Global reality. What is the same for different people in different parts of the world is that the rich are getting richer and that the poor are getting poorer,” says Antonette Palma-Angeles. Photo by Aih Mendoza
In a global context that is getting increasingly ideal for the questioning and challenging of the dominant capitalist system, the world’s corporate powers are faced with a formidable enemy: the Occupy Movement. This global movement has been sparked by Occupy Wall Street, the first of similarly styled protests now being held all over the world. The movement has received such massive attention that the Occupy protesters’ famous slogan, “We are the 99%,” has become ubiquitous, acting as a sort of battle cry for everyone who can identify with the movement.
Even in the Philippines, similar manifestations of social unrest have come in the forms of Occupy Mendiola and Occupy for RH. During the lead-up to the Occupy Movement’s Global Day of Action last October 15, Filipino protesters also marched in Makati to the American Chamber of Commerce, in solidarity with protesters in the US and in order to fight a system that they believe has worsened local economic and social conditions.
In the Ateneo, all these events raise the question of how students are supposed to view these happenings and make an appropriate response. The global movement is headed by citizens neck-deep in social and economic injustice, and it is curious to think how Ateneans—most of whom come from backgrounds of privilege—could possibly find a place in this revolution.
Whether this issue is to be addressed head-on or from the comfortable sidelines, the majority has made a call-out. Ateneans cannot be sure what kind of impact the Ateneo could make—let alone if the community is even capable of engaging the movement locally.
Peak of popularity
Management engineering senior Ken Abante, president of the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo, and political science major Miguel Rivera, premier of the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement, both think that media has a role to play in the rising popularity of the movement.
“[It’s] definitely social media. I think it’s a very marketable thing,” Abante says. “Occupy something. It’s catchy, yet the ideology is supported by the 99% of people who take the brunt of the 1%’s [abuses].”
The Occupy Movement’s strong social media presence points to the young age of many of the effort’s participants. Rivera expounds on this activism of the youth. “There’s a shift in generations. Our generation is much more [receptive] to the message of the protesters than, say, our parents are.”
“Young people have always been the ones who have mobilized to reform their societies,” affirms Antonette Palma-Angeles, an associate professor of the Philosophy Department. She notes that in the case of the Occupy Movement in the US, though, even the older people are getting involved, due to the US financial sectors’ control on the distribution of retirement money.
Local and global context
Rene Raymond Rañeses of the Political Science Department gives a historical perspective of the movement. He says that in the modern context, “market culture, capitalist culture, is deepening itself, not simply to people who occupy privileged positions, but even [to] the middle class… even the lower class.”
Palma-Angeles, however, emphasizes how the economic context in America and the Philippines are distinct from each other. “At the moment, a lot of the problems which these people are talking about are not really the same problems in different parts of the world.”
Nevertheless, she says that “what is the same for different people in different parts of the world is that the rich are getting richer and that the poor are getting poorer.”
Bringing down the Occupy Movement to an Atenean context, Rivera points to a lack of student effort in addressing social inequality.
“The Ateneo has been identified more with the status quo than with challenging it,” Rivera says. “[With] Gawad Kalinga and NSTP, [Ateneo does] introduce students to harsh political and social inequality, but there must be a mechanism where students will learn how to address these issues at the root. Charity has its limitations.”
Corporate validation
More and more businesses are finally taking notice of the plight of the workforce and are finally taking steps towards a more just system. Today, such measures would even prove to be obligatory, if only to ward off social unrest.
“I think corporations have a big responsibility to invest in things to help other people,” Abante says. “Business is a very powerful entity that can be used to help solve these other things that the Occupy Movement wants to solve.”
With formerly fringe ideas like social entrepreneurship gaining popularity, Abante might be on to something. Indeed, in the Ateneo, social entrepreneurship is now being heavily marketed as an effective mechanism for nation-building.
Meanwhile, Rañeses believes that in any attempt to reconsider methods or frameworks, “the challenge is to reimagine the way we understand management, the way we understand business.”
“I think that Catholic social teaching, which is integral to the Ateneo education, has a role here,” he says.
Against the status quo
The effort to change the status quo is oftentimes founded upon the popular notion that businesses and corporations are cold and calculating entities which only see human welfare as a secondary priority.
“I think all of these attempts, all of these efforts [against the status quo] came about because people are discontented with the way capitalists and probably irresponsible businesses run their businesses,” Palma-Angeles explains. “But having said that, it’s not an indictment of all business people, because in fact, there are business people who are acting responsibly.”
What seems to be missing from many Ateneans is this attempt to discriminate between honest and hurtful engagements. For example, Rivera says that most Ateneans participate in and benefit from structural inequality, as can be seen in the way a lot of Ateneo graduates end up working for prominent companies that “exacerbate social inequality.”
“Unless we change our business practices, unless we teach students how to think ethically and morally about their business decisions and political decisions,” Rivera says, “we will always be part of the 1%.”
Elites vs. progressives
The Ateneo is peculiar for the fact that while it is an institution largely dominated by the wealthy and the elite, it still harbors a substantial number of progressive thinkers opposed to the status quo.
In this regard, Abante stresses that one “cannot really homogenize how Ateneans [think] and what they’re about, [because] Ateneans also come from different contexts.”
He also believes that the diversity of opinions on campus is a positive thing. “I think it promotes a culture of discourse, especially since there are people who come from rich economic backgrounds, and they come into contact with people who are just so radical about things.”
Rañeses also says that the supposed dichotomy between progressive thinkers and the rest of the Ateneo community is a blurry one, saying, “Even progressive thinkers have their own elitism.”
“The differences among Ateneo thinkers converge in their commitment to the democratic process,” he says. “Whereas you recognize the value of this movement, you also respect the institutional problems of democracy.”
He says that this democratic convergence could lead to theoretical work, which could in turn translate into action.
A change in consciousness
Though the Occupy Movement is often seen as a battle between the corporate world and the broad masses of ordinary people, Rivera argues that this is not the case.
“It’s not a battle between the masses and the corporations; it’s a battle of consciousness,” he says. “There must be a renewed way of thinking on how we’re going to solve the problems of the world.”
In order for this to happen, he explains that the ideological, political and economic roots of the world’s current problems must be reassessed, if not overturned and changed completely.
Rañeses echoes Rivera’s views. “One of the dangers that might come out of the movement is that you think that the Occupy Movement would be a battle of the rich and the poor, the battle between businessmen and laborers,” he says. “It’s not about that. [What] we can derive from this is… the possibility of a completely different system.”
Addressing his fellow students, Rivera says, “You just have to discern. Don’t take things at their face value.”
“From your poetry classes up until your theology and philosophy classes, there’s always this call to rout structural injustice,” he says. “And we’re not responding.”
