THEY WILL BE HOISTED BY THEIR OWN PETARD

The creed for existence in the Philippines nowadays, is mine, mine, mine, who cares if there is still left for others to survive. I don’t give a damn even if it costs your life. In the words of Robert Browning, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp/or what’s a heaven for?” Thus, you have to protect yourself every step of the way and applying all the time the age-old principle-- “do not trust, not even your shadow.” Bear in mind that everyone acts out of his own self-interest. It is a mindset based on a mantra to “own everything” if given a chance. Therefore, if you accept others for what you believe them to be; you set yourself up for disappointment, regret and frustration.

We all know this trend for survival has been going on for a long time and getting worse. We are all living out the same dramas of do or die attitude; that in order to survive, you save yourself and your family and forget about the rest. It is incomprehensible why we are doing it all when in fact we know deep in our hearts that it shouldn’t be the case especially in a country where Catholic Christian belief is a dominant culture.

During these very hard trying economic times, we are constantly searching for trust and honesty as that is what we have learnt during our school days. We always believe and emulate the good guy, but in this world we live in set up by the wrong doers, the honest guy is now ostracized. This is because of corruption and dishonesty going on in every nook and corner of society. If you live your life according to the rules, you will be branded as the villain by everybody who is different but appears to be the heroes because of their numbers. This is an endless, vicious cycle, guaranteed to generate bigoted progeny.

Money is your means of survival, that we all accept, and thus, that is given. But as succinctly put by Ayn Rand, “the verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. So, if the source of your wealth is fraudulent and illegal, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.”

“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.” In the Philippine society though, through the typical examples shown by our political and government officials, wealth is the product of your ingenuity on how to pull a fast one on everyone in every crack and gulch here or there. So, if you’re slow, you will be beaten to the draw. (See: MEMES SPREAD BY THE BEHAVIORS THAT THEY GENERATE IN THEIR HOSTS.)

But the irony of it all is that although these political and government officials who are accumulating tremendous amount of riches without let up to protect them in the future, will find themselves hoisted by their own petard as their hoarded loot would now be the graphic account of their unexplained wealth. What they thought would save them, will be the ones that would pin them down. The corruptors’ end will be worse than they ever thought.

By then they would realize that there is a great deal of difference between enjoying with pride of what we acquired through sweat and hard work as contradistinguish with living extravagantly on what we have obtained dishonorably from others.