges other Asians are confronting.

Later on, I decided to look back even further, trying to explore the usefulness of integrating more recent scholarship and ideas on the evolution of our country and its people. This was another effort to integrate the various threads I’ve been exploring over the past few years,

After the 2010 elections, a conference was held in Berlin, where scholars discussed the dynamics of that election.

One of them, Mark Thompson, who has written extensively on Philippine politics, proposed the following as the essential story of that election: between populism and reformism.

I wrote two articles summarizing the different views put forward in that conference, which had an optimistic consensus among the participants:

In this June, 2010 column, I put forward some thoughts on the erosion, as I saw it, of the presidency over the past decade.

Having joined government, I put forward this paper to discuss institutions from the point of view of the official record, or more precisely, the lack of it.

This is an interesting article for someone like me, who has often suggested that we have much to learn from studying the Indian experience.

And so we close with another blog entry by Steve Rood, on questions and ideas he is studying, to see how the presidency and other institutions have evolved, from the perspective of governance.

The difficulty for most people who want to see how our institutions are evolving (either positively or negatively) is that a lot of time and energy gets used up following and understanding, the many little battles taking place. What is the larger narrative or the broader lesson? Perhaps too few are taking time to look at these things –and fewer, still, taking time to share their thoughts.