(Continuation)

Let me again stress that I offer a thumbnail sketch of these three major concepts of equality if only to trace their medieval roots. It is also to emphasize that none of these concepts has enabled man to capture that elusive goal of achieving the greatest good of the greatest number. Consequently, in the last decades of the last century, there has been a new debate on what ought to be the appropriate concept of equality in the emerging global village whose driving force is a market-based economy, where the mantras are deregulation and privatization. The new debate has been sparked by the American political philosopher John Rawls. In 1971, he wrote his Theory of Justice, described as the “most important book on political philosophy since the Second World War.” In this highly thought provoking book, he espoused a new theory of equality based on two fundamental principles, viz:

First: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a similar system of liberty for all;

Second: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.

In sum, under this new theory, inequalities in the allocation and distribution of wealth are acceptable only if they work for the benefit of the least well-off members of society.

Rawl’s new theory of equality has fomented a raging debate about the concept of equality that ought to govern this new millennium. I urge you to follow this exciting debate for obviously our concept of equality, antiquarian as it is, has not worked in the last century and will never work in this new century. Indeed, an authoritative study made by the Asian Development Bank and validated in experiences in no less than seven countries in Asia, including the Philippines, concluded that because of inequality, a sense of “learned helplessness” has developed among the disadvantaged in Southeast Asia. This refers to a resigned attitude and lack of expectations among those who feel that traditional power relations will invariably leave them helpless and hopeless to assert their rights.

Let me conclude by saying that this state of “learned helplessness” on the part of the powerless in our society is the challenge that should be met by all who are concerned with the attainment of real equality. The disadvantaged among our people – the poor, the women, the aged, the children, the handicapped, etc. – need more than theoretical equality. They deserve more than equality in law which quite often is no more than a hypothetical equality. After all our experience, it is time to realize that to give mere hypothetical equality to them is to treat them with inequality. Equality in creed is not equality in reality, far from it. Don’t we for instance have laws and ordinances that prohibit all from sleeping under public bridges? The prohibition is against all but does not the prohibition in reality affect only the poor without roofs over their heads? Does not the Constitution say all have the right to travel? But will that right enable an unshod peasant to go to Paris and sip champagne? The Constitution guarantees to all freedom of speech and of the press but how does an illiterate exercise this right as effectively as the educated? The Constitution grants the right to express grievances but can a poor man go to court without a peso in his pocket? Will lawyers and the courts give him access to our system of justice when all he has is a bent back and a begging bowl?

This is our challenge, a challenge addressed not only to our sense of justice but a challenge that ought to prick our conscience. It is time to rethink our concept of equality. We like to think we live under the rule of law when in truth, it is often times the rule by law of the powerful over the powerless. We like to think that equality is equality before the law but de jure equality is sometimes de facto inequality. Our forebears planted the tree of equality in this country and it is our duty as their successors to insure that this tree of equality will bear the fruits that the present and future can enjoy. Let us always remember that democracy cannot thrive on the thin topsoil of theoretical equality between the haves and the have-nots. Democracy has to be deeply rooted on the bedrock of true equality and we can achieve this ideal only by giving the powerless more equality than the powerful for only in that way can we really level their playing field, only in that way can we breathe life to the philosopher’s dream that there is power in powerlessness.