Dr. Fredegusto David
There comes a time when one becomes too cynical, where the thought of moving on seems like a dead end. Where marching on the streets becomes an ordinary venture, when one feels his/her voice can never be heard nor it even matters.
There comes a time when the cynicism seeps too much and you are left voiceless.
No. soul-less…
The drive for a better country moves to another plane of existence, that is living for oneself instead of living for others.
My education thought me to believe in the strength of the poor to rise up, the needy to be filled and of the overwhelming justice everyone should be afforded with neither consideration to gender nor social status.
All of them came down, such that I found myself asking “Did my education fail me? Or did I fail my education?”
In times like these one moves back and try to see the bigger picture, to look with fresher eyes and perhaps take back what is left of that irreverent soul with that fervent hope of achieving the smallest glimmer of change.
I look now through the eyes of a great mentor and academician, one which I believe never faltered in his goals and dreams.
Dr. Fredegusto David.
I went to his site created by his family in memory of him and I wonder what he did at the time of martial law. And this was the response I had from his wife Ms. Ethel P. David:
Hi, Floyd,
When Martial Law was declared on September 23, 1972 (September 21 was the date it was signed into law) Dr. David had been out of the country for 1 year and 8 months. He was then taking his Ph.D. in Psychology at Temple University. He came home on December 1973 after finishing his dissertation, without waiting for the Commencement Exercises in May 1974.
Right after the declaration, he was offered a teaching position at Temple so he wouldn’t have to go home. His adviser and other friends said he could just get his family, meaning me and our 4 children, and all of us could just stay at Philadelphia.
But FG, ever conscious of his commitment to UP, which had sent him, together with the Rockefeller Foundation, to study abroad, decided to come home instead.
At some point, he was offered a government position as spokesman, by Dr. Serafin Quiason, then Director of the National Library, and a neighbor at the UP Campus. But FG, with my wholehearted consent, turned down the offer, which could have made our life more affluent and comfortable. But, needless to say, FG didn’t agree with the imposition of martial law, and, as you know, FG was a very principled person.
However, he didn’t turn to activism. By that time, he was a full-fledged family man with 4 kids, and 4 more were to come, and he thought it the wiser course to concentrate on his teaching. Two years after coming home and teaching as well as being Chairman of the Department of Psychology and other acitivities both inside and outside academe, he was promoted to Full Professor.
For a more formal reply to your questions, I’m referring you to his essay which was included in “Nation In Crisis”, which I posted in his website. I’m not sure now if I posted the whole article or just an excerpt. If an excerpt, then I will post the whole article as soon as possible.
I’d like to thank you for continuing to keep in touch. Regards and take care.
Mrs David
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As such I am posting here the full text of Dr. David’s essay which can also be found here
Coincidentally the essay itself is so timely that I can’t help but think that this essay talks directly to my generation.
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I’m posting this 1984 essay as a sort of reply to Floyd, who, in a comment on Xenia’s essay, asked about FG’s views of martial law. I believe no one can say it like FG himself.
And, inasmuch as, at present, not just the nation, but the whole globe, is in turmoil, or crisis, some of FG’s words may be timely and relevant. –EPD
THE SECOND COLLOQUIUM:SYNOPSIS OR SYNTHESIS
F.G. DAVID
Three papers are covered in this overview and synthesis, the three comprising 68 pages altogether. In addition, the papers included 70 minutes of discussions by seven discussants.
The three papers are (I.) Carolina G. Hernandez’ “An Idea Paper on the Military and the Future of Civilian Rule in the Context of the Prevailing Political Crisis”, (II.) Perfecto V. Fernandez’ “Justice and Human Rights: the Legal System and Presidential Decrees” and (III.) S.P. Lopez’ “The Peoples’ Right to Know’.
From an international, political viewpoint, a crisis is a turning point of grave magnitude that is a presage either to a recovery or an aggravation. In drama, it is a point of major convergence of conflicts and of the principal personages, the critical development of the plot into a final resolution. And in pathology, it is a sudden change in the progression of a disease, bringing about either a recovery or aggravation or death, either relief from or intensification of pain and suffering.
The Philippines is in crisis. Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos himself has said so in a number of telecasts, the last of which was aired last 7 March. He has been invoking the resiliency of the Filipino citizenry to bounce back and prevail over crises.
A number of manifestations and expressions of the national crisis can be picked out, without difficulty. The exchange rate of the peso was devalued last 23 June to P11.00 per $1.00 [this series of colloquia was held February-March, 1984] and again last 5 October to P14.00 per $1.00, a devaluation rate that was swift and tremendous. Last 21 August, Sen. Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. was assassinated at the Manila International Airport. The assassination has shocked the nation and not a few international communities. It has cost a loss of trust in the nation’s government and has put the nation to shame. This condition and state of mind was poignantly expressed by the venerable Filipino statesman, Gen. Carlos P. Romulo.
Hundreds of thousands or millions of the citizenry, comprising the young, the old, both of the sexes, the laborers, the professionals, the businessmen, the students, have been rallying, especially since last August, at the average rate of 1.3 rallies per day, in Metro Manila and in cities and towns of almost the whole expanse of the archipelago. Letters pour into local alternative print-media and into international magazines, expressing outrage, anguish and distrust for the nation’s government, as well as for the military machinery or apparatus. As Fernandez put it, the citizen’s natural sense of justice is roused and their moral outrage may gestate the spirit of civil disobedience.
Inflation runs high, and seemingly unabated, the control over it slipping, at an average of about 65%. And commodities, some basic, become alarmingly scarce. Indeed, the crisis appears to be one of survival for many Filipinos. The very fundamental right to live is at issue. It has overtaken the insults against the other human rights, as S. P. Lopez curtly put it.
Labor is suffering. Accordingly, about 300,000 workers were laid off by the first quarter of 1984 and more will be, pretty soon. More and more of the citizens now find themselves living on the wastes and garbage of the still more fortunate. This is done out of sheer necessity and life, not out of concern for ecology or sound consumption of nature’s gifts.
The Fernando and the Agrava Commissions’ fact-finding about the circumstances of the Aquino assassination, commissions which are thankless to be with, are viewed with incredulity, cynicism or indifference.
Indeed, one can not help but admit that the nation is in crisis, a dreadful one. Even the academics, presumed to possess of a detached and dispassionate disposition, who are supposed to base their serious thoughts on thorough evidence, reflection and analysis, are making admission. Even Pres. Angara, though dispassionate and deliberate, did manifest an admission, put in subtlety. The nation is in crisis. In dreadful one.
At closer regard, what events, factors, and circumstances have spawned the crisis? What has precipitated the critical breaking point?
Fernandez said the nation is in crisis because the national patrimony is alienated, and the citizenry have not had a full control over the patrimony. The nation is in crisis, because the national economy has been in the grip of a system of economic domination and exploitation by foreign bastion and native oligarchs. The nation is in crisis, because its political system is under the control of the oligarchy, and its legal system has been the very instrument of domination and exploitation. The crisis has not come about, full blown and suddenly, like Venus from the waves of the sea; it has had a long, historical development, from the Spanish colonial period, through the American colonial and Philippine commonwealth period, to the birth of the Philippine Republic in 1946. But martial law, declared in 1972, hastened its progression into a debilitating gravity.
In the main, the martial law period spawned the milieu for the eruption of the crisis. During it, according to Hernandez, the military was transformed into a government apparatus and institution, acquiring in the process a sizeable magnitude, an inordinately big budgetary appropriation, unprecedented political power and entrenched corporate interests. Its transformation, rather the fastest and most formidable in the ASEAN region during the period, was accompanied, reciprocally, by the decline of civilian, political rule and institutions, with the singular exception, from the decline, of the institution of the Presidency. The martial law proclamation was attended by 12 trusted men of the President, or his 12 Disciples, to use Hernandez’ phrase, 11 of whom were military officers. Its being resulted in the disbandment of the Congress and the Senate, as well as the arrest and detention of dominant. political oppositionists.
The presidency, since the martial law period, has evolved into a frighteningly powerful, sole, civilian institution in government, the bureaucracy only being its appendage and without a part in the line of authority and command. The 1973 Constitution, the ratification and, therefore, validity of which is still being questioned and debated by dissenting legal luminaries and political oppositionists, has consolidated the power of the presidency, already granted by the 1935 Constitution, and of the Prime Ministership, into the same chief executive. The controversial Amendment No. 6 attached to the 1973 Constitution, made in 1976, has given unique legislative power to the Presidency, to the extent that it, practically, has nullified the necessity for the Interim Batasan Pambansa. With it, all decrees, orders, and letters of instructions by the President, already published in the official gazette or still kept in private, become part of the Philippine law. And the legislative power can be exercised by the President, whenever, on the basis of his judgment or perception, an emergency exists, and the Batasan can not be quickly convened to pass the necessary resolution and bill. The President’s judgment does not require the confirmation of an independent body.
With acquired power and in the context of martial law, the President has shaped the military into an institution that is directly linked to him, through the chain of authority and command. Last 31 July, for instance, he clarified that the channel of authority directly proceeds to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Of this flow of command, the Minister of Defense is not an implementing part, although as the civilian alter ego of the President he may be devolved by the President to exercise authority. Moreover, last November, the President even invited the participation of high military officials in the joint meeting of the Cabinet and the Executive Committee.
Through decrees, orders, and letters of instructions, which according to Abraham Sarmiento are issued at an alarmingly high rate, a rate that may violate the principle of parsimony in any lawmaking, such as in Law or Physics, the patrimony, economy and politics have been put more securely in the hands of aliens and alien corporations. [Witness, for a recent instance, the passage of JPEPA, which someone had characterized as worse than the NBN-ZTE deal in terms of corruption.] In this manner, the legal system has become a more efficient instrument and apparatus for the alienation of the patrimony, economy and politics, inasmuch as aliens need only deal with the Presidency for the desired protection or security in the form of decrees, orders, or instructions [italicization mine–EPD]. Considering the dismal state of the economy, which is suffering from an aggregate of $24-7 billion external loans or so, and considering the contracts and arrangements, which bind the nation, the Presidency can find itself exercising the legal system for securing a national, political, and economic condition which may be contrary to the nation’s interest.
Not only has the legislative power of the Presidency been exercised for the securing of alien domination, it has also been exercised to sanction or limit inalienable rights of the citizenry. Thus, P.D. No. 1834, P.D. No. 1737, P.D. No. 790, P.D. No. 90 and P.D. No. 33 have been passed to sanction the right to know and right to information and the right peaceably to assemble to seek redress of grievances, as well as to revise the penalties for violations of the P.D.’s. In this manner, the touchstone of all rights and freedoms to which a free and civilized nation is dedicated, is brought down. What, then, remains as a standard to measure the nation’s state of civilization and being?
Indeed, there is a crisis. A horrendous one. Perhaps a crisis of the survival of a civilized life and institution. And the nation cannot but respond, as it has to live on. Not to die, one must suppose.
Exegesis? What will be the future, soon?
The President’s time or life is also dated, even as the Presidency shall survive him. But in the present arrangement, it is the military, in the person of the Chief of Staff, who is next to the President in the chain of authority. The military has been built up during the last 18 years, particularly the last 11 years, stiff with power, management skill, and organization. And, as one student said here with remorse, it has guns, and the citizens do not have. The military has gained corporate interests. It may have incurred “blood debts”. It may not follow the fate of Argentina, after the deposition of the military from power.
But there is the 1973 Constitution. The nation is under a constitutional government. The law of the land provides for the protection of the rights of the citizens. This is good. But the citizens must fight for their right, in accordance with the law. So declared Dean Bacungan. Yes, the Vice-Presidency has been re-instituted, and civilian succession to authority is now better delineated. Surely. But with the Amendment No. Six, unrepealed, the re-institution of the Vice-Presidency just creates a premise and consequence by petitio principii, a logical weakness as the consequence begs the question and premise to be resolved. The Interim Batasan has not mustered strength and independence to submit the Amendment for abolition. And the President has not shown a history of giving away his vital gain. Had he not said once or a few times that, as his father had advised him, he should not quit or run away from a good fight? Of course, the President is much older now than the father who had advised him then. He must be wiser and more knowledgeable, too, considering the power and national advantage he has long assumed. But, in the absence of precedence in his behavior. it is ad misericordiam, a romantic and logical fallacy, to pin one’s hope and deduction to this fallacy, even as he may realize that reality, human reality, that is embedded in intricate, innumerable factors and premises, does not resolve within established, tight, logical game and frame, for the very reason of such intricacy and numerousness. So F.B. Miranda, also, held in one subtle drift of his discussion.
In closing, let the citizenry asseverate. May it aspire for the best society for itself, the society of S.P. Lopez’, that is free, pluralistic, egalitarian, participatory, self-restrained and humane. This is a strong wish and affirmation. Ah, yes, Mencius, the purest of Confucius’ students, once expressed: During the reigns of the benevolent Emperors Wu and Wen, the citizens were good and the country prospered. During the terrible reign of the tyrant, Emperor Yu, the citizens were violent; crime was rampant and vicious. And the country suffered and dissolved. Confucius may also be brought to bear at this juncture. But erudition should not be an academic or intellectual escapism even at certain time; at any time, it should be a power of its kind, candid, restrained, analytic, and, were it possible, pure.
From: NATION IN CRISIS: The University Inquires into the Present. Proceedings of a Series of Colloquia held on February 24, March 2 and March 9, 1984 at the Malcom Hall Theatre, University of the Philippines. Edited by: Alexander R. Magno
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Again thank you very much dear teacher.
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Hi, Floyd,
Thanks for letting your teacher’s words live on in your website. I’m so gratified. In times like these, I draw strength from his words and from my knowledge that there are persons like you whose belief in him didn’t stop with the issuance of a grade, or with graduation from the University.
I’ve also read some of your own postings (other than the one you wrote of Dr. David, which Fr. JayBoy read at the 40th day after his passing). I do hope you keep on writing, inspite of the times when one feels that everything, including and esp. writing, is useless. It is never useless. If indeed, “In the Beginning was the Word”, then, afterwards, the Word takes on a life of its own, as your teacher’s Words have.
Thanks again, and do keep in touch.
Mrs David (or Ms Ethel)
You’re very much welcome Mrs. David
Shine on!