We Filipinos have had our own share of experiences how corruption had permeated all facets of the government, and how the masses tried to protest by way of vocally stating that enough was enough. But the government failed of what it said it is going to do. This should make us cautious just about everything that they do or say. These leaderships are free to change their minds on practically anything when a better opportunity to deceive and to lie presented them, and this makes them even more difficult to bring their actions into a coherent whole.
There is only one word to explain clearly and objectively the tactics of these leaderships, it is simply demagoguery. That is best explained as a political argument that is constructed on half truths, straw men and logical fallacies. Actually H. L. Mencken, the American author might have said it best when he explained that “a demagogue is one who preaches doctrines that he knows to be untrue to (men) he knows to be idiots”. These errant politicians who pulverized and brought our country to economic doldrums and poverty for their personal gains have been emboldened of doing what they are accustomed to do as the people are gripped in fear and do not charge forward. Maybe, rather than tuck their selfish heads in sand like ostriches, but rather the people will just take everything until they get worn out and take no more.
But when a crucial point is reached, our country God forbids could soon be controlled by lynch mob—groups of people go and attack Malls, stores, and groceries-- get everything they can, killing anybody who stand their way; rich people will be thrown with rocks in their cars or in their homes and hanged; the establishments are closed for fear of being ransacked; the streets are empty with people for fear of being mauled and killed; and the police and the armies are confused and in quandary as the attacks are executed sporadically in simultaneous fashion. This had happened already in post-Civil War Southern American society. The result will be a dog eat dog nation and millions of Filipinos will die. The political leaders who caused the disaster will be fine as they have plenty of money ready in their cash bolts, and all they have to do is to go out the country at the first sign of the fracas.
We do not want that to happen. This is our country, our forefathers had established it through tears, sweat and blood, and we cannot afford to fail them. It is the duty and the obligation of all those of good will to attempt to save this government and that starts with unity and to vote based on what we truly believe to be the "wisest" choice, and not based on looks, idolization and adoration. Let’s stop all the bickering and the blaming. Let’s find good leaders that will not seek short term solutions by papering over seminal and major fault lines.
To borrow the phrases of Qabbani, 67, the highest spiritual authority within the Muslim Sunni community: "If we realize that our strength is in our unity, then why divide?" "If we are aware that the loss of the nation is everybody's loss, then why work on losing it?" We now condition ourselves that the crisis in front of us need not be feared as we have already run out of fear anyway. All that we have as our last line of defense is none other than COURAGE and SELF-ESTEEM though hell may bar the way. We must now think this way: We in the world often need a crisis and a major one for that matter, in order to question and reevaluate the current conditions that have given birth to the present sad state of affairs. In other words, crisis in any field or any country could act as a mechanism to husband resources and seek a meaningful solution to the problem at hand. This has been proven since ancient times up to the present. Thus, this phrase came into existence because of this paradoxical phenomenon: “Necessity is the mother of invention”.
Yes the current crisis could, in theory, force us all to come together and find an accommodation that would benefit everyone. Eventually, from the opposing phenomena: the problem and the solution, will surface a new formula where both will find each other like a screw thread nut fitted into a bolt. Then we will witness how history unfolds.
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