An open letter to Sen. Risa Hontiveros: It’s not forbidden to dream
Last night I had a dream, not a nightmare, as so often, but a dream of change in this country in 2028. A spiritual and moral shift, a shift toward more mutual empathy. In my dream, I heard, among other things, the historic speeches of Malcolm X and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., “I had a dream.”
Dear Sen. Risa Hontiveros, with Akbayan, you have a good party behind you. Do the Filipino people a favor and run for president of the Philippines in 2028. It’s not forbidden to dream.
Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Carl Sagan even believed that imagination is more important than IQ and pure knowledge. After all, what good is all that knowledge if you don’t know how to use it properly? It takes us from A to B, but imagination takes us everywhere.
Please give the youth hope again and pride in being Filipino. Also, wisely choose a running mate early on—either someone like the mayor of Pasig, the young and popular Vico Sotto, or, to signal your strength, a trusted general or police officer. This would also be understood as a message to corrupt and reckless politicians. No more rhetoric-filled campaigns with stupid and primitive populist slogans from the far-right wing that offer simple solutions to complex problems.
Get the Philippine Mensa Club (high IQ society) and the unions on your campaign team, who listen to the people, and listen, listen, and listen again. That gives you trust. Not just talking about people, but talking with the people.
Here are some points I consider essential: 1. Democracy and co-determination: increased influence of citizens and employees on politics and the economy; referendums, plebiscites; tax the super-rich.
2. Peace and disarmament: rejection of military operations, promotion of diplomatic solutions. No war against anyone. 3. Ecological Sustainability: socioecological restructuring of the economy, energy transition. Nature doesn’t need us, but we do need nature. Climate change is not an invention of our scientists. It’s a scientific fact.
4. Equality: fight against discrimination and for equal opportunities for all. Your parents’ financial background should not determine whether you become a doctor or a garbage collector. Nevertheless, both professions are important and have their right to exist. Workers and academics go hand in hand in the Philippines.
In short, a solidarity-based, peaceful, and sustainable society with strong social security/welfare and genuine democracy. As my late pen friend, Nobel laureate John Nash (Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, 1994), once wrote to me in our correspondence:“Democracy is not everything, but everything is nothing without democracy.” True, and at the moment, it is the only thing we have against right-wing populism. History will show how we develop in the future. Until then, “Run, Risa, run.”
Jürgen Schöfer,
biopreparat.schoefer@gmail.com
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