The integral good principle and human action.

SABBATICAL NOTES. 16 JULY 2014. WEDNESDAY. N2. 
The integral good principle and human action. 

FOR THE PRESIDENT of the Philippine Republic to claim, in good faith, that what he does with the DAP is for the good of the people (no, he does not recognize diversity here, so we use that lame collective formula, 'people', and not the more realistic because factual one, 'peoples') and thus, he is right, is to arrogate unto himself and unto his office all the powers of the other branches of government, powers that are defined in a democratic way of life.

Cleary, the 1987 Cory Constitution spells out what this democratic way of life is all about.

If the President has not read this, he should stop playing video games and flip the pages that talk about the check-and-balance mechanism enshrined in that fundamental law of the land. Unless he refers to administrative orders and presidential decrees, that fundamental law stands.

And if there are problems with that law, then have it amended following a democratic process.

Or, do a radical cha-cha.

But spell out the steps to doing that cha-cha, and please, please, involve all the oligarchs it its drafting again, yes? We need to assure the country that the interest of the oligarchs and economic elites will be protected by the social contract.

Make that social contract social only in form but not in substance.

His mother's regime of euphoria and vendetta and coups d' etat gave us brown-outs and blackouts and skyrocketing prices of the basics of living a simple life marked by galunggong in the morning, galunggong at noon, and galunggong at night.

His mother promised that galunggong would remain within the purchasing power of the galunggong-fed people. Of course, this did not happen.

She promised social justice. Of course, she gave back the means to have the oligarchs become oligarchs again after being deprived of their oligarchic life during the Marcos regime. Well, Marcos had a different set of oligarchs, one of them related to her.

It was happy hour again for them, these economic elites. She danced with the oligarchs, his mother, and made it sure that these oligarchs would come back bigger and more entrenched the second time around.

She promised access to the resources of the country, and she kept the Hacienda Luisita to her family, and to this day, that bastion of 'señor/señora/señorito' mentality has remained with the Conjuangcos, the hocus-pocus of stock distribution included.

The son, riding on his mother's death and the nostalgia of the masses of EDSA People Power I, gained reentry to the palace by the murky river where he was once a brat of a president's son.

Or, a well-served señorito de camote.

And now, he is president, and vowing to make this country great again like the promise of one dictator everyone called benevolent but had blood in his hands, like Enrile, like Ver, like Ramos.

Or Honasan and company, of the Enrile Protege from the PMA, Incorporated.

The stance of this president is dogmatic, at the very least. Was he a reincarnation of the pope in the Dark Ages during the time of the bubonic plague?

That stance is not farther away from that prelude to 'Anathema sit.'

It is: 'Roma locuta est.' Rome has spoken, Rome has said so.

Translated in Malacañan terms: P-Noy has said so.

And Abad too!

Thus, you must believe, you must follow, you must regard it as right even if you are the Supreme Court of collective reason or the Supreme Court of rationality in an irrational land.

This president must have taken some credits in moral theology at the Ateneo, and must have known--or, did he miss class at that time?--about the nature of human action, and the culpability assigned to the moral actor.

There is such a thing as the principle of integral good, to wit, 'Bonum ex integra causa malum ex cucumque defectu.'

Let us do a free translation for him, for this president: 'For a good to be good, it must be entire good. Any defect would vitiate its goodness.'

Now, now, tell us, Mr President of the limits of your good intention.

Hitler had good intentions for his Nazi-ized people.

Dictators, Philippine-born or North Korean, have good intentions for their people.

Now, tell us again about your good intentions.

Remember, honorable Sire, that we have good intentions too when we criticize your good intentions.

FELIPENAS/