THE debate about the basis of the state and the relationship between religion and the state is no longer the subject of fierce debate.

This dynamic has been passed at crucial moments such as the meeting of the Independent Business Investigation Business Entity (BPUPK) (1945), the constituent session (1955-1959), including the beginning of the constitutional amendment at the beginning of the Reform (1999). Pancasila is firmly a philosophical foundation in the state.

The most actual challenge today is none other than the implementation of Pancasila values in the life of the nation, state, and society. There are at least two spaces to place Pancasila so that it is always relevant. First, the operationalization of Pancasila as a guiding instrument and bar in state management in all branches of state power. Second, ensuring that every citizen makes Pancasila a guide in the private space and in the public space.

Pancasila is practically compatible for all generations, including generation Z and the Alpha generation.

The noble attribution inherent in Pancasila is ideally unstoppable in jargon or material for socialization and state campaigns.

Ensuring that Pancasila is relevant in various situations and conditions is a challenge that must be answered by all stakeholders.

Pancasila praxis moves and directs the journey of this nation as the ideals of the nation's founders (the founding fathers).

Ethics Bar

During the eight decades of Indonesia's independence, Pancasila was ideally placed as an ethical bar in the management of state administration.

Every step and movement of the state is embedded in the spirit of precepts in Pancasila. The manifestation of the idiom "source of all sources of law" attached to Pancasila, is none other than conditioning every norm contained in the rules that govern the public, having the spirit of Pancasila.

This is the so-called philosophical foundation that is one of the markers of good and bad laws and regulations. The goal is clear, so that every norm that binds and regulates the public does not deviate from the philosophy of the state.

Unfortunately, this situation is paradoxical when juxtaposed with a number of facts on the ground. Such as data on applications for material and formal tests at the Constitutional Court (MK) on the constitutionality of the law.

Not a few norms in the law were canceled by the Constitutional Court because they were contrary to the constitution.

During 2024, from the recapitulation data of law testing cases submitted to the Constitutional Court, as many as 158 cases and 18 cases were granted.

Meanwhile, until May 2025, a total of 77 cases have been submitted and 14 applications have been granted.

Another crucial problem is corruption that occurs within state administrators. The recent prosecution of corruption cases by law enforcement agencies such as the Attorney General's Office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) confirms that governance is far from the spirit of Pancasila.

Corrupt practices by state administrators in various branches of power have severely violated the values of Pancasila.

Although it must also be noted, Indonesia's ranking according to the Corruption Perception Index (GPI) version of Transparency International (TI) has increased to rank 37/100 or an increase of three points compared to the previous year which was ranked 34/100.

However, in reality, corruption is a stumbling block in realizing good and clean governance.

According to the records of the Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis Center (PPATK), the flow of funds in alleged corruption cases in 2024 will reach up to Rp 984 trillion.

This situation reveals an extreme paradoxical side. On the one hand, Pancasila is placed in a supremacist position as a basic norm in statehood.

But in reality, the practice of state administration and state administration often turn their backs on, even face to face with Pancasila.

At this point, Pancasila seems irrelevant and non-operational for state administrators who violate the law.

In fact, in this context, Pancasila can be qualified as a presupposed, which according to Hans Kelsen (1967) is as the last and highest, its position surpasses the individual, which was not created by an authority whose authority requires other norms.

In the records of Amiroeddin Sjarief (1997), Pancasila is referred to as grundorm or upsrungnorm (origin and original) which is the source of life views, awareness, and legal ideals of society.

Relevant and Grounded

The challenges of nationality, statehood, and society that occur today can ideally and effectively be answered with Pancasila as a state ideology manifested in concrete forms in the form of legal policy and administrative actions, both in guiding the formation process (formal) and in standardizing policies (material) by government administrators.

The value of Pancasila is concretized in the form of actions of state administrators that are oriented towards procedural order contained in the choice of state policies that are oriented towards the good of the citizens.

This step is a real part of making Pancasila always relevant in answering actual problems in the community.

Mainly, state administrators set an example that comes from the values of Pancasila.

The example of leaders who show the Pancasilais attitude is the most effective campaign to be an example for others.

Pancasilais' attitude is none other than an attitude of obedience to the constitution, not being corrupt, serving the citizens wholeheartedly, and other behaviors that are oriented towards the common good.

This article has been published on Kompas.com with the title "Pancasila dalam Paradoks Bernegara"