Authenticity deconstructed

Contrary to popular belief, there are many virtues in politics. Far from being a world for the corrupt and a vocation for the corruptible, politics in fact, and ideally, like teaching, is a noble profession.

 

In its ideal form, politics is about sacrificing one’s own interest to serve the greater good.

 

In fact, the ideal of politics is loaded with moral norms and ethical considerations, a far cry from economics, where the fundamental ethical basis is selfishness, and where the pursuance of the common good becomes only an outcome, albeit unintended, of individuals maximizing their self-interests.

 

Alas, politics has degenerated into something that is loathsome, where the standard used is no longer its ideal constructs, but the empirical reality of how people in power have used their positions to advance their own selfish interests.

 

Hence, it now becomes a struggle for one to make visible that which is redeemable in politics.

 

Ideally, one of the political virtues that are supposed to be kept alive is authenticity, for it is in being authentic that one’s politics is supposed to become principled.

 

And to be authentic, one must become consistent and sincere.

 

I may disagree with the political orientations of some, as I have fundamental differences with deeply conservative people for example, but will have nothing but respect for conservatives who are consistent in making visible their conservatism, as long as it is in the pursuance of what they think as the common good.

 

On the other hand, I have nothing but disdain for people who are terribly inconsistent about their politics. Inconsistency becomes the source of inauthenticity, and these two become the foundations for opportunistic, unprincipled politics.

 

Thus, I could not understand why someone who is fighting for the rights of the environment is also a heavy smoker.

 

Neither could I understand how one could be a left-wing firebrand, fighting for the rights of workers in factories, but is also a female chauvinist.

 

And this is precisely why it is very problematic to me when someone incessantly posts, tweets and shouts in social media one’s condemnation of martial law, and emphatically declares “never again” as a political mantra, and yet in the same breath actively defends the megalomaniacal tendency of one who is afflicted with a messianic complex. Worse, I am scandalized by anti-martial law activists who in the same breath join those who condemn acts of resistance against the establishment as forms of hooliganism.

 

“Never again” implies a closure of any possibility to allow anyone to even dare appropriate as one’s monopoly the task of cleaning the stables of our polity. After all, the rise of the dictatorship was not just because Marcos appropriated all the powers of the state to himself. More importantly, its legitimacy was forced on people on the basis of making us accept that such is necessary, as it is the only way to address the threats which the political community faced at the time. Hence, “never again” is an utterance against someone who would even dare think that he is the only one that has a right to straighten this crooked land, and in doing so, would move heaven and earth to defy, abolish or change the constitution.

 

“Never again” suggests that there is no exception to the rule, that there is no privileged context that exempts, and that there is no excuse for anyone to do away with the rule of law, or to make shortcuts in the constitutional processes.

 

“Never again” applies to Enrile, Estrada, Revilla and Napoles as it applied to Gloria. But it must and should apply as well to PNoy.

 

“Never again” is about stopping a new Marcos from emerging. And an Aquino, definitely, could not and should not be placed outside its reach.

 

The second operative attribute to attain authenticity is sincerity, or what can be construed as being organic and natural, as opposed to being synthetic and plastic.

 

Sincerity is something that resonates with ordinary peoples, as it evokes a sense of being one with them. This is precisely why people who seek political office exert a lot of effort to give the impression that they are from the masses. Hence, we see all the baby-kissing, boodle-fighting, hand-shaking routines of candidates, even as there is this scramble to look the look, and even talk the talk of ordinary peoples, to a point that politicians take on desperate measures to do things which ordinary peoples do. Mar Roxas took on so many roles in his bid to make people believe that he has escaped his elite class origins—from carpentry, to traffic enforcement, to stevedoring. Miriam Santiago has appropriated the language of the youth, with her stand-up spiels and pick-up lines. Jamby Madrigal used her being allegedly a look-alike of Judy Ann Santos, even as La Gloria appropriated her imagined similarity in height with, and for having a facial mole like, that of La Nora’s. And politicians of all shapes and sizes try hard to dance on stage the dances popular to the masses, from doing the Cha Cha Cha to one to the tune of La Bamba.

 

But try as they may, and some may succeed in making some people believe, in the final end their real selves will defy their pretensions, and will emerge. There will come a time that the stage-managing of politics, which is founded on the creation of invented narratives, like the one that evokes some sense of heroism, if not of the person, then of his or her parents, will eventually unravel, and the real persona would be revealed.

 

This is exactly what is happening to PNoy. As one who rose on the power of conjured and inherited narratives, benighted by the death of his parents, and constructed from a skillful recasting of a mediocre performance in public office to become the most powerful person of the Republic, there is now indication that the authentic PNoy is being revealed for what he truly is. Far from the organic embeddedness of the narratives of Cory and Ninoy, his is now gradually acquiring the synthetic nature true of his being a detached elite haciendero.

 

When confronted in Yolanda by a complaint of someone whose house was looted, his reply was true to form of a moneyed cacique—devoid of sympathy, dismissive and pregnant with arrogance in pointing out that the one who complained should stop whining, as he was still alive.

 

While on tour in the US, perhaps tired from the obligatory meetings and appearances that he had to attend to as a visiting Head of State, the stage-managed PNoy yielded to the authentic PNoy in showing two things that pleased him most—McDonald's hamburger and guns.

 

Truly, it is in moments of tiredness and exasperation that one’s real sources of sanity and relief are revealed. And to the complaining Filipino communities of San Francisco who expected that the President, who found time to eat in a neighborhood fast-food joint, and to shop for guns, would also spend some time with them, the official explanation from Malacañang only further made visible the detached, dismissive attitude of a tired celebrity politician, and not of one whose image is carved from what has been projected as a deeply embedded narrative of someone sincerely willing to make sacrifices to honor the name of his parents. In fact, this was his narrative during the last SONA.

 

To paraphrase the retort of the Palace to the complaining Filipino expatriates, the President is tired, and if they only cared to check their records, he already gave them the privilege of an audience the last time he was there.

 

Hence, for PNoy, it is increasingly becoming apparent that his being synthetic is what is truly authentic. His being consistent is no longer doubted, even if one can no longer take comfort in it becoming a virtue, and his being sincere is now contravened by his almost childlike predisposition to act in characteristically uncharacteristic, i.e. eccentric and weird, ways.

 

And the real nature of the consistency and sincerity of the President is now further made apparent when he gave the PNP Chief the benefit of the doubt despite accusations of corruption. It is the same tenacity that he showed in obstinately clinging to Butch Abad despite the fact that it would have served him, and the government, better had he accepted the latter’s resignation.

 

Thus, what we have now is a consistently and sincerely hard-headed President. He has his own comfort zones which he would not dare touch. His loyalty to friends and to what makes him comfortable, are impressive. And his consistency in hounding his enemies, as seen in his persistent blaming of his predecessor, is remarkable, to a point that it is already bordering on the pathological.

 

This is the authentic PNoy.

 

And now, I am in quandary, for in the light of what he has become, PNoy has in fact deconstructed one of the remaining virtues of principled politics.

 

The curse of simulated politics, indeed, where images and reality are no longer different, and in fact become one and the same.

 

And in this world, authenticity may in fact lose political currency, as one can become consistently inconsistent, and sincerely insincere. That is, one can become authentically inauthentic.


The author is a former dean of De La Salle University. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.