We have expounded in Part 1 that education and politics are strange bedfellows. But there is a most disturbing affair developing between the two with the State University of our Insular Happiness as the setting. While politics have always been flirting with education in the province, such were carried out in wraps and never in a blatant, unprecedented manner of the Chief Educator stage-managing a campaign to become Chief Executive of the Capitol, or some such top provincial position. There is something gravely irregular when someone sworn to the vocation of teaching the youth would cut short his term of office and set eyes on acquiring political power. People wonder: “Anong nakaon kaini?” The shifting of gear is just so disorienting, so jolting to one’s sense of propriety. The line separating education and politics is being violated in a most brazen way.
In this second part, we examine the (in)compatibility between higher education and local political culture and offer a framework on how to make sense of this novel phenomenon currently confronting us in this island of our bliss. Firstly, we characterize local political culture in Catanduanes, focusing on its essential feature as a politics of patronage. Secondly, we review the mandate of the Higher Education Institution (HEI), specifically on how it is supposed to be of use to the larger society. Here, the aim is to make clear how the HEI can become “political” in its various points of social engagement. Surely, any social engagement is “political” but is patronage politicizing compatible with the nature of the academe?
Patronage politics
In the study of political economy, it is a well-established truism that in developing, agrarian-dominated societies, social transactions are carried out according to patronage principles. This is true in Catanduanes, and indeed may be an exemplar case The basic relational package is that between the patron and the client. The former is the generous dispenser of goods to the latter, the needy beneficiaries. One is able to assume patron role because of his or her monopoly of social goodies, namely wealth and power. While such arrangement appears benevolent, it is one devoted to the maintenance of dependence of the client on the patron. While symbiotic, patronage works on inequality of the parties involved. Historically, this kind of relationship developed during the feudal period dominated by the landlord-tenant arrangement where the tenant is said to be “chained to the land.” Aside from dependence, such relationship thrives on the values of obedience and loyalty.
But beyond the context of agrarian production, patronage, also known as “paternalist ethics,” applies to other major areas of relating in society: religion (God-human, patron saint-devotee, clergy-laity); family (parent-child); gender (man-woman); enterprises (employer-employee). And yes, between the government and the governed. In modern politics however, patronage is supposed to be the bane of democracy; authoritarian regimes are justified by paternalist ideologies. On the other hand, the clientelist system of agrarian economy is not compatible with the merit and efficiency based operating logic of capitalism. But then, patronage precepts once imbibed into the social psyche of a people becomes difficult to get rid of. From its feudal origins in the past, it got carried over and supplanted into contemporary governance, including regimes that profess democracy, such as in the Philippines. The result is a system that is patronal in its core with a surface layer of democratic trappings.
Patronage infects the democratic system at the very mechanism that brings about democratic government, elections that is. In elections held according to the patronal framework, the electorate are not able to exercise suffrage in a free, informed and intelligent manner. Those vying for positions use a whole gamut of tactics from soft to hard that taint the sanctity of the ballot. Even in cases where there is no application of violence, coercion or outright deceit, votes lack integrity as they are made not on the basis of party platforms, or programs of governance, but on personalistic grounds and on material favors offered by candidates. And surely, a government that is formed by patronal elections will carry through an incumbency of paternalist, clientelist governance.
Catandunganon is a case-in-point. As already intimated in Part 1, the Happy Island is happiest during elections. The height of such happiness comes during the giving out of vote-buying goodies, in cash or in kind. Here, the patronal transaction is at its most straight-forward: material offerings in exchange of votes that bestow power and might. But more than being merely compensation for vote delivered, vote-buying goody is seen as proof of generosity of the patron, now and in days to come. People vote a candidate because of his or her being maboot, nadullukan kung mangaipo, nakata-o. Elections are just the heightened moment of patronage politics: patronage operates more so in between elections, during incumbency as a preparation for the next electoral exercise. It is a continuing cycle. Which is why patronage politics is effective: it is self-perpetuating. But its effectiveness lies in the sustained capacity for generosity of the patron and the eternal poverty of the client. It is a system of mendicancy. Which is why patronage politics is also identified with corruption: it is well-known that patrons built-up their capacity for generosity by helpings from public coffers.
The HEI’s tripod of functions
With patronage politics sustaining on mendicant dependence between government and governed, it could only be so dramatically different from the Higher Education Institution. In contrast, the University is devoted to empower its clientele for independent living not only by teaching them basic knowledge and values but preparing them for productive occupation. To enable the University to carry out that mandate, it is said to stand on three pillars of functions namely Instruction, Research and Extension. While these three are supposed to be co-equals, Instruction or the teaching mandate is foremost of them in a kind of primus inter pares arrangement. The University, historically and up to the present exists mainly to teach. Research for its part had always been a major preoccupation but had gained more attention in contemporary reckoning such many of these HEIs are aspiring to be a “research university.” Research as the generation of new knowledge is essential: the University must constantly check, refine, and expand its knowledge stock. Extension is relatively a recent addition. It refers to services rendered to the larger community over and above teaching and research. The whole idea is that the University has some resources unique to it (teaching and research expertise) that the community, especially the marginalized sectors, can make use of. The aim is to make the University well-anchored on ground while pursuing the lofty aspects. In any case, it is about the University becoming more relevant to the society.
Truth to tell, the nature of the University has its own paternalist dimension. It has to assume superiority over the rest, as a community of knowledge and research experts, as generous imparters of intellectual and technological goodies. But then, unlike patronage politics in the government, it is designed to empower others. It is not out to subjugate them in mendicancy but liberate them from the bondage of ignorance and capacitate them for competence in life.
Overall, the University is political in the sense that it engages with the larger society; its activities will always implicate in the way society manages its affairs. But it must be shielded from partisan politicking. Specifically, both Instruction and Research are supposed to be politically neutral, operationalized through the dictum of “academic freedom.”
What about Extension? It is really in this aspect that the University gets most immersed into social affairs. Especially for a University in a developing country characterized by marginalization of large sections of the people, Extension brings it in face-to-face intimacy with everyday-life. Such an encounter can easily activate the patronal equation: the University extension agent (an academic steeped with honorific titles) assumes the superior position of dispenser of goods, and the community denizen (the masa) takes on the inferior role of needy recipient. At worst, an academic extensionist can assume the airs of a savior descending upon the quarters of the unsaved.
But the average University extension worker is a realist, well aware of the limitations of extension work. One cannot pretend to bring salvation to the hapless community. One can only do so much. For one thing, extension is merely an add-on to the already hectic workload of teaching and research. For another thing, the University can only share what it has: mainly technical know-how along its academic program offerings. So therefore, extension projects are about the transfer of knowledge in the form of trainings. If it is any indication of the nature of HEI extension mandate, policy laid out by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) evaluates extension programs in terms of trainings held and the number of participants. Some advance thinking in higher education extension is gearing towards empowerment framework that moves away from provider-to-beneficiary approach. Rather, community organizing methodologies are used that works on the assumption that the communities have their own initiative, creativity and resources to improve and transform their lot.
In any case, HEI extension is one that does not create mendicant dependence. It is therefore a no-no to do extension by dole-out. Unless in a relief operation after a disaster, outright giving out of goodies is not in step with the spirit extension work of the academe. The University is not a charity organization. The distribution of ayuda is best left to the appropriate institutions.
To sum up, the University is political but in the broadest sense of being an institution embedded in society and thereby implicated in the social dynamics of power. It may take on a patronizing attitude in fulfilling its mandate, but it is not compatible with patronage politics in that it aims to empower its clientele rather than create mendicant dependence in them.
The third and last installment brings us directly to the very issue that triggered this series. Padagos nganing matapos move-on na. Papunta pa lang tayo sa exciting part.