PH2030 is a dud. In Tagalog it means mintis, in Espanol Pidgin: pallado. For Pinoy New Year’s Eve revellers it’s a fizzled whistle bomb. Very likely by 2030 in the Philippines 24/7 it is still happy days for the sons of guns (sanamagans coined by the late Max Soliven). That is if the realist reader has read PH 2030 to the 3rd of this series. I told my realists friends the essays on PH2030 are fiction based on truth learned from 17 years of formal schooling and 42 years of experience working nowhere else but in and under only two governments (my country’s and a foreign one as OFW) soaked by the service motive, disdainful of the profit motive which sucks poor peoples’ plasma.
I think PH2030 started in the days before Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, on the long nurture nights of his song: “The Impossible Dream.” When he also declaimed: “The Filipino is worth dying for.” The signs of the times portents worse times; the handwriting on the wall was mere graffiti as they seemed to continue to mock Ninoy. Not his impossible dream but his word about dying for the Filipinos.
To heroes in their dying moments HEROISM probably was never in their minds. Jose Rizal absorbing bullets in the Luneta; Andres Bonifacio receiving hacks and thrusts of bolos in the wilds of Maragondon, Cavite and Goyo Del Pilar defending Tirad Pass. Patriot Supreme Court Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos died for his principles in the hands of the Japanese invaders . Presidential aspirant Ninoy Aquino it can be said died for his politics and dream for his people. The 44 Special Action Force cops died in line of duty.
Our heroes are sans frontiers while plunderers and thieves live on bickering searching for the sacrificial lamb to perpetuate their existence. Max Soliven’s sanamagans continue to generate ideas, invent events and act them out hoping for success and financial security to their descendants. The rascals. God forbid they succeed to thwart PH 2030.
Bad or good or no change in PH2030 is the result of the seeds planted by Ninoy and Cory’s only son in a land in dire need of social, political and ecological upheaval. How the Aquinos son’s governance mocked skills, battered by orchestrated criticisms by his detractors who are scared white to be disenfranchised or imprisoned, plus the nonchalant support to defend his administration by his own cabinet secretaries is President Noynoy’s personal tragedy as he walk limping along his tuwid na daan.
Noynoy has NO TEAM. For almost six years no P Noy teamwork was visible. Two major factions can not gel as a team. Significant achievements in the economy and other areas were individual and institutional efforts and competence. Team building resulting into real Teamwork is alien to politics. Big political parties are composed of many unorchestrated sub teams. Small fly-by-night political parties are one-man teams surviving on the strength of its leader. Only to each each own bonanza is achieved by adherence to walang iwanan sa nakawan (you got your fair share of the loot).
If ever, the realization of the transformation outline here by the first three essays in what ever degree of success will be to the credit of the awakened and reformed citizens and only by a handful of political leaders. But for HEAVEN’S SAKE, why is PH2030 likely to be a dud? WWHHYYY? I can think of may be five reasons.
ONE: WALK THE BAD TALK meaning moral hikers versus moral sinkholers, diggers too– It is difficult to understand much more to believe that every day language popularized by media usage could actually reflect realities of the here and now. For example, the expression “walk the talk” which means do the good things you are saying or do what you want the people think you will do on matters of right and wrong can be nothing but an oxymoron.
When politicians are accepted to be “good crooks” and voters are “wise fools”; when some honourable judges and justices are thieves in robes making injustice the real justice, what kind of talk can leaders and their followers walk ? Pretty soon “legal murder” literally or figuratively (thanks to Encarta dictionary for those words in quotes) could well be the unspoken (and accepted too?) justice for wrong doing.
Moreover, when moral ascendancy is a quality that is no different from a lost needle in a haystack pervades authoritative law making (legislative branch) and law interpreting (the courts) institutions, what is there to expect of leaders who are entrusted to implement the law? The kind of walk depends on the kind of talk. Talk is defined and contextualized by emergent values in the society that is manifested in its deviant and divergent cultures.
Economics-wise the law is supposed to benefit and to profit equally or fairly everybody, not only the few and the powerful. If it does not and with a laugh, then everybody tries and succeeds to walk the bad talk. So the followers as a consequence follow their leaders. If it is okay and expected secretly or openly for justices in the high court to accept great and humble gifts in exchange for doing and undoing their sworn duties, then like communicable bacteria and infectious viruses to all others, it is also okay to do the same down the lowest ranks of security guards and janitors. Although fighting the odds, the business and the religious sector perforce might not be far behind. Walk the bad talk assumes the semblance of an epidemic.
To concoct and connect economics (of poverty) with the administration of justice seems preposterous if not absurd. Not if big decisions on small, worst on big business cases have subliminal effects on governance and the governed. That’s the kind of talk leaders walk.
It is unfortunate that “walk the talk” can be an invisible ID tattoo on the forehead of the youth as they pass initiation into their professions. Intelligent and capable youth become new dentists, physicians, nurses, dieticians , lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers, etc. Knowing the profession of their choice the tattoo can be in lower or upper case: “Trust me,” regardless of public opinion.
The common man or the masses constitute the majority in the society. The regime of the professionals comprises the minority, the elite from which are drawn most of the rulers of towns, cities and provinces and the entire country. The kind of talk by both the majority and the elite minority will decide the kind of walk towards a PHILIPPINES 2030. Operationalized PH2030 talk is the substance of what Pope Francis refers to as a “journey of solidarity” and the media mocked Noynoy’s “tuwid na daan”.
TWO: WHEN GOD IS NOT CAESAR— PH2030 is likely to be a dud because of the way the country does not heed the biblical edict : render into Caesar what is not God’s and vice versa. When the clergy who are God’s apostles among the sinners fails to see the watermark demarcating the distinct territories it is not far fetch to claim that PH2015 will hew closer to some countries in the Middle East where there is no Caesar’s but only God’s governance. However, PH 2030 will not be a dud if it understands and follows the way Canada, USA and the Scandinavian and Western European countries render into Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
In the final and quantum analyses, name the country often featured in world news: China, Russia, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, etc. and have an idea where the difference lies between the velvet gloves of God and the iron hand of Caesar’s hold sway. The ideal state of affairs seems to be a balance between Caesar’s way and God’s way. Again search for evidence from the top twenty countries named in the UN Human Development Index and even the blind will see the message. Through a well-balanced God’s and Caesar’s Way Philippines 2030 should strive to be among UN’s top twenty countries; after all (is not said and done?) the Philippines (134.556 millions souls ) by then will be among the world’s top twenty most populous country .
The bible is an elaborate construction of the Ten Commandments. A hundred thousand words it might have used to dramatize the meaning of a single commandment. However, the bible needed only short passages to demonstrate how Jesus Christ could had been the first victim of his render to Caesar teaching. In an Easter dedicated movie, Jesus’ fate might have been decided in this manner by Governor Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Jews.
Caiaphas demanded to Pontius Pilate: “You have to sentence him, put him to death because he violated the law. He is a blasphemer.”
Pontius Pilate to Caiaphas: “I can NOT he did not violate any Caesar’s law. He violated your own law. You are the High Priest, you do it.”
Caiaphas with finality: So, IT MUST BE THE PEOPLE THEN WHO MUST DO IT.”
The ultimate point then of this discourse is: IT MUST BE THE PEOPLE THEN WHO MUST DO IT to make or bust PH2030.
For the FIFTH of the series next issue I will touched on: THREE: Four Horsemen Versus The Five Cultures, FOUR :The Greatest Energy The Holiest Power , FIVE: Condonation As Absolute Pardon, and SIX: Macro Questions To Micro Answers. ****