ruptures in ideology
The country’s downward spiral accelerates. When a country is ruled by a president who can’t separate the reel from the real, deposed, and replaced by an equally inept and greedy creature, ruling for nine years through bribes, anomalies and scandals, can the country recover like a Phoenix rising from the ashes?
I don’t think it will be a swift recovery, if at all. GMA’s shameless disregard of laws, be it moral or legal, really makes the society vulnerable. If the president, the supposed leader of the country, is so garapal, unpopular and viewed with contempt, then, the citizens will have no incentive to follow laws. Kung sya nga ginagawa un, kami pa. And this has very wide structural implications.
Which makes me question whether this democracy – Western style – is really the kind of government or ideology or whathaveyou for us. Hey look, our neighbors have already overtaken us in terms of economic development. Malaysia has Mahatir, Thailand the king, Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. Does it mean that the more free and democratic a society is, the less its economic developments. Don’t think so. I guess what makes us politically stunted (aside from the obvious economically stunted) is the prevalence of elite democracy and the Filipinos’ lack of faith to EDSA. We deposed ERAP to have another bigot occupying his place and at a longer time with the possibility of extending it further (prime minister-in-waiting?). From the looks of it, 2010 elections will just be another election. In national level, there may be some hope that change will be effected, but in the local level, patronage still prevails. And with an SC subservient to GMA’s whims (given that she has more appointees to the bench), well parliamentary government is just a nay and aye away.
Just letting my thoughts wander. Say, if Trillanes and his idealistic officers have succeeded in their drastic means to seize governmental powers, will it usher in a new era? Is it time to explore another form of government, one that can produce a mahatir or lee kuan yew?
I don’t think it will be a swift recovery, if at all. GMA’s shameless disregard of laws, be it moral or legal, really makes the society vulnerable. If the president, the supposed leader of the country, is so garapal, unpopular and viewed with contempt, then, the citizens will have no incentive to follow laws. Kung sya nga ginagawa un, kami pa. And this has very wide structural implications.
Which makes me question whether this democracy – Western style – is really the kind of government or ideology or whathaveyou for us. Hey look, our neighbors have already overtaken us in terms of economic development. Malaysia has Mahatir, Thailand the king, Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. Does it mean that the more free and democratic a society is, the less its economic developments. Don’t think so. I guess what makes us politically stunted (aside from the obvious economically stunted) is the prevalence of elite democracy and the Filipinos’ lack of faith to EDSA. We deposed ERAP to have another bigot occupying his place and at a longer time with the possibility of extending it further (prime minister-in-waiting?). From the looks of it, 2010 elections will just be another election. In national level, there may be some hope that change will be effected, but in the local level, patronage still prevails. And with an SC subservient to GMA’s whims (given that she has more appointees to the bench), well parliamentary government is just a nay and aye away.
Just letting my thoughts wander. Say, if Trillanes and his idealistic officers have succeeded in their drastic means to seize governmental powers, will it usher in a new era? Is it time to explore another form of government, one that can produce a mahatir or lee kuan yew?
posted by kitsch at 6:55 PM
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