Digong Paradigm Shift: From Hyperbole to Doable Agenda

(Second Part of the Series)

MARAMI PARIN ANG HINDI NAKAKA-MOVE-ON when that time Digong won by landslide during the recent national elections with high hopes for him to wipe out crime and corruption under his term. But the reality is; no matter what the predecessor fire their negative conjecture; the presumptive president for a nation of 100 million is now ready to take the rightful place in a wider context of change. Certainly, the Yellow scenario is no longer a plausible future and the Left-wing agenda is already left behind in the new era of Digong pluralistic democracy and the paradigm shift from hyperbole to doable agenda.

From the Straight Path Hyperbole to Governing Federal System

Political democracy is not possible without economic democracy. It is not possible to achieve unless the quality of living, the moral integrity, the condition of political consciousness and the standard of education of the local populace is reasonably elevated. The cries of political democracy are hypocritical when not coupled with economic, social and cultural demands of the local people in general.

Our nation is now at the midpoint of exploring new ways of governing based on the ideals of economic democratization and decentralization. Undeniably, there is a meaningful governance reform movement across the nation calling for charter change. It is a movement to restructure the very state of affairs of governance and, in so building, will likely change the way local people participate in the political economy. The capitalist and non-capitalist systems are equally challenged. This call is a shift to a federal system of government that will help empower the local government units and the local populace to have access to a bigger share of the nation economic growth.

So what will happen in the future Philippines under the federal system of government is therefore a distinctive scenario: an indicative of a vast national shift in governance. This will be a reform passage to shape the new governance that can literally be found everywhere: in different conditions among all types of government and within all levels of governing.

This shift requires that we leave behind of our old national thinking about what government is and does, and start to frame government endeavor in new ways significantly based on what the local citizens are collectively demanding because this reform movement is definitely being led by the various group of people in many regions. This is a kind of pressure from the bottom up pushing governments to reform the way they do business. This federal movement is more like a courageous journey than it is like arriving at a comfort destination [resembling to “Daang Matuwid” a hyperbole narrative]; more likely it is a process of travelling towards more effective, relevant governance.

And the best way to examine the road map on federalism is to look at the positive trends where the momentum of history is moving.

These trends – is a futures in plural form more appropriate means of gaining insight into the drivers of change.

(To be continued... next discourse will be the Emerging Styles of Digong Governance)