Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the Conference of the Caucus of Asian Liberals and Democrats in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Stifung and the Liberal Party of the Philippines

Delivered in Manila, November 4, 1997]

Democracy with
an Asian character

OUR CAPITAL CITY is an appropriate site for this first conference on Asian democracy because the Philippines was the first to proclaim a republic in Asia—in 1898. Although that republic did not survive the thrust of empire, it stamped on our people an abiding belief in democratic government.

Of course, I must also add—for historical accuracy—that the Philippines has often been regarded as proof that democracy does not mix well with economic development. Our fits and starts in the pursuit of progress are known to all.

The last thing we would pretend to be is that we are a model for other countries. If at all, we are probably most useful as a democratic example to study and learn from because of our experiences, our problems and our struggles. And that too must be said of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries, which in their own ways have struggled hard to achieve and preserve democracy within their borders.

In recent times it has been the fashion to distinguish sharply between democratic and authoritarian governments in the region—to reinforce certain theories of economic development. Those societies that are democratic, it is said, may provide freedom and rights for their peoples; but they have also sired weak governments and are feeble in achieving development. Societies, on the other hand, that are nondemocratic and highly controlled have become the “tiger” economies of Asia—but at the price of curtailing the freedom and rights of their people.

Another tendency of the times is the renewal of the demarcation between East and West in their march to development. The East, it is suggested, has emphasized community, cooperation and discipline, and in this way Asia has become the dynamic growth center of the world today. The West, on the other hand, has stressed individualism, rights and freedom, and these seeded the march of Western capitalism.

Security is a human right

Like all contentions, these debates have some basis in fact; but they are also simplistic compared with present realities and historical experience. The media have pounced on these debates with relish, and have sometimes provoked leaders on both sides of the question into delivering stinging statements.

If in this conference we merely rehash these quarrels and echo the rhetoric, we will do nothing to advance understanding and move the cause of democracy forward in our countries. I believe that the most urgent task for our democracies is not evangelizing beyond our borders to make all Asia the haven of democracy. It is rather to share experiences and to focus our minds on common problems, to achieve solutions and move purposefully into the twenty-first century.

Heckling each other on what is best and what is right merely detracts from or, worse, destroys the harmony that is needed for the advancement of all peoples and nations. Instead of forging a common vision of the future, we may be advancing the cause of a new Cold War.

It is true the political scientist Samuel Huntington has forecast that in place of the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, there will now emerge a clash of cultures and civilizations—principally between East and West. I do not share this pessimistic view of world affairs, but we will surely contribute to its emergence if we fall into the trap of insisting that other nations adopt our ways of living, working and thinking.

Being fairly new democracies, with many problems to cope with at home, we in democratic Asia are not on this evangelical road. But we do expect our categorical choice of democracy over authoritarianism to be respected and understood. And when we make the claim that we too are making headway in the struggle for economic development, that deserves as serious an examination as the contention of those who say that the discipline of authoritarianism works better.

Freedom and security

Much of the sensitivity of Asian nations to this supposed quarrel between democracy and discipline is rooted in the circumstances in which we all began nationhood—after World War II and the middle of the Cold War. Because of the challenge posed by world communism, all non-Communist Asian states were caught in a clash between two needs: the need for individual liberty and the need for national security.

Some countries—which literally lived under the shadow of communism—had to adopt stern measures to preserve their statehood, including opting for authoritarian or military government. Other countries did not have to go that far; they only adopted measures against subversion that to some extent restricted civil liberties. The point is that all of us had to make adjustments to the exigencies and seventies of the Cold War according to our circumstances.

Our experience in the Philippines has been such as to discover that both liberty and security are important to our society From the sum of our trials and tribulations, we have discovered that a free society is safer and more stable than an unfree one; and that security bought at the price of liberty and democracy can only be temporary.

But we have also realized that security is not the enemy of human rights. By dint of experience, we have recognized the truth of what the political scientist Michael Cranston memorably said:

Security is not something which is antithetical to human rights, because security is itself a human right. The security of the individual is bound up with the security of the community; the private enjoyment of a right is bound up with the common enjoyment of the right. The demand for liberty and security is not the demand for two things which can with difficulty be balanced or reconciled; it is the demand for two things which naturally belong together.

These needs are balanced by the rule of law in society. With law that is just and sound, order can be preserved without its being arbitrary. And freedom can be advanced without its being anarchic.

Under the constant pressures and rhetoric of the ideological conflict during the Cold War, it was hard to see these subtleties. Now, with that war over—and with many of our countries finally beginning to succeed in the work of economic development—we see them more clearly. Nearly all our countries appreciate plainly the claims of both liberty and security, of democracy and discipline. Each society must find for itself the balance between these ideals according to its traditions, the character of its people and the circumstances of the hour.

We Filipinos are working toward more discipline, though not at the expense of democracy. For us, discipline and democracy are complementary. The discipline of democracy in the Philippines is greater self-discipline for all Filipinos. It is greater discipline in politics, and less of the politics of patronage. It is greater discipline in the use of public resources, greater discipline in government itself.

The Philippine experience

There is unquestionably virtue in the fact that democracy expands the space for human freedom. But to the poor countries of Asia, democracy has never been—and is not—enough. Democracy must also prove it can work to win economic development.

With their early problems with nationhood, some Asian countries became convinced that economic development must come before political development or democracy. Only after the national economy was on a secure road to growth—where people have jobs and a measure of prosperity—should the widening of the sphere of civil and political rights begin. This is certainly the route achieved by new democracies such as Korea and Taiwan. They developed before democratizing. And this is the argument raised by other countries that are now rapidly industrializing.

This approach commands respect, but some of us here hold to a different view. We believe that economic development can come with democracy, that modernization must move simultaneously in the economic, political and social spheres in order to be lasting and sustainable. This is the approach we have adopted in the Philippines, and we would like to believe we are now proving its efficacy—even if in the past we were mistakenly heralded as the showcase of democracy’s economic failure.

During these past two years of reform, rebuilding and renewal, we have not only put our house in order and empowered our people in the struggle for economic development. We also begun to reap the economic dividend. Economic growth has been climbing upward, and by next year we are confident we will attain the same high growth rates as our neighbors.

We have achieved this economic turnaround through policies that are analogous to what the East Asian “tigers” have adopted in their leap forward—but not with the same instrument of political command.

Our democratic politics has been the instrument. We have demonstrated effective government through consensus building. We have avoided gridlock by effecting collaboration and teamwork between the executive and the legislative. And we have enforced the rule of law—which is so vital also to the economy in securing the integrity of contracts and private property—through reform of our judicial system.

Democratic politics and the market economy

We have no illusions about being a model to anyone, but here in our country the market economy lives side by side with democratic politics, and they are not strangling each other, but helping each other. If there is an important lesson to be learned from our experience by others, it may be the realization that freedom need not wait for progress to happen to be given its due. Freedom itself can be a spur to modernization.

I think that Asia has much to learn from the West about building democracy, and the West in turn has much to learn from Asia about fostering community. But the exchange at this time is gravely marred by a lot of static. We cannot hear each other very well.

It is surely mistaken to say that our task in Asia is to approximate the character of Western democracy—as though we were students being graded. This has provoked the rhetoric of Confucian values in our part of the world. Yet beneath the sniping, both sides are actually moving closer in ideals.

In Asia today, clearly there are more democracies than, say, 10 or 20 years ago. In Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and other countries, the tide has moved decisively toward democracy. And it is spreading across our continent. In the United States and Europe, on the other hand, there is more talk of community today, to balance the claims of individualism. A communitarian agenda—from “I” to “we”—is spreading on both sides of the Atlantic, as Western governments begin to realize the economic strength that Asian cohesiveness and cooperation confer.

This is well and good. But the truth is, that community from the start was envisioned as integral to the democratic tradition. Democracy’s ideologues simply cast it aside.

Community: part of the democratic tradition

What the French Revolution proclaimed was “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” Democracy was not supposed to be merely the pursuit and defense of individual rights, as civil libertarians have tended to stress. Nor was it supposed to be only the pursuit and achievement of equality, as the Socialists have tended to emphasize. Democracy was also meant to foster fraternity—which refers to the importance of brotherhood and group cohesion in human society.

The historian Arnold J. Toynbee has said that liberty and equality in the world have become conflicting ideals.

The only genuine reconciliation between these ideals is to be found in the mediating ideal of fraternity. . . . Fraternity is the consciousness of community, the recognition by the members of their fundamental, common enterprise. Democracy’s need for it is on the deepest level of all because it provides the context within which equality can be established and freedom can be protected.

It is in Asia where the sense of community has worked best in helping the progress of peoples and nations. And it is possible that Asian democracy—by being augmented with Confucian values—can achieve the harmony among the three ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Certainly, we should find something to be glad about m the way the conflicts in our region have eased. While dangers remain we are not exposed to the kind of strife that torments the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union and Africa.

These are not things to gloat about. We view them rather as conditions that favor more economic growth and more democracy in Asia.

With their growing economic strength and political confidence, Asian countries, I believe, are all moving toward democracy—though at different speeds. For many of us, the achievement of economic health has been the main priority, because unstable economies produce unstable governments.

But then we also know—we have also come to realize—that prosperity is not enough. As a middle class—well informed and educated—emerges with economic development, the essential human yearning for freedom also rises—and cannot be denied. Democracy, even if not present at the beginning, becomes almost inevitable with economic success.

If the next decade, as many believe, is going to be an Asian decade, I would venture it will also be the decade of Asian democracy. This democracy will not displace Western democracy; it will be a democracy with Asian roots and an Asian character.

We in this gathering represent the vanguard of this kind of political rule. We are learning how to use our democracy to provide healing answers to the primal problems of our societies. We are refining democratic ideology amid the unique conditions and circumstances we live with. And while we do not lecture our neighbors on democracy our ranks are growing year by year.