A Filipinos Folly
Isabel P. Ball
March 16, 2006
There they go again! Another coup d etat, but like a bomb diffused, it failed to explode and exact the tolls intended to disable or maim the present administration of Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines. Targeted for dismissal as President since the puny Garci Tapes, where she had reportedly admitted some misdoings with the election result to prolong her stay in office. Arroyo, in reversal, is clinging tenaciously to her position like an abalone to a coral. I say to the Filipino politicians fomenting the unrest enough of your follies!
What else is new with the Filipino politicians who have employed nearly all kinds of political tactics to ouster the Arroyo government? Haven’t these Filipino politicians the acumen to understand that uprisings are an exercise of futility in a critical time when a country is facing innumerable problems? Therein are high un-employment, corruption, poverty and hunger, and unabated population explosion. Allowing and supporting the embattled President to govern and to finish her term graciously would be the better solution than disunity and internal chaos. But no, the Filipino politicians don’t see it that way. They are stubborn, egotistical, insensible breed going to the guts at all cost.
Unfortunately, the recent coup d etat speaks to that stark reality that Filipinos are divided, as always. They coalesce for the wrong cause and direction hence situation in the country remains dire and deteriorating condition. Too much politicking, partisanship, and greed of politicians are constant that the country’s impetus gear could not be on track. As long as the politicians are too busy in securing their grip on the political totem pole, the small middle class are a satiated, apathetic status quo dependent on overseas relatives transmittals, and the poor are systematically disenfranchised lot scrounging for daily living, there is no real evidence of cohesion in common purpose and goal. Sad to say, just about any attempt to have a sensible change to happen in the Philippines will always be a futile endeavor.
Behind the destabilizing movement allegedly is the political machinery of a past administration, led by an aging politician still covetous of power, appearing to be a mottled archangel for the Philippines with a mission to save the country. Supporting him are his military stooges, bound to him by loyalty for political and economic gains. That political figure is said to be the former President Ramos. This elder politician who could not seem to lose a prodigious appetite for power is irreverently labeled in the media and in the political circle as a meddler. A former military General with dark political past as Marcos’ henchman in the Martial Rule years, he was behind President Arroyo, at the beginning, supporting and advising her like a true alderman, then, like a quicksilver, he becomes her critic and foe, when President Arroyo steadfastly sticks to her own protocol and style of governance. In the Philippines, politicians are from but one cut of like personalities nearly all with questionable political integrity.
Sad, but true, politics in the Philippines remains an un-evolved exercise since the time of Marcos. To this day, we are witnessing a cancer of depraved values, like bloodstream, running through the social structure horizontally and vertically.
Perceptively, I find the Filipino mentality very strange, not because of the culture adaptation I had undergone as a Filipino expatriate in America for near three decades. If at all, my chagrin of the decrepit Filipino values and attitude, developing in my adolescent years back in the Philippines, turned more loathsome in the passing years. Conflagration of social problems, in particular, lawlessness, has worn out my dismay into anger. When great masses of people at home are in queue in a soup line, and like army of ants, when many unemployed Filipinos were expatriated out to scour the world for any kinds of jobs, and while politicians have a merry time siphoning off and misappropriating the funds into their own pockets with impunity I find the condition detestable. If only corruption can be taken out of the picture, the overseas workers’ transfers would truly have an impact on the country’s well being fully well.
What a shameful, ludicrous act of the Filipino politicians to have launched another coup d tat. Nothing but worsening the pathetic image of Filipinos in the worlds view have resulted from it. Philippines once again became a laughing stock. I would like change, and no less than a 360 degrees turnaround to happen to the country. Coup d etat, peoples’ power, nor insurgency could change the country’s political, social, and economic landscape. But for a truly revolutionary change to happen, that change should come first from the attitude of the Filipinos. They are best advised to do an exercise to introspect as well as circumspect. Putting the combination to occur first and foremost in the minds and hearts of every Filipinos would be the time that change would effectuate in the entire paradise-like island now going to the dogs.
That attitudinal change may never happen, on the other hand. With the Filipinos known for their resiliency, eternal patience, apathy, and fear of violence or cowardice they might ride out the storm, even with their bodies withering and dying from starvation. Filipinos is a fascinating case study of human behavior. While citizens of other nations would have revolted with massive force and sacrifices against a corrupt body politic, the Filipinos, on the other hand, are cowardly staying on the sidelines, and away from the fray, holding onto the valuable life, even if it meant having to eke out a subsistence living, and morale and dignity are down in the gutter.
Coup d tat, Filipino style, has gained a new meaning; it is a packed full of dynamite-like power, but waterlogged, it would never explode. I could not commend the Filipinos sense of bravery or valor because it had died with the true patriots in Rizal and Gomburza, to name a few. In the vacuum, a new breed and group has filled in I call the pseudo revolutionaries, bombastic but hollow.
What else is new with the Filipino politicians who have employed nearly all kinds of political tactics to ouster the Arroyo government? Haven’t these Filipino politicians the acumen to understand that uprisings are an exercise of futility in a critical time when a country is facing innumerable problems? Therein are high un-employment, corruption, poverty and hunger, and unabated population explosion. Allowing and supporting the embattled President to govern and to finish her term graciously would be the better solution than disunity and internal chaos. But no, the Filipino politicians don’t see it that way. They are stubborn, egotistical, insensible breed going to the guts at all cost.
Unfortunately, the recent coup d etat speaks to that stark reality that Filipinos are divided, as always. They coalesce for the wrong cause and direction hence situation in the country remains dire and deteriorating condition. Too much politicking, partisanship, and greed of politicians are constant that the country’s impetus gear could not be on track. As long as the politicians are too busy in securing their grip on the political totem pole, the small middle class are a satiated, apathetic status quo dependent on overseas relatives transmittals, and the poor are systematically disenfranchised lot scrounging for daily living, there is no real evidence of cohesion in common purpose and goal. Sad to say, just about any attempt to have a sensible change to happen in the Philippines will always be a futile endeavor.
Behind the destabilizing movement allegedly is the political machinery of a past administration, led by an aging politician still covetous of power, appearing to be a mottled archangel for the Philippines with a mission to save the country. Supporting him are his military stooges, bound to him by loyalty for political and economic gains. That political figure is said to be the former President Ramos. This elder politician who could not seem to lose a prodigious appetite for power is irreverently labeled in the media and in the political circle as a meddler. A former military General with dark political past as Marcos’ henchman in the Martial Rule years, he was behind President Arroyo, at the beginning, supporting and advising her like a true alderman, then, like a quicksilver, he becomes her critic and foe, when President Arroyo steadfastly sticks to her own protocol and style of governance. In the Philippines, politicians are from but one cut of like personalities nearly all with questionable political integrity.
Sad, but true, politics in the Philippines remains an un-evolved exercise since the time of Marcos. To this day, we are witnessing a cancer of depraved values, like bloodstream, running through the social structure horizontally and vertically.
Perceptively, I find the Filipino mentality very strange, not because of the culture adaptation I had undergone as a Filipino expatriate in America for near three decades. If at all, my chagrin of the decrepit Filipino values and attitude, developing in my adolescent years back in the Philippines, turned more loathsome in the passing years. Conflagration of social problems, in particular, lawlessness, has worn out my dismay into anger. When great masses of people at home are in queue in a soup line, and like army of ants, when many unemployed Filipinos were expatriated out to scour the world for any kinds of jobs, and while politicians have a merry time siphoning off and misappropriating the funds into their own pockets with impunity I find the condition detestable. If only corruption can be taken out of the picture, the overseas workers’ transfers would truly have an impact on the country’s well being fully well.
What a shameful, ludicrous act of the Filipino politicians to have launched another coup d tat. Nothing but worsening the pathetic image of Filipinos in the worlds view have resulted from it. Philippines once again became a laughing stock. I would like change, and no less than a 360 degrees turnaround to happen to the country. Coup d etat, peoples’ power, nor insurgency could change the country’s political, social, and economic landscape. But for a truly revolutionary change to happen, that change should come first from the attitude of the Filipinos. They are best advised to do an exercise to introspect as well as circumspect. Putting the combination to occur first and foremost in the minds and hearts of every Filipinos would be the time that change would effectuate in the entire paradise-like island now going to the dogs.
That attitudinal change may never happen, on the other hand. With the Filipinos known for their resiliency, eternal patience, apathy, and fear of violence or cowardice they might ride out the storm, even with their bodies withering and dying from starvation. Filipinos is a fascinating case study of human behavior. While citizens of other nations would have revolted with massive force and sacrifices against a corrupt body politic, the Filipinos, on the other hand, are cowardly staying on the sidelines, and away from the fray, holding onto the valuable life, even if it meant having to eke out a subsistence living, and morale and dignity are down in the gutter.
Coup d tat, Filipino style, has gained a new meaning; it is a packed full of dynamite-like power, but waterlogged, it would never explode. I could not commend the Filipinos sense of bravery or valor because it had died with the true patriots in Rizal and Gomburza, to name a few. In the vacuum, a new breed and group has filled in I call the pseudo revolutionaries, bombastic but hollow.
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