What’s wrong with us?
I read in social media that the American press seemed to have set a higher standard for Kamala Harris than for Donald Trump. Maybe because she’s a woman, although there’s a tendency not only in the United States but in many other societies to be stricter or even harsher with certain types but not with others. Take our own case.
I seem to recall that the press tended to treat Noynoy Aquino that way and his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, another way, a much more forgiving way. It is said that the press was actually intimidated by Duterte, who did himself play by his own crude rules.
A reporter from Rappler, a news site known for its no-nonsense journalism, was barred from covering him after asking the right questions. And to make his point intimidatingly clearer, he had Rappler’s founder and CEO, Maria Ressa, taken to court on improbable charges.
Indeed, Duterte, to put it mildly, pulled our standards and expectations down not only for the nation’s highest office, along with its agencies, but also for outside watchdog institutions. And here’s what’s self-shaming about it—self-shaming because it reflects on our own national character. He brought us down by force of his aberrant personality, and don’t we ever forget: We had actually enabled him by putting him in the presidency by our legitimate vote.
What’s wrong with us?
Slippery slope
I thought that we’d have learned our lesson from Duterte’s violent regime, and that Leni Robredo would get our vote as his successor. After all, as vice president to Duterte, and despite being marginalized from his government as an oppositionist, she managed yet to show presidential capability, not to mention moral conviction, a quality lacking in Philippine leadership since the Aquino presidencies—Cory’s and her son’s.
Alas, the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., became the official pick over her, and for his vice president, Sara Duterte, unmistakably her father’s daughter. Sara, in fact, makes for a glaring dismal comparison as vice president with Robredo, who, although starved of budget by Sara’s father, managed to perform sterling public service.
On the other hand, Sara, with all the money allotted her office, not only could show nothing for it but, as more and more evidence becomes revealed at congressional and audit-commission inquiries, appears to have spent it to advance her own interest. The great losers, of course, are the youth of this nation, for she accepted the money in their behalf. Concurrently secretary of education until her recent forced resignation, she has left a stench of corruption that leads to that office as well as to her elective one, the vice presidency.
Compared with the Dutertes, I hear some people say, Marcos is definitely preferable. Well, that’s a slippery slope. Both families cannot seem to get out of their habits of corruption and excesses. Only recently, Ferdinand Jr. was unable to resist the Imeldific temptation of throwing an ostentatious birthday party for himself—he flew in the band Duran Duran for a one-night performance for his guests at a reported cost of $750,000 (around P41.7 million).
Losing our sense of smell
I didn’t get this old to live through this nightmare again. But here we are. Again, what is wrong with us?
Surely, we’re not lacking in good, decent eligible men and women for public leadership. Some of them in fact are brave enough to plan to run again despite losses—on official paper in any case—in previous elections. How’s that for hope and sincerity? It’s bad enough that they lost, but look at the likes of who beat them!
When, indeed, did we lose our sense of smell? Not only is the stench of corruption pervasive; one source alone is easily traceable to the shocking salaries of government appointees, who, for their incredible ineptness, are unable to justify a cent of it. How bad does the situation have to get before we start acting like concerned citizens again?
It’s hard to believe that the historic People Power at Edsa was only a generation ago. How could we have declined so quickly and so abominably—in taste, in intelligence, in morality—from such heights of courage and conviction. Where exactly did we get lost? How?
Oh, how I wish there were psychiatrists for nations. We’re surely in desperate need of one.
