khanterbury tales

Despite the many decades that had passed since the days of the Diliman Republic, the state university campus in Diliman has not shaken off its reputation for being ideologically left of center. In fact, only recently a Cabinet official released a diatribe of labels, calling the institution: “godless,” “a communist hotbed,” and “a breeding ground for destabilizers.”

But anyone who knew the campus well would not find a singular ideology reigning on campus. Rather, there exists a healthy pluralism of ideas that swings from the left to the right. But majority, like myself, are actually what I would like to term as “centrist.”

Unfortunately, it is label that it often looked down upon because it is often associated with indifferentism.

There are actually two kinds of centrists on campus. The more notorious ones, usually found among the students on the east side of the campus, are those who are only concerned about their own things, who like to be seen in Starbucks and who think only getting economically ahead of the rest.

The other kind is what I’d like to term as the “proactive centrists.” God-fearing, practical and concerned about the good of the country and critical of those events and issues that bring down the nation. The ideology of a centrist falls directly in between the left and right political extremes; but are not a mixture and ideological stances from left and right. Centrist ideology stresses practical and realistic solutions without the partisan problems. Proactive centrists believe that the government serves as a means to keep individual liberties in check.

I believe that it is a discredit to a Christian nation like the Philippines for some government officials to make us want to believe that it is only the godless ideologists who are concerned about human rights. Human rights are not only constitutionally protected, but they are also God-given rights. Anyone who claimed to live their faith ought to be appalled and moved into action when these are violated.

It is likewise erroneous to think that the faculty are a bunch of destabilizers when they issue statements condemning what they have perceived as abuses of power or violations of human rights. Rather, the critical minds that run the university–whether left, right or center—come to a consensus (when they normally rarely do so) when basic freedoms are curtailed or threatened.

Thus, it should come to no surprise that the University Council had issued a resolution just a week ago critical of the curtailment of civil liberties allegedly committed by the Arroyo administration.

The statement reads, “[The council] calls for the permanent withdrawal of military troops in the urban communities in Metro Manila, and an end to political killings, abductions and political repression.”

The UP professors also scored the government’s passage of the anti-terrorism law called as Human Security Law. “The passage of and soon-to-be implemented Human Security Law (Anti-Terrorism Law) further threatens to constrict the remaining democratic space. The law is characterized by loose and excessively broad definitions of terrorism, terrorist acts and terrorist individuals and organizations,” the statement reads, even as the Council noted that the law’s built-in mechanisms of wire-tapping, warrant less arrest and expanded detention and interrogation periods “are subject to misuse and abuse, given the state of rising militarism in the country.”

It does not take an intellectual to see that any threat to civil liberties is a threat to the common good. And the common good, is or ought to be, the primary concern of the proactive centrist. Not the utilitarian definition of the common good that is often adopted by those on the left and right of the political spectrum, representing “the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of individuals.”

Rather, it is the right of everyone to the opportunity to freely shape his life by responsible action, in pursuit of virtue and in accordance with the moral law. Or, in more Aristotelian fashion, the sum total of the conditions of social life which enable people the more easily and straightforwardly to do so. The quintessential goal of State sovereignty ought to be creating conditions for citizens to be able to exercise their basic right in society.
On a personal note, a centrist ideology is appropriate for media practitioners whose role is to be a watchdog of society via exposing the truth about matters that oppose the common good. (Reprinted from The Philippine Chronicle, April 28 issue)#