The Philippines, through the looking glass

When Alice told the Queen “one can’t believe impossible things,” I am convinced that Alice has not experienced our country, this land of mayhem.

There’s no use trying, a cynical Alice said in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” the Queen replied. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

The Queen, unlike Alice, must have seen the Philippines in her dreams and nightmares.

Here, there are more impossible things than we can ever count.

Take the recent survey for instance. Why, I wonder, do most Filipinos believe that we are actually moving in the right direction?

I find it impossible that 75 percent of Filipinos think that way.

How can we be moving in the right direction when on the contrary, we seem to just be moving in circles?

Recycling government officials mired in corruption scandals is a clear example of this.

It has become a habit of this administration to just move people to another agency when sh*t hits the fan. The search for truth and accountability is lost in the chaos.

Military men

Putting military and police men in government has not yielded the best results so far.

The Bureau of Customs is an example of this.

It is ironic that with a former military man and a police general, the bureau has found itself in the center of some of the biggest drug scandals this country has ever had — P6.5 billion worth of shabu during the time of Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, and P6.8 billion during the recent stint of commissioner Isidro Lapeña.

Enough shabu for all

Combined, that’s about P13 billion worth of shabu, equivalent to 2,200 kilograms. In sachets, that would be 2.2 million. Theoretically, that’s enough for each and every Filipino to get a fix.

Both Faeldon and Lapeña have been moved to different offices, but whatever happened to the missing shabu? Clearly, the drug lords and their cohorts in government are still raking it in and the poor man’s cocaine continue to flood the market. It’s no wonder the killings continue and it’s no coincidence our word for the year is tokhang.

This isn’t moving in the right direction, is it?

Election season

Since the election circus has started, we’re seeing recycled candidates, too.

Isn’t it bizarre that 94-year-old Juan Ponce Enrile, who will be 100 by the time he finishes his term – if he wins — is running for senator again?

Other politicians facing plunder charges are also trying to find their way back to the echelons of power.

Seems impossible, right? In the Philippines it’s not. What’s even more surreal, if not downright absurd, is that they might actually win.

Again, this isn’t moving in the right direction, is it?

Economy

If you look at the economy, there’s little improvement, if any. For years, we have been stuck in the six percent growth level even as our presidents promised inclusive growth. For growth to trickle down to the grassroots, the economy must have years of steady growth of at least 10 percent.

But for that to happen, our local industries must be able to compete globally.

Yet, this is not what’s happening now.

Growth may even slow down.

This year, the World Bank downgraded the Philippines economic outlook to 6.5 percent from 6.7 percent.

According to the latest Philippines Economic Update, the economy is seen to grow at 6.7 percent in 2019 and 6.6 percent in 2020.

The latest corporate earnings also showed that food companies are feeling the pinch of high inflation and a weak peso.

Over at the stock market, trading has been anemic for a while now. Philippine shares are among the world’s most unloved stocks these days.

Surely, this isn’t moving in the right direction, is it?

Landless

In Negros, nine people – including two children – died recently fighting for land. At least 40 farmers have died in the past two years doing the same thing. The problem of land and feudalism remains unresolved.

Minimum wage

Metro Manila workers are asking for higher wages. They said P1,300 is the daily minimum pay they need to survive in an era of higher commodity prices.

Yes, our country’s ills are still as bad. I really wonder how we can say we are moving in the right direction. Perhaps our standards are too low.

But through the looking glass, one can view the Philippines any way one wants to.

After all, on the other side, what is surreal is ordinary – it’s a place where clocks laugh and goats talk, where one can run twice as fast and still stay in place and where life just lingers aimlessly in the golden gleam.

Nothing is what is seems and through a rose-tinted glass, the “truth” seems bearable.

But shatter the glass, and I daresay, we’ll see the country for what it is — plagued with ills that never seem to go away. The view is visceral, disturbing, unsettling.

No, we’re not moving in the right direction. In fact, even in the most mundane hours, we can’t even move conveniently along EDSA.

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is [email protected].