A liberal theologian’s take on Cory Aquino’s legacy.
The final chapter of John Shelby Spong’s book Born of a Woman discusses how the developing concept of the “purity of Mary” has influenced the state of women from the birth of Christianity the present day.
Mary, Spong argues, embodies a male-created ideal of submissiveness (much alive in the Catholic church) that Corazon Aquino typifies - an image that stands in opposition to Reformation-born example of female power, Margaret Thatcher. The rest is a direct quote from pp. 220-221 of Born of a Woman:
The emancipation of women has come primarily in those parts of the world in which the Protestant Reformation kicked over the sexual stereotypes of both virgin Mary and Mother Church. Corazon Aquino was one of the rare women in the twentieth century to achieve political power in a predominantly Roman Catholic country, and she had three things going for her that made her situation unique. She was the widow of the primary political rival to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Her husband was in fact murdered by Marcos, and therefore she became his political and spiritual heir. She was backed by James (sic) Cardinal Sin, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines. Finally, she had the backing of key military generals. Without all three of those sources of male power she could not have achieved her position. Indeed, her public demeanor of simple piety, obedience to the church and military, and the absence of personal political ambitions made her a “safe” female candidate, a symbol easily controlled behind the scenes by powerful males. Her hold on political power was always tenuous and rested upon the willingness of the background male figures to continue to offer support. Compare that to the figure of Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of Protestant England’s politics in the 1980s, who ruled, won elections, and scuttled her enemies in her own name and with her own power. She even appointed the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London and bent the Church of England to her own political purposes.
Corazon Aquino and Margaret Thatcher reveal vastly different definitions of what it means to be a woman. Those definitions, I argue, rise out of the still-alive denigration of women that marked traditional Christianity in the case of Mrs. Aquino and a rebellion against that traditional Christian definition of women that was part of the Reformation, which produced Mrs. Thatcher. My point is that beginning with the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke and carrying on through the rise of Mary as a figure in Christian theology, we are not dealing with the image of a real woman in Christian history. Mary is a male-created female figure who embodies the kind of woman dominant males think is ideal - docile, obedient, powerless. (emphasis mine)
Take note that this was written in 1992, long before Gloria became President. Spong’s analysis might also apply to Gloria; her positions vis-a-vis the church and the military prove Spong’s point (in my opinion) rather than refute it.
Interesting, Moc!
I agree with Bishop Spong’s differentiation between Cory and Thatcher. However, I do think that GMA is a bit more Thatcheresque in the sense that she is largely “her own woman” (her economic focus is largely her own, not written by others for her to read in public), while Cory was thrust into the scene and provided with policy content authored by a lot of MALE advisors/backers.
While Cory may have continued talking about “Freedom and Democracy” on her own, her stint as president reveals that most of her administration’s policies weren’t her ideas…
Of course, even if I think that GMA’s policies (esp. as far as her economic priorities are concerned) are largely her own, she has still needed Military and Church support to keep her in office, as would any other person (Male or Female) who realistically wishes to finish his/her term as President in a country where the elections feature multiple candidates WITH NO RUN-OFF ELECTION, thereby resulting in a minority President.
In other words, pandering to the Church and the Military is a necessity that ultimately stems from the phenomenon of the minority-president.
If the Philippines went through with a shift to the Westminster Parliamentary System, then by its very nature, the Prime Minister’s position (ultimately, the one with the real power) which is determined which party OR COALITION is able to gain a majority of seats need not find itself in a “minority position.” If, for instance, there is no “50%+1″ scenario in the Parliament, then two parties who each have 30% and 25% of the parliamentary seats could decide to form a coalition, and that coalition would then “gain Majority.” The Coalition’s two parties can then decide which leader of the two parties will be Prime Minister. And by its very nature, the Prime Minister will ALWAYS be backed by a majority of seats in Parliament.
Should things change, for example - if a general election causes the coalition to lose its “50%+1″ position or if the coalition breaks up, then the Prime Minister ceases to be Prime Minister, and a new one will be chosen from the NEW party or NEW coalition that gains the NEW “50%+1″ majority.
Now, should we Filipinos continue to insist on using the Presidential System, then we should make sure that we have a RUN-OFF ELECTION.
The RUN-OFF ELECTION is what allows the electorate to decide, who among the two top contenders should ultimately become Chief Executive….
If it hadn’t been for a RUN-OFF ELECTION in 2002, France would have ended up having the far-right RACIST, Nazi-esque Jean Marie Le Pen becoming President. The RUN-OFF election caused the concerned French majority to choose the “lesser evil” Jacques Chirac over the embarrassing “neo-Nazi.”
If anything, I truly think that the lack of a clear “50%+1″ majority in Philippine Elections due to our insistence on a Presidential System with a multi-party system WITHOUT A RUN-OFF election continues to be our country’s Achilles’ heel.
It is for this reason that our post-Cory Presidents have all been - by default - minority Presidents perpetually demonized by the Media, hated by followers of the candidates who lost the election (they’re all united against the incumbent), and always required power-brokering and pandering to both the Church and the Military all in the name of securing some form of support amidst the inherent weakness of the minority position the Office of the President has continued to find itself in.
And he who didn’t pander to both Church and Military got ousted. One who wasn’t a member of the Church (a Protestant), at least had a very solid backing from the Military and could certainly count on his EDSA credentials in gaining some (if not much) Church support.
In summary, I am saying that GMA is very similar to Thatcher in that both Thatcher and GMA didn’t depend on backers and advisers for their general policy platforms and government programmes, making GMA different from Cory in that respect. GMA’s stance vis-à-vis the Church and the Military are largely inherent in the position of President, not so much in her being a woman.
We all know that Ramos still had to play that game (and he had his military background and EDSA-hero status somewhat entitling him to solid military support), while Erap unfortunately thought that his movie-star popularity among the numerous-but-powerless uneducated poor by itself meant that he didn’t need the Church and the Military on his side, forgetting that he was ultimately still a minority president with numerous factions fighting to bring him down, and that got him ousted.
If we continue on with the current Presidential System with its multi-party elections without a run-off election, we will continue to see future presidents in a default position of weakness (due to minority status), and that will continue to require them to keep seeking popularity, seeking support from both the Military and the Church, and continue all sorts of “horse-trading” and “power-broking” with different factions (the very thing that all the “holier-than-thou” Pinoys refer to as “corruption”) just to get the job done.
In the end, getting the job done is what counts…
In my book, a money-oriented Oskar Schindler who saves the lives of many people as a by product of his own selfish pursuit of profit is far, far greater in the grand scheme of things than an idealistic and altruistic Che Guevara who murders all in the name of a discredited utopian ideology.
Cory leaves a very important legacy to the Filipino people as well as to the world. She freed the Filipinos from the tyranny of the Marcos regime the the popular revolt.
This had awakened the world that there is such a power capable of shaking authoritarians. The pattern of the revolution had been duplicated in the Soviet Union, an other countries with authoritarian rulers.
Without the Philippine example, Soviet Union still would have existed until this day threatening the world with the anxiety causing cold war.
Cory sacrificed herself for the democracy of country, but GMA gives a different kind of sacrifice. She sacrificed her popularity just to do the right decisions. She don’t mind if he would be the most hated president in the history. But as you can see we have improved our credit standing and even reversed the further inflation of our currency.
We always blame GMA for all the problems like corruptions, but what we have not realized is that why are these corrupt officials installed in the office. If our constitution is good, we could have selected the right people in the right positions. But still we are confused of the real cause of our problem and hastily blame the president for all the problems.
For me corruption has an equation:
corruption is directly proportional to the amount of money spent during an election.
A multiparty system means many candidates during an election which means more campaign funds from unlikely source. In the law of reciprocity which is a human characteristic, these money whatever the source may be must be reciprocated in terms of favor during legislation of government decisions. This is the root cause of corruption.
Reducing the electoral candidates will reduce the money for electoral campaign. A two party system is the best for our country. And if ever we have to retain the bicameral system, the senators must be elected by region. this would reduce campaign money for a senator.
Cory have broken the barricades of democracy, now is the time to pave the road for our better future.