Thinking deficit disorder

Written on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 10:00 am | by benign0

I just had a brainwave after checking out Ding’s comment in his most recent blog post; to wit,

[…] I will even concede the matter of certain ‘edict’ being upheld by our courts as legal, but without meaning to muddle the debate, is everything ‘legal’ we’ve seen imposed on Philippine society just or even moral? History, recent, or not is replete with tales of Filipinos’ right trampled upon using perfectly ‘legal’ constructs’[…]

He was referring to the idea that the President would have been well within the bounds of a presumption of regularity to issue an edict or endorse a document (such as say a certain MOA that everyone is all excited about) until such time as it is ascribed or over-turned by the Supreme Court. Personally I subscribe to this philosophy as it is the whole point of the existing governance trinity that we currently have in effect. In principle, when people and agencies within a branch of government act within the bounds of the mandate of this branch, the outcome is still subject to the check-and-balance enforced by the relationship of this branch with the other two.

In this instance, the Executive Branch, issued the “edict” and the Judicial Branch restrained it. That’s the PROCESS at work. There is no “murder” commited as DJB expresses poetically.

What disturbs me more is the continued propagation of the philosophy of acting before a democratic process runs its course. These acts are often incited by what seems to be the innocent question (and its various incarnations throughout our recent history):

[I]s everything ‘legal’ we’ve seen imposed on Philippine society just or even moral?

That question describes the tired old thinking that underpins Edsa “Revolution”s 2, 3, 4… ad infinitum and accounts for both our lynch mob mentality, and our pathological aversion to doing the right thing.

The whole point of our democratic processes and the expensive structures we have in place is precisely to ensure that routinely answering that question is systemically baked into the very fabric of our government. When we see a flaw in that framework that results in an immoral, impractical, or unproductive outcome, the solution does not lie in making a summary judgment or simply deciding to ignore, work around, or violate the Law. The solution lies in re-evaluating the Law and making the appropriate changes based on this evaluation. By the way, the job of our Legislative Branch is to do just that.

And here’s the punchline. The common denominator here is THINKING.

We need to THINK.

Filipinos need to be CONSTANTLY REMINDED to think because thinking does not come naturally to Pinoys. Unless Pinoys develop a strong cultural ethic of THINKING they will neither;

(1) ever elect politicians based on their ability to THINK;

nor,

(2) take their elected politician to the task of thinking whenever called for.

Democracy is a process. If a component process does not work for us, then there is something wrong with the process and that component needs to be changed. There are processes in place to fix these processes too. We need to allow that feedback loop to run its course and build upon what’s been learned from past errors.

Changing the process has a better chance of yielding a sustainable improvement. Unfortunately, Da Pinoy Way has always been to work around the process (leaving that erring process in its original flawed state ad infinitum).

Which puts a bit of an embarassing context to those who pompoously ask:

How come things never change?

That this question is asked constantly highlights the irony that constantly escapes us. We simply do not do enough thinking. And because, in a democracy, politicians merely reflect their constituents, it becomes less of a surprise why our politicians do not seem to be thinking either.

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About The Author: benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.COM and has once been described as "one of the most enthusiastic hecklers of the politically-passionate" by a respected journalist.

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9 Responses to “Thinking deficit disorder”

  1. Ding G. Gagelonia on August 26th, 2008 10:19 am

    “Thinking deficit disorder”
    Benign00, you’ve again put it most insightfully. Perhaps I should not be congratulationg you too often, lest I start sounding like a Fan. But seriously, the tragedy indeed is how Filipinos are unable to really make informed choices when they vote.

    Note that Marcos instituted ‘bloc-voting’, his ‘construct’ for institutionalized electoral fraud, a variant of the ‘command vote’ of political warlords and even the Iglesia Ni Kristo’s single-vote process and the El Shaddai practice. No wonder politicians form bee-lines to the INK and think nothing of attending prayer vigils just to be ‘anointed’ by ’servant-leaders’.

  2. Solid Pinoy on August 26th, 2008 10:59 am

    Masyado mo naman minamaliit ang mga pinoy pare.

    Need I remind you that we invented:

    1. The moonbuggy
    2. The florescent lamp
    3. The yoyo
    4. The integrated circuit
    5. The Internet

  3. Dean Jorge Bocobo on August 26th, 2008 11:27 am

    Benign0,
    There was no murder, yes, but lookit, the gun was loaded and cocked, the assassins were dispatched with it by the Philippine capo tutti di capi to Petrajaya where awaited the international community as witnesses to a public execution of the constitution, the contract on its life was already initialed and announced proudly at the SONA by the president herself. Only the Supreme Court’s TRO and the petitions of Pinol et al prevented the murder.

    Those are all the elements of ATTEMPTED murder, which is a crime like simple murder.

    Regarding the presumption of regularity, that only applies to cases in which the “regularity” of the proposed action itself flies in the face of the obvious.

    The applicable term for these attempted ultra vires acts of the Executive would be IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO!

  4. Dean Jorge Bocobo on August 26th, 2008 11:42 am

    But I do agree wholeheartedly with your points about checks and balances and the division of labor in tripartite govt. As does Justice Carpio who said in context that the President couldn’t bind Congress to chacha actions that are necessary to make good on HER deliverables to the MILF. It was not in her power to agree to unconstitutional provisions that need the action of another branch of the government to enable.

    Essential to checks and balances is not just “after the fact corrective action,” but even more important is the beneficial preventative action of the structural division of labor, powers and jurisdiction. The three branches of government are really more like cogs in a machine, intended to work smoothly together, not in opposition to one another except when one goes out of track or balance. Here was a case of putting the cart before the horse, not only a grave abuse of discretion but of common sense as well.

  5. benign0 on August 26th, 2008 11:50 am

    Ding, yes, maybe you shouldn’t because I also learn a lot from the times you beg to differ to my opinion.. ;)

    The inability to make informed choices is indeed a double tragedy considering the wealth of information that is available — the amount of resources poured by the Media into covering the comings and goings of our politicos, etc. — to support the evaluation process that the general public is accountable for in a democracy.

    Dean, I agree. The gun was cocked and pointed. And those alone do not warrant a charge of murder. The Justice department through its court orders or police agencies do succeed oftentimes in stopping crimes forcing us to affix the prefix “attempted” to the intended crime. But that changes our ability to charge the fulll extent of said crime had it been committed.

    Society for its part forms its own judgment of a suspected motive or premeditation (in cases where the crime was stopped). Such judgments are made outside any kind of legal framework and therefore cannot be exercised/executed within the framework of the Law. So in a democracy such judgments are exercised/executed in a subsequent election.

    The trouble arises when a society:

    (A) lacks the discipline to defer the exercise of their judgment (i.e. for the next process that enables it to do so);

    and,

    (B) lacks the collective memory and learning faculties to apply this judgment when the opportunity to exercise it finally comes.

    To cite examples from the perspective of dysfunctional Pinoy politics: Fiesta Revolutions demonstrate Point A and the chronic election and re-election of morons and crooks demonstrates Point B.

  6. cvj on August 26th, 2008 2:17 pm

    Among individuals that i’ve come across, you have one of the highest ratios of talking about thinking versus thinking.

  7. benign0 on August 26th, 2008 2:40 pm

    Essential to checks and balances is not just “after the fact corrective action,” but even more important is the beneficial preventative action of the structural division of labor, powers and jurisdiction.

    Dean, I agree on this too. The check and balance applied by the governance trinity is after-the-fact and presumably intended to catch exception cases (kind of how post-production inspection in manufacturing is only a tiny component of overall built-in quality assurance along the entire production line) — the presumption here being that the people and agencies working within the jurisdictions of each branch while recognising both the constraints imposed and liberties granted by said jurisdictions will nevertheless take it upon themselves to do the right thing with the spirit of the entirety of the framework in mind.

    As you more succinctly and eloquently put it:

    The three branches of government are really more like cogs in a machine, intended to work smoothly together, not in opposition to one another except when one goes out of track or balance.

    As to this quaint contribution to the collective intellect of humanity here:

    Among individuals that i’ve come across, you have one of the highest ratios of talking about thinking versus thinking.

    cvj, that’s because Yours Truly has already mastered the thinking bit. So the only other thing left for a guy like me is to talk about what I have already mastered.

    I believe it’s called meta-thinking.

    Sori ka na lang if you have a bit of difficulty following and therefore resort to low-substance one-liners. :D

  8. cvj on August 26th, 2008 2:43 pm

    Mastery of thinking is no reason to stop doing it. As they say use it or lose it.

  9. Bencard on August 27th, 2008 12:51 am

    make up your mind, cvj. is benigno “thinking” when he talks about thinking, or is he not?

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