Satur Ocampo A Call for the Politics of Change
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transfer of power to the people from the traditional elite is the ultimate goal of building a nation is good enough. Good enough for us to call on her to exercise the political will to hasten the process. We in BAYAN MUNA believe that the Filipino people’s aspirations for national freedom, justice and prosperity can be attained only when the people shall have been sufficiently empowered and mobilized for their own welfare. Second, I refer to the speech of the Speaker at the opening of the 12th Congress. Also adverting to the call for change by People Power II, he declared that “the politics-as-usual, business-as-usual attitude toward national problems no longer works.” The Speaker then called on the House “to transform our house into an activist, reformist, achievement- and performance-oriented House, a bastion of good politics, which we must strive to attain as its enduring standard.” Against our well-grounded skepticism, our humble representation would like to believe that both declarations by the President and the Speaker are not the usual rhetoric for the occasion. We would be happy to be proven wrong on this skepticism. Can we be convinced that such declarations reflect genuine appreciation of our people’s historic struggle and a sense of urgency on the part of our officialdom to undertake fundamental change in the way public affairs have been run? At her inaugural address, President Macapagal-Arroyo vowed to espouse “new politics” – politics based not on personalities but on principles and programs. We assume that the Speaker had the same in mind when he called for “good politics.” In vain did we seek evidence of that new politics in the People Power Coalition in the May elections. We continue to seek evidence of it in the Macapagal-Arroyo government. Can we hope to find it in the House of Representatives? It was the Partido ng Bayan that in 1987 raised the call for New Politics. BAYAN MUNA raises it today as the Politics of Change. We are fostering this politics principally through the democratic mass movement and secondarily through our work in Congress. The Speaker has urged the House to help the Macapagal-Arroyo government “get this nation moving again.” We submit that, for the people to truly achieve political power and for the nation to move towards attaining national freedom, justice and prosperity, the proper vehicle for such a journey is the Politics of Change.