Nation on the run

The biggest news this past week is that President Arroyo has decided to run for the presidency in the May 2004 elections. Last December 2002, on National Heroes Day – a most solemn occasion marking the martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal – the conscientious and hard-working president had pledged to dedicate herself to the country’s serious governance, to sacrifice her political ambition at the altar of national interest and forgo joining the personalities moistly eyeing the presidency in 2004.

However, after much consultation with her most pa-triotic advisers and only after so much personal hesitation, she has decided to make an even greater sacrifice, this time by forgoing the tempting quiet and privacy of a retired president’s life. Harkening once more to the most strident call of national interest, she boldly announced that she is again in the running.

In a country where running is a national predicate for mostly anything imaginable, the Arroyo proclamation should not have taken anyone by surprise. It should have been anticipated by everyone beyond the age of ten, regarded with much humor by those well into their second childhood, and prepared for by all active partisans, those who are with her as well as those against her.

Nothing could be better for this country than for President Arrroyo to run. Running, she becomes an integral part of the national profile, a most impressive image of leaders and followers who huff and puff mightily in an attempt to outrun runaway realities. Filipinos have patiently suffered running in so many forms. There is, for instance, a runaway population annually adding close to two million more mouths to feed, minds to educate, hearts to keep and perhaps even souls to save.

Year after year, the country runs into more and more problems. The public debt at more than three trillion pesos is a statistic that runs way ahead of other pressing concerns. More than the exploding population, the fast-accumulating army of the fully and partly unemployed, the incredible build-up of educational drop-outs, the rapidly increasing number of street children and other demographic liabilities, this debt burden drags down every Filipino struggling to survive and – signature material for Ripley’s – the poorer and more handicapped one is, the greater the burden s/he must bear, a most remarkable feature of this nation’s typical brand of social regression statistics.

Much of the country, including its prime metropolitan areas, sport a run-down look. Ill-designed, poorly constructed, badly maintained buildings and awkward infrastructure clutter many parts of the would-be-strong republic.

Among the citizenry, there is a strong sense that time might be running out for the country. One in five Filipinos would migrate if possible. One in six or seven among the public already says time has run out and one can no longer be hopeful about the nation making it.

There is armed rebellion, ideological contestation, religious confrontation, criminal victimization and other concerns a president running for election must help manage towards a more fortuitous resolution. Economic recovery, political stabilization and social justice are even more inimitable challenges every presidential wannabe runs into and, elected, cannot run away from.

These are formidable challenges for a sitting president who has often pledged to make a difference in the past and now, in boldly announcing a decision to run for the presidency in May 2004, appeals to have her term extended for six more years. Why begrudge a sacrifice-fixated, hard-working president another crack at running a country better than she and her administration, to date, had proven capable of?

It is really much better to welcome the president’s running. Filipinos should be thankful that there is no dearth of national leaders who welcome making sacrifices to serve the national interest. The only thing they need to remember is that when a politician makes a sacrifice, s/he need not be the one sacrificed. Knowing this, Filipinos can be prudently generous and welcome presidents who refuse early retirement.

Be thankful, indeed, that a longer-running telenovela – one eminently more challenging than a Kris-and-Joey offering – again takes center stage. On that stage now is at least a little glory for the critical audience to identify deliriously with or to reject in quiet contempt.

Try to banish the thought that the currently featured show may be an opt-replayed re-run. For Filipinos, amnesia is not altogether dysfunctional. As a matter of fact, for the great majority of us here, it can be excellent therapy.

At least in the short-run.