To end corruption, we must be realistic: we must demand the ‘impossible’

We at Partido Sosyalista welcome the lively debate taking place in the public sphere following our shared calls for both Marcos and Duterte to resign and for a democratic transition government with broad public support to be established instead. Our path forward can only be found through collegial yet frank discussion, made more productive through an introspective and deliberate interrogation of our priors.
In the hope of furthering this dialogue and finding common ground, we wish to further expound on our views and answer the many questions and comments we have been receiving after posting our previous statements.

A systemic problem requires a systemic solution

Many of those reacting to our statements say they cannot share our calls yet because they fear that malevolent forces will ride on them in order to seize power and advance their dark agenda. From their perspective, we need to do everything we can to prevent proponents of what they call “genocidal fascism” from winning—even if that means siding with, or at least not going against, the latter’s current adversaries: the champions of what they label “authoritarian kleptocracy.”

Under conditions rife with danger, they argue, prudence demands that we stay the course and defend the constitutional order. Only in this way, they maintain, can progressive forces avoid “isolating” themselves from the middle classes and more moderate social forces, build a broad coalition, and defeat the “bigger enemy.”

We understand where those who take such positions are coming from. Their fears are not without basis; their call for prudence is welcome. We are one with them in our common goal of preventing the Dutertes from returning to power and escaping accountability. But, for the moment, we remain unconvinced that their proposed course of action will enable us to achieve our larger goal of ending corruption—let alone of keeping the Dutertes out of power.

Indeed, we are more inclined to take the view that confining ourselves to the existing constitutional order is what will keep corruption going, allow the guilty to escape justice—and pave the way for the Dutertes’ victory.

Our differences ultimately stem from our different understanding of the causes of corruption.

For us socialists, corruption is never just the result of individual moral failing, or the consequence of imperfect laws and institutions, as others hold. It is instead the predictable products of our existing social, political, and economic system—one that is undergirded by our current constitutional order.

Where there is a small minority parasitically living off wealth created by the labor of the vast majority, and where this tiny elite requires a government tasked to perpetuate this exploitative order—a government at their bidding—you will always have state officials stealing billions from the public coffers.

Sometimes it gets exposed, most times it likely goes on undetected—but kleptocracy is an endemic feature of capitalist democracy.

To believe, then, as many do, that corruption can be minimized, let alone eliminated, within this kind of society and within the constitutional framework that keeps it in place may well be to lead ourselves to a dead-end.

We find it difficult to expect Marcos or Tito Sotto or any other constitutional successor to “step up” and be capable of finally solving the problem when all of them are part of the problem—when the system they defend is the problem.

This is the most basic reason why we remain unconvinced by others’ counter-proposal for moving forward: It is unlikely to work. One or ten fall guys may be put behind bars. Laws may be strengthened. But the corrupt will find a way and they will engage in large-scale corruption again and again.

For us, corruption can only be eliminated if we change the existing order, beginning with fundamental political and social reforms that are plainly impossible within it, namely those that aim at finally abolishing the dictatorship of the oligarchy and politically empowering the majority.

This is why we need a democratic transition government with broad popular support to take power: to make possible what is currently impossible—not out of wishful thinking but out of a well-reasoned calculation that it is ultimately the only way to achieve our shared goal of once and for all stamping out corruption in our country.

A strategy for defeating the Dutertes

The Dutertes or other opportunistic right-wing generals are, of course, likely to try to hijack our calls and ride on our mobilization. But this is precisely why we need to work harder to capture people’s imagination, win their trust, and collectively organize the broadest political coalition behind our proposal: so we can fight back and prevent them from succeeding.

This is also why we cannot enter into even just a tacit alliance with the proponents of “autocratic kleptocracy”: because—at a time when more and more people, not just from among the working poor but even from among the middle classes, are reconsidering their support for him if not turning against him altogether—to side with Marcos is to isolate ourselves from instead of grounding ourselves in the masa, and thus, to fail to build the broad anti-Duterte bloc we need to build, and to weaken ourselves vis-a-vis the Dutertes. Siding with “autocratic kleptocracy” may actually end up enabling “genocidal fascism” to prevail.

Let us be careful not to overplay our hand: The Dutertes are the strongest political force out there today. But that still does not make their triumph inevitable. 

This belief—that the Dutertes are bound to prevail in their attempts to hijack our cause—rests on a jaded reading of material conditions that simultaneously plays up the perceived strength of forces of reaction and underestimates the potential ability of a united movement to consolidate during times of social upheaval.

Assuming that “the bigger evil” will automatically win in struggle—and therefore avoiding any course of action they may attempt to hijack—risks succumbing to defeatism and perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy: people obviously cannot mobilize behind a call that isn’t being made or seriously considered. We must dare to imagine an alliance exclusively composed of subordinate classes. It is the task of progressives to expand the people’s political imagination, not treat their orientation as fixed or inert.

If anything represents non-viability and futility, we posit that it is the undying commitment to (at best) incremental progress in a status quo that has failed the people again and again. Supporters of the 1987 Constitution who mythologize “democracy” and “rule of law” must come to terms with the consistent popular rejection of the current order by broad sections of the majority, as well as the hard realities of political and economic non-democracy which have plagued the liberal status quo from day one.

Are we not more likely to alienate the “masses” when progressives are seen as defenders of this dysfunctional order? The center cannot hold.

Ironically, what may make the Dutertes’ triumph unavoidable is our belief that it is unavoidable. But if we shake ourselves out of this self-defeating belief, and if we come together and get our act together, we can inflict on the Dutertes a decisive defeat from which they will never recover.

An invitation for progressive forces

For the moment, it is true that our plans are not the most specific. 

This is deliberate. Apart from having a general sense of how our proposed democratic transition government should be established and what kinds of reforms it should carry out in power, we refuse to give details not because we do not have a clue but precisely because we are committed to a more substantive form of democracy than what we have at the present: It is we, the sovereign people who should decide how our democratic transition government should act once in office. So details of what it will do or how it would govern are questions that cannot be answered in advance.

Our invitation for all progressive forces is to collaborate in fleshing out our proposal as a serious option that we can all jointly develop together with everyone in our ranks. Such an endeavor would be a radical reassertion of democracy, a communal process of marginalized peoples charting the best path forward independent of those who oppress us.

Our task is to both reconstruct and establish anew avenues and spaces of healthy contestation and dialogue. We must resist bad faith name-calling and intransigent sectarianism which has long plagued our ranks. We must interrogate the meaning and value of “unity,” especially when minimal positions are framed as the default without room for debate, thus avoiding healthy conflict.

We at Partido Sosyalista stress the importance of constantly orienting ourselves toward our shared ultimate goal, a society free of all forms of domination. This maximalism is a praxis of foresight and clear-sightedness—a muscle that we must continuously practice using. Failing this, if we are constantly seized by short-term questions (and consequently short-term solutions), we at best maintain the status quo. Under periods of normalcy, we must expand our political imagination beyond deference to any section of the ruling elite.

We must build our organizations in ways that expand and emphasize the autonomy and agency of oppressed classes. All of this prepares us to meet the moment in times of social upheaval, making it impossible for forces of reaction to overcome and demobilize us.

In this sense, we take comfort in the words of revolutionary Ursula Le Guin:

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."