“It is unfortunate that, here and abroad, pro-democracy advocates seem to have forgotten what it means to be democratic.

One of the most important albeit unmentioned tenets of a truly democratic state is the openness of its people and their willingness to discuss, debate and discourse opposing views and alternatives. Such demand on democracy is not difficult to understand. It is a proposition that needs neither an explanation nor lengthy expositions. Especially for a country like the Philippines that prides itself as among the few in Asia whose government is styled after one of the most successful in modern times. More so since Filipinos have seen the opposite and have survived under its yoke for at least two decades.

The contrasts between democracy and its opposite are stark and the differences, definitive. Simply go to the far end of whatever most think democracy is and there find its diametric antithesis in such forms as autocracies, authoritarianism and dictatorship.

Discern then the stark differences and it becomes easy to see that under democracy one might find related if not critically important concepts that include liberal thought, tolerance and the importance of diversity.

We offer these as a backdrop not simply to discuss what’s become of a developing democratic movement north of our islands at the very edge of China, a state not at all considered democratic by any measure, but also within our shores where partisan politics has recklessly been allowed, although quite inadvertently, to polarize us to the point that those who claim to be decently democratic might well be autocratic at the core.

These tendencies of so-called pro-democrats towards authoritarianism, like hidden killer cancer cells that lie dormant in everyone’s DNA, need only the right combination of weaknesses and vulnerabilities before they sprout and spread.

Keep these thoughts in the back of our minds as we view developments in Hong Kong through the eyes of a proud democratic nation that’s enjoyed democratic freedoms since winning our independence in the last century.

Last Wednesday on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong beside the MTR station in a shopping mall that featured indoor pocket gardens amid restaurants and lifestyle stores themed after distinctly western tastes and fashions, a primary school teacher decided to have an early evening stroll with three children in hand.

Had he known he would end up seriously beaten, bloodied and bruised he might not have brought along the children. Especially so as the beating he suffered was in spite of the children’s presence, the violence brazenly wrought before their innocence and terror.

Proud and patriotic as every citizen should be when confronted with attacks against the government that had given him his livelihood and purpose in life, the primary school teacher proudly sang the Chinese national anthem.

It was deemed an act of defiance. That early evening the pro-democracy protesters had targeted the Amoy Plaza to air their grievances against the government that sought to install judicial extradition protocols where accused violators of China’s laws might be extradited from Hong Kong to stand trial in the mainland.

It must be noted that earlier as these protests developed from a smaller group that began in the territory’s government districts, an agreement was entered that innocent bystanders, tourists, foreigners and businessmen would be insulated to the extent possible.

It can be argued that singing the anthem amid protests where such anthem represented patriotism had set the primary school teacher apart. Singing tore away his immunity and wrenched him from the protection of the agreements to protect innocents, thus squarely placing him in the crosshairs of the pro-democracy protesters. So, what has happened to their democratic ideal?

Never mind that the very existence of Hong Kong is based on a canon where two disparate systems coexist under a single state. Never mind also that loyalties and patriotism are not based on disputes but in unity despite diversity. It is unfortunate that, here and abroad, pro-democracy advocates seem to have forgotten what it means to be democratic.