The Structure Breeding Poverty: The Problem
The 2025 mid-term election is fast approaching as the filing of candidacy will commence this coming October. As usual, our country will again be experiencing that “big circus” called Philippine elections that will see politicians doing gimmicks of opening-up the “floodgates” of their fund reservoir to finance campaign shows that would include movie stars and assembling their political machineries for massive propaganda and vote-buying. No problem, such outpourings of funds are easily recovered once they are back in power. That’s why we must now discard all illusions that such exercise of our right of suffrage will make a difference in effecting the much-needed social transformation.
This is so because after every election in this country and despite 14 years of Martial Law and two people-powered revolutions, the structure that breeds so much poverty, powerlessness and corruption have remained as formidable as ever. Those elected, financed by vested interest groups, including cartels, monopolies and conglomerates, always make sure that the status quo continues through transactions and never transformation. Yes, monopoly is not just in the economy; it is also in politics, as concretely manifested by political dynasties. In this country, economic power begets political power and vice versa.
So much outpourings of funds and energy, not to mention the wasted time, yet, the ugly head of poverty continues to roar, engulfing our people as our country has now the most prevalent incidence of poverty in East Asia. Yes, there may be “changing of the guards” after elections, yet the culture of powerlessness continues to create despair and out of hopelessness, many have to leave their families to find job abroad. Like a “sinking ship,” some 3,000 Filipinos are jumping in droves daily to seek greener pastures in other countries.
The culture of corruption has impoverished our people, perpetuated by politicians who cannot moderate their greed, portraying themselves as full of integrity and decency but behind their masks are nothing but vultures who suck our country dry of resources. Money which could have been used to liberate our people from the shackle of poverty and hunger has shamelessly been allegedly pocketed for self-aggrandizement by a cabal of vested interest. Funds by the billions, perhaps even trillions of pesos, which could have been used to increase the productivity of the peasantry have instead incredibly increased the wealth of those in power, if the named legislators had indeed plundered their respective pork barrels at the expense of those they have sworn to serve as exposed in the Napoles Scandal. Such gargantuan allocation could have gone a long way in making life better for our people in a country that has been consigned all these years in dire poverty while other countries in Asia have left as behind, Still the stark realities of poverty still prevail over the life of 3 out of 4 Filipinos living in the rural areas where malnutrition is rampant. Pity the increasing number of pupils going to dilapidated classrooms or without the benefit of books and educational materials.
Government health centers are without adequate medicine. The much- needed farm-to-market roads remains the culprit why our farmer are under the mercy of the local compradors, worsened by the insufficient farming capital that has tied up the farmers under the mercy of the oppressive marketing systems. What is so painful now which is not being given due attention is the alarming climate crisis hanging like a “Sword of Damocles,” in a country that has lost its ecological security and in a civilization that is now in the brink of extinction, sacrificing the people and nature for the enormous amount of money of a very few people. Almost all the candidates, like the profit-driven mainstream media, are immersed in environmental apathy because ecological issues are contrary to the interest of the super-rich who are funding them.
Outrageous!!! Like vultures feeding upon the flesh of the poor who are prisoners of hunger and poverty all these years. The culture of violence has put our country in shame as it seems we cannot conduct orderly election, always characterized by incidence of election-related crimes.
If the sacred act of suffrage to regain back our lost dignity has been trampled upon, replaced by diabolic and horrible greed, then such dastardly act should be a subject of our freedom of speech to decry, or worthy of our freedom of SPIT upon their faces. Many I heard would opt for the second option as such outrageous misdeed oozes with nausea.
The oppressive structures that spawn these negative cultures must now be countervailed upon by the collective power of the people. That collectivist counter culture must be the people’s response to break monopolies and cartels in a country where only 300 families control the economy and utilities. That collectivist counter culture is the one to rectify social wrongs and legal flaws in a country that portrays itself as following the rule of law, yet, we have lost our ecological integrity and security, now facing ecological disasters simply because the loggers and miners have been allowed to exploit our resources in utter disregard to the rule of law.
Elections seem to center on personalities rather than on social, political, economic and ecological issues, thus, gross social inequities and social injustices go on without let up. Will the forthcoming political exercise produce that much sought ”transformational” leader so that social change can be had? I am afraid that is not possible, that is, if we seek an individual person to be that Messiah. We very well know that the socio-economic-ecological problems besetting our country are deeply rooted in oppressive systems and structures aggravated by flawed political processes. History tells us that structural wrongs and injustices can only be rectified by the people themselves, governed by well-meaning leaders whose dedication and commitment is beyond reproach.
If there is a lesson that we should now learn, it is to put power where it rightfully belongs – with the people. Such is very glaring in the opening declaration of the 1987 Constitution: “In a Republican and Democratic State, sovereignty resides with the people and all governmental powers emanate from them.” But the people can only trail-blaze social transformation if they are conscienticized and socially and ecologically awakened. How can that happen when all these years the people are buried in the fallacies of life by the profit-driven mainstream media, immersed in unbridled materialism and consumerism, giving high veneration to the profit motive that has already captured the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities and religious groups.
INDEED, THE AWAKENING PROCESS SHOULD NOW BEGIN AS IT IS THE CALL OF THE TIMES THAT HAS COME OF AGE. AS IT HAS BEEN SAID, WHEN AN IDEA HAS COME OF AGE, NO FORCE ON EARTH CAN STOP IT. For the Filipinos, we either wake-up now or perish! The Philippines was once an EDEN, a paradise on earth, oozing with ecological wealth and immersed in the beauty of nature. Because of ignorance, greed and lack of respect to the sanctity of life, the Modern-Day American Imperialism has consigned our country into either MARKET OR TARGET. Market means as dumping ground of consumer goods and source of cheap raw materials through extractivism, eliminating our dipterocarp forest, our minerals and our agricultural lands. Now the paradise has become a hell through distorted imperialistic worldview of having dominion over us. Today, our country has become TARGET, hideously in cohort with power-that-be, putting-up nuclear arsenals and becoming the first line of defense when war erupts. All of these are being hidden from us by the politicians and mainstream media. Indeed, VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS. (The Truth Shall Set Us Free). Now that we know the truth, let us now exercise our sovereignty and be liberated from the fallacies of election, the fallacies of life, In the USA where I am now, people here are mobilizing to stop modern-day American Imperialism which now dominates humanity and control more than half of the world’s resources. American activists have trailblazed an OCCUPY MOVEMENT and are now shouting what the Filipinos before were shouting in the streets in the 70s during the First Quarter Storm, i.e. IBAGSAK ANG IMPERYALISMO, FEUDALISMO AT BUREAUCRATA CAPITALISMO, WE WANT AN EGALITARIAN WORLD, DEVELOPMENT MUST BE REGENERATIVE NOT EXTRACTIVIST, STOP BRANDISHING THAT WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE NATION, STOP KILLING MOTHER EARTH, ETC. Some 7,160 of them have already been arrested but the Occupy Movement has now become global especially on the advocacy to save mother earth (GAIA) which is now in the precipice of extinction due to climate crisis caused largely by Modern-day American Imperialism.
LET US NOT MAXIMIZE CONSUMER GOODS OR SHORT-TERM PROFIT BUT MAXIMIZE OUR VALUES, TO DEBUNK EGOTISM, MATERIALISM BUT INSTEAD BE A COUNTERVAILING FORCE TO LIBERATE OUR PEOPLE FROM SATANIC EGO, FOCUSED ON INSTANT PURSUIT OF WEALTH, FAME AND POWER. TO GIVE HIGH REVERENCE TO THE SANCTITY OF LIFE AND OF NATURE AND TO LIVE A DIFFERENT WAY OF LIFE CONNECTED TO THE OCEAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS, THEN TO LEAP TO THAT TRANSCENDENTAL DIMENSION WHERE THE UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE GOVERNS, THE RAIZON D’ ETRE OF OUR EXISTENCE ON EARTH – ALL FOR GOD’S GREATER GLORY!
