On the Resignation of Walden Bello and the Akbayan Experiment

Reference to ABS-CBNnews.com report: 

"Walden Bello: PNoy runs gov't like 'fraternity'" 

Source: ABS-CBNnews.com

Been busy lately with grown-ups' preoccupation with 'matters of consequence' (to borrow from The Little Prince).... 

Catching up with news, and this one struck me most personally, though I long felt this coming.... 

I would just like to express my appreciation and respect to Professor Walden Bello for his integrity, principled politics, and for keeping the values of an outstanding scholar-activist and true public intellectual known among colleagues and comrades in the global justice movement for being "a man of high political culture".

I still remember Walden's parting words and advice to us in the very last meeting of our undergraduate class in Political Sociology sometime in 1999 which I have kept in my heart and which made me smile as I ponder over the reason for his recent political decision:

• that "when there's a tension between politics and your values, you have to follow your values"; and 
• that "it is very easy to be corrupted in this world, but this will only happen if you allow yourself to be corrupted".

I also would like to wish Akbayan! Citizens' Action Party the very best in its present and future. I still think that Akbayan is one of the most viable left political parties in the Philippines, theorising and practising progressive politics. I have learned to see and understand Akbayan as a daring and promising "experiment" of the democratic left movement, and as such a political "project" engaged in the "process of being and becoming" a truly progressive sociopolitical force for social change.

In this process, there are / will be conflicts, contradictions, and personalities (with similar political ideology but different personal interests) that must be managed and resolved well for the project to survive. And most importantly, in this process, there is learning and there must be learning.