Citizenship as defined in Wikipedia:

Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city but now usually a state) and carries with it rights to political participation;….

Citizenship often also implies working towards the betterment of one’s community through participation, volunteer work, and efforts to improve life for all citizens.

Citizenship entails duties, rights, and privileges. The rights of Filipino citizens are guaranteed in the 1987 Constitution, and the duties of citizens are not stated in the Charter. Rather, the drafters of the Charter thought that citizens know their duties, and that exercise of such duties come from the citizen’s sense of obligation because of the rights given to him. The drafters trusted that the Filipino citizen would be driven by such sense.

The Abueva Constitutional Commission thought otherwise. Its draft Constitution has a Bill of Duties, “to inculcate in citizens the responsible use of their rights”, to quote PCIJ. You may download the PCIJ’s matrix of comparison between the Abueva draft and the current Charter here.

I do not agree that the Charter needs an overhaul; I admit some passages need revision, but a new Charter is not needed. But a Bill of Duties appeals to me, due to the Filipino tendency to ignore his duties as a citizen, which I think is due to laziness (though this is debatable).

One of the evidence of the Filipino’s disregard for his duties as a citizen is an exhortation by a contributor to Inq7.net’s Viewpoints section:

Let’s forget the politics and leave it to the politicians in whom we entrusted our votes.

That is precisely the problem we are in deep sh*t nowadays. We only practice our political duty during elections. It’s like elect and forget. This is terribly wrong.

The people’s disdain on politics is understandable but unfortunate. The common notion that politics is dirty is fallacious (fallacy of composition for starters). But the disdain should not discourage people from exercising their duties as citizens of this country. The Kennedy cliche is tiring to hear, but it is too true, even for these times.

Some of us opted “take a vacation from being a Filipino.” Why don’t they just resign from being a Filipino? While I don’t take it against them – surrender is an option, after all – it is an escapist attitude that is too Filipino, in my mind. Many Filipinos would rather leave the country. Yet, when settled in a foreign land, they still consider themselves Filipinos – even if they carry a new, non-Philippine passport. They have the rights of the Filipinos as guaranteed by the 1987 Charter through the Dual Citizenship Law (a law that I do not agree with), and without the attendant duties thereof. Which sucks, of course.

Anyway, back to the topic. You want clean politics? You have to be involved. Leaving things to politicians is ignoring your duties as citizen of this country. So, if the Abueva Charter is approved, beware of Article Five – The Bill of Duties. When it’s passed (which is a long shot), you will be liable for culpable violation of the Constitution.

Leave politics to politicians, and you might just as well shut up if your congressman steals millions from his pork barrel or the sitting prexy spends government money for his reelection.

Please do your part. Elect only those whose heart is into service. Elect those who you think is capable and honest. Come election time, perform election education campaigns. Support anti-political dynasty bills currently in the pipeline. There are so many things you can do, and leaving politics to operators is not one of them. (Sure it is, but to your peril – and ours, too.)