The Dirt Road
I was on my way to work today and tuned in to DZMM 630khz on the AM dial when I heard a news report about the East Service Road in Taguig not being accessible to vehicles. The cause of the traffic disruption is a group of settlers who barricaded the road with huge trucks, which tires they have flattened, and burned such that you could see the thick black smoke even from afar. This was at around 6am when traffic is about to flow in heavily from southern Metro Manila residents who do not want to take the South Luzon Expressway. (Read report here.) Apparently, there is a scheduled demolition of the area at 7am today by the Metro Manila Development Authority. In a brief interview with Mr. Vergel de Dios of the MMDA, he said that the residents are occupying a road right of way, thus the need to demolish their structures to ease traffic. Shortly thereafter, a woman who was introduced as the president of the homeowners' association was interviewed and she, in a very emotional manner stated that they are "pioneers" of that area since 1981 and they are very aggrieved that they will now be demolished and nobody is helping them despite the fact that a lot of politicians have been "benefitting" from them. She did not argue that they had any legal right to occupy the area, nor did she deny that their community was obstructing a road right of way - she merely declared that they do not have a place to stay and they would rather lose their jobs than the roof on their heads. When asked to expound, she further declared that administration and opposition alike haul them into joining rallies, and now that they need them, no help is at hand.
Notwithstanding the fact that this is not the first time I've heard of hakot crowd in rallies, hearing it directly from someone lamenting and expressing their feeling of being used strikes a cord. Undeniably, anarchy is the word most apt to describe the course of action that they took just to avert their imminent demolition. Her statement was clear, not only for her neighbors but for their kind - the urban poor - that they feel exploited, and indeed they are. They are poor and have remained poor because those who are in a position to alleviate their poverty, either by their single or concerted acts, have chosen to allow them to remain poor to be able to take advantage of them. They are uneducated and their reasoning is entirely misaligned with any educated person's reasoning. Being uneducated and poor could be their fault (they could be lazy, heavily indulge in vices, etc.) or not (they simply do not have much opportunity to better their plight) but certainly, on a macro level, those in power have a lot to explain for their condition - financial, mental and emotional.
Everything I heard today actually makes some sense of a story I heard that politicians, through their grassroots organizers, encourage urban poor informal settlers to populate just about any unoccupied, vacant land, have them registered as voters and be assured of a solid vote come election time. And since these informal communities are significantly denser in terms of population than your average middle class subdivision, even a high rise condominium at that, you can just imagine that the will of the urban informal settlers, or that of their benefactors will prevail during elections. Of course, other dirty tricks are not taken into account and shall not be discussed here.
The local and senatorial elections is less than a year away, assuming it will push through. I am disheartened to realize there is not much to hope from elected officials if the quality of choice of the voters and the standards they subject their candidates to are not based on the ability to steer the community or the country out of the dirt road. In the first place, for those whose criteria is performance for good governance, there seems to be no clear indicator which will pick out the rotten ones to be thrown out. Admittedly, those local executives with good intentions and who actually act to improve the people's lives inevitably clashes with the interests of those who utterly lacks the desire to follow rules, leaving the well meaning local executive with the unavoidable predicament of having to choose between waltzing with the beat or trudging the difficult part of the right, which choice can mean either the continuation or cessation of their political careers.
Evidently, absent any certainty that an informed, intelligent choice is sure to bring about the much needed change, voters decide based only on their immediate interests. The poor who has given up on principled voting votes for the candidate who bids the highest. Everybody else seems to vote for who is popular or for those who will serve their interest, noble or not. There is a minute percentage of the population who would vote for who they think is best qualified, notwithistanding the personal circumstances of the the candidate, as the more recent election results would show. Alas, if you are a qualified candidate with the best intentions, it is ineveitable ,and in fact, pre-requisite that you can catch the attention of the electorate either by doing some entertaining yourself or by making sure to bring a movie or tv star with you while campaigning.
Voters, in each and every time they cast their vote makes a gamble, playing a game of chance. For those with high hopes for this country, you can only hope that the winning candidate will make use of his term not to win in the next election but to make a difference in the lives of the people. One cannot help but lose hope just when we will finally get our act together and make our lives better. Ironically, we as a nation is not getting better probably because we are only working our way to make our individual lives better.
What sets us apart from war-torn Japan and Vietnam, from likewise colonized Malaysia and Jakarta, from Singapore which was practically ditched by Malaysia and thrown like an old, decayed, good for nothing rag? I think more and more and more and more I am led to one fact which is we utterly and abominably lack any sense of patriotism.
I fear that there are actually very few, and the numbers are even dwindling, Filipinos who see this country as their home, their family, their own. How can we go to the direction of progress when everybody goes his or her own way? The unpatriotic old people may be incorrigible - if you lack patriotism, you will not get that sudden inspiration at this point. But young people's ideals of a nation are even wasted away by the lack of proper instruction and the lack of persons to emulate patriotism from. Left and right, everyone else goes his or her own way, trying to improve our individual lives and not having even a flicker of space in our hearts to think what we can do to our country. And yet, we complain and complain incessantly, as if we are not part of the problem. Worse, our solution to our malcontent is to think of leaving and relocating some place else. Leaving the country per se does not make a person unpatriotic, I must say. It is only when we start thinking of leaving the Philippines to escape being a Filipino do we fall into this folly.
We do not realize it but Filipinos are in this pit because we all want to go our own ways, always for our personal gain and not for our country. Many of us think of leaving the Philippines to escape being Filipinos, to become Americans, Canadians, British. They do not realize that no matter how well they speak their adopted language, no matter how authentic their accents sound, no matter how far they are from the chaos and anarchy happening in the Philippines - they will always be Filipinos and the people of their adopted countries will, deep in their hearts and in conscience, will never see them as Americans, Canadians or British.
I am always incensed whenever I hear the ridiculous suggestion that the solution to our problems is to become a U.S. colony. As if the Americans ever wanted us to be them in the first place! They had their chance a century ago and their congress voted against it. An apt analogy is to say that they never wanted us as to be their wife, only their concubine.
Of course, hats off to Pinoys who leave the country but never allow the flame of hope for the Philippines to die, with all the intention to make use of their good fortune to help this nation. They, having the resources and opportunity, are actually potential beacons of hope for this country. Only when the viciuos cycle of stagnation, degeneration and lack of vision as a nation is broken by many when we can expect the wheels of this country to steer back into the course of the road to civility.
Is there hope for us? Certainly there is but how, I do not know. Perhaps, only when private persons decide to take matters into their own hands and disabuse their minds that it is only the government who has obligations to make the lives of their countrymen better when we will start the wheel of change to turn.
Notwithstanding the fact that this is not the first time I've heard of hakot crowd in rallies, hearing it directly from someone lamenting and expressing their feeling of being used strikes a cord. Undeniably, anarchy is the word most apt to describe the course of action that they took just to avert their imminent demolition. Her statement was clear, not only for her neighbors but for their kind - the urban poor - that they feel exploited, and indeed they are. They are poor and have remained poor because those who are in a position to alleviate their poverty, either by their single or concerted acts, have chosen to allow them to remain poor to be able to take advantage of them. They are uneducated and their reasoning is entirely misaligned with any educated person's reasoning. Being uneducated and poor could be their fault (they could be lazy, heavily indulge in vices, etc.) or not (they simply do not have much opportunity to better their plight) but certainly, on a macro level, those in power have a lot to explain for their condition - financial, mental and emotional.
Everything I heard today actually makes some sense of a story I heard that politicians, through their grassroots organizers, encourage urban poor informal settlers to populate just about any unoccupied, vacant land, have them registered as voters and be assured of a solid vote come election time. And since these informal communities are significantly denser in terms of population than your average middle class subdivision, even a high rise condominium at that, you can just imagine that the will of the urban informal settlers, or that of their benefactors will prevail during elections. Of course, other dirty tricks are not taken into account and shall not be discussed here.
The local and senatorial elections is less than a year away, assuming it will push through. I am disheartened to realize there is not much to hope from elected officials if the quality of choice of the voters and the standards they subject their candidates to are not based on the ability to steer the community or the country out of the dirt road. In the first place, for those whose criteria is performance for good governance, there seems to be no clear indicator which will pick out the rotten ones to be thrown out. Admittedly, those local executives with good intentions and who actually act to improve the people's lives inevitably clashes with the interests of those who utterly lacks the desire to follow rules, leaving the well meaning local executive with the unavoidable predicament of having to choose between waltzing with the beat or trudging the difficult part of the right, which choice can mean either the continuation or cessation of their political careers.
Evidently, absent any certainty that an informed, intelligent choice is sure to bring about the much needed change, voters decide based only on their immediate interests. The poor who has given up on principled voting votes for the candidate who bids the highest. Everybody else seems to vote for who is popular or for those who will serve their interest, noble or not. There is a minute percentage of the population who would vote for who they think is best qualified, notwithistanding the personal circumstances of the the candidate, as the more recent election results would show. Alas, if you are a qualified candidate with the best intentions, it is ineveitable ,and in fact, pre-requisite that you can catch the attention of the electorate either by doing some entertaining yourself or by making sure to bring a movie or tv star with you while campaigning.
Voters, in each and every time they cast their vote makes a gamble, playing a game of chance. For those with high hopes for this country, you can only hope that the winning candidate will make use of his term not to win in the next election but to make a difference in the lives of the people. One cannot help but lose hope just when we will finally get our act together and make our lives better. Ironically, we as a nation is not getting better probably because we are only working our way to make our individual lives better.
What sets us apart from war-torn Japan and Vietnam, from likewise colonized Malaysia and Jakarta, from Singapore which was practically ditched by Malaysia and thrown like an old, decayed, good for nothing rag? I think more and more and more and more I am led to one fact which is we utterly and abominably lack any sense of patriotism.
I fear that there are actually very few, and the numbers are even dwindling, Filipinos who see this country as their home, their family, their own. How can we go to the direction of progress when everybody goes his or her own way? The unpatriotic old people may be incorrigible - if you lack patriotism, you will not get that sudden inspiration at this point. But young people's ideals of a nation are even wasted away by the lack of proper instruction and the lack of persons to emulate patriotism from. Left and right, everyone else goes his or her own way, trying to improve our individual lives and not having even a flicker of space in our hearts to think what we can do to our country. And yet, we complain and complain incessantly, as if we are not part of the problem. Worse, our solution to our malcontent is to think of leaving and relocating some place else. Leaving the country per se does not make a person unpatriotic, I must say. It is only when we start thinking of leaving the Philippines to escape being a Filipino do we fall into this folly.
We do not realize it but Filipinos are in this pit because we all want to go our own ways, always for our personal gain and not for our country. Many of us think of leaving the Philippines to escape being Filipinos, to become Americans, Canadians, British. They do not realize that no matter how well they speak their adopted language, no matter how authentic their accents sound, no matter how far they are from the chaos and anarchy happening in the Philippines - they will always be Filipinos and the people of their adopted countries will, deep in their hearts and in conscience, will never see them as Americans, Canadians or British.
I am always incensed whenever I hear the ridiculous suggestion that the solution to our problems is to become a U.S. colony. As if the Americans ever wanted us to be them in the first place! They had their chance a century ago and their congress voted against it. An apt analogy is to say that they never wanted us as to be their wife, only their concubine.
Of course, hats off to Pinoys who leave the country but never allow the flame of hope for the Philippines to die, with all the intention to make use of their good fortune to help this nation. They, having the resources and opportunity, are actually potential beacons of hope for this country. Only when the viciuos cycle of stagnation, degeneration and lack of vision as a nation is broken by many when we can expect the wheels of this country to steer back into the course of the road to civility.
Is there hope for us? Certainly there is but how, I do not know. Perhaps, only when private persons decide to take matters into their own hands and disabuse their minds that it is only the government who has obligations to make the lives of their countrymen better when we will start the wheel of change to turn.
posted by wernicke @ 10:33:00 AM
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