Last week while I was in Israel, I had another cellphone (because my phones didn’t roam at all) vacation, but at least it gave me time to focus on the pilgrimage, especially that we were doing a TV travelogue. At the Dubai International Airport, I purchased a special edition of National Geographic’s the World’s Greatest Empires: A history of power because it gave me a history of man’s need and greed to control peoples and conquer other lands. While I haven’t read all what is written in this book, you can already have an idea that empires no matter how big they are do rise and fall.
As I got home, I browsed once more on the book of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson “Why Nations Fail: The origins of power, prosperity and poverty†that I got nearly a year ago. There is a certain irony reading these two books because they are very similar… except that National Geographic gives you a short and concise history of the rise and fall of these empires, while Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson gives us the basic reasons why nations like the Philippines could never move forward or continue to fail. It also gave me an idea of what really is happening in our country.
After reading all the week old newspapers that I missed while I was in Israel, I realized that I really missed nothing at all! The problem in our country today is very much the same as decades ago because our political elite refuse to change for the better. This is very much the same reason why empires fall. People when they are in power… believe so wrongly that they are doing the right thing, very much akin to what Pres. Benigno “P-Noy†Aquino III believes he is doing with his Daang Matuwid slogan.
Last week, P-Noy got into primetime TV purportedly to explain the legality of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) but reading the comments of must pundits, apparently everyone believes that the President failed to explain this to the people. In the end, these pundits are almost unanimous in saying that DAP is unconstitutional and violates the authority of Congress to disburse public funds… a power that is not vested in the Executive branch. This means, the Supreme Court must decide on its constitutionality as soon as possible. If and when they do…then what??
Meanwhile in that speech, P-Noy angrily declared “I’m not a thief!†which brought a loud howl to many pundits as no one has accused P-Noy of stealing public funds. At least not yet! Come now, doesn’t the President know that a huge number of people are accusing him of misusing those public funds for his personal vendetta, using those public (at least P13 billion in our last estimate) funds and it doesn’t matter if he calls it DAP or PDAF to bribe Senators and Congressmen to convict former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. In bribing those Senators, P-Noy more than “murdered†CJ Corona by destroying his persona in public.
A good majority of the Filipino people now believe that those Senators who convicted CJ Corona very harshly are worse offenders than the former Chief Justice, and no matter how the Aquino regime demonizes CJ Corona or even insist that he deserved his conviction would not change the fact that he was unjustly convicted by Senators who do not even deserve to be called Senator/Judges. At this point, I suggest that former CJ Corona should now file an appeal before the Supreme Court about his unjust conviction.
Meanwhile there’s the proposed People’s Initiative (PI) that former Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno is proposing out of desperation because the well-entrenched political elite would never make any reforms to change our political system. While I agree that this constitutional provision is so full of holes to make it work, but then there is no other way when the Aquino regime that represents the political elite won’t budge.
This is the problem with leaders who are so comfortable with their power. They don’t care about the people anymore. This is why they are doomed to fail. They only care about themselves. For nearly 50 years now, Filipinos only know of two political giants, the Marcoses and the Aquinos.
Pres. Marcos was in power for 14 years during Martial Law aside from his 8 years of legitimate presidency. We’ve had two Aquinos in power now for a total of 9 years including Pres. Cory’s reign. Yet the Filipino people have remained poor even if the political elite use the name of the people in vain in order to keep themselves in power.
I dare say that the time for change has come! We must change our system of governance through a constitutional reform so our nation wouldn’t be controlled by political families, who use patronage to put in place their loyal supporters. But then P-Noy has taken the stand just like Pharaoh and refuses to listen to the cries of his people, whom he fondly calls “The Boss.†If he continues on this path, then God himself will deal with him.
* * *
Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com