If the present cases of corruption plaguing the halls of government, down to its line agencies and private sector players, were a stand-in for our tiny piece of reality, one might assume that, even in a general sense, we are a country of thieves.
Woe to us, it is merely not enough that the never-ending political debacle, which has hung like a cloud over everyone, has gone way past critical. What makes it worse is the vulgarity of cover-ups and devious machinations of the law by those in power, all meant to deliberately sweep under the rug all the blatant cases of crime and thievery committed by them and their peers.
In effect, it has added more wood to the fires of discontent, disgust, and distrust, not to mention to the rising anger of the populace. This tide continuously rising despite desperate efforts by the government to appease the unrest.
Curiously, another effect of this is that a complete polarization has taken place, with Filipinos going against each other and split between political biases, all accusing each other of propaganda and staged mass actions.
For example, in the ongoing clamor for an end to corruption in government, it’s interesting to note that several forces have bonded together for that, but clearly each with a different agenda of their own on the side. However, they’re unanimous in distancing themselves from another anti-corruption force, their common foe, whom they view as a threat to each of their presidential bids in 2028.
In the midst of this perfected landscape of turmoil lorded over by the dominant forces, political thugs, we have a lame-duck pretender who has had nothing better to do but to point fingers and lie about just anything, while candidly admitting his ineptitude through repeated ‘what else can we do’ pronouncements. Amid all this corruption, his leadership sits at the top, just like the proverbial icing on the cake or, as the late and former president Erap was supposed to have said, the ‘tip of the ice cream’.
In so far as all these are going on, with utmost certainty, all have become privy to who the players are, so that there is really no need anymore to name names. Surely, you and hopefully they, know who they are.
How will this play out in the end? It’s clear several self-proclaimed political analysts have their own scenarios. The most popular and romantic so far, typical of Pinoys ‘penchant for copying, there are those who wish for a Nepalese solution, without even looking far ahead at what has transpired after their overthrow of the government.
The cooler heads on the other hand, still have to come to terms with how they, the red, yellow and pink (you know who you are) will lock their heads and horns together if they succeed. For sure, as intelligent as they are, they know their threesome romance won’t last. In the back of their minds, they still have to contend with that other force pounding at the gates.
