26.10.05

People Power Addiction

I was on my way to my mom's office in Malacañang last Friday. I was just about to get out of the FX that I was riding in when I saw what seemed to be 100-150 policemen who were blocking the Mendiola entrance to Malacañang. Other people in the FX started talking among themselves. "May rally na naman". Blah... Blah... Blah...

The guy sitting next started to froth at the mouth. "Grabe naman 'tong si Gloria, abusado!" Now I'm not a big Gloria fan or anything but if I was in her position and I had 400 people coming to kick me out of my house I'd at least take certain precautions...

"Grabe! Grabe talaga yang si Gloria! Wala na ngang ginagawang matino nakakasama pa! Dapat talaga patalsikin na yan!" To distract this guy from his monologue which was starting to irritate me I tried to talk to him, "E di bawal po pumasok diyan? Iikot pa po ba ako sa likod?" The guy then said "Bakit? RALLYISTA ka ba?" hmm... aren't we Mr. Snappish?

Anyway, I got out of the FX and crossed the street and I was looking around the hordes of policemen trying to see where I could get in. One policeman was nice enough to point me in the right direction, "Cge iha, dun oh. O.k. lang yan" he must've noticed that I was a little bit intimidated with the sheer number of them that were blocking the entrance. See... there's still hope. I am not what you would consider a bodacious babe. I get mistaken for being a "sir" a lot and this guy not only got it right by calling me "iha" instead of "iho" but he automatically assumed that I wasn't a pillbox wielding rallyist undercover as a student which is why he pointed me to the entrance.

On the way to the entrance I saw some field reporters interviewing a fishball vendor. I assume that they were asking him the usual questions like how he feels about Gloria, should she step down, etc. I got to thinking: What if some of them asked me about my opinion? What would I say? I was so afraid because I haven't been able to sleep in 2 days so all that I could've given them was a little shrug of the shoulder and then just walk away. Then everyone would think that I'm an idiot who doesn't care about what's going on with her country. Good thing they pretty much ignored me and I escaped, unscathed.

Last Saturday a couple of friends and I hung-out at a friend’s apartment after going out coz we didn't want to commute at 3am because we thought it wasn't safe so we got to talking about all these rallies that have been happening. All of us pretty much agreed that the rallies were pretty useless. If a none-friend read this I bet that he will think that were just a bunch of spoiled brats who don't have to deal with the real world that's why we can afford to be apathetic about the situation that our country is in. Well, I'm sorry if you think that way but you are wrong. I suppose you can consider me a brat but I am not spoiled. I personally, just don't think that any of this is helping one bit. Every rally just contributes to bringing the economy further down and even if you were successful in getting Gloria to step down, who do you think is going to replace her? Even if one person with the best of intentions manages to get elected as president of this country I doubt that he is going to make much of a difference. One person can't do it all. He is going to have to deal with all the other "politicians" who are only interested in bettering their own situations. The Philippines is still a democracy so the greater majority still holds all the cards. Even if there are some politicians out there who really care about our country, I'm sure their numbers are very very small compared to the ones who just use their position to get more money to keep their families and sometimes mistresses comfortable.

So what do I suggest? Here I am being all critical about this people power addiction that we are suffering of and yet I can't think of a better way to get out of this rut that we are in. Well here's an idea: Instead of kicking out every president that we are unhappy with how about WE CHOOSE RIGHT NEXT TIME? How about we start listening to candidates' platforms instead of just voting for the one who kisses the most babies and does the most song-and-dance numbers at their conventions? Listening to what these people have to say is very big thing because:

1. It lets us know if they have anything to say at all, which would enable us to determine if they really know what the heck their doing. Why would anyone in his right mind want to be a politician in the Philippines anyway? The pay isn't that good; you spend more to get elected than what you would earn if you just invested the money you used to get elected to buy a Jollibee branch or something.

2. It will give us something specific to hold them accountable for instead of just complaining about the fact that we still don't have enough money because guess what? no logical person expects a single politician to solve the country's financial crisis. So maybe if we actually held these guys accountable for something specific that they said they would do then maybe people who are normally as apathetic as I am can actually get the point of all this bickering that's going on so that I can actually get interested whenever I see you dishing out your litany of complaints on TV instead of just making me want to change the channel to see if HBO is already showing re-runs of Sex and the City.

But then again this is just what I think. What the heck do I know anyway? I haven't watched the news in a year. All I know is that all this is coming from some tape that they found that has Gloria talking to a COMELEC official about cheating? I find this sort of funny of course since no non-celebrity candidate has ever won an election wherein anyone can swear by the life of their first born that they are 100 percent positive that this candidate did not cheat. But then again this is the first time that we've ever had audio proof. Maybe its like that ERAP thing. We all know that most politicians are corrupt. It's just that he was stupid enough to get caught. So he got kicked out. So maybe Gloria will get kicked out eventually. So a very disturbing question comes into mind: Who will win this snap election that I've been hearing about. My money is on Susan Roces.

Great.... when that happens first thing I'll do is run to the nearest airport and buy a one-way ticket. Destination: Anywhere but here...

posted by jeanne @ 07:14

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