The Burden of Dissent in a Democracy:

Commencement Address
Ateneo School of Governance
August 20, 2016

Marvic M.V.F. Leonen

Associate Justice, Supreme Court

[Salutations: The Officers of the Ateneo University; the Dean, Faculty

and Staff of the Ateneo School of Governance together with all its
institutions; graduating students and their parents, spouses, significant
others and loved ones; friends and fellow seekers of meaningful freedoms]

Thank you for your invitation and kind introduction. It is an honor and
a privilege to address this years graduating class of the Ateneo School of
Governance.

This event marks a special moment in your evolving personal

narratives. The degrees you receive today acknowledge your successes in
your academic work. These also signal credentials to the communities that
you are or will be involved in. Your degrees create a public presumption of
your knowledge and competence, given the well-deserved reputation of the
Ateneo School of Government.

In many ways, I am privy to the activities of this School. On many

public issues, I encounter statements of its dean, faculty, staff, or students
participating in various capacities. In many public offices and local
governments, I hear the name of this institution. Your institution has
assisted these offices in building capacities and enabled them to share with
you their experiences and challenges. The Ateneo School of Governance
is mentioned with high reverence for both its academic rigor and its efforts
to be socially relevant.

So to the graduates, congratulations. The recognition you will receive

today is well-deserved. To the Ateneo School of Governance, its officers,
faculty, and staff, I applaud you for your good work and entertain no doubt
that you will continue to do more for our country.

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 Yet, my congratulations are with hesitations. I am aware of the grave
responsibilities with which we all need to live with. I am aware of the
patient and deliberate critical thinking that you will need to deploy and the
courage you will have to muster to meet these responsibilities.

Let me clarify by starting with a controversial thought: unless we do

something about it, we, as a people, are on our way to capitulating to a
concept of democracy that does not empower.

Slowly, we are losing our collective power as sovereign. Powers

entrenched in the status quo pay lip service to bedrock principles that have
been paid for with the blood, sweat, and tears of our heroes. Fundamental
sovereign prerogatives and protections are incrementally becoming
shibboleths: enshrined in normative text, but devoid of true promise.

It is time that we revisit our culturally ingrained preconceptions. We

have to act, individually and as a people, to reclaim and retain our
empowerment. We cannot just succumb to things as they are. Human
dignity cannot be had only because it is solemnly pronounced. That it is
lived requires patient work, consistent advocacy, and vigilance. Our
actions will surely cause discomfort for us and for others. But it is time that
we discover the courage to do more what is right.

Let me explain further.

II

I start with a fundamental principle in our most basic law: the

Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines. Article II, Section 1
pronounces:

ARTICLE II
Declaration of Principles and State Policies

....

SECTION 1. The Philippines is a democratic and republican State.

Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates
from them.

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 The worst thing that we have done to the spirit of this principle is to
reduce its normative substance by considering it hortatory. In the words of
some of the opinions of our Court: it is one of those provisions that are not
self-executory.

In my view, all the words and phrases in the fundamental law are
effective. All are self-executory. It may not have the civil-law form of a
prestation: that is, it does not prescribe what to do, not to do, or to give.
Thus, it may not pass the Hohfeldian concept of an enforceable right.
Nonetheless, it is, in my view, a powerful frame of reference that disciplines
the various standpoints that can be taken in an actual case. Frames are as
binding as prestations. They color and animate the construction or the
search for meaning in legal provisions, given the facts established in
evidence. Frames are powerful tools that fertilize interpretation. These are
not trivial tools. They occasion points of view that inspire the Constitutions
motive power: a state that is socially just.

To consider the concept of democracy as too broad or hortatory is to

surrender to the dominant view of the essence of democracy that seems
common but lacking in critical analysis. This view is often powered by a
folk view of the fundamentals of the political philosophy of liberal
democracy. In that received and dominant view, the casting of ballots, as
well as its correct count, represents democracy. The seeming autonomous
act of choosing as we complete our ballot in electoral exercises is not only
the representation of the existence of an authentic democratic space.
Casting a ballot is considered, in itself, the epitome of democracy. The
complexity of democracy is, thus, principally reduced in the excitement of
regular elections for political offices.

Viewed this way, democracy thus consists only as the political drama
between personalities who are powerful and have the resources to engage
in electoral contest. We track their every move, become fixated in their
controversies and life stories. We are easily embroiled into meaningless
chatter revolving around their reputations.

This unfortunate preoccupation buries our fundamental duties as a

citizen. It trivializes our citizenship. We fail to discern the ideologies they
represent. We mistake conviction for the eloquent sound bite calculated
with the proper spin by experts in propaganda. We do not critically
evaluate the detail of the programs the candidates propose. The political

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drama dominates our attention and, thus, conceals from us the true nature
of our relationship with our public officers. We lose out on fundamental
agents of political programs and ideologies.

The framework with which we view elections reduces the complexity

of our people. The electorate is not considered in its individual capacity.
We become only a supporting cast. We are not considered in nuanced and
historical collective groupings and identities that matter. Rather, we
become the stuff that make the numbers, atomized and presented as
statistical percentages of voters or demographics of voters. We are not our
nuanced selves with strong convictions about various aspects of identity or
public policy. Rather, we become categorized as among the A, B, C, D, or
E crowd. We are particles reduced to being voters in Metro Manila or its
surrounding environs in a survey. We are Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao
in the statistics of polling pundits.

Authentic democracies are not solely equivalent to elections.

Democracy, reduced to the elections, becomes a recipe for

entertainment, with eventual disappointment as dessert. It is only during
the electoral exercises that candidates attempt to resonate their views with
the opinions of the masses. Often, these views are in terms too general to
be of any use for concrete assessment of credibility and workability.
General statements are passed on as profound political platforms. They
grab our attention almost as much as the song-and-dance numbers
performed on a political stage.

During elections, we become mere spectators. We imbibe a culture

of learned helplessness. We surrender our ability to do collective action
after the elections.

After the elections, we endow the winners in an electoral contest with

undeserved entitlement. We create kings and queens rather than public
servants. We succumb to the narrative that the votes cast in an election
legitimize their every program even before these winners have articulated
their plans and implemented them.

This should not be the case.

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 Public officers who win elections are not our masters. They are our
agents.

III

Democracy can be viewed in other ways.

Tolerance of dissenting views presents a more powerful view of

democracy.

Dissent takes many forms.

Dissent can take the form of the uncouth and impolite slogans
shouted by those who take to the streets. It can take the form of the chants
and the effigies burned in a manner that may challenge cultural
conventions. There is no lack in passion among the mobilized. After all,
they speak about their felt lives, their dissatisfaction, and their hope that
things can be better. Their alternative may simply be a vision, and this may
lack articulation. It may not yet take the form of a pragmatic workable
program.

Still, it is dissent.

Dissent can also take the form of the uncomfortable single dissenting
opinion expressed in a board or council meeting or written as a separate
judicial opinion. In this form, its logic and rationale may be legible,
transparent, and cogent. Usually, a dissent does not square with the
premises of a majority view. It is uncomfortable when it challenges the
status quo.

Dissent in this form is temporal. It is a suggested idea at its

inception. It is a seed of subversion. For the time being, it is a view that
may not capture the dominant view. It is a relevant idea tentatively
articulated and waiting to be fully accepted.

However, there is the danger of putting dissent in the context of a

very traditional liberal view that regards it only as a romantic symbolism of
democracy.

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 Traditional liberal theory valorizes the radical individual. It is
premised on the idea of the self as separate and autonomous from all
others. It sees the dissenter as a lone wolf, a cry in the wilderness. The
dissenter is the stranger. His or her ideas may sound different, but they are
to be celebrated because they make this person human.

Characterized this way, dissent is marginalized as a curiosity. It

foists a weak conception of democracy. It is subterfuge for the
maintenance of the dominance of those who are already powerful. In a
way, it legitimizes the victory of the status quo in the contests of ideas.

Political action is relevant only when done with others. Ideas become
powerful when they can articulate the views of an identity or a community.
Thus, ideas are relevant only when they find acceptance within a group.

Also, views become radical not by themselves but only in contrast to

those that are considered conservative. Feminism is defined mainly by the
patriarchy. Socialism becomes salient against the rugged individualism of
liberal societies. The otherone who does not share our views and our
identitysubstantially also defines who we are.

Dissent is not a lonely project. It is a social one. It does not

presuppose the absence of community. It requires mobilization.

Thus authentic democracies assume pluralism.

Pluralism is not a fixed descriptive fact. Allegiances for identities,

groups, and communities constantly change as leaders emerge and
positions become more articulated. The subversive idea evolves, and at
some future time, it can become hegemonic.

Pluralism leads to common action within groups of individuals.

Identities, groups, and communities sponsor different ideals, and many of
these ideals and ideas contradict each other. Pluralism, therefore, makes
conflict and intellectual antagonism inevitable. Contestation is necessary in
a pluralistic society.

Communities for agrarian reform, or indigenous peoples, or the

fundamental rights of women, or the special consideration given to children,
or those who consider themselves human rights practitioners rather than

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ordinary lawyers, used to be marginalized by their numbers. Advocacy,
mobilization, debate, and contestation moved their ideas into the forefront
of social consciousness. They became politically relevant. In the past,
their views might have been contained only in their speeches. Later on,
however, they would become points of debate in legislative forums. They
would find themselves congealed into law.

Later, the cogency of their ideals would be contested in the crucible

of judicial cases. An interpretation of law emerges in jurisprudence. It is
cited and used again in several cases and eventually becomes doctrine.
Its genealogy becomes fixed and consistent; hence, it creates a canon of
legal interpretation waiting to be dislodged again by more contemporarily
relevant ideas, which may later win application in proper cases.

At any point in our history, ideas of some groups are subordinated.

The comfort of a majoritarian social perspective or a dominant
understanding of our culture can seemingly make the subordination of
some ideas as natural and inevitable.

For example, the majority may believe that divorce may be immoral.
Same-sex marriage is trumpeted as unnatural. The discomfort of those
who believe otherwise is of the same nature as the discomfort in past
ideas, such as: the womans place is in the home, or indigenous groups are
uncivilized. The veracity of these ideas was, for a while, uncontested, until
those who were affected were able to politically challenge the powerful who
continued to sponsor the contrary ideals.

Dominant hierarchies or the hegemony are never permanent.

Authentic and open democracies always have space to provide critical
pause. Critical pause is essential to maturity.

The likelihood that this will happen lessens when we consider

ourselves only as spectator voters or radically individual dissenters.
Maturity in a democracy will not evolve when we choose to remain silent
either due to apathy or the fear of being bullied in public discourse. In
doing so, we lose the potential that we will matter to those who do not
benefit the status quo.

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 Being silent, succumbing to bullies, or failing to work with others will
not contribute to the struggle to achieve human dignity, less poverty, less
corruption, and better leadership.

IV

Every form of political consensus found in law, policy, or political

decision is an offshoot of power. Power shapes culture as well. Power
therefore entrenches the dominant narratives in our history.

Thus, conscious, organized, and effective collective action

representing a subordinated standpoint is important, especially when the
dominant ideas of those in power do not result in achieving human dignity
or social justice.

Conscious, organized, and effective action should exist well beyond

the politics of elections. Democracies should tolerate those who dissent.
Public debate best shapes programs of government into their more rational,
effective, and relevant forms. Meaningful dissent contributes to a collective
longer view and a bigger picture.

Mature democracies are not caused by the level of a societys

economy. Rather, it emerges as a result of meaningful discourse
demanded by its citizens. Imagine if, instead of the focus on the drama of
politicians alleged adulterous or other scandalous behavior, our focus
would turn to issues more relevant to the majority.

Allow me present a sampling of these issues:

Should our economy graduate beyond low-skilled services modeled

after BPOs and call centers? Instead, should we evolve stronger skill sets
through an educational system that incubates critical and creative thinking?
Should we focus more on manufacturing rather than services: factories
rather than fast foods? Should we go beyond the extraction of our raw
minerals? Should we require that we evolve the industrial base that follows
the extraction of the raw products of our natural resources? Should we
jumpstart our science and technology sectors through incentives towards
finding energy and food security solutions, sensitive to the impact of climate
change?

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 Should we go beyond colonial mendicancy and participate in the
global dialogue in order to shape responses to impeding climate change as
well as to recreate trade rules that will not benefit only large transnational
and corporate interests but communities in emerging economies such as
ours? Should we rebuild our agricultural base to produce real food for our
local communities with the least carbon footprint?

Should we find solutions to a more responsible democratic space

where serious voices and competing points of views are not drowned out
by corrupted media or numbing internet discussions? Should we
encourage criticaleven dissentingdiscussion that will be able to create
leaders who can contribute to political maturity? Should government
present a genuine public agenda to be debated by the public, and not be
too focused on the slant and public relations stunts that trivialize the real
problems? Should we encourage media not to be too reactive, not to be
captured by the narrow, parochial, and personality-based concerns of those
in power?

Should we reframe our understanding of the threats to our conception

of national security? How should our foreign policy be recalibrated in order
that we succeed in asserting the rule of law at the international level so that
all international arbitrations, including those that take place under the aegis
of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, are respected? How should
our internal policies be recast so that we take advantage of our multi-
cultural environment? How do we retell our national history without
precluding the other experiences of colonial oppression as well as cultural
and economic marginalization in other geographical spaces?

Should our government constantly find answers to the question: why

are our people perennially poor?

Instead of examining our social problems in all its complexities,

regimes that fear democracy foster intolerance. Our historythrough
colonialism, post-colonialism, and martial lawteaches us that an effective
means to stifle dissent is for the powerful to make false ideas part of the
dominant culture. In many ways, this entails creating caricatures of target
identities or articulate dissenters.

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 Iris Marion Young described phenomenon of cultural power
imbalance vividly, thus:
The culturally dominated undergo a paradoxical oppression, in that
they are both marked out by stereotypes and at the same time rendered
invisible. As remarkable, deviant beings, the culturally imperialized are
stamped with an essence. The stereotypes confine them to a nature
which is often attached in some way to their bodies, and which thus
cannot easily be denied. These stereotypes so permeate the society that
they are not noticed as contestable. Just as everyone knows that the
earth goes around the sun, so everyone knows that gay people are
promiscuous, that Indians are alcoholics, and that women are good with
children. White males, on the other hand, insofar as they escape groups
marking, can be individuals.1

Antonio Gramsci, known for his work on the concept of hegemony,2

suggested that certain individuals are subalterns. They are unable to
participate in the creation of ideas that can dominate a particular culture3
because they are politically and culturally forced into the margins.

Successfully caricaturing a group leads to their dehumanization.

Stereotyping another human being is itself an inhuman act.

We are familiar with these stereotypes: those who belong to non-

Christian tribes are uncivilized and have a low level of intelligence.
Muslims are terrorists who believe in a religion without ethics, always the
legitimate subject of privacy violations and law enforcement. Communists
are godless and, therefore, legitimate targets of fundamentalist religious
crusades. A sexually active woman is a slut who could be publicly shamed
and shunned. Drug pushers are dogs. Drug addicts are beyond
redemption.

If drug pushers are dogs then they can be killed at the slightest
provocation. If drug addicts are beyond redemption, then it is acceptable to
segregate, marginalize, and shun them from society. Thus, they can be
ferreted out through searches of homes and private spaces without
warrants. If drug pushers are dogs and drug addicts are wasted homo
sapiens, then those who coddle them are worse and, therefore, can be

1
IRIS MARION YOUNG, Five Faces of Oppression.
2
See ANTONIO GRAMSCI, THE PRISON NOTEBOOKS (1971).
3
Id.

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named and shamed without first assessing the testimony and the evidence
of those who have provided their names in an impartial proceeding, which
would afford them with the opportunity to be heard.

On the other hand, those who do not belong to these categories are
endowed with the social privilege of being seen as complex human beings
enduring within nuanced contexts and endowed with precious souls.

Non-Muslimsespecially Christianswithin our dominated culture

cannot be reduced to a single essence. They are privileged and complex
human beings. Those who do not belong to non-Christian tribes are
civilized. They are capable of complex thought. Those who are not drug
pushers or drug addicts may commit mistakes. They can sin but their sins
do not define the totality of their person. They can atone for their sins and
can be redeemed.

The public will be blind to the fundamental human and constitutional

rights of those who are dehumanized by stereotypes if those of us who can
fail to critically assess these assertions. Not only should we contribute our
critical faculties; we also need to publicly speak against government action
founded on these false ideas. We are complicit when we are not critical.
We are part of the conspiracy of the powerful if we remain silent.

Stereotypes are dangerous. Stereotypes should be stopped.

Intolerance grows on fertile ground when the public ceases to be
sensitive to the humanity of others. An intolerant society is breeding
ground for violent secular fundamentalists. Death squadsfor whatever
cause--are valorized and protected rather than condemned and arrested.
Impunity legitimizes abuse. Fear, not good governance, will become the
foundation of our government.

So that I am not misunderstood, let me be absolutely clear: I do not

condone criminal acts. It is my duty as a lawyer and an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court to uphold the rule of law. Conviction of an accused
should follow when there is evidence that can occasion the inference that a
crime has been committed beyond reasonable doubt. Crimes should be
rooted out aggressively, professionally and with due process of law.

I have taken very definite positions in recent cases. Those who

commit the crime of plunder should not be easily pardoned. When the

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evidence is clear, those who conduct raids of the public treasury should not
be easily acquitted. Those who peddle prohibited drugs should likewise
suffer the penalties provided by a valid law. Most of the resources of
government should be focused on dismantling the cartels that make it
possible to import and manufacture prohibited substances rather than on
the lowly street retailer.

As a citizen, I also believe that government should direct its efforts to

understanding the complexity of addiction: not simply the effects of drugs
on our bodies, but the effect of marginalization, oppression, and poverty on
the psyche of those who choose to be addicted.

I am of the belief that to fully unleash the coercive, violent resources

of the state without ensuring effective and efficient means to address the
weaknesses of our law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial institutions
is a recipe for disaster. Impunity for public officers at any levelfrom
former Presidents, to prosecutors, to judges, to tax collectors, to police
officerswill cause untold abuses when state violence is unleashed and
encouraged.

Due process of law should be respected. The State cannot claim

divine omniscience.

Deliberate killing is a universal moral wrong. In our jurisdiction, it is a

crime.

One who deliberately takes the life of another without the required
legitimate and legal provocation assumes an undeserved superiority over
the victim. The perpetrator assumes that the acts of the victim define his or
her whole humanity. Never mind the conditions under which he or she
lived. Never mind if, in the soul of the victim, there still exists the possibility
for rehabilitation. Never mind if he or she is capable of atonement. Never
mind his or her role and relations with family, friends, and community. To
those who kill deliberately, the grief of others is irrelevant.

One who kills deliberately judges with irreversible finality. It is without

appeal. It is the exercise of unsanctioned absolute power.

It is my conviction that a policy of deliberately taking human livesno

matter what the justificationis not sanctioned by our laws.

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 Murder is murder.

VI

Today, you will accept the titles and academic degrees that will set
you apart from others. Today, you too will accept grave responsibilities
expected from you by your society. You will carry the burden of ensuring a
meaningful democracy because your titles signal the potential for critical
analysis. Your degrees will be platforms for you to achieve positions of
leadership. I have faith that your institutions, the Ateneo School of
Government and the Ateneo de Manila University, will always serve as your
conscience. It will insist that you should not be silent when you learn of
violations of the humanity of others. It will insist that you should not be
complicit. It will insist that you contribute to our collective search for social
justice and meaningful freedoms.

Your people have suffered intolerance in the past. The suffering from
that intolerance is part of our collective history. Learn from history. Never
again.

Be critical. Find compassion. Be passionate about everything there

is about being human and living a meaningful life. Be passionate that
every human being should have that hope and potential to define meaning
in their own lives. Find the courage to dissent when necessary so that we
can truly enjoy genuine freedoms.

Live with what is enough and no more. Thrive on less if you can.
Dare to speak out in defense of others.

Always, serve the people.

Thank you for listening.

Total Words: 4000+

Estimated Time: 31 minutes

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