We as a nation and people are not short of efforts in reforming our government and society. Past efforts that have come and gone are indeed endless. This means that we as a people care about making this sick nation of ours pull itself up and out of this mess that we call ‘government’.
How in the world are we going to get this done? I wrote earlier that it all starts from a change in the hearts of men and women who run this nation, a change in the hearts of men and women who vote these leaders in. In short it starts with all of us as individuals. I heard there are efforts from a few elected officials and prospective candidates to attempt reform that will turn this nation of ours around. I heard that some of the top candidates are hoping to ‘unify’ reform-minded candidates and elected officials. What is the chance that this will work this time around?
Not to sound hopeless and negative but there are opinions floating around why we are having such a tough job, even for the best-intentioned effort at reform, to succeed. One ‘rationale’: “If I do not buy votes, I am a dead duck as a politician. I will definitely lose,” is one of the reasons. Another rationale: “If I do not hand out grease money in brown bags to keep me from being impeached, I am out with the first impeachment attempt.” Or “If I do not hand out goodies so people vote for me I do not stand a chance at getting elected.” In order to win in elections or survive an impeachment or stay in office to carry out the ‘reform’ of cleaning up a messy government, the candidates first have to make a mess of buying votes. Then the same people have to somehow ‘recover’ his or her expenses by dipping further into government funds. Now, does not make sense? Not on your life! But this is the political mindset in our country. No matter how honest or desires to be honest one gets, he or she is surrounded by those who feel that they have to buy or bribe their way into office. Again , how will this address the reform that we want to achieve? We cannot clean up one kind of mess by creating yet another mess. Indeed it is one vicious circle for all politicians in the Philippines , honest or dishonest! And until candidates start getting elected and re-elected even as they stay outside this vicious circle of corrupt political practice, we in the Philippines is doomed to be forever a basket case politically.
And what is my point? Simple. If we want to get different results we need to quit doing the same thing over and over. If we truly want to be a part of the reformation of our extremely mismanaged and corrupt government, we need to do something that is totally different from what has been done for years which brought the same predictable results! And I would say that it will indeed take ‘balls’ , excuse the language, to get this done! But it takes courage to make a change of this magnitude!
There is a small number of gentlemen who are on the honest side of the fence. I concede that they are by a long shot outnumbered by those who get elected through dishonest means. Nevertheless, they are out there. So, one wonders. What would it take before we get honest leadership to become a majority among our elected officials?
I don’t want to sound like an old record but until foreign investors see an orderly, honest, well-organized, well-disciplined, efficient, well-managed, professional and decisive leadership and citizenry in the Philippines, no reasonable amount of foreign investment will ever come to us. And again this consistent influx of foreign investment money is the key to our redemption from this eternal poverty. But even with what we presently have in terms of capital should be sufficient to get us on track to financial wealth if we knew how to manage our resources!
The Chinese continue to get rich from foreign investments. And now even the Vietnamese is leaving us in the dust. And here we are a ‘democracy’ buying our rice from the ‘communist’ Vietnamese because we are unable to produce enough to feed our own people. Truly depressing! Rice production is so easy and yet we in the Philippines for some ‘unexplained’ reason do not know how to manage ourselves and produce enough of our own rice so that we don’t have to import from the Vietnamese! Are we missing something here?
Again who is there to blame for our being disorganized and impoverished? Well, look at you who sits at the position of being the organizers! And look at you who vote these morons into office in exchange for a few pesos or cans of sardines! Reform does start with us as individuals! It is no rocket science!
It is encouraging to see articles being published by some of our brothers who understand law in our country. I just wondered if we have such a thing as a law that outlaws vote buying. And if not, why not? This is what we need to have implemented like yesterday! Make this into law and enforce it. And we need men of honor, dedicated men to do this. Until then, let us not pretend to hope that positive changes will ever come to us.
Joe Joson, USA
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