In the last couple of weeks as of this writing, tens if not
hundreds of "groups" and "communities", have issued "statements" calling
for President Gloria Arroyo to resign (plus a minority encouraging her to
hang in there).
This could have been Filipinos at their best -- if this was
1986. Unfortunately this is Year 2005. Almost 20 years hence, and one other
Edsa "revolution" later, we are again in the midst of our favourite
approach to changing presidents.
Filipinos are again caught up with the festivities of
political gossiping and collecting little factoids about the latest
presidential debacle. Filipinos are now also even busier asking each other
who is for or against President Arroyo. In this era of the Internet, so
much information is available to fuel and fan the flames of discontent in
Philippine society. In the middle of all this are blogs like the PCIJ <
http://pcij.org/blog/> that provide "investigative journalism" -- doing
nothing more! than contribute to the divisiveness in the chattering classes
who subsist on all this stuff.
It's a dog-like mentality (in Tagalog asal aso). One dog
starts barking in the night, and others in the neighbourhood following suit
without really knowing what the fuss is all about.
Yes, the President is answerable to the people. But she is
entitled to be answerable via the proper channels. Why do we rely on the
media to do our "investigations" for us? Why do we rely on citizens' groups
to do our "prosecution"? Investigating is the job of the police and the
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Why can't Filipinos demand that the
police and justices do their job? So much outrage has been dished out in
the last couple of weeks. Yet in the last five decades, our own law
enforcement agencies and judiciary have consistently done shoddy jobs. Why
aren't we just as outraged when the police, the NBI, and the judiciary
don't do their job? We should demand! that they step up to the challenge of
overseeing this whole thing. We should focus our vigilance on institutions
-- ensure that institutions do their job properly.
No wonder institutional reform never gets implemented --
because Filipinos are fond of bypassing them. Rather than fix systems we
unleash fixers on our systems. "Cause-oriented" groups continuously
pontificate about the need for "vigilance". Yet Filipinos still do not have
a clue as to what exactly this call means. To many it's about keeping an
eye on our politicians to ensure that they keep their noses clean. We
forget that our hard-earned taxes already are being spent on institutions
whose job is to do exactly that. Filipinos need to channel this "vigilance"
towards a more sustainable effort to get institutions to work for them.
Instead we focus on working despite these institutions.
So here we are again, back in the business of Fiesta
Instability -- o! ften a precursor to Fiesta Revolution. The extent to
which everything is so politicised is as disturbing as the overall
bizarreness of the society. The culture of petty partisan politics is
tightly interwoven into even the most mundane. It is a volatile mix -
political showbiz added to a largely idle population with small idle minds.
Add to this the messiah complex of Filipinos -- that our destinies depend
largely on the goodness or badness of the powerful. From this lethal brew
we get exactly what we see today. Philippine society becomes transfixed or,
worse, paralysed, necks craned upwards to the powers that be whenever they
flex or succumb.
Just like a bunch of two-year-olds. Zero attention span.
A society that once elected a famous philanderer, drunkard,
and under-educated man to the presidency now lashes out against a president
"who has lost the moral ground to govern". Indeed. An irony wasted on a
people with utterly weak faculties to fathom irony.
Meanwhile the real world keeps turning. The peso teeters on
the edge of rapid decline, environmental degradation continues, population
growth gallops away, talented Filipinos leave. Brain-retarding call centres
now attract the best and brightest graduates of elite Filipino schools. And
China, India, and Vietnam are beavering away at the task of building
industries that soon will be (if not already are) sucking away
opportunities from an economy that was once merely stunted and is now
severely shriveled.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is intended for the use
of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain
information that is privileged, proprietary , confidential and exempt from
disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error,
please notify the sender and erase this e-mail message immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ask our other classmates to subscribe, tell them to send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/4c-math94/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
