If I were president according to Kulas

MANILA, Philippines - Kulas is my favorite ghost who visits me in my sleep once in a while. When he does he tells me many things, pleasant and mostly unpleasant to my dismay but sometimes he permits me quick glimpses of the future which I suspect he brightens up just to please me. In his last visit he was quite agitated, rattling off for the first time “if I were president of your country” lecture.

It might be apropos at this time to share his views with others, now that many presidential wannabes have become more visible, and the present government of the “evil” one totters on the brink with scams surfacing one after the other. Here’s Kulas:

“All this talk about moral renewal by you and by other well-meaning people will happen only if you elect the right leader to lead the country in 2010. Do not elect businessmen or protectors of financial empires, weaklings and professional politicians. Choose a strong and a morally upright leader — spiritual and virtuous. If I were your president, I will renounce worldly wealth, live simply not obsessed with worldly possessions and personal wealth; as a true Christian embraced asceticism like a Mahatma or a noble soul. Your country today needs one like such a man.

“Remember Confucius the great sage, who said that, ‘real power or Te lies in the power of moral example no through might nor law but through the impress of a great personality and character of the man at the top, if you have a King of Consent, the sanction of whose rule lies in inherent righteousness, he will gather around him a cabinet of unpurchaseable men. The imitation of the leader by the citizens provides a new destination for society and a new set of values.’ I shall be guided by that truth. That is why as a virtuous president, the citizen shall emulate me and so society shall see a renascence from its present depravity. So you see the president is the problem, and the election in 2010 of a virtuous, strong, and courageous president is the first solution to the problem besetting your country.

“All the other formulas for transformation are shallow and impractical — only plain rhetoric. If I were your president . . .”

Then Kulas, the phantom from the other realm disappeared. I awoke with a cold sweat and a troubled mind. “God, who is this man? Who?”