Passive revolution: A church-military partnership in the Philippines

In the Philippines, a Catholic social movement for local developmentand broad structural transformation, referred to as Basic Ecclesial Communities, offers a counter-narrative to state development. Predicated on the power of networked local groups, the Diocese of San Carlos has taken the original concept and rescaled it, operating a variety of social-actionprogrammes at the diocese level. The focus of this paper is a unique partnership between the diocese and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which has produced a number of measurable positive changes in under-serviced areas. We remain uncertain, however, about the extent to which the church is cooperating with, or being co-opted by, the military as it enters into partnership, and many members of the clergy share our scepticism. In this paper we draw upon Gramsci's concept of passive revolution(1971) as a means to conceptualize both the efforts of the church to reform society from within, and the reaffirmation of the hegemonic discourse that seems inevitable.