What do we do now?
What do we do now?
Updated 02:42am (Mla time) Nov 25, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A LETTER-WRITER wrote to say things were truly getting out of hand in this country, with one scandal coming on top of the other, one crisis piling on top of the other. But the question, he said, was: What do we do now? How do we get out of the rut? We all know what the problem is, how do we solve it?
He is by no means the first one to ask that question. I've heard it many times, not least only recently from many Filipinos living in Italy who worried about the families they left behind. But my letter-writer put it more directly and by way of a challenge. His subtext was: You've written a great deal about the things assailing the country. Now, can you write about the things that could get this country going?
Well, first off, I don't know that we all know the problem and that it's just a question of finding the answers to it. The question itself, "What do we do now, how do we get out of the rut?" is part of the problem. It is symptomatic of a disease I call "the 'last two minutes' syndrome." We're like a basketball team that plays badly for 46 minutes and then resorts to heroic play during the last two minutes. We ask, "How do we get out of the rut?" only after gleefully allowing ourselves to fall into the rut.We do not lack for recent examples. I remember shortly before the elections replying to Joker Arroyo's proposition that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is preferable to Fernando Poe Jr. because there is a constitutional remedy for dishonesty but not for stupidity. You cannot impeach a president for being feeble-minded. I asked why we had to wait for a constitutional remedy in future to solve our problems when we already had a perfectly normal and more efficient remedy at that very moment, which was voting for the candidate who was neither venal nor feeble-minded. Ms Arroyo and Poe were not the only presidential candidates in the elections. There were others who were far less morally or intellectually challenged.
The point is simple: Why we do have to dig a hole we have to heroically claw out of later when we do not need to dig a hole at all?
Yet another example was Ms Arroyo's use of public funds to campaign. The TV ads of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the huge billboards paid for by government offices that mushroomed across the country proclaiming Ms Arroyo's good deeds were patently electioneering. That alone was ironclad proof of graft. Yet no one rose to protest it, certainly not civil society, which had helped oust Joseph Estrada precisely because of it. I kept harping on the implications of that silence, but that only rankled on the Arroyo supporters, or those who bought the line that she was the "lesser evil" in a fight between one evil and another.
At the very least, how can anyone who spent a fortune to win power possibly wield it to serve the people? At the very most, why shouldn't it spell the end of any effort to curb corruption in this country? You agree to corruption during the campaign -- using taxpayers' money to campaign is stealing -- why should you protest corruption in the aftermath? You've lost every right to.
What all this says is that the first thing we have to do to get out of the rut is to stop falling into it. The first thing we have to do to get out of the hole we find ourselves in is to stop digging one. An old adage says it well: Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. It's true. You can stop something wrong today, don't wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow, the disease would have turned into a plague.
I've heard some friends say the problem is that we've lost our capacity to feel outrage and the solution is rekindling it. I'm not knocking it. True enough, we seem to have factored the betrayal of public trust as part of life so that it no longer looms as a betrayal at all. Indeed, it's more than that we've learned to regard perfidy with indifference, it's that we've learned to regard those who rail against it either as naive or "negativistic." I remember again the political pundits who predicted Ms Arroyo was going to win the elections because she would pull no stops to do so, including lie, cheat and steal. Well, if so, why not protest it? Why accept it as fate? Why regard the expectation of it as political savvy?
I have only one caveat on rekindling outrage, and that is not just rekindling it but keeping it aflame. We've never had problems feeling outrage, as the two EDSA People Power uprisings show. We've always had problems sustaining it, as the aftermath of both EDSA People Power uprisings shows. We rise to heights of fury over a tyranny only to lapse into silence over its spawn. Contrary to rumor, anger is not kin to hypertension, it is kin to vigilance. It is not allied with old age, it is allied with youth. The day you stop being angry at wrongdoing is the day you start being cynical. It is no surprise this country has become cynical.
What we can do now is to stop asking, "What can we do now?" if by that is meant beginning on a clean slate and forgetting the iniquities that underlie our problems. I heard a great deal of that when Angelo de la Cruz was being held by his captors and only recently while Angelito Nayan and Robert Tarongoy were being held by their captors: "Let's stop the finger-pointing and fault-finding just ask ourselves what we can do now."
Well, I don't mind finger-pointing if there is a guilty party to point to and fault-finding if there is a fault to be found. We forget that Ms Arroyo helped in the invasion of Iraq and concentrate only in seeking the release of individual hostages, and we will have no end of hostages. We find fault with the fact that Ms Arroyo helped invade Iraq, and point the finger at her for following Bush willy-nilly, we change our stance on Iraq and assure that Filipinos in the Gulf will not be kidnapped again.
Two different attitudes, two different results.
Updated 02:42am (Mla time) Nov 25, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A LETTER-WRITER wrote to say things were truly getting out of hand in this country, with one scandal coming on top of the other, one crisis piling on top of the other. But the question, he said, was: What do we do now? How do we get out of the rut? We all know what the problem is, how do we solve it?
He is by no means the first one to ask that question. I've heard it many times, not least only recently from many Filipinos living in Italy who worried about the families they left behind. But my letter-writer put it more directly and by way of a challenge. His subtext was: You've written a great deal about the things assailing the country. Now, can you write about the things that could get this country going?
Well, first off, I don't know that we all know the problem and that it's just a question of finding the answers to it. The question itself, "What do we do now, how do we get out of the rut?" is part of the problem. It is symptomatic of a disease I call "the 'last two minutes' syndrome." We're like a basketball team that plays badly for 46 minutes and then resorts to heroic play during the last two minutes. We ask, "How do we get out of the rut?" only after gleefully allowing ourselves to fall into the rut.We do not lack for recent examples. I remember shortly before the elections replying to Joker Arroyo's proposition that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is preferable to Fernando Poe Jr. because there is a constitutional remedy for dishonesty but not for stupidity. You cannot impeach a president for being feeble-minded. I asked why we had to wait for a constitutional remedy in future to solve our problems when we already had a perfectly normal and more efficient remedy at that very moment, which was voting for the candidate who was neither venal nor feeble-minded. Ms Arroyo and Poe were not the only presidential candidates in the elections. There were others who were far less morally or intellectually challenged.
The point is simple: Why we do have to dig a hole we have to heroically claw out of later when we do not need to dig a hole at all?
Yet another example was Ms Arroyo's use of public funds to campaign. The TV ads of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the huge billboards paid for by government offices that mushroomed across the country proclaiming Ms Arroyo's good deeds were patently electioneering. That alone was ironclad proof of graft. Yet no one rose to protest it, certainly not civil society, which had helped oust Joseph Estrada precisely because of it. I kept harping on the implications of that silence, but that only rankled on the Arroyo supporters, or those who bought the line that she was the "lesser evil" in a fight between one evil and another.
At the very least, how can anyone who spent a fortune to win power possibly wield it to serve the people? At the very most, why shouldn't it spell the end of any effort to curb corruption in this country? You agree to corruption during the campaign -- using taxpayers' money to campaign is stealing -- why should you protest corruption in the aftermath? You've lost every right to.
What all this says is that the first thing we have to do to get out of the rut is to stop falling into it. The first thing we have to do to get out of the hole we find ourselves in is to stop digging one. An old adage says it well: Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. It's true. You can stop something wrong today, don't wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow, the disease would have turned into a plague.
I've heard some friends say the problem is that we've lost our capacity to feel outrage and the solution is rekindling it. I'm not knocking it. True enough, we seem to have factored the betrayal of public trust as part of life so that it no longer looms as a betrayal at all. Indeed, it's more than that we've learned to regard perfidy with indifference, it's that we've learned to regard those who rail against it either as naive or "negativistic." I remember again the political pundits who predicted Ms Arroyo was going to win the elections because she would pull no stops to do so, including lie, cheat and steal. Well, if so, why not protest it? Why accept it as fate? Why regard the expectation of it as political savvy?
I have only one caveat on rekindling outrage, and that is not just rekindling it but keeping it aflame. We've never had problems feeling outrage, as the two EDSA People Power uprisings show. We've always had problems sustaining it, as the aftermath of both EDSA People Power uprisings shows. We rise to heights of fury over a tyranny only to lapse into silence over its spawn. Contrary to rumor, anger is not kin to hypertension, it is kin to vigilance. It is not allied with old age, it is allied with youth. The day you stop being angry at wrongdoing is the day you start being cynical. It is no surprise this country has become cynical.
What we can do now is to stop asking, "What can we do now?" if by that is meant beginning on a clean slate and forgetting the iniquities that underlie our problems. I heard a great deal of that when Angelo de la Cruz was being held by his captors and only recently while Angelito Nayan and Robert Tarongoy were being held by their captors: "Let's stop the finger-pointing and fault-finding just ask ourselves what we can do now."
Well, I don't mind finger-pointing if there is a guilty party to point to and fault-finding if there is a fault to be found. We forget that Ms Arroyo helped in the invasion of Iraq and concentrate only in seeking the release of individual hostages, and we will have no end of hostages. We find fault with the fact that Ms Arroyo helped invade Iraq, and point the finger at her for following Bush willy-nilly, we change our stance on Iraq and assure that Filipinos in the Gulf will not be kidnapped again.
Two different attitudes, two different results.
posted by Dante at 2:42 AM
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