"Sabi mo, “…our society and culture does not encourage a pro-active role for the youth”, at “..our government is demographically old, in its people, mindset and program. It was never youth oriented..” Samakatuwid, sabi mo uli, “For the youth to involve itself in socio-political issues, the public sphere must reinvent itself for the youth to identify and consequently, participate in its affair.”
Sa puntong ito ay ganito lamang ang magiging debate: “Alin ba ang babaguhin para maging aktibo sa panlipunang pagkilos ang mga kabataan, ang ating lipunan at kultura na ‘di kumikilala sa papel ng kabataan at ang lisyang pagtingin sa kabataan ng sistema o programa ng gobyerno o pamahalaan,- sa isang panig, o ang indibidwal na pagbabad at pakikipamuhay ng isang kabataan sa masa, o sa batayang sektor kabilang ang mga Mangyan?” Alin sa dalawa ang higit na magtutulak sa isang kabataan o grupo ng mga kabataan sa panlipunang kamulatan at pagkilos? Sa aking palagay ay ang ikalawa sapagkat wala nang hihigit pang puwersa kaysa sa personal na karanasan na maaaring magtulak sa ating kumilos. Ang karanasan ng gutom ng isang indibidwal ang nagtutulak sa kanyang maghanap ng makakain at tiyakin na hindi siya muling magugutom pa. Ang karanasan ng kawalan ng makakain ang higit na nagtutulak sa ating kumain hindi lang ang ganda ng kubyertos, tinidor, plato sa kumidor o maging ang lasa ng pagkain!"---Norman Novio, DYOSA REJOINDER
It gives me a headache to engage in a chicken-and-egg debate because it almost always results in `arguing in circles' a fallacy as defined by Aristotle that rationalizes the conclusion by virtue of the premise whose truth must then spring from the truthfulness of the conclusion. It goes on and on.
What irritates me is that your continuous attempt to put the youth including me in a box, to label us without proper contextualization. You insist that each of us could do a JOMA, but fails to see that JOMA was a result of extra-ordinary times and of an idealism now undergoing revisions if not suffering from the misfortune of being obsolete and irrelevant.
But JOMA is exactly my point, in an extended analysis of his case.
As you see, JOMA is perhaps the epitome of youth participation in government despite his unrepresentative political persuasion, along with Emilio Jacinto and other historical youth-persons. Pursuing the JOMA line, his CPP-led revolution in the late 40s is a failure. Or to be kind, an unfinished one. Look at him now, old and still a Marxist, an idealist lost in his own world and dreams, an exile not only geographically speaking but of ideals as well. There is no room for idealist in the Philippines. It is Leviathan-country where life is short, brutish, solitary and poor.
The thing is, every youth has in him a seed for the ideal. But where to plant the seed so it may grow?
The youth in a collective sense is appalled by the corruption of the elder generation. Don't trust anyone over 30. It is a maxim that guides the youth and is the ultimate expression of youth angst toward the institutions inhabited by the likes of Mr. Novio, old and nostalgic of a youth he had lost long ago. It is no wonder that in spite of the fact that us youth comprise more than 40% of the voting population, only few of us actually vote.
In the 90s, Gregorio Honasan said for true revolution the young must kill their parents (and everyone over 7). While I do not agree with the morbidity of his philosophy, I find some truth in it. Parents are the perpetuators of traditions and social norms, good and bad. True change could only come when the older generation learns not rape the innocence of the youth. Corruption is not a self-perpetuating, it needs a perpetuator. It is a disease that older generation are all too-willing to confer to the youth, as if it is by birth right that the youth should inherit it.
Thus, the alienation between the youth and public institutions is also idealistic in nature. By extension, as public institutions are filled up with people of an older generation, the alienation could also stem from generation gap. But who should reach down or up to whom? Who should take the initiative? I personally believe that it must be the government. After all in theory, and by mandate, this government is democratic one who must cater to every citizen regardless of age.
Initiative could not possibly come with the youth. Not that they are passive but culture and ideals prevent them to take initiative. Several instances in our history as a nation, the youth had led revolutions. First, the 1898 struggle for freedom from Spanish dominion was born as an idea in the minds of youths from illustrados like Jose Rizal, and were later executed by Andres Bonifacio with the aid of Emilio Jacinto. Second, there was the Communist rebellion against inequality and capitalism which had Jose Ma. Sison as poster boy. Third, in People Power against the Marcos dictatorship and cronyism, the youth was the mob that shouted for freedom.
And yet, where had all the hopes and ideals gone? There they are, crushed under the winepress and drank by old men and women. We are perhaps freed from physical subjugation but are we really free? We have succumbed into economic slavery and neo-colonialism even when we are yet to shake off our colonial mentality and other Spanish vices. Our country's GINI inequality remains high. We have become slaves of the elite like Ayala and Araneta. We even elect them to office as high as the Senate. JdV is right when he said that in this country, everyone is for sale. I believe him. We have an elite willing to buy our principles, and poor people willing to sell them because they have nothing else to sell but the principle they do not understand.
I am an EDSA baby. I was born in the promising year of 1987. It was full of hope. But I do not understand what EDSA means to my generation. What was the change delivered through People Power? Where is it? I can not find it, not even its shadow. Still, there are landless farmers even if we were the first to implement Agrarian reform. Our CARP was a farce. Japan did it and succeeded, but we did not. Our journalists are being killed. The people in the government are the same, only a couple of white hair added then and there and another wrinkle in their brows. And why is Imelda Marcos partying again? I've seen her in the lifestyle pages and magazines, dressed in aquamarine gems. She looked as if there hadn't been blood in her hands. Why is she not dead by firing squad? Why do we have Bongbong in the Congress? Why do we have Borgy Manotoc in the hip clubs? I'll be happy to see them behind bars, or anywhere but in our country. (And Congress, for God's sake!)
See, we do not exile the corrupt from our midst. It is a problem of the older generation. It is an entailment we do not and can not accept. The idealist in us refuses to compromise. Yes, that's what the older generation did. They compromise, and now they, too, are corrupted, eaten by the very system they fought against once.
All of the struggles for change had come into a failure.
Perhaps, it is safe to say that youth had just wizened up. Once burnt, twice shy. Heck, we were burnt just too many times. We're made numb by the burning. And now, you want us to burn again?
